Simple Ways to Earn Money : Spare Spaces at Home

It is true that no one can put up a business without a start-up money, but using spare spaces at home gives us a way to start one, with less to no capital at all. Sometimes, the thought of not having enough money for a start discourages us to fulfill our dreams of having a business that can help us cover day to day expenses. In that case, we see business in one angle, that is big capital requirement. The truth is, success in business does not depend on how big the capital is, but on the amount of passion and hard work you put into it.

Spare spaces at home is so far the easiest way that I can think of, when starting up a business. Spare spaces are junk rooms of memorabilia and old books, or one or more empty rooms waiting for an unexpected guests. It could also be an unattended wide yard full of wastes and tall grasses, or a useless garage and basement not serving its purpose. In this article, let me review the many ways on how we can make money by using these extra spaces at home, and what transformations we can apply into it to add into our daily income. Not feasible? I'll prove you wrong.

Apart from tackling this idea explicitly, let me also explore the many details with you, those details that may affect the entire business planning.

I'll show you a couple of these details.

• Make sure to check what concepts and themes matches your space.

• Assess your location and your environment. Who could be the best target market. Do you have good prospects? Can you manage it well? If you can answer these questions, then you can visualize if it would then be easy for you to start the business and find more avenues to market your service. You can also start by brainstorming yourself with a lot of questions you can think, those questions that you think is necessary.

• Assess yourself. What are you good at? What are the things that you can do comfortably and with great ease. This matters a lot as you go along. Your patience depends on how much you like what you are doing.

• The transformation that you can apply on these spare spaces entirely depends on the available financial resources. When there is none, start with the basic.

In using your house’s spare spaces, there are a lot of things to consider.

• Make sure that the concept is personalized. This means that you should think of yourself as the first customer. Whatever things and services that make you comfortable, and whatever it is that you consider as necessary, would definitely be the same things that your customers expect to get.

• Be creative. In a lot of situations, simple things become the best source of pleasure. It is important to go back to basics. Think of the most original things to offer; something that they cannot get from other places with the same services, something that they would always love to go back to.

• Explore your home. There are a lot of spare spaces that you can utilize for extra income. Check for redundancy. For example, you can put unused books and furniture all in one room, rather than storing these things using two rooms with spaces in between not utilized well. You can have all of these things jam-packed in one area, clear up the second room, and consider it a spare space.

• Maintain cleanliness in your environment. People need not go from their home to your home if you are offering the same messy accommodation.

• Furnished each spare space according to your theme. For example ; Vintage, modern, Victorian etc.

• Choose what services to offer according to the available spare space.

• Whatever you would be interested in - be knowledgeable in running your own business. Research on the things that you need to know, the internet is your infinite source.

• Plan according to your location. A house near the beach area has a different furnishing requirement with that of a house located in a remote and mountainous area.

With theses in mind, what are you waiting for? Let's get moving!

The next part of this article is a list of all the most common spare spaces at home and what to do with them. The ideas that I am presenting here are purely just suggestions. These are all part of my personal assessment of my own home, so what you can do is develop a concept from here, a concept that matches your location, your personality, and your passion. Just remember, security and the immediate resources also play an important role in coming up with your own concept.

Your GARDEN or Your YARD at home can be transformed into a lot of ways:

A party venue - This is an extra space in your house that can be transformed into a party venue. How big the garden is, will determine how huge the party would be. This will help you plan what occasions you can accommodate. The size of the garden will also be the basis of your own marketing plan. Can it accommodate more than a hundred people? From there you will have an idea where to offer this venue. Corporate parties need big spaces for their Christmas Parties and other important company gatherings.

Depending on your readiness, you can start up by offering the space only, so that starting up does not require any money at all. Later on, you can proceed to furnish this place with a tent, tables and chairs, a stage, balloons, etc to be included in your whole package. However, if you have the money to offer these things in package right away, why not? Everyday, a wedding or a birthday party is being planned. That alone is enough to make your business going all year round, given the right package.

An exhibit area - Either you do it yourself or have somebody rent the place for an art exhibit, product exhibit, plant exhibit, animal exhibit and etc. Tables, posts, display racks are additional features for an exhibit area.

A place for exercise - If your garden is wide enough for people to do their daily regimen, you can transform it into an open gym by adding exercise machines. This is to accommodate people who are health buffs, but does not have time to enroll in a real gym.

A themed garden - Depending on your choice, you can either transform the garden into a mini theme venue. For example, a mini-fairyland, a butterfly garden but with aesthetic butterflies (or if you can afford raising real butterflies then why not? For an affordable fee, they can take pictures, wear butterfly wings. In this case, you can always host a Halloween party or any-themed party. Beautiful landscape, flowers, gnomes, or any fantasy figures can be added later.

As a picnic area - For a minimal charge, you can hosts dry family picnics. Make sure to enhance the garden and add more facilities that gives enjoyment to the whole family. Parents who does not have enough time to bring their kids to faraway resorts will surely appreciate a little bonding avenue for weekends. Grilling area, and maybe a set of seesaws, swings, and slides will bring more excitement.

A venue for practice games - Depending on a yard size, you can host any game practice or even a real game (soccer, volleyball, and etc) for a minimal fee, and you can earn more by selling foods to the players and its cheerers. You can also offer this space for Karate Lesson. If it is windy, a kite-making workshop can be held here for perfect kite flying after the workshop.

If you want privacy, plant flowers of vegetables in your garden. You can deliver flowers in a flower shop, or it lessens food expenses when you grow your own vegetables.

A spare room in your house can be good Transient Rooms.

This is the most controversial spare spaces at home. A debate is raised whether it is safe for a spare room to be offered to a total stranger for a one-night stay. I understand the concern, but there is something that you can do. Transform it. Or if you are in the process of repairing or building your house, then you can put this under consideration while planning for the design.

First, build or redesign this room as studio-typed rooms with different entry point with that of the members of the family. It could be designed as a total part of your house, but with different stairs or passage leading outside.

Second, choose your customers well. Limit yourself to a neighbor's visitor, or a friend of a friend,or anybody whom somebody you know well can vouched for their identity.

A spare room in your house can be a good Room for Rent.

With the same rules as in the transient rooms, a spare room converted into a room for rent is another form of passive income. Without doing anything and without going somewhere, a monthly income is derived from hosting a boarder. You can either design which package to give. Is it going to be a board and lodging or just plain boarding. If you think you can earn more by including meals in the package, then go for it. The cue where to stop is comfort. If you turn out not comfortable with having somebody not a member of the family eating with you, then have it plain and simple.

A spare room near the main door can be a good playroom for your Childcare business. We are talking about not a full time child care center here, but this could be a place where mothers can leave their kids for an hour or two in emergency cases. This is especially good for non-working mothers. You can baby-sit somebody else's kid for an hour or two using the play room.

Lovely terrace, covered roof decks, and elevated lobby are good places top start mini-bars with a live band or cafe. (depending on the size and location)

People long for places which is overlooking a scenic spot, and no other place but a terrace or a roof deck can have this kind of accommodation. People want to relax in these elevated places, as they take coffee breaks or when they simply like to lounge from a days work. Welcoming your own neighborhood for this simple accommodation will certainly pour in money into your pocket. You may start offering beer or plain coffee variants, and later on, you can do some researching, sampling, testing, and finally, blending your own original coffee to create your own identity.

It can be a Forum / Party venue. - Roof decks are good places for a political / social caucus and other sessions that require a little privacy. Offering the place for an amount plus having the chance to serve snacks, will surely raise your monthly income. Small family reunion which requires exclusivity can also be held in this place. On a more ambitious note, putting landscapes and other enhancement can transform the area into a perfect wedding or Halloween, or a Christmas party venue.

A garage is especially designed to store a car or any transportation. Mostly, a garage is roofed and unenclosed. There are houses with a detached garage, but modern garage is usually attached to a house. The design doesn't matter. Generally, empty garage can be a good source of money.

A Garage for rent - if you have a wider space with only one car, then you can offer your neighbors a space or two for their extra cars for a fee.

A Mechanic's shop - You can employ one mechanic to open it up and offer basic services and maintenance check for cars in the neighborhood. Your friends can be your first customers.

A Car Wash - You can transform it easily into a car wash by putting a good water system and few basic car washing necessities, including a car wash boy. You may implement some marketing strategy into it just like the popular lady car washers in shorts. Just kidding!

A Car Depot - You can offer tourists a space where they can park their cars for safekeeping while going on a city tour or a three-day convention, or an important conference that requires them to leave their cars in a busy intersection unsafe and illegal.

A Garage Display - True to the term "garage sale", you can transform your garage into used clothes display area. You can earn more by inviting more neighbors to rent a space per square foot for their own display. Making it a small display room.

If you are planning to create a playground at home, or your house already has a playground then make money out of it. You may redesign it according to what you think is best for the following transformations.

A Picnic Ground. Buy more play toys and play tools, and then open your playground to the public. Redesigning depends on its size, you can either create a mini theme park or just a plain play area for a fee, where parents can also join their kids for an alternative family bonding.

Transform your Playground into a short-time Child Care. If you have a small playground, you can enclose it a little bit and hire a caregiver and a cashier to do the basic tasks of collecting fees and making sure the kids are safe. You can transform it into a three to five-hour day care where parents in urgent errands can leave their kids safe in your play area. You may decide the age limit and the kind of security measures to impose to make sure your playground will be the safest and the most reliable place in town, for parents to temporarily hand in their kids for safekeeping.

An empty basement or a spare room down below can serve as your Mini Library. Gather magazines and books for this kind of transformation. You can design your own study rooms with comfortable sofas and tables, and make sure to line the walls with acoustics to meet the need for a quiet environment. You can also provide a computer for easy browsing if they need to check something in between studies.

An empty basement as a Safekeeping Depot. Just like a bank vault system, you can design a vault keeper at the basement for your friends and your friend's friend to deposit secret documents (of course you can't keep money here) they want to keep from the prying eyes of their partners. Your potential customers are those wives and husbands who value privacy in its ultimate form. Make sure to provide security features and policies, so that your potential customers will trust in your service.

An empty basement can be transformed into a Private Tutorial Center. You can offer reading and writing lessons for pre-schoolers; any subjects for elementay, highschool or even college student. You may hire a tutor or you do it yourself if you are acquainted and trained with the topics. You can also hold a skill training. You may hire a skill trainer or you may do it yourself. If you have a talent like playing guitars, singing, dancing etc that can be converted into a learning instruction, then you can offer a one to two hour tutorial daily or weekends.

Operate an Online selling business at your basement. Online selling needs a good place free from interruptions for a relatively smooth business flow. All stock piling and stock shipment can be done in the basement unnoticed. Paper works can also be done in the other corner, so that if you have a one-man-staff, he will not have a hard time moving places.

Not all families have the pleasure of having swimming pools in their house, but it is universally true, kids really like swimming pool. This is where you can conceptualize the transformation of your own swimming pool.

Transform it into a mini-resort for family parties. You can host a party at your pool for a registration fee / or an entrance fee. Families can bring their own foods and bond together in a swimming party.

Offer a swimming lesson. Hire a good Swimming instructor and enroll some kids for a scheduled swimming instruction.

A swimming pool can be a good party venue. Just like a garden, weddings are preferably held in a pool area. You can establish a good partnership with a caterer and offer your swimming pool as a good venue for parties, and be in-charge of the food preparations. If you don't have that much time, then the space rental alone is great addition to your monthly income.

There you have it. I might not be able to cover all the things you need to know about spare spaces and how you can earn money out of it, but at least I am hoping I have given you enough ideas to get you started with conceptualizing, transforming, and eventually planning your own simple business at home. I hope to have you then next time, when I will be publishing the next series of the topic " SIMPLE WAYS TO EARN MONEY". Ciao!

go-barbara-go is always on the go!