Category: Careers

Jobs for Earning Extra Income

To Earn Money

  • Become a busker.

See about earning extra cash by singing at a café where you pass around a jar to get tips from audience members. One vocalist did just this at the Muddy Cup when I saw her perform years ago.

A woman named Maria used to sing and play guitar on the Staten Island Ferry. She was at this gig for over ten years. Riders tossed dollar bills in her open guitar case.

  • Monetize a hobby.

Are you a baker or photographer? Do you have a skill you can get paid for? Do it for dollars.

  • Walk dogs for neighbors.

You can find clients on www.wag.com.

  • Freelance as a writer.

Use www.upwork.com or www.mediabistro.com to find work.

  • Become a Cooking Coach.

Like a friend of mine you can help clients create recipes for cool cash.

  • Do coding or computer projects.

Go on www.guru.com to find work.

  • Sell products you craft.

Either through www.etsy.com or your own Instagram account.

Set up a “craft fair” at your job for coworkers at holiday time.

  • Translate documents.

Should you be fluent in reading and writing in a second language.

  • Teach a language.

Have a method for doing this that will enable students to remember what they learn.

  • Edit or proofread manuscripts.

These days it’s computer-based.

  • Enter a cooking or writing or other contest.

Maybe your chocolate chips will be a winning recipe.

  • Paint portraits.

For the Artists among us.

  • Join a focus group or research study.

www.register.maxionresearch.com

https://www.gigworker.com/side-hustle/paid-focus-groups

  • Get a Mystery Shopper job.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/high-paying-mystery-shopper-jobs

  • Become a Personal Assistant

www.thumbtack.com

www.taskrabbit.com

  • Provide tutoring services

www.takelessons.com

www.skooli.com

  • Cut hair in people’s homes.

Superb with a scissor? Find clients like my aunt—she had a hairdresser come to her apartment.

  • Become a private-pay Home Health Aide.

In New York City Aides charge twenty-five dollars per hour.

  • Clean apartments or houses.

Should you not have a car tack on an extra fee for transit fare.

  • Provide tailoring and alterations.

A friend of a friend came to my apartment to pin up my outfits. She charged ten dollars for her transit costs plus the fee for hemming the clothes. Then came to my apartment to drop off the items after she was done.

  • Become the go-to tech person.

For individuals who don’t know how to install or update or use their devices. Help them do this for a fee.

  • Code websites.

Freelance as a web designer. Find clients at www.guru.com. That’s where I hired my designer.

  • Find clients for your editorial or other literary expertise at www.patreon.com where you can get benefactors to pay you.
  • Gain credentials as an expert in a field so that you can be paid to do public speaking. Use the Open to Work designation on your LinkedIn account to drum up business.
  • Write a Substack newsletter for paying subscribers to read at www.substack.com.
  • If this doesn’t clash with your ethics I’ve heard that people can be paid to take part in legal protests and demonstrations. The company Crowds on Demand offers positions. The Google AI information on this states that some believe hiring protestors undermines the authenticity of the activism.

That said nonprofits can offer paid stipends and fellowships for organizers and activists working on campaigns. Should you follow along and care deeply about a specific issue you might try to get paid to promote the cause.

No law exists in the United States requiring disclosure of who is funding political protests. Provided you’re not engaging in illegal methods for the organization you’re rallying around the choice is yours whether to pursue this income stream.

Monetizing a Skill

Heck today a cat playing a toy piano can monetize their videos to earn income. I’m going to talk about getting extra money by using a skill or skill set on a job you create for yourself. More in the next blog entry about the specifics of where and how you can do this.

My experience is that a person should use LinkedIn to look for jobs and to recommend our connections for jobs. If you list on LinkedIn that you are Open to Work in a specific field you will get other LinkedIn members come calling for your service.

Here’s the word up about this though: I’ve been wary of persons who figure out what my personal email address is and send me a message to that account that is a cold call for me to hire them as the go-between for me and prospective clients of my services.

One man who sent me an email claiming he could get me public speaking gigs I confess I thought of as a pimp. Two others–a woman and a man–also claimed they could get me speaking engagements.

Just no. That’s about as reputable as trusting a business that staples their telephone number to a wooden telephone pole out on the street.

The worst is that you could get like I have a recruiting firm soliciting you via your work email. At first I hit reply to tell the person to stop sending job posting emails to my work account. Then I realized a real person wasn’t lifting a finger to click send to give me the postings every day. The person set up an algorithm to auto-blitz my work email. That’s when I had to click Report Spam.

It’s easy for a recruiter to find out your work email address when your employer has a website. They can simply guess how your name is spelled in the account and then type @queensuniversity for example after your first initial and last name.

The idea that a headhunter is using robo-emails like robo-calls on the telephone doesn’t sit well with me as an effective strategy. At my first job at the insurance firm the prime ethic was to “qualify your leads” for pitching to prospective clients. Not everyone is going to be in your target market so why pitch to them?

It might cost pennies on the dollar to auto-email people job listings. That’s really not cost-effective though. This is a “lowest common denominator” approach that should be frowned on.

You and I should be the ones self-initiating getting jobs that monetize our skills. LinkedIn is the ideal venue for reaching out to others and having them contact you as well.

It’s said that a person should post a comment to their LinkedIn feed 2 to 3 times per week.

In the coming blog entry I will begin to post a list of specific jobs us peers can get using a skill or skills we have.

Left of the Dialogue 11/6/2025

My father told me when I was a teenager: “Capitalists will sell you the shovel to dig your own grave.” Over 30 years later this has come true today.

This Left of the Dialogue will talk about how we got here and how we can dig ourselves out of this mess. The fact is as psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD wrote in his book Twilight of American Sanity President Trump is not the problem. He is a symptom of American’s pathological collective psyche.

In every sphere of my writing and conversations I choose not to write about politics anymore at all. This is because Americans are accountable for what is going on that elected leaders are doing.

An 87-year old woman told me the other day: “Sometimes you have to buck up and do something you don’t want to do.”

In terms of advocating for others who are disenfranchised or marginalized this is exactly true. It’s because of my earliest experiences in life that were documented in my memoir Left of the Dial that I wanted to act as a cheerleader for peers who are told (often by mental health staff!) that there’s not much we can do.

My overarching goal is to influence peers to choose hope over helplessness. Together we can go after our goals with gusto. It’s because Americans like you and me can’t rely on the government that I’m going to begin posting to this blog competitive strategies for getting ahead in the world of work and in the arena of life.

The president is set to raise from 67 the age at which Americans can collect our government social security retirement benefits. Along with needing to work until 70 to get these payments the money we get will be reduced. In effect we’ll be breaking our backs for capitalism until we’re nearly dead.

To have the capacity to work until we’re 70 I’m going to write in here about strategies for earning an income in this scenario.

Let’s face it our elected leaders are likely millionaires who won’t need our government retirement benefits to live on after they retire. For the rest of us Americans these benefits are often a lifeline even though the SSA check income is barely livable for those of us who had average wages or salaries during our working life.

In the coming blog entries I’m going to detail strategies for earning alternative income that can sustain us when we’re forced to work until 70.

Stay tuned.

The Truth About Resumes

A person’s anonymous resume might get them called for an interview. Once the hiring manager sees the candidate in person it could influence whether the person gets a job offer.

Today AI is used in the interviewing process. Hiring managers are using AI to figure out who’s the best applicant to hire. Artificial intelligence–not a person’s own intelligence–is now a factor in helping an interviewer decide who to give a job offer.

As well you and I cannot get around using AI on our jobs. There are even AI resume builders. In fact using the software could lead to every job applicant creating an identical AI resume.

I don’t think this the way to go about choosing who to hire. If a company is using the “same old same old” criteria for who they think is best qualified to do a particular job that’s not a competitive approach if you ask me.

Two other ways are to have a candidate come in for a one-day work trial or to submit a work sample.

“Business as usual” should not be the standard operating procedure.

I’ve chosen to pay for a ChatGPT individual account. As I’ve read that you can use AI to type in a list of food items you have. Then the bot will generate a list of recipes you can create with the food you have.

This is one use of AI that I can recommend. As otherwise AI can be biased and generate what’s called hallucinations or information that is not right. There’s also the issue of AI software violating the original content creator’s copyright.

Yet even with the drawbacks I think everyone seeking to get a job should become proficient in using AI. Better it is for all of us to learn and use AI judiciously.

The difference is in analyzing the AI output and customizing it to your needs. Instead of relying on cutting-and-pasting the information without discerning if it’s good to go as is.

Coming up in future blog entries I will talk about preserving our mental health once we get our jobs.

New Look at DEI and Affirmative Action

In this blog I’m going to write about hot topics to give ideas and insight about a better way of approaching employment issues.

DEI efforts post-hiring in the workplace are really a back-end fix to a front-end problem: no call-backs given to applicants with Black sounding names on resumes.

Research using two identical resumes except for the job seeker’s name have revealed that there are fewer or no calls to the Black candidates who applied.

The solution is to require anonymous resumes. Perhaps a hiring manager when getting resumes uploaded online can have the job seeker remove their name and use a computer-generated number code for each un-named resume to be identified.

The book above talks about this solution. Author Coleman Hughes is against affirmation action whereby the standards are lowered across the board—in classrooms, college admissions, and job hiring—for Black Americans. I had no idea this was the case—I thought only qualified candidates were considered.

In the book Hughes verifies that President Obama lowered the standard for Black Americans to apply for air traffic controller jobs.

He urges a return to Martin Luther King’s vision of our common humanity and a truly color-blind society in terms of race not solely mattering in the scheme of who gets ahead.

Not that I ever thought only White Americans were qualified to hold jobs. Hence my historical perception that we needed to level the playing field.

Hughes urges The End of Race Politics as it has been practiced: the segregation of Americans along color lines and the media darlings’ reinforcing of Black victimhood and the guilt they think White Americans should have.

Let’s not take this bait. No one of any skin color should be made to feel ashamed for the color of our skin. There’s no apology needed for being White. Or Black. Or whatever shade you are.

Hughes calls the current anti-racist proponents ideology about how to help Black Americans “reverse racism.” To Hughes this is a barrier to true racial equity. The woke crowd would be out of business if the media didn’t give these darlings column space and book contracts.

There’s a better way. We can choose our humanity over hate; our dignity over racism wherever the bigotry comes from; our worth over shame.

If we get to be hiring managers we can ask for the resumes we receive to be anonymized. Right.

In coming blog entries I’m going to talk about how individuals with disabilities can get ahead. Intelligence should rule the day not coddling in terms of how any of us are treated.

We can be the first daredevils who use what I call our “self-power” to change the status quo and get ahead via our own efforts.

My first Left of the Dialogue will talk about the new presidential Executive Orders that strip away the rights of those of us with disabilities.

Brain Doping

Last week I read on the internet about an alarming trend:

Office workers engage in “brain doping” by taking ADHD pills like Adderall to enhance their performance. The drugs enable these staff members to achieve superhuman output on the job.

Just. Why. Not ever have I been a fan of getting a job in a corporate office. Unless you are like my friend Robin. He obtained an MBA and had a 20-year career in business.

A corporate career might suit you and other followers. I wouldn’t entirely rule out working in an office. Provided management treats employees right.

The fact that people are brain doping on the job shows how insidiously harmful late-stage capitalism is when businesses put profits before people. Then workers put earning money as their reason for working and brain doping. Getting ahead in corporate America should not come at the expense of our sanity.

About two or three years ago a former Amazon office employee published an expose of her time working at that company. The book was titled Exit Interview.

Amazon expects office workers to come in on Saturdays when their managers call them on the phone that morning.

This is unlivable. This is unworkable. The Exit Interview author wrote that after working at Amazon for 12 years she couldn’t recognize herself in the mirror.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to write in more detail about the insanity of businesses–and even non-profits–demanding total allegiance at the expense of our mental and physical health.

I urge followers not to engage in brain doping.

One Alternative Career

I think that a job in a library could be one great alternative career.

For decades I haven’t been a fan of thinking the only job you should get is in a corporate office.

Working in a public library the pay might not be great however the benefits could be better. Like getting a pension. And the opportunity to open up a 403(b) as an additional source of retirement income.

A 403(b) is the non-profit sector equivalent to a 401(k).

The benefit of a public library job is that it’s a pre-set 7 hours-only workday. You can show up in Converse high-tops or combat boots.

In a future blog entry I will talk about a library job in more detail.

You should be interested in working with people. It would help to be chatty at the customer service desk.

You can host programs like arts-n-crafts or a writing workshop.

A library job can often be a union job too. I’m so not a fan of working in a corporate office.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about the right way to work hard at any job. You want to be able to get ahead without losing your head.

Calling Out Capitalism

I’m going to “stay in my lane” talking about how us peers can be well and recover whatever the political climate. The fact is that everyone loses not just Black American workers playing the zero-sum game of late-stage capitalism. Though this has been the scenario for too long I trust that advocates for worker’s rights can turn the tide in our favor.

While this might be true about capitalism I remain a fan of getting a job you love waking up in the morning to go to. More on what this type of job could be in a future blog entry.

Here today I just would like to write about something I read in a book. It was a quote from comedian Chris Rock who said that it’s not progress that Barack Obama was our first Black president. Rock retorted that Black persons have been qualified to be president for 100 years.

In the current political climate I think everyone should band together. We cannot expect the government to help ordinary Americans. I’m not a fan of either Liberals or Conservatives.

I didn’t think Joe Biden was the best we could do. The current president is thinking of giving Americans 20 percent of the money he cuts from government spending. I call that a poison pill disguised as Sweet Tart candy.

Democratic candidate Andrew Yang would’ve given every American citizen 18 and older a monthly not one-time payment of a $1,000 Universal Basic Income or UBI. Other world countries give their citizens a UBI.

Our elected leaders pressed and pushed will enact laws that benefit Americans. This is often a slow drawn-out process. That’s why I’m not a fan of relying on or waiting on the government to help us.

The idea of working at a job you love has been universally denounced by authors of worker’s rights books. I beg to differ in championing finding and succeeding at a job you love. As there are building porters who love their jobs and work with dignity and provide for their families. Custodians in public libraries clean and sweep and mop.

Whoever works wherever all of us should be treated right by management and customers alike. For today I will end here by writing that I’m going to talk in a future blog about how working hard is not to be frowned on. I’ll detail the method for working hard the right way. Without exhausting yourself and getting fatigued.

Case Study: Ashley Smith Part Three

Case Study: Ashley Smith Part Three

Give us ideas on how to cope with setbacks and bounce back. It couldn’t have been all sunshine for you every day. How can we survive the rainfall to see the rainbow?

When I was diagnosed, my doctor recommended two pieces of advice: 1) control my stress and 2) take my medication. Over the years, I’ve worked closely with doctors and therapists to uphold effective treatment plans. In addition to working with my health team I’ve developed self-care rituals to help me stay accountable to my wellness demands.

I encourage you to consider counseling and practicing a wide range of those stress reduction techniques that works for you to minimize daily stressors. For instance, exercising, getting enough rest, journaling, talking to someone, listening to inspiring talks, meditation, taking care of a pet, and working on personal hobbies and projects.

To overcome my bad days I take a moment to reflect on my issues then practice healthy coping tools to reset and restore my energy. This helps a lot and demands commitment. Sometimes after I’ve utilized a lot of coping skills I still can’t manage. Then I go back to my treatment team to tweak my medication regimen in order to get back on track. This might not work on the first attempt, but I’ve kept at it and right now I can say I’m in a good mental space.

Also, self-awareness and self-care routines are essential to mastering recovery. When you can identify your triggers and warning signs you can better equip yourself and loved ones on how to best support you on bad days. Developing plans that help restore better days by examining what works for you to recover from medical setbacks. I hope you will continue to use your coping strategies even when you’re feeling well. Recovery is a lifestyle.

I’d like to end here by having you give followers a favorite positive affirmation.

“We can. We will. We must.” – Eric Thomas

Then tell us how they can buy your new and other books and read your blog.

After self-publishing seven books, I wrote: In Her Own Ink an author’s guide to achieving a well-crafted manuscript. After publishing my first blog book, What’s On My Mind? A Collection of Blog Entries from Overcoming Schizophrenia, Foreword by Christina Bruni (2014) a few people approached me with their book projects. Ever since then I’ve facilitated writing workshops.

What distinguishes this creative workbook, In Her Own Ink is I’ve interviewed five authors who share their writing secrets at developing books. The objectives of In Her Own Ink are to help writers minimize the many challenges to creating, organize manuscripts, structure their chapters and keep readers hooked with our quality material.

I offer tips on creative ways to engage readers and to enrich the book development process with a friendly approach to creating your rough drafts. I encourage you to purchase In Her Own Ink. Take the leap to thrive in 2025 with your book design. In 2025, I started In Her Own Ink Publishing to resume my book coaching classes. Here are some ways to stay connected: