Cutting down on expenses is not the only way to put more money in your pocket. You can increase your weekly spending money by hiring out space or equipment that is otherwise just sitting idly around your home or yard. No, it’s not too good to be true. If you have a spare room, a caravan, a boat, power tools, a car or a shed you have an opportunity to put more money back into your pocket.
How much money do you need each week to live modestly?
At a minimum, let’s start by working out how much spending money you need each week to live modestly. For those of you thinking about planning the income you need to fund your retirement years, use the ASIC Retirement Planner to give you a starting point. For example, a couple living in New South Wales would need at least $646 spending money each week.
Let’s give your weekly spending money or your superannuation savings a bit of a boost by making the most of some lazy assets. Here’s how.
Rent out your spare room or self contained space to travellers
Do you have a habitable spare room that is hardly ever used, apart from being a place to store stuff that you really don’t need anyway? Or a self contained upstairs or downstairs area or bungalow or granny flat that is in livable condition? If you want to top up your income, invest in giving the spare space a clean up or basic renovation makeover and list it as a short term rental.
Airbnb is a great platform that makes it easier for you to list your spare room, and attract paying guests. At the time of research listing was free and a 3% service fee is payable to Airbnb each time a guest books your accommodation. Have a browse at Airbnb accommodation around your local area. You’ll be surprised at the rental fees that travellers are happy to pay for a room in a good location.
Stayz is an alternative holiday rental website, if you are able to offer self contained accommodation, or a holiday home. At the time of research, listing your accommodation with Stayz was free and Stayz then takes 10% each time your accommodation is booked.
Hire out your caravan, camper trailer, campervan or motor home
Come on. Be honest with yourself. How many weeks in a year does your caravan; campervan or motor home simply shade your lawn or your driveway? There are people who ‘tsk, tsk’ your mobile home sitting there unoccupied in your yard and would love to enjoy a holiday away in it. They would even pay you money to tow it away for a week or three!
My Caravan is an online peer to peer caravan rental service where you can go to list your caravan, camper trailer, campervan or motor home for a daily hire rate. On the day we looked, prices varied from $35.00 per day, right up to $200.00 per day for a large motor home. Listing your mobile home is free, and you keep 90% of the total of each hire. Better still, you can ‘become a scout’ and earn money by tapping your friends and family with mobile homes on the shoulder and referring them to mycaravan.com.au – see Become a Scout.
Hire My Caravan is another online option where you can advertise your caravan for private hire. You pay a subscription fee to advertise your caravan.
Hire out your boat, cruiser, yacht or house boat
If you only use your cruiser, yacht or house boat occasionally, make it work for you at times that it would otherwise be sitting on your trailer, or restlessly mooring. If it is a boat with a cabin fit for accommodation, you can list it on Airbnb under Property Type > Boat Rental as you would a spare room or holiday house. Here are some current listings for those curious: Airbnb Boat Rentals.
Rent out your power tools or trailer or…almost anything else!
We loved stumbling across this one given our current need for a stump mulcher.
If you own tools, camping gear, electronics and almost anything else (although ‘husband’ came back blank!), you can list it on Open Shed and hire it out to people just like us. At the time of research, listing your items on Open Shed was free and 10% of your rental fee is your service fee, or $2, whichever is highest. You can also elect to have your rental fee go to a charitable organisation.
Rentoid.com is another place to list and rent almost anything. Spacer is also another site to check out
Hire out your car
Is your car sitting in your driveway or in your garage for hours at a time most days? By hiring your car out to others in your local area, you will earn money and contribute positively to the community by allowing others to be car free households if that is their preference.
Both of the peer to peer services below, look after and streamline the important details such as screening those that want to hire your car, insurances and payment.
Car Next Door – a neighbour to neighbour car sharing service. Currently the service covers Sydney and Melbourne.
Drive My Car – a peer to peer car rental service.
Rent out your shed
This is another fantastic idea. Many people have a shed or two, often full of stuff they really don’t need. Convert your shed or garage to another stream of income. Start by getting rid of everything you haven’t used in the past year. Have a garage sale – another opportunity to pocket some cash. Then list your storage space on spaceout.
spaceout is a private self storage service that connects people with unused storage space, with people that need space to store their stuff. To list your space, you pay a nominal monthly subscription fee.
We love the whole sharing economy industry because it opens up so many more options for consumers. There are so many innovative services popping up to solve many day to day dilemmas.
We’d love to hear your experiences of using peer to peer or sharing economy services.
