A Bit on the Side: 500 Ways to Boost Your Income - Jasmine Birtles

.../> I bought this book a few weeks ago for my sister, who due to a chronic debilitating illness is unable to work full or part time. Before the illness appeared (multiple sclerosis) she had a very skilled and demanding job paying an excellent salary. Her and her husband had a great life travelling, eating out etc so the loss of her income was significant. Being at home on her own all day was demoralising not only from the boredom point of view but ...
...book is also written in a cheery lighthearted manner which I particularly liked as I didn't want to bog her down with more worries or get her so bored that she didn't want to finish it.

The author

The book is written by the author Jasmine Birtles who is both a financial journalist and a stand up comedian! Apparently she has appeared frequently on television discussing various financial issues and has written other books ... more

What this book is about

The aim of this book is to provide the reader with hundreds of different ways to either create an income or to boost their existing paycheck. It contains several novel and unusual ideas (all legal!) on how to actually do this.

Why I bought the book

I bought this book a few weeks ago for my sister, who due to a chronic debilitating illness is unable to work full or part time. Before the illness appeared (multiple sclerosis) she had a very skilled and demanding job paying an excellent salary. Her and her husband had a great life travelling, eating out etc so the loss of her income was significant. Being at home on her own all day was demoralising not only from the boredom point of view but also the fact that she felt that she could no longer bring an income in to the family. I spotted this book on Amazon and purchased it for her to see if it could give her any ideas regarding earning an income from home. The book is also written in a cheery lighthearted manner which I particularly liked as I didn't want to bog her down with more worries or get her so bored that she didn't want to finish it.

The author

The book is written by the author Jasmine Birtles who is both a financial journalist and a stand up comedian! Apparently she has appeared frequently on television discussing various financial issues and has written other books on personal finance.
From her picture on the back cover of this book she looks fairly young and glamorous which is quite a refreshing change for financial experts.

The layout of the book

The book consists of eighteen short chapters.
Chapters 1-14 outline various ways to boost your income under different heading ideas.
For example I'll outline chapter 1:
This chapter is entitled "Sell Your Body."
The chapter is split in to 12 different ways you can earn money by selling your body or body parts/fluids(!).
These include ideas such selling you hair, selling your sperm/eggs, participating in medical experiments or psychological research, surrogacy, being an escort (not as dodgy as it sounds apparently!), participating in police line-ups, modelling, life modelling, hand modelling, film extra work and being a look alike!
For each way of earning money (e.g selling your hair) the author explains how you go about this (e.g which organisations you need to contact to buy your hair; what kind of hair is in demand); how much money you can expect to make from this; what (if any) special qualifications you need to do this; any costs you may incur; pros and cons of this method of earning money; a list of useful contact numbers and webpages to go to for further information. The information is clearly laid out in short paragraphs under these different headings.
The information provided on each money making idea is approximately 600 words (e.g. 600 words on selling your hair) which makes it easy to read and provides sufficient information for you to decide for youself whether you can do this. In my personal opinion I think that this quantity of information is sufficient for the book to be easily read- if the idea interests you then enough website or organisation information is provided for you to do further research by yourself.
The money making ideas provided are also very interesting. For example in addition to those schemes that are quite well known listed under "Sell your body," (e.g medical experiments) the author also lists other less well known ideas such as being paid to participate in police line-up parades- something I had never heard of!
Each chapter from 2-13 follows the same format as outlined for chapter 1, each chapter with between 8-10 money making ideas, at least half of which I had never even thought of and several of which can be done from home.

Chapter summary

Below I have done a very brief summary of chapters 2-13

Chapter 2 :"Time to spare, " some unusual money making ideas it contains include being paid to be an exam invigilator or a birth partner.
Chapter 3: "Space to spare, " includes ideas on how to rent out your garage space or storage space.
Chapter 4 :"Got a car," includes ideas on food home delivery, adverts on your car.
Chapter 5: "Home Alone," with ideas on proof-reading and accepting deliveries.
Chapter 6 :"Got a hobby," outlines various ideas to make money from your hobbies.
Chapter 7: "Are you practical," incudes ideas on hedge trimming and gutter cleaning.
Chapter 8 :"Can you teach," includes ideas on tutoring and exam marking.
Chapter 9:"Therapies," includes ideas on hairdressing and alternative therapies.
Chapter 10: "Can you write," includes ideas on joke writing and entering competitions.
Chapter 11: "Are you fun," includes ideas on selling stories to newsapers.
Chapter 12 :"Buying and selling," includes ideas on selling on the internet, car boot sales.
Chapter 13:"Got a computer," includes ideas on earning while you surf.

The rest of the book

Chapter 14 in the book is called "A bit on the dumb side" and outlines various bogus money making schemes it warns the reader to steer well clear of with the old adage that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is!

Chapters 15-18 cover various more boring ideas and information such as taxation (when to pay it, how to reduce paying it), how to save money (cutting back), how to run a business and how to make your money work for you (various investments are outlined).

My opinion

This book is very clearly laid out- it is easy to find the information you are looking for and where to go to find even more. My only complaint on the layout is that the book does not contain an index.
It is also written in a nice short easy style, with no complicated financial terminology. The information provided is succinct, sometimes funny and always straight to the point. I think most people would agree that it is important for a book on such a boring subject to be quite lighthearted.
The majority of the money making ideas included in the book are actually do-able. It definitely does not list reams of silly ideas such as street juggling etc!
Some of the ideas included in the book are obvious- everyone knows you can earn money by hiring yourself out as a handyman or by dog walking etc. However as I previously mentioned, the book also contains several less well known ideas as well. Overall these novel ideas are useful in conjunction with the tried and trusted ones as it's nice to have all of the information together in one place.
The chapter 14 "A bit on the dumb side" was very informative in outlining various scams that anyone wanting to earn an honest bit on the side should avoid.
Additionally, although chapters 15-18 weren't particuarly interesting (outling taxation, money saving etc) I do feel it was necessary to have them in the book to provide a comprehensive read on how to boost your income- let's face it, there's no point in boosting it only to waste it!
Several of the ideas listed in this book can probably be done by housebound people or those looking after young children. This was especially important for me as this was the whole reason why I purchased the book in the first place.
Overall I do think this is a very useful book for people who do want to boost their income. My sister hasn't tried any of the ideas as yet but I'm sure that this is only a matter of time and for her to gain confidence! Because of this I can't actually comment on the success of the book's ideas at the moment. All I can say is that I wish it had been around when I was scraping my way through university!

Published by Piatkus books RRP £10.99 (Amazon £7.49)
 

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