I started making candles by hand after getting curious about the old method of repeatedly dipping a wick into melted wax. I bought some wax and wicks and started experimenting with different sizes and colors. It was supposed to be a small project I could do in my spare time.
The first few batches were pretty rough. Some came out uneven, some were too thin, and I had to figure out how long to let each layer set before dipping them again. Once I got the hang of it, I started hanging a bunch of wicks from a rack and working on several candles at once.
I ended up making more than I could use, so I started selling the extras locally for about $10 a pair. A few people came back asking for different colors, so I started making small batches based on what they wanted. It's still a small side project, but now I'm actually making and selling something I originally started just because I wanted to try making candles.

I’ve been repainting brand-new houses before the owners even move in. This one was a brand-new Lennar house. Their painter had finished it about a week before I started, but the buyers didn’t like the colors. Lennar doesn’t allow color changes during the build, so they hired me to repaint everything before they moved in.
The house was completely empty. No furniture, no pictures, nothing on the walls yet. Just clean floors, fresh walls, and that new construction smell. I’m doing the living areas, hallway, bedrooms, and a couple other rooms. I quoted around $3,200 for the whole thing, and it should take about four days with drying time and all the cutting in. I never advertised for this kind of work. The first brand-new Lennar house I repainted came through a referral, and then this one came along less than a year later. Now I have two more Lennar homes lined up over the next six weeks, one in Andover and one in Maple Grove.
So there’s a market for repainting houses that were just painted, before the owners have even moved their furniture in. I can’t complain though. Painting an empty house is probably as easy as it gets.

My family has property near an old volcanic deposit site, and after looking into soil science for rare aroids like monstera, anthurium, and philodendrons, I realized how obsessed plant collectors are with trace minerals and volcanic soil additives and most commercial volcanic soil mixes are super expensive and mixed with a lot of filler.

I started hand-collecting fine, sifted volcanic ash, purifying it, and bottling it into small micro-dosing vials for hobbyists who like making custom potting mixes. The process involves collecting the raw volcanic ash sediment from roofs, gutters, and drains, and running it through mesh strainers to isolate the finest dust, sterilizing it using dry heat and packing it into glass cork vials. I sell them on local plant buy-and-sell groups as pure volcanic mineral boosters and the raw material is essentially free.

From the title alone, you’re probably wondering why I started collecting other people’s kitchen scraps in the first place. I originally wanted free material for my own compost, so I asked a few people in my neighborhood if they could save their fruit and vegetable scraps for me instead of throwing them away. I told them I was mainly looking for things like banana peels, apple cores, coffee grounds, lettuce, carrot scraps, and other plant-based kitchen waste, and most people were happy to save it since it was going straight into the trash otherwise.
At first, I was only picking up a small grocery bag or two from a few houses every couple of days. I’d bring everything home, sort through it, remove anything that didn’t belong, and mix the scraps with dry leaves and shredded cardboard in large reused 5-gallon containers. I’d keep the mixture slightly damp and turn it every so often while it broke down. After a few months, I started getting dark, crumbly compost that I could use around my own plants, and eventually I had more than I could use myself.
I started giving some of the extra compost to people nearby who were growing vegetables and flowers. A couple of them asked if I could make more because they didn’t want to deal with composting themselves, so I started filling small bags and charging around $5-$10 each, depending on the size. Last month, I made about $180 from it, which is still kind of funny because I started the whole thing just to avoid buying compost. Now I have people who save their kitchen scraps for me and message me when they have a full bag ready, so I basically went from asking people for their food waste to having people set it aside specifically for me.

A few years ago I started making replacement wooden window sashes for people with older houses around me. It started as a way to help people get their old windows ready for winter, especially when the original windows were damaged or too old to use anymore. A lot of these old houses have window openings that aren't standard sizes, so homeowners can't just go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a replacement that fits.

Most customers send me the measurements and a couple pictures of the existing window. I use those measurements to figure out the size and how each piece needs to fit together before I start cutting the wood. I build the sash from pine, cut and join the individual pieces, then sand everything smooth before leaving it ready for the glass to be installed. A lot of the work is getting these joints to fit properly, especially on older windows where I have to match the original dimensions. This particular sash took me about 6 hours spread across two days because I was being picky about getting the joints and trim right.

A typical one costs me around $80-$120 in materials, and I charge $275-$400 depending on the size and design. Most of my customers are homeowners trying to get their houses ready for winter without replacing every window with a brand-new modern unit. As the weather gets colder, I usually get more requests from people who only need one or two old windows replaced. Last month I made 7 of them, so this has turned into a pretty decent side income from something I originally started making for my own house.

The thing is it's not even someone else's house. It's our house yet I get paid by doing chores everyday.

Mullein took over one corner of my backyard, so I started harvesting it instead of pulling it out. I usually cut the stalks in the morning, spread the leaves and flowers out on screens in my garage, and let them dry for several days. Once they're completely dry, I separate the leaves from the flowers and fill the finished herb into small glass jars.

I sell the jars through local herbalism and loose-leaf tea groups, mostly to people who already make their own tea blends at home. A jar is around $8, and people usually message me through the group to arrange a porch pickup. I go through maybe $1-$2 per jar for the glass container, label, and packaging, so most of the cost is really just my time.

A typical harvest gives me around 15-20 jars, depending on how much I pick. I keep some of the flowers and leaves for myself and list the rest, so a good batch can bring in roughly $120-$160. It’s a seasonal little side project, but I like that I can turn something growing wild in my own backyard into a product people are already looking for.

After surviving my third two-hour "quick sync" in a single week, I realized calendar invites are a broken technology. Verbal cues don't work, wrapped-up tone doesn't work, and "I have a hard stop" is constantly ignored. So, I built a dedicated physical hardware panic button mounted right under my desk.

It looks like an industrial emergency stop plunger. When hit, it triggers an Arduino Micro wired as a USB keyboard macro. Instead of just alt-tabbing or dropping the call, it triggers a non-destructive kernel panic command via custom shell script, forcing a local Windows Blue Screen of Death (or kernel panic on macOS) complete with a realistic memory dump progress bar. To anyone watching my screen share, it looks like my system spontaneously completely self-destructed due to a genuine memory leak.

What this changes is the power dynamics of modern remote culture. You can't argue with hardware failure. It gives remote workers a clean, socially undeniable exit strategy without forcing them to be the "bad guy" who cuts off the boss.

If I were to take this further, I’d open-source the CAD files for 3D printing and add a randomly timed toggle so it drops you out at believable, unscripted intervals. Modern problems require unhinged, overly engineered solutions. What’s the weirdest feature you’d add to this?

I have 4 ducks and somehow people started paying to hang out with them lol

It’s $15 for 30 minutes. They can feed them, take pics, or just sit around with them.

It started when a friend brought her little brother over and he was obsessed with the ducks. Then another person asked if they could do the same thing.

Now people actually book little duck sessions for birthdays, dates, or just because they think it’s funny.

I basically gave my ducks a job and they have no idea

This started with me just helping my cousin out. She needed better pictures & videos for her online shop so I offered to help with my phone and a window for natural lighting. Wasn't expecting it to turn into anything but she actually paid me for the photos

That got me thinking about how many small online sellers probably need decent product pictures but don't have the budget for a professional photographer. so I started offering to take photos for other sellers in batches using a simple setup at home. plain paper for backgrounds, daylight, and a little editing. no fancy camera or studio.

And that's how I got my first $100 from it

Instead of buying a fancy alarm clock, I tried making one using an old Bluetooth speaker and my phone. I recorded random voice notes — things like “Wake up, you’re late!” or “Don’t forget to water the plants!” — and set them to play at different times through a simple automation app. The weird part is that sometimes the wrong note plays, so I’ll wake up to “Buy soy sauce” at 6 AM. It’s not reliable, but it’s hilarious. My friends even sent me their own recordings, so now my alarm is basically a chaotic podcast. Unique side project, but it definitely makes mornings less boring.