I don't have children, but thanks to some previous debts and a house I couldn't get rid of before med school, I was perpetually broke during my first year of school, and I found a couple of ways to make extra money without the schedule restrictions and payroll tax deductions of a real job. The best one was my used mattress business, which I still do. People give away perfectly good mattresses on Craigslist just because they don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to sell them. I pick them up, take them home, take a few pictures and sell them on my school's Facebook group classifieds. I try to sell them at the start of each semester when students are moving in. A good used queen mattress with a box spring and frame will easily bring in $200 with delivery, and that's almost pure profit for about an hour's work. The other good racket I found was that for, um, various reasons, people will pay more than face value for a $100 bill or $100 prepaid credit card on eBay. This one was kind of shady and eBay will ban your account if you keep doing it, but it was a good moneymaker while it lasted. My third little cottage industry was that thanks to nationwide panic buying, last year there was a severe shortage of .22 rifle ammunition. Most stores were out of stock, and of the ones that had it in stock, half were charging wildly inflated prices to keep up with supply and demand. The trick was to keep checking websites and stores to find places selling .22 ammunition at pre-panic prices. When I found some, I could sell it for a good profit. Prices have stabilized somewhat now, so I don't think this business will be viable anymore. Still, I'm sure that if you poke around you'll be able to find your own ways to scratch out some extra money here and there.
