Hellobee

Mr. Dolphin and I have spent the majority of our law careers in the non-profit sector which pays, well, not so great, especially when we lived in California. Salaries in DC are higher due to competition with federal government rates, but still well below private practice salaries. In addition to the lower salaries accompanying our public interest work, I had massive student loan debt from law school and Mr. Dolphin also had student loans, though in a much smaller amount.

Daycare costs in the DC metro area are absurdly high. When I complained on Facebook about how one year of daycare was more than the entire tuition cost of my college degree (I did graduate early which helped defray tuition costs), a friend chimed in that the cost of tuition, room and board at a public university was less than the cost of one year of daycare. He viewed this fact as good news/bad news: the bad news, of course, being that daycare is really expensive. The good news? That even without any prior saving or planning and without the benefit of any loans, he could afford to swing the cost of college.

Think about that for a minute. College tuition rates are constantly in the news and I myself have complained about rising costs, but daycare costs do not get the same attention. Many other countries, most notably in Europe, have subsidized childcare. Other countries also have more generous family leave, often paid leave, which helps reduce the costs for childcare in the first year. Sorry for the digression, but my goodness, daycare costs still astound me two years later!

Anyway, after having Lion and then Panda, we needed to find a way to generate a little more income for the Dolphin household. I’ve always had side jobs, working many retail/waitressing jobs in high school (in total violation of my work permit which capped hours at 20, whoops . . .) and college while also tutoring high school students or babysitting, working as a teaching assistant and a research assistant during law school, and doing some freelance work post-graduation. I suppose post-children is no different! It can be tricky at times since I have a full-time job already. Unlike days past where we could pick up a part-time retail job, take time out to babysit or tutor, or take a catering shift, we just don’t have the time for earning opportunities requiring being out of the house or that stick to a strict schedule. Instead, all of our current methods to supplement the household income can be done on our own time and from home, often when the kids are in bed or during naptime. The ideas below are all things I’ve done, with a focus only on things that generate cash or a check, rather than on ways to save money.

I like bringing in a little extra money, but don’t want to take time away from Lion and Panda! For Lion picked out both outfits the day this picture was taken.

Ask for a raise: I asked for a raise after starting a new job while pregnant and working there for just a little over a year. My boss was fully supportive, our Executive Director was not. I ended up applying for three other jobs and formally interviewed at two of them, both of which ultimately offered me a position. The first organization gave me the offer that I used to leverage a higher salary at my current employer, at a level that was actually more than what I had initially asked for. I accepted my current employer’s raise then withdrew from the other prospective position, at which point they gave me an offer letter anyway. That one was so hard to walk away from both in terms of salary (higher salary than my newly negotiated one and it was located in an area with a much lower cost of living) and benefits. Had I known I was pregnant with Panda at the time, I probably would have accepted that job. The reason I think my request for a raise was so successful was that my boss was so supportive and when I started interviewing at other organizations, she gave me glowing recommendations that helped secure offer letters. Additionally, after getting the first offer, I was prepared to walk away from my current employer if the negotiations didn’t work out which put me in a stronger bargaining position. While I wanted to stay at the organization, I knew that the other organization would also be a good fit in terms of position and culture.

Consult: Within months of passing the bar exam in California, I started doing some consulting/contract work to pull in some extra income. I continue to do some consulting in immigration law, my first practice area before I realized I didn’t like direct services and moved into the policy arena. I also do consulting in the practice area I’ve been working in for the last six years (broadly: international intellectual property rights and development). I really enjoy consulting and I have been able to do it on my own time, without any impact on my real job. With consulting, I usually work on projects after the kids go to bed or when Lion is napping on the weekends. Sometimes I also get some time to do consulting work as I commute home. Consulting definitely pays much better than my regular salary does, but it doesn’t come with benefits like health care, is less stable/reliable and I do end up paying both sides of the taxes (employer side and employee). Factors such as knowing how much I pay in taxes from my consulting paychecks plus feeling like my time is more valuable to me now that I have kids has made me reconsider what rates I ask for now. The great thing about consulting is that I can set my rates and hours and choose whether to take a project or not.

Speak and get an honorarium: Some places will give you an honorarium for speaking. Others don’t and just pay your travel costs, if any (most give you a speaker gift as evidenced by our growing collection of coffee mugs) plus usually a nice dinner. I’m happy to speak for free, but if someone wants to offer me an honorarium, I won’t pass it up. My current work policy allows us to receive honorariums, though I do know of other offices that either forbid it or require the money to be pooled. I have found that speaking at conferences usually generates more speaking opportunities. I have gotten some modest checks for speaking and gift card thank you gifts.

Sell your stuff: When we decluttered our home recently, we resold a lot of our baby items. We took clothes and smaller items, like toys and blankets, to a children’s consignment store. I didn’t want to deal with listing all of these things on eBay or Craigslist and just wanted them gone, so I was happy with what we got from the consignment store. For bigger, higher ticket items, like the Mamaroo, I was willing to list those on Craigslist to get a better return.

In addition to selling the kids’ stuff, I sold some of my nicer clothes on eBay rather than simply donating them to Goodwill. Anything that came from Anthropologie had a pretty good resale value, particularly because I had a policy of only purchasing from the sale rack at Anthro. Anything that was new-with-tags also went for sale on eBay (and I learned after going through the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up process not to purchase things just because they are on sale or seem to be a good deal; only buy things that spark joy!).

We also sold a ton of furniture on Craigslist after decluttering at home, basically removing everything Ikea (until we purchased Trofast units for the kids off Craigslist). After I got rid of hundreds of my books, we realized we didn’t have a need for our large Ikea Hemnes bookcases and the behind-the-sofa table that matched. Because the particular color of the Hemnes collection was discontinued (which we discovered when we moved into our current home and decided to get rid of our dresser, bed and nightstands that were part of the collection and had an insane number of people e-mailing that they had to have our dresser), there was actually high demand for it and we were able to recoup a surprising amount. We also sold an Ikea extendable table that we’d used as a dining table in the past, but no longer needed after we purchased an antique claw-foot round extendable table off Craigslist last year at a great price (and less than our sale price of the Ikea table).

Resale of items at a profit: This isn’t really something I do regularly, but I have sold a couple of items that I purchased used off Craigslist at a higher price than I purchased them for. I actually don’t do this with the intention of reselling, but I had a Craigslist addiction for awhile and we ended up with more furniture than we could use. When I was pregnant with Lion and after we sold our bed, dresser, nightstands, and wardrobe and moved from a studio apartment to a 2 bedroom plus loft, I was put on bed rest. I was going crazy with no bed (we fixed that after about a week) and no furniture, so I spent a lot of time on Craigslist. I ended up finding great deals and realized you can get a lot of vintage, well-made furniture cheaper on Craigslist than new Ikea stuff that breaks down after a few years. We purchased a gorgeous dresser made of solid wood with dovetailed joints, which I refinished myself and absolutely love.

I was hooked and started scouring Craigslist for other solid wood furniture. The problem was that I was bad at passing up an item if the price was really low and purchased several sets of solid wood, matching antique end tables for $20 each. Most of them didn’t work for our space and I listed them at a higher price on Craigslist with the expectation that people would want to bargain. Because they were such great deals to begin with, we were actually able to make a small profit off them. Often times, we did have to restore the items a bit, but they were usually quick fixes with just a little bit of wood glue or new hardware; we saved the big refinishing projects for items we actually kept.

Freelance Your Skills: I enjoy writing and have found that there are tons of magazines, websites and blogs out there that will pay for content. Some require you to submit full articles while others ask for a proposal. You can do a Google search for the topic you want to write on (for example law, travel, parenting, cooking, etc.) together with the term “write for us” and find the submission information for various sites in that topic area. If you don’t love writing, you can freelance other skills like photography, photo editing, translation or transcription.

Ebates: This tip isn’t extra income as much as it is cash back for shopping you’re already doing but since it falls into my “gets you cash or a check” qualification, I’m including it. As a full-time working mom with two kids, I much prefer shopping online to in person. It’s easier to fit into my schedule, faster because I don’t have to drive to Target or the mall, and there’s no extra cost because almost all stores have free shipping or free shipping with small minimum spends. As a bonus, there are shopping portals that allow you to earn hotel/airline miles or cash back. When I elect for cash back, I use Ebates because it’s been around for awhile and generally has good cash back percentages for stores we use. All you have to do is sign up for an account then search for the store you want on Ebates, click the store’s link and use the page that opens to complete your transaction. I actually usually go directly to the site I want, fill my cart, then visit Ebates when I’m ready to check out. Voila, extra cash back on items you would’ve purchased anyway. Ebates now also allows cash back for certain in-store purchases if you link your credit card to your account. The cash back is tracked and then mailed out in quarterly checks or you can claim via Amazon electronic gift cards.

Other: Pre-kids, Mr. Dolphin once got a three-day gig as a video game tester, which I think was the most fun he’s ever had working. You can earn money by taking surveys which I think I did once, but ultimately decided not to do anymore because it was too time consuming to find surveys I actually qualified for and many pay pretty minimally. If you’re in the market for a new bank account, do some sleuthing online first; there are many banks that will give you cash back for opening a new account and depositing a certain amount or signing up for direct deposit. Need to refinance your student loans or mortgage? Again, look around for referral links to reputable banks that will give you cash back or statement credit. There are also cash-back credit cards, though we don’t use them because we opt for miles instead (the valuation of earning miles is usually worth more than the 1% most cash back cards offer and we love to travel . . . more on the points and miles game in a separate post). Pre-kids, I have also found a few random opportunities to be part of a focus group or to write a particular article via the Craigslist gigs section (of course, Craigslist gigs is something to be wary of). While I haven’t done any of these things, I do have friends who have opened up their own online shops, sell their handmade goods on Etsy or are involved in direct sales to bring in additional funds.

These are some of the ways we have generated a little extra income outside of my regular full-time job in the past two years. What other side jobs can parents do to earn extra money?