A Handy Hobby And Doing What You Love

In this week’s issue, the Finance page is all about how you might be able to make a little money from your hobby, whatever it is you love doing.

If you’ve got an artistic talent, maybe you can sell what you make?

Our columnist Stephanie talks about Lisa, who started working with flowers rather than driving a taxi, and Gaye, who sells speciality breads made from home.

Here on the “Friend”, we love what we do as a day job.

But it’s definitely not always been the way for me! I used to do a lot of temping in my twenties — and whilst none of them were exactly horrible, I’ll never forget the tedium of watching the clock while you do something really repetitive.

The thing about being a temp, though, was that you weren’t often the only one doing it.

Even when I was relabelling bird food with new bar codes for days on end in a factory, I had good company and the time passed quickly.

Doing the rounds

My first job was probably the one that first combined my passion with the ability to make money. Paperboy!

Cycling around our hilly village at 5.30 in the morning, I loved it so much I soon ended up doing about three routes for the newsagents.

I was making decent money, and the Christmas tips were astonishing — plus I got to ride my bike every day of the week!

Shutterstock.

I was soon fit as a fiddle, which you needed to be — especially on Sundays.

This was in the early days of the Sunday paper boom.

Newspapers were still selling well in those days, and about half of the village took a daily — but the big name ones were competing with each other for most value for money on a Sunday.

You could get about 30-40 daily papers in the bag, but only 6 Sunday ones, the supplements were getting out of hand.

Plus some of the older houses had tiny letterboxes . . .

Frankly, I think if you could make a living cycling around the countryside delivering newspapers, I’d probably be doing it now!

Anyway, I make a living now writing, or getting other people to write, about interesting things on the “Friend”. So I’m happy with where I’ve ended up!

Tell us your story

Have you made any money from your hobby? What have been some of your favourite jobs?

We always love to hear you stories hear at the “Friend”, so do write to us at betweenfriends@dctmedia.co.uk and we might be able to feature you on our letters page.

Do send pics too!

For more more Alex, read his blog here.

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