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Hi everyone,

I am a lone IT guy for 250 users across 10 locations and 3 companies. I handle the gig pretty well. I also get paid pretty well, but daycare is damn expensive. If we’re going to have a second kid, that’s $1800 a month just for daycare. Good times!

So I’m thinking how I can make some money on the side here. My thoughts are, I don’t really want to work for businesses on the side because they’ll most likely want me during the day, when I’m working my full time gig. So I’ll try and do home users, I guess? And maybe small businesses that are open until 9, 10pm? That’s really the only situation I think might work. Do you have any suggestions on the customer front in this situation?

I did have an idea to send out a little flyer in the mail to all the houses within a 1 minute drive of my place. According to Canada Post’s pretty awesome mailer targeter program, that equals over 1000 houses and 400 apartments. And it would only cost me around $300 to have Canada Post design and Mail something for me. No idea if that’s a good thing to try or not, what say you?

I’d like to focus on helping people back up their data, provide excellent wireless and wired networking, do home automation perhaps (something I’ve not really done before though), and of course break fix. It would all have to be scheduled between 6pm-10pm weekdays and 11am-6pm weekends though, which I wouldn’t have a problem with if I was a person who wanted something done’ the vast majority of people are working during the day.

Anyways… What do you all think? Feasible? Worth doing? I really don’t think I am going to find another job that pays more than what I’m getting, not in the economy we’ve been in these last couple years.

8 Spice ups
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Advice, in order.

  • no more kids
  • Keep moving up the ladder so your wife can stay home and raise kids
  • Your wife moves up the ladder so you can stay home and raise kids
  • get a second job bar tending / tap room server, you will make more money at that than fixing home computers. I am not being a smart ass…
4 Spice ups
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First off, thank you for taking the time to reply :slight_smile: I appreciate the input, and I like the frankness.

To rebut your points though:

  • Actually, since my wife isn’t even pregnant yet, if she did get pregnant tomorrow that’s still 1 year 9 months away. Our first is already 4, so she’ll be pretty close to Grade 1 by then. At any rate, that leads into the next point

  • There is nowhere to move up the ladder to in this group of companies. I am the sole IT guy here, with just the board and owners above me. I answer to the controller. So in that sense, I’m going to have to take a job somewhere else to have a ladder to move up on. May mean taking a pay cut to do it, or not as great of a position. Truth be told, I feel I could be working here in 20 years, but everything I read people say that’s dumb to do these days. 1-2 years, 3 tops! To make the big money. But this company is always growing, from 4 stores to 10 in the 8 years I’ve been here. It’s just going to grow more if I stay.

  • She’s a teachers assistant, nowhere for her to go unless she goes back to school. She is a hairdresser by trade and does that a bit on the side from home, but doesn’t really want to make that a full time job.

  • I don’t really like drinking. Hoping once weed is legal in Canada I’ll get a dream job somewhere in that industry… Here’s to hoping.

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Well one thing you really shouldn’t do is offer to help people with their computers at home. They call you out for the stupidest things, and then they don’t pay (assuming any of them take up your offer). It’s soul destroying.

Far better getting something else; maybe stacking shelves, or similar. Or bar work as Chad suggests.

However, here is a genuine suggestion. Thing about what other skills you and you wife have. I’m thinking predominantly of making things. Then, sell these online. Or alternatively, find something that people might want, buy a larger quantity, then sell at a markup.

As an example, I spent a couple of years making hand made soap. This was sold with a specific market in mind, those with sensitive skin. The startup costs were not too high, I sold to a local market, although that expanded and it generated a reasonable income for not too onerous work. I don’t do it now, but I offered the work to a friend who was made redundant. She now works 3-4 days a week, pays for most of the costs and generates a small income that helps her feel that she is a net contributor to society, instead of being inactive.

4 Spice ups
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Whether or not fixing PCs for people or businesses is a good idea or not ( personally I would find it a complete pain, private people & very small businesses want the world but won’t pay for it ), you should talk to you main employer to ensure that they are happy with the idea. They may have a policy against that sort of thing - some have policies against doing the same thing as you do in work to avoid conflicts of interest.

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Do not work on home users PCs. I tried it and hated it. Got calls during work and was expected to help on the spot. I didn’t charge that much and people still thought they were paying too much. I repeat DO NOT WORK ON HOME USERS PCS.

3 Spice ups
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I did this for about 10 years, eventually it became a full time job too - so I was working anywhere between 80-120 hours a week between my job and my business.

I’m the type that has a hard time saying no to a potential client (and their money), so I take on more than time allows…if you aren’t that kind of guy, you may be ok. People will get wind of any decent IT person around and it will grow completely organically - you’ll be surprised at how many people will call you who were referred by other clients.

I always wanted to leave the corporate world though, so eventually- about 4 months ago, I left and I couldn’t be happier with the decision. last month I billed over $10k.

I do home and small business support, build OEM computers for businesses (and gamers), and have a M$ refurbishers license - so I can refurb and sell machines on a budget. I prefer working with businesses, but I like to try to get them on a contract so they don’t have the opportunity to ask the world for nothing. (x$ a month, and I’ll give you so many hours of remote support - the most needy of my customers is getting about an hour of my time every month with very simple problems but paying about $150 a month for that - plus they buy ALL of their equipment from me for 3 businesses)

With home user stuff, I rarely visit their homes - but for a lot of very simple jobs you can make some quick money. In my small and poor town I charge $75-$100 for virus removal(an hour), $150 to replace a laptop screen (includes screen)(30 min), and reject any job I just don’t wanna do (“no, I can’t replace your screen on your ipad here’s the number for who to call” – yes I can, but I don’t want to)

Tips:

Reduce debt, like…as fast as you can. I used a snowball method. this will give you the freedom to choose to defer needing to do this long term, or even the freedom to do this solely.

Don’t kill yourself with stress or being away from home

get a license for remote support (I got a teamviewer corporate license and it pays for itself over and over).

if you want to grow: Join your chamber of commerce, be visible in your community, shake a lot of hands.

1 Spice up
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You want to work on home PCs because you feel competent and that’s your skill.

My advice is to develop another skill. Broaden your knowledge. Who knows, you might find a better career.

1 Spice up
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mattoxley, good advice. You and I are very similar in what we do and how we work…

1 Spice up
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Yeah by “Moving up the ladder” I meant it to say that the ladder can be at another company. I am starting a new position soon and grabbing a 16% raise for it, not in the same company, that’s all I am saying. Just keep moving up. As for the kids and the wife, that’s obviously all up to you guys. I do think there is a point where it makes more sense for one of the parents to stay home vs trying to work at some low paying job or “go back to school” which seems to be what young people want to do when they find out how difficult being an adult really is. But it’s all up to you. Making more money can fix a lot of things…

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I tried the home pc route and didn’t like it. I took a shot of getting my name out by handing out cards from a booth at the county fair. Probably handed out 1000 cards. I did maybe 12 jobs over the next few months. Turns out the computers consumers are using nowadays are throwaway devices and they don’t want to pay $50 for 3 or 4 hours of trying to un-porn their computer. Not only that, but I have a big problem with undervaluing myself and would rarely charge what it was worth.