6 Hobbies that Make Big Money

Do you have a flair for baking specialty desserts or creating arts and crafts like Martha Stewart? Do friends or family regularly encourage you to enter your cooking recipes for contests or compete in Iron Man Chef shows?? Well, even if you're camera shy, remember the Emeril Lagasse's and Wolfgang Pucks of the world didn't start in the media industry.

If you have an itch or passion to take your hobby to the next level and earn an income, whether part-time or full time, you may want read this article by Bankrate.com that touches on six hobbies.

1. Custom Baking

2. Professional Organizer

3. Arts & Crafts

4. Exotic Birds

5. Personal Shopper

6. Day Lilies




Cooking and baking is the easiest venture to start and market. If you possess a "Ratatouille" talent, chances are your friends and family already enjoy your culinary delights and can easily spread your idea word of mouth. The key is to let people TASTE the product. We recommend hosting a sampling event to invite friends, neighbors to taste your recipes. Similar to a Mary Kay party. That's how Mrs. Fields cookies started. She gave away free samples on the street to passing strangers. Of course her fresh baked cookies were a sensation and customers salivated all the way to her store for more cookies.


Cupcakes are another easy, creative baking idea. We found this blog that is entirely about cupcakes. http://www.allthingscupcake.com/ How many ways can you decorate a cupcake? These pictures are impressive and very appealing.

Arts & Crafts is a burgeoning business. Designing and creating jewelry is a popular hobby and trend now. Christine's cousin Lorena, studying her doctorate at University of Florida, is like any college student--tight on funds. She enjoys creating jewelry as a hobby and gives them as gifts to friends and family for birthays and holidays. The jewelry is unique and recipients are flattered when the jewelry is in their favorite color or design to complement their own style.

JeGem jewerly started the old fashioned way as mentioned above and now expanded into a webstore filling and delivering orders WORLDWIDE.

[Alicia] Our favorite from a client perspective is the Personal Shopper. As a former executive, I hired a personal shopper to run pesky errands (pick up drycleaning, drop off and pick up dog at groomer, return items at stores, purchase missing ingredients for cooking dinner that night...) Spending time with the children at outside-the-home activities, and cooking and eating meals as a family was the priority with little precious time. My personal shopper, Kendra, was a life saver--a time saver! It sounds like fun too!

ANIMAL CARE

Maybe your fingers aren't nimble for fine, detailed work required for crafts or you're more left brained and lack the creative right brain. No problem. If you possess a special talent for breeding or caring for certain animals, there's a niche for you. With some due diligence, you can carve your piece of the market pie and earn some sweet cash.

GREEN THUMB

If you enjoy gardening and have the green thumb acumen for growing specialty flowers (we never heard of Day Lilies but I'm sure we've probably seen them in arrangements), you can make your grass greener by tapping into your talents.

Read the full article for the necessary skills, potential markets and areas of growth for each of these six hobbies that can supplement your income.

If you already embarked on one of these ventures or are starting--SHARE YOUR STORY, BY POSTING A COMMENT. What works? Did you have a mentor? How did you get the word out?

For some inspiration, remember how Martha Stewart started her empire--in the basement of her home! She and a former modeling colleague, started a catering business in 1976. The rest is history!