Weekend and Evening Work to Add to a Full Time Job

What one Saturday a month is actually worth

Eight hours at 22 an hour is 176. One Saturday a month is a little over 2,000 a year. Two Saturdays is 4,200, and every other weekend plus a few evenings lands near 6,000.

That is a car repair, a deposit, or the gap that a raise never quite covered. It is worth doing the arithmetic before deciding it is not worth it.

The work that fits around a job

Weekend day labor is a real category, not leftovers. Some of it pays better than weekday work because the employer has fewer people to call.

• Moves, which are overwhelmingly weekend work.
• Event setup and teardown, which is Friday night and Sunday morning.
• Yard work and cleanups, which homeowners schedule on Saturdays.
• Deliveries and hauling.
• Evening warehouse and dock shifts.

Set your days so nobody wastes your time

Your profile has your usual workdays on it, and employers see them before they message you. Turn off the days you are at your regular job and you stop getting offers you have to decline.

That protects your track record too. Turning down five offers looks worse to an employer than never being offered them.

Take the short ones first

A four hour job on a Saturday morning leaves the rest of the weekend intact and still pays around 90 dollars. That is the shape most people can keep up for a year.

The ten hour Sunday looks better on paper and is the one that makes people quit after a month. Build up if you want to, but start where you can be reliable.

Two things that will surprise you at tax time

This money usually comes with nothing withheld, so put aside about a quarter of it. Your day job's withholding does not cover it.

If one employer pays you 600 dollars or more across the year, expect a 1099. Keep a simple note of every job, the date, and the amount, and the whole thing takes an hour in April.

Do not let it cost you the main job

Check whether your employer has anything in writing about outside work, especially if it is the same trade. Most do not care. A few do, and it is better to know.

And be honest with yourself about rest. The point is to add money, not to arrive at your Monday job worn out and start losing the thing that pays the rent.