How We Earn Extra Money: Simple Computer Repair

I recently mentioned that we are saving up for a new vehicle despite having no extra room in our budget.   We have managed to save up about $3000 towards this by finding ways to earn extra income aside from our regular paycheques.  This is one of the ways we've been earning extra money!


I am very lucky to have an incredibly talented husband.  He is very handy and seems to understand how things work on a level I may never comprehend.  Somehow over the years he has become extremely adept at fixing and building computers.



My husband has always built our own computers or upgraded them to be exactly what we needed.  When our desktop gets the sniffles or isn't running optimally he can diagnose and fix the problem.  If our power supply goes kaput, he will install a new one.  We are very well taken care of in this area and our friends started to notice.


Our friends and co-workers would talk about problems they were having with their home computers and my husband would tell them how to fix it.  Something wouldn't work right on a work computer and Josh would get called over from his desk to spend some time on it.  After awhile, our co-workers would just start bringing their computers into work with them.  I was never surprised to see an extra CPU or two sitting in our backseat waiting to be carted home and lovingly tinkered with.   Most of the problems our friends were having required a simple reformat or a new power supply.  Sometimes their motherboard would be fried or my husband would upgrade their ram to make the computer run faster.


After our co-workers continually had such success they started bringing their family members' computers in for him! My husband's side business has grown enough that these family members and friends of friends now contact him directly and bring their computers over to our house themselves.  He charges $20 for a diagnostic and then quotes a price on whatever problem he finds.  He's even been paid to shop for and recommend a good replacement laptop for a client!

For the most part this is a great way for my husband to earn a bit of extra money.  Most fixes are simple and he doesn't mind the work.  A few computers have been a bit more of a hassle but he enjoys a challenge every now and then.  It seems that when it rains it pours- everyone's computers break down at once- but that's ok as he can work on a couple at a time and get them all finished at once.  Sometimes my living room looks like a computer graveyard but it's worth it for the good bit of cash he's able to bring in!!