Spent the morning going down a rabbit hole. I was curious what the standard advice is for someone over 50 looking to bring in extra money on the side. So I read every "best side hustle for over 50" article I could find — AARP, Bankrate, Kiplinger, GOBankingRates, the works. Almost all of them recommend the same handful of things: pet sitting, TaskRabbit, Uber, eBay flipping, Airbnb, freelance writing. Then I looked at the actual numbers. The typical side gig brings in about $810 a month per Bankrate. A pet sitting visit pays around $25. An Uber ride, $20. An hour of consulting — the highest-paying option on most lists — tops out around $200. So I put together this chart comparing what one transaction pays across the most common options. See attached picture below. The bar at the top is surplus funds recovery — money that counties and states are legally required to return to former property owners, but often don't. Typical commission per recovery: $5,000 to $30,000+. Per claim. One claim equals roughly a year of pet sitting. It's conspicuously missing from every list I read. Not because it isn't real — courts have been ruling on this for years (Tyler v. Hennepin at the Supreme Court in 2023 was the big one) — but because most writers covering the side hustle space simply don't know it exists. The trade-offs are real. It takes 30 to 90 days to learn the work and recover your first claim, and the deals come less often than ride requests. But the per-deal math is in a different league than anything on the standard lists. Curious what folks here are doing currently — or considering. Drop your current side hustle (or one you've been eyeing) in the comments. And if anyone has actually worked surplus funds, I'd love to hear how it's gone.

I'm currently one of the owners at Coffman Media. Coffman Media is a digital signage integrator based on Dublin, OH with an office in Jacksonville, FL. Open to any and all connections.

Hey Jeff Welcome - glad you are here

Hey everyone - as I am building this group out - and it will rock! I have a tape of notes that have just become available to me that I will pass on. You can ask me for this. These are nonperforming notes that you can get fairly cheap, however you want to make sure that you know what you are doing. If you haven't done notes before I can talk to you on these.

Hey gang I am putting some new ideas up - if you have any let me know! This will be good - but there are sooo many ways to create a decent second income it is crazy.