How To Cash in on Your Assets

Are you feeling the pinch? Facing the prospect of wrapping up last year's presents for Christmas and hoping the kids don't notice? Boosting your spending power can be easy.

1. Flog the family silver - For quick, tax-free dough, nothing beats going through the cupboards -- your junk could become someone else's treasure. As an individual, you are allowed to sell secondhand goods -- whether you sell directly to friends, take out a classified ad or use an auction website -- without paying income tax. An exception to this is if your secondhand sale is conducted as part of your business. In that case, you'll have to pay income tax -- and if your business turns over more than $40,000 a year, you'll have to calculate tax on secondhand transaction. Much simpler to have a garage sale.
2. Sell your time - Marketing companies will pay you up to $75 to sit in a room for the evening and be opinionated -- which is possibly what you'd be doing if you are at home, except they won't tell you to put a sock in it. Participating in a focus group is fairly painless, although you will have to prepare thoughtful contributions on the merits of various brands of sliced bread or the deep motivations behind your choice of Colgate over Sensodyne. You can usually apply online and if you fit the demographic, you'll be invited in for a panel discussion on whatever product or concept they're testing. Some companies offer prizes, such as supermarkets vouchers, instead of payment for your time.
3. Sell your hair - This won't make you rich, but is perfect if you fancy yourself a romantic heroine. In the classics, selling one's hair to a wigmaker was the ultimate in self-sacrificing penury. Some wigmakers pays $10 per ounce depending on how long your hair is. It's a fantastic cause; your hair might not enrich you, but will improve someone else's life enormously.
4. Take in a homesick student - If there's a spare seat at the breakfast table, why not take in a youngster? You can earn up to $210 a fortnight as long as you give him or her a good service. Some people coming from overseas don't know about many places; you can use them to make money for yourself by helping them out.
5. Rent out the garage - If you live in or near the city, you should be thankful the public transport system is a shambles. Everyone drives, which means you can charge them between $40 and $120 a week for parking, depending on how close to town you are.
6. Play host - If your friends are open-minded, you can host a sex-toy party in your home, with a 40 minute presentation by a sales agent from a retail. He advertises and sells his sex toys to your friends while you get paid. You can even get a surprise gift from the retailer if his sales are up. You get surprise gift and get paid. If your friends aren't in that kind of stuff, you can be a host for Tupperware. You can make at least $50 to $100 commission on the items sold by you.
7. Donate sperm - If you've got the right stuff, so to speak, you could make up to $450 from sharing it. The world's biggest assisted-reproduction company, Fertility Associates, says sperm donation is considered more a matter of altruism than high finance. They pay $30 per visit, which is just to cover expenses, and the likely maximum number of visits is about 15 - that's if you are from the highest-demand ethnic group (European), you pass all the health test and you are prepared to donate to the maximum of four families.
8. Sell the kids - Well, it's more like renting than selling - you can enroll them as child actors or models, Fees range from $40 per hour for a catalogue shoot to several thousand per day for television commercials or film work.
9. Be a guinea pig - If you're brave enough, you can earn up to $1000 for participating in a clinical trial of a new drug or vaccine - bear in mind, though, you might have to stay in the hospital overnight or visit a clinic repeatedly, and could suffer side effects.
10. Babysit - The going rate these days is anything between $15 and $30 an hour, depending on how many kids are involved and whether it also included food and drink. Invariably, parents will be so glad of an evening's respite that they'll head out to the cab saying, "Help yourself to whatever's in the fridge!" Try not to empty the fridge or mess anything in the house. If this happens, dispose of the evidence.