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Forget That Workaday Life: Creative Ways to Generate Supplementary Income!
The Welfare system in the United States, which includes food stamps and government operated health services, began in the 1930s under President Roosevelt. The number of citizens on food stamps, unsurprisingly, continues to be a helpful barometer for the economic conditions of those in the lowest SES strata, their unemployment rates, and the functioning of the overarching economy. The Census Bureau released data near the beginning of President Obama’s term indicating that thirty seven million US citizens were living below the poverty line; a few million more are currently taking advantage of food stamp programs in the United States.

Conditions and Strategies
Now, some pundits point to the disparity between increases in gross domestic product (GDP) since the 1980s in the United States (~70%) and the increase in median household income (~15%) over that same time period. This clearly is an endemic and economically involved issue, which proves resistant to quick fixes. Nonetheless, there are ways in which average workers and consumers may increase their household incomes and enjoy greater prosperity. One of these strategies entails supplementing one’s full time work income with ancillary yet lucrative side projects. This article will explore a few such strategies.

Web Design
Whether tough economic times, free time, or maternity leave is spurring on the quest for another source of income, web design is an excellent opportunity to work from home and generate more household income. Website designers typically have a knack for art, design, communication, and computer programming. Understanding HTLM and CSS – coding languages – will undoubtedly prove helpful for web design, but a keen aesthetic eye alongside a copy of Photoshop might be even more helpful! Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program that really facilitates the process of web design. Nonetheless, it is important that one’s designs be original, simple, aesthetically pleasing, and intuitive. Freelance website design job offerings can be found at Etsy.com, Craigslist.com, 99Designs.com, and other digital locations.

Substitute Teaching
Different states have dissimilar rules and procedure for becoming certified as a substitute teacher but substitute teaching offers a way to supplement your household income with around one hundred extra dollars per day of substitute teaching. States such as Arizona and Maryland are especially eager to enlist substitute teachers, and their protocol for becoming a substitute teacher is accordingly lax. In fact, one can become a substitute teacher in Arizona with only a Bachelor’s degree, some background checking, and one or two classes. Substitute teaching is especially smart for prospective teachers because it allows them to gain experience and expertise while generating additional household supplementary income.

Arts and Crafts
Many homemakers find that they retain the drive to bring home the bacon even after having kids. With ample free time they might find themselves making quilts, woodwork, or jewelry without any real economic payoff. Well, with the advent of the internet those days of gratuitous work are over! Sites like Etsy.com offer an electronic storefront for those who are willing to create and display their creative art. Etsy.com caters to the fruits of sewing, knitting, and other forms of creative crafting endeavor. There’s a huge opening and demand in today’s market for creative crafts and Etsy.com makes the process extremely simple to accomplish, even for first time sellers. One needs, at a minimum, a Paypal account to accept payment, the drive to create creative crafts, and a viable shipping agency to send goods from the seller to the buyer.

This article has investigated ways in which one can add multiple income streams into the larger tributary of household income. Sometimes circumstance (e.g., pregnancy) puts one out of commission for a few months, but that doesn’t need to be a lifelong economic impediment!

Author Jason Harter has interests in finances and blogging. He is a contributing author for dentalinsurance.net