What's the easiest way to make a living today?<p>By "easiest", I mean in terms of time and attention. The idea is to have lots of time to work on projects that you enjoy. That time has to be good "maker time", not time when you're mentally exhausted from working at a job that consumes you. Think Einstein working at the patent office.<p>By "make a living", I mean enough money to pay the rent on a modest apartment, eat cheap food, and occasionally buy nice toys. US$24,000/year is probably the minimum.<p>Inheritance, sugar daddy, and living off your parents are amusing cheap-shot answers, but that's not what I'm asking about. I'm thinking that since technology has made us all so productive, it ought to be possible to work very few hours to make a passable living, and thus enjoy much more leisure time. Most people don't do that, though. People in the U.S. seem to be working harder than ever, but not getting much enjoyable leisure time. What might we find if we looked seriously at how to earn a living in a way that leaves the most time available for person projects that probably don't make money? Such projects could be anything from taking care of your kids to painting pictures to proving theorems.<p>Example: An entrepreneur friend of mine works four days a week as a cab driver, and spends his remaining time working on two small businesses. The money from cab driving is terrible ($60/day, with a lot of variance), but it gives him time and freedom, and he enjoys cab-driving. But let's not limit this to "Ways to finance your start-up." Just, ways to pay your rent, long-term, while you work on whatever you like, regardless of financial return.
Unarmed security guard.<p>Some friends of mine long ago have done this. I don't know what the money is like these days (does anyone here know?), but I expect it's bad. The advantage is: you actually get to work on your laptop or notebook or whatever you like most of the time. Mostly what a security guard does is let truckers sign in when they make deliveries. Between deliveries, all you need to do is be there.<p>Has anyone here tried this?
It seems strange that there have (so far) been so few ideas that leverage the high productivity that ought to be possible with technology and the highly interconnected economy. (So far, day-trading is the only one like that.)<p>How could one be <i>very productive</i> for only a few hours a week--enough to genuinely earn US$24,000 a year?<p>Is it Timothy Ferris or nothing? Has anyone gotten his "Four-Hour Work Week" to work?
The obvious answer to this might be to create a startup around your passion. You still have the problem of finding a way to fund the initial phase before you start making money. But that seems like a smaller problem than the original one. Maybe recursively reduce the problem in this way until it has been solved.
Figure out what state has the best unemployment rates. Get a fluffy programming job at a large company in that state for about 6 months so that you can max out your benefits. Then get laid off and start collecting. Rhode Island looks like it's the best option with a maximum payout of $641/week, or $33k per year.
Seems like playing the stock market is the easist way I've found so far. If you bet on a stock by buying 500 shares, the stock goes up ten cents (USD, $0.10), you've made $50 (I'm not counting transaction fees, just the base numbers). If you buy 5000 shares you've made $500. Make $500 three times a month and you're at $18,000 a year. Each $500 gamble may take one or two hours depending on how quickly the NASDAQ is moving.<p>For the specified amount of $24,000 per year, that's four $500 bets per month.<p>Mike