This week’s Side Gig Thursdays is a chat with Michael Wong, who started a side business where he ran vending machines. If you’ve ever wondered who runs that vending machine in your office, chances are it’s either a big vending machine company or it’s someone like Michael. He started doing it on the side while working at a network engineer and has sales of several hundred dollars a month – enough to keep him interested!

If you’ve ever been curious about how these types of business work, as simple as they may sound, Michael shares some of his experiences.

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This week’s Side Gig Thursdays is about one of Bargaineering’s long time readers – Danny Diamond. I’ve known Danny for several years now and while we haven’t kept in touch as much lately, we corresponded quite a few times over the years (I remember his first website a few years ago, there was a lot of flashing and music on it!). I knew that he had a successful side gig as a magician and this series was, in part, inspired by that and all the other readers I knew who had interesting work on the side.

Today, we’ll learn about how a creative director stretches his creative muscles as a magician and professional balloon twister!

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Welcome to another Side Gig Thursdays! This is a series where I pinged Bargaineering readers about their side gigs and they agreed to talk about them.

Today we are chatting with Mary Klaebel, a freelance copywriter who decided to expand her work to include career services, such as resume preparation and interview preparation. She got her start in copywriting by taking a course and when a resume writing course was offered as an add-on, she took that as well. The two classes spawned her current life as a freelancer and one that has let her help people get the jobs they want.

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In our second edition of Side Gig Thursdays, I want to introduce you to Celia Milton, Life Cycle Celebrant. When I sent out the email to ask for side gigs, Celia immediately stood out as someone who was doing something she absolutely loved and was now able to do it full time. A celebrant is simply someone who officiates at ceremonies (also called officiants), such as weddings, and chances are you’ve been to an event where there was someone like her leading the ceremonies.

Celia’s story is great, she once had a catering company and this side gig grew out of that (she’ll go into in more detail).

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Starting this week, and for as long as I can sustain it, I wanted to share some stories every Thursday from our readers of side gigs they started. Some of these stories are from people who wanted to earn a little extra cash. Some are from people who just wanted something fun to do (and get paid to do it!). I’m hoping that these inspirational stories will give you some ideas and the extra push to go after that side gig you’ve always started to start. Maybe some day it’ll go from a side gig to a full time business!

This week, we’re talking with Robert Bragoli. His side gig is as a long distance road race runner and he currently trains fifteen runners preparing for the upcoming New York City Marathon. Robert’s story is one of a man who caught the running bug and decided it could make for a fun side gig, and he was right! I hope you enjoy his story:

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