Easier than I thought?

Could it be possible that this whole situation will be solved more easily than I thought? Nothing so far has been pointing that direction so I never thought it could be. The Governor wasn’t backing down, the Legislature doesn’t seem to care (at least the Republicans don’t…just as long as no taxes are raised), and there was nobody waiting outside my door in the morning to offer me a 16 hour per month job paying me exactly the amount I needed.
But then something happened today that brought the possibility of an “easy” fix back into the light. It turns out that we have a room that we could rent, we’ve rented it before but only to close friends (due to a bad experience when we strayed from that rule). I hadn’t really thought that we’d be able to find somebody to fill the room because we’re getting to the point that all of our friends are past the point where they need to rent a room in a house…most of them can afford a real apartment. But then this morning a friend of ours happened to send out an email letting people know that she needs a room…just for a few months (perfect timing for us really). So now my hope is re-kindled.
Now, this solves some of the problems…at least in the short-term. The reason things get a bit easier in 4-5 months is that we plan to have all of our credit card debt paid off by then, so we’ll have lower monthly financial obligations. However, this isn’t a done-deal yet…we still haven’t heard back from this friend. Also, even if she does rent the room, we still face the very real possibility that my wife will be receiving half of her income as IOUs. So for now…any potential income from that room rental I will assume offsets my wife’s income, not mine.
So this leaves me back where I was really. So to get back to my plan, I was supposed to come up with two options and flesh them out a bit. Here are my first two options:
1)Outdoor garden work – This is a conglomeration of a few options that I had listed before but they seemed to go together. Pruning trees, gardening, pond set-up, etc… This is pretty self-explanatory really. I could offer to do all these garden-related activities for people just like gardeners do all over the place. I would have the benefit of offering organic expertise which might be in demand. Since I don’t have money for newspaper ads…Craigslist is the way to go. I’ll have to get an ad up…I’ll probably list my fees pretty low so that I’ll actually get some business (something’s better than nothing, right?)
2) Homebrew – So I am a fairly accomplished homebrewer, won a few state and national awards so I really do know what I’m doing. I’ve taught a few friends how to brew so I also know how to teach. I’ve thought of this before but never actually did anything about it. It wouldn’t be difficult at all for me to offer homebrew classes to people, either in their home or mine. The only problem I see is that it would have to be fairly pricey and I’m not sure that in this economy people would be willing to pay that much for something that will likely be seen as a luxury. But it can’t hurt to try, right?
As far as the score board goes, I’m counting the room rental for my wife, so things are as they were last time:
Money Needed: $360
Hours Available: $26
I’ll get my Craigslist ads up soon and post them here when they’re up. Plus next time I’ll figure out another couple ideas. If any of you have any suggestions for how to advertise, or how to differentiate myself in the marketplace (compete with all the other gardeners) please leave a comment!