I have been out of work for a year..

[quickweb]

I know it's disheartening to be out of work for even a few weeks let alone a year or more.

To bring in a bit of cash, has anyone ever done other types of work during their time "on the bench"?

I wasn't on the bench, but ina direct contract with no agencies involved, working from home. The projects came in irregularly, but paid enough to cover the down time. I used the "spare" time to do other projects.

Once of these was the Xbox 360 Locator, which, when the Xbox 360 came out alerted people as to which online stores had Xbox 360s. All based around affiliate links to people like Dixons, Comet, Amaozn etc. During Dec, Jan and Feb with me watching it carefully and managing the whole site, I sold over £850k worth of Xbox 360s, and made around £30k in affiliate fees (all payable a month in arrears or so). Unfortunately (for my site!), Xbox 360s then started to become more available, so the site wasn't neccessary any more.

If you have no formal work on the go, but do have a PC and an internet connection, then it is possible to make some money. Not enough to retire on, sure, but £30k I wasn't expecting.

So read affiliate forums, get some domain names and apply for some affiliate programmes. There is money out there!

[wackadu]

Even in despair there is hope. Nice post quickweb.

I wasn't on the bench, but ina direct contract with no agencies involved, working from home. The projects came in irregularly, but paid enough to cover the down time. I used the "spare" time to do other projects.

Once of these was the Xbox 360 Locator, which, when the Xbox 360 came out alerted people as to which online stores had Xbox 360s. All based around affiliate links to people like Dixons, Comet, Amaozn etc. During Dec, Jan and Feb with me watching it carefully and managing the whole site, I sold over £850k worth of Xbox 360s, and made around £30k in affiliate fees (all payable a month in arrears or so). Unfortunately (for my site!), Xbox 360s then started to become more available, so the site wasn't neccessary any more.

If you have no formal work on the go, but do have a PC and an internet connection, then it is possible to make some money. Not enough to retire on, sure, but £30k I wasn't expecting.

So read affiliate forums, get some domain names and apply for some affiliate programmes. There is money out there!