Suggestions for Second Job?

[davephan]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

If the op needs cheap buffets and a second job and has a salary of a school teacher, then an affordable power washer might not be feasible.

There's an old saying, it takes money to make money... I think that money could be made with a pretty low entry cost. Renting the power washer to get the business started is an excellent idea.

Eating out should be avoided to cut costs. Anyone with zero cooking experience can run a rice cooker. Make sure to buy a three piece rice cooker for only about $25, not a hinge top rice cooker that is more expensive and impossible to clean. Buy the rice in an Asian food store, buy the ricer cooker from Target. A lot of restaurants add ingredients to the food to maximize the taste, even though it is unhealthy for you to eat food that way. Eating rice and farmer's market foods are much cheaper, and better for your body.

Here's another business idea that is far from glamorous, but works in more affluent areas. Start a dog poop cleanup service. Cleaning up the dog's poop around their yards is something people don't like to do. If the people are affluent, they may be likely to hire some to do the cleanup work for them. You could come up with a catchy or funny name for the business that would help people remember the business. You could establish repeat customers and the catchy business name would help with referrals. You could give some free services for referrals too, which would help your 'business' pile up!

[whtviper1]

I hope the op likes rice with all these rice cooker ideas or he's in trouble

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

I hope the op likes rice with all these rice cooker ideas or he's in trouble

Naaaaahh. You can cook many, many simple meals with a rice cooker, even if you never cook rice in it. Roger Ebert traveled with one for years, whipping up meals in his hotel rooms to give himself quick, nutritious, quiet meals in privacy, in the midst of the chaos of film festivals like Sundance.

And as Ebert later said, he wrote "The Pot" to encourage all the people with not much space and not much time or money to cook for themselves. Other "rice-cooker" cookbooks have been published, such as

Amazon.com: The Everything Rice Cooker Cookbook (Everything (Cooking)) (9781440502330): Hui Leng Tay: Books

and

The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook - Rev: 250 No-Fail Recipes for Pilafs, Risottos, Polenta, Chilis, Soups, Porridges, Puddings, and More, fro: Beth Hensperger, Julie Kaufman: 9781558326675: Amazon.com: Books

But Ebert's book is both amusing and especially good for beginner cooks.

[davephan]

I knew that you can use a rice cooker as a steamer for vegetable. When I bought rice cookers, they include a steamer attachment for free. I've only steamed vegetables a couple of times. The big advantage with cooking rice with a rice cooker is once you figure out the amount of rice and water, the rice is cooked perfectly every time. You just load it, start it, then it automatically shuts off and goes into warming mode when the batch is done. Cooking on the stove is a big hassle. I never see any Asian families cooking rice on the stove, unless it is stir frying pre-cooked rice with other things. I wasn't aware of the rice cooker cook books. That's a great idea! I'll probably buy one of those books.

I often have seen people at work who never bring lunch to work that eat out all the time. Many of those people eat out three times a day. The same people always seem to be broke, waiting desperately for the next payday! They are usually, but not always, they are severely overweight people too. So, staying away from processed food, eating 'real' food, cooking and eating your own real food, and avoiding restaurants will be better for your health in the long run. This will improve your life in the long run, which is priceless. This could also save you a lot of heath care costs in the future and it a real money saver now over eating out. This is especially true if you live in a high-cost area and are living close to the edge of the financial cliff without a big financial safety net.