Working for the summer – and taking the rest of the year off – is a pipe dream for most.
ome people however do manage to live off their summer earnings; for others, a summer money maker allows them to take a bit of a step back workwise throughout the rest of the year.
Here are six summer money makers which could be the key to taking the rest of the year off – or to work a bit less during the shorter and colder days.
1 Seaside home
“Real wealth is being able to not have to turn up to work every day – but to be in that position, you generally need to have assets,” said Gavin Duffy, the Dragons’ Den star and managing director of Gavin Duffy & Associates.
One such asset could be a second home. A picture-perfect seaside home along the Wild Atlantic Way could earn you €1,500 a week over the summer months if you rent out that property to tourists.
You may even be able to earn more – some rental agents are quoting rates starting from €3,000 a week for the hire of luxury holiday homes in Dingle for example.
So should you own a second home in a picturesque spot by the sea, and you can manage to rent it out consistently for three months over the summer, you could earn €12,000 (before costs and tax).
While this is unlikely to be enough to allow you take the rest of the year off, if you could rent that property out at other stages throughout the year, or if you had multiple properties to let, this would certainly be an avenue worth exploring if you would like to earn the bulk, or all, of your money over the summer.
Be sure to meet your tax obligations, as well as the rules around short-term and holiday home lettings, if doing so though.
2 Converted camper van
The shortage of affordable accommodation in Ireland this summer could present you with a good money-making opportunity – if you’re good with your hands.
“People are buying old transit vans and turning them into campervans and letting them out,” said Duffy.
You could earn €1,000 a week or more (before your costs and tax) by renting out a converted camper van during the summer.
“Some people are doing quite well out of this because of the high cost of hotels and the shortage of accommodation,” said Duffy. “This summer is boom-time for renting out converted campervans and you could continue to make money out of this throughout the year.”
You could earn between €300 and €450 or more by renting out a converted camper van over a bank holiday weekend, depending on the time of year.
3 Deep roof cleaning
Cleaning the moss off tile roofs is a tedious and time-intensive job as typically, much of this work is done by hand. Yet you could charge €850 (plus VAT) to clean someone’s roof – including the cost of treating the roof with a solution which will keep the roof moss-free.
Setting yourself up in this field will be expensive initially as you need the right equipment, insurance and training but once you have established yourself and built up customers, this could prove a handy earner.
Roof cleaning work is typically done over the summer as it’s easier to do the job when the weather is dry and warm – and when the days are long. As it’s time-intensive, it will easily take a full day to clean someone’s roof, depending on the size of the roof and the extent of the job. But if you could earn €850 a day for much of the summer, you could possibly earn enough to take the rest of the year off.
You may also be able to expand into other deep-cleaning services too. “There’s a big demand for people who spray wash patios and so on this time of year,” said Duffy.
4 Green fingers
You could make 70pc of your annual income during the summer if you work in garden maintenance, landscape gardening or are a bedding plant grower, according to Cork gardening expert Peter Dowdall.
“Landscape gardeners get a lot of work done over the summer as a lot of their job is weather dependent,” said Dowdall, who works as a garden designer and consultant.
“Between May 1 and the end of July is the time for bedding plant growers – in a good year, they’d make a lot of their money in the summer months. If it rains for the summer, they won’t do so well.”
Even if you achieve 70pc of your annual income over the summer, gardening is a poorly paid job, added Dowdall.
A local one-man show bedding plant grower that supplies garden centres in his area might only make a profit of €20,000 or €30,000 a year after costs, according to gardening sources.
You’re typically unlikely to earn more than €500 to €600 a week as a gardener – though you could earn more than this if you work for yourself and specialise in garden maintenance and small gardening projects.
On the retail side of the business, those running retail gardening stores can expect to make between 60pc and 70pc of their annual turnover from March to May, according to Dowdall.
While gardeners are typically busiest during the summer, they often can’t afford to rest up for the other seasons in the year.
“Gardening is very much two jobs – it’s during the spring and summer months that you make a lot of your money,” said Dowdall.
“However, during the autumn and winter months, you’re gearing up for the spring and summer. The design and consultation side of gardening is a 12-month a year job and is less weather-dependent than other gardening jobs.”
Add bespoke dry stone skills to your gardening bow and you could earn good money building moongates, firepits and seating areas in people’s gardens – if you can secure some affluent clients.
5 Wedding Singer
With summer being peak seasons for weddings, wedding bands and singers certainly cannot afford to take the summer off.
The average amount being spent by couples on a wedding band is now €2,232, according to weddingsonline.ie.
Some bands will charge more than that. So if you’re a wedding band that is heavily booked over the summer – during both the week and weekends, you could make the bulk of your money for the year during the sunny season.
6 Bean an tí
A bean an tí could earn about €6,000 tax-free over three weeks by hosting twelve Gaeltacht students in her home.
A Gaeltacht course usually runs for either two or three weeks and as courses run for most of the summer, a bean an tí could earn €12,000 or more over summer, depending on the number of weeks she hosts students for.
“For a lot of bean an tí, the income earned from hosting Gaeltacht students is one of their main incomes as due to a lack of local employment opportunities, they might not be employed during the rest of the year,” said Maria Nic Dhonncha, a bean an tí in Leitir Moir, a Gaeltacht village in Co Galway.
Rising living costs will take a big chunk out of the money earned by bean an tí this summer, according to Nic Dhonncha.
“The money earned by the bean an tí has to cover all the costs of hosting the students,” said Nic Dhonncha.
“You provide the students with four meals a day. You have to heat the water for showers. They use fuel to cook. You’ve the laundry to do.”
The money earned by the bean an tí plugs gaps in household income for the year.
“You wouldn’t earn enough money as bean an tí to last the year,” said Nic Dhonncha.
“Being a bean an tí is very hard work but it’s a lot of fun and is very rewarding. We are delighted to have the Irish colleges back open [after Covid].The students experience so much in college and it’s lovely to hear them developing in themselves.”
7 Mind the Revenue
Be sure to declare – and pay any income tax due – on income you earn from renting out a second home (or indeed your own home) to tourists.
“While Revenue don’t consider income from short-term guests to be rental income, you still need to declare the income and pay any income tax, Universal Social Charge (USC) and PRSI due on the profits made,” said Cróna Clohisey, tax and public policy lead with Chartered Accountants Ireland. “But first, you need to determine whether you are an occasional letter or are carrying out a business of letting out the property over a regular basis over the summer.”
The extent to which you can write expenses off your income tax bill – and therefore reduce the amount of tax you must pay on that income – will depend on whether you are carrying out a regular business or not.
“If carrying out a business, the rules [around tax-deductible expenses] are more generous,” said Clohisey. “Expenses like insurance, property maintenance, painting, decorating, and small repairs are allowed [to be written off your tax bill] and even the cost of beds and furniture can be deducted over eight years. Unfortunately, the rules aren’t as good for occasional letters and only expenses like cleaning fees, commission paid to online booking sites, breakfast costs and heat and electricity used by guests are allowed.”
You don’t qualify for rent-a-room relief (which allows you to earn up to €14,000 a year tax-free by renting out a room in your home) if letting to short-term guests.
Stay on right side of Tax Man if renting property to tourists
Be sure to declare – and pay any income tax due – on income you earn from renting out a second home (or indeed your own home) to tourists.
“While Revenue don’t consider income from short-term guests to be rental income, you still need to declare the income and pay any income tax, Universal Social Charge (USC) and PRSI due on the profits made,” said Cróna Clohisey, tax and public policy lead with Chartered Accountants Ireland. “But first, you need to determine whether you are an occasional letter or are carrying out a business of letting out the property over a regular basis over the summer.”
The extent to which you can write expenses off your income tax bill – and therefore reduce the amount of tax you must pay on that income – will depend on whether you are carrying out a regular business or not.
“If carrying out a business, the rules [around tax-deductible expenses] are more generous,” said Clohisey. “Expenses like insurance, property maintenance, painting, decorating, and small repairs are allowed [to be written off your tax bill] and even the cost of beds and furniture can be deducted over eight years. Unfortunately, the rules aren’t as good for occasional letters and only expenses like cleaning fees, commission paid to online booking sites, breakfast costs and heat and electricity used by guests are allowed.”
You don’t qualify for rent-a-room relief (which allows you to earn up to €14,000 a year tax-free by renting out a room in your home) if letting to short-term guests.
