I ran across an interesting article over at the Backwoods Home website that describes one man's quest of turning wooden pallets into rustic birdhouses as a way of generating extra income. Needless to say, I was surprised at how creative he is in literally turning one man's junk into another's treasure. It was also surprising to find he regularly sells the birdhouses for $10-15 each. While that may not seem like much, especially for the time and effort involved, it is a cheap and relatively easy way to turn a little free time and a bit of ingenuity into extra income.

I've never been excited over a birdhouse before but I really like this idea. Not so much the idea of spending eight hours a day building birdhouses, but the idea that with a little time and ingenuity, you can create something of value where it didn't exist before.

This also opens up the floodgate of other possible ideas. Birdhouses aren't the only thing you can build out of wood, and wooden pallets aren't the only thing you can get for free. If someone had the time to create and a market to sell their wares, you could quite easily keep yourself very busy.

For free stuff, check out Craigslist.org (which has an entire section of free stuff) and your local Freecycle group (they use Yahoo groups but your local group can be found at FreeCycle.org). I regularly see free wood pallets on Craigslist and everything at the Freecycle group is 100% free so you never know what you'll find.

So if you have some extra time, like to work with your hands, and have a little creativity, check out the free stuff in your area and start figuring out what you can build with it.