GigMatch blog

The Stuff You Already Own Is Probably Worth More Than You Think

jeff.thomas@30dps.com (George Fraser) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:11:59 GMT

Most advice about making extra money starts by asking you to become someone else. Learn to code. Start a business. Build an audience. All of it takes months before it takes a dollar.

Meanwhile there is a truck in the driveway that moves furniture four times a year, a kayak in the garage that goes out twice a summer, and a smoker on the patio that could run every weekend if anyone asked. That is not a business plan. It is just stuff sitting still, and stuff sitting still is the fastest thing to turn into income because you already own it.

Here is where to look.

Things with wheels

A pickup, a trailer, a van, or a roof rack is the difference between someone being able to move a couch and not. People pay for that constantly, usually on short notice. If you have the vehicle and a free Saturday, you are already most of the way there.

Check your insurance before you haul anything for money. Personal auto policies often treat paid work differently, and it is a five-minute call.

Recreation gear

Kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, camping setups, bikes, ski equipment, coolers, and tents spend most of the year in storage. Someone nearby wants to try the thing you already bought and would rather not buy it themselves first.

Space

A garage bay, a corner of a basement, a driveway, a spare room, a shed, a stretch of yard. Storage is one of the least glamorous and most reliably needed things there is, and space you are not using costs you nothing to offer.

Tools and equipment

Pressure washers, ladders, tile saws, log splitters, generators, sewing machines, and stand mixers all fall into the same category: expensive enough that people would rather rent than buy, common enough that someone within a few miles needs one this month.

Kitchen capacity

If you already smoke, bake, cater, or cook at volume for family gatherings, that is a skill with local demand. Check your state and county rules first, because home food production is regulated and the rules vary quite a bit by location.

Things you know how to do

This is the category people skip, because skills you have had for years stop feeling like skills. Setting up a computer. Assembling furniture. Basic repairs. Photography. Hauling brush. Watching dogs. Tutoring in a subject you happened to be good at.

If someone in your family has ever called you to come fix something, that is the list.

The hard part is not the stuff, it is the matching

Almost everyone reading this owns at least three things on this list. The reason most of it stays in the garage is not laziness. It is that finding the person who needs your trailer this Saturday, agreeing on a price, and getting paid is a genuine hassle, and after a long week it is easier to skip.

That is the specific problem GigMatch solves. It matches you to nearby opportunities based on what you own, what you can do, and what you actually enjoy, then handles the connection so you are not the one hunting for it.

GigMatch is currently offered through employers as a benefit, which means it comes to you through work rather than as something you sign up for on your own. If it sounds useful, the fastest path is to ask.

[Ask your employer about GigMatch] and we will give you a short message you can send to whoever handles benefits where you work.

Your People Say Money Is Their Biggest Stressor. So Why Isn't Anyone Using the Financial Wellness Benefit?

jeff.thomas@30dps.com (George Fraser) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:07:45 GMT

Most companies that offer a financial wellness benefit have a utilization problem, and most of them know it. The engagement report comes in at 18% and nobody is quite sure what to do with that number, so it gets noted and the renewal happens anyway.

The instinct is to blame communication. Send more emails. Put it in the newsletter. Mention it at open enrollment. That rarely moves the number much, because the problem usually is not awareness.

The problem is not that people do not know how to budget

Financial wellness, as the category is usually built, means education. Budgeting tools. Debt calculators. A webinar series. Articles about the importance of an emergency fund.

That content assumes the employee has money coming in and is managing it poorly. For a meaningful share of the workforce, that is not the situation. They know what they spend. They have already cut what there is to cut. They do not need a class explaining that an emergency fund would be useful, because they are already aware that they do not have one.

Asking that person to attend a lunch-and-learn about budgeting is asking them to spend an hour being told about a problem they think about constantly. Low utilization is a rational response.

Two different problems wearing the same label

It helps to separate financial wellness into two distinct needs:

Helping people manage the money they have. Budgeting tools, debt counseling, planning resources, retirement education. This is real and valuable, and for employees whose issue is organization rather than capacity, it works.

Helping people bring more money in. This is a different problem, and almost nothing in the standard benefits stack addresses it. Wage increases are the obvious answer and also the one most organizations cannot apply broadly on demand.

If you already offer something in the first category and utilization is low, it is worth asking whether the employees who are struggling most are the ones the offering was never designed to reach.

What the second category looks like in practice

The employees who need more income coming in are often already trying to solve it. They are picking up shifts, selling things, driving for a delivery app on weekends. What they generally lack is an efficient way to turn what they already have into income without adding a second job on top of the first one.

Most people own things that sit unused most of the year and have skills that other people in their area would pay for. Connecting those to actual demand is a logistics problem, not an education problem.

That is the gap GigMatch was built for. It is an employer-paid benefit that matches employees to short-term earning opportunities based on the things they already own, the skills they already have, and the interests they already spend time on. There is no plan amendment, no recordkeeper integration, and implementation is designed to sit lightly on an HR team that is already at capacity.

The measure that matters

Whatever you decide to do, the number to watch is not enrollment. It is repeat use. A benefit that people sign up for once and never open again did not solve their problem. A benefit people come back to on their own has told you something true about what they actually needed.

If you want to see what that looks like for your population, contact us at GigMatch and we will walk through it.

5 Questions to Ask a Financial Wellness Vendor for a Committee Agenda

jeff.thomas@30dps.com (George Fraser) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:00:47 GMT

Bringing a new vendor to a retirement plan committee carries a risk that has nothing to do with whether the product is any good. If a committee member asks a question you cannot answer, the meeting stops being about the benefit and starts being about your preparation. That is a bad trade for anyone.

The way to avoid it is to run the same five questions against every financial wellness vendor you look at, before the vendor ever appears on an agenda. These are the questions committees actually ask, in roughly the order they ask them.

1. Does this touch plan assets?

This is the first question and it settles the tone of everything that follows. A benefit that sits outside the plan is a different conversation than one that interacts with plan assets, contribution flows, or the recordkeeping relationship.

Ask the vendor directly whether the benefit requires a plan amendment, whether it moves or holds participant money, and whether it changes anything in the recordkeeper relationship. Get the answer in writing. If a vendor is vague here, that vagueness will surface again in front of the committee.

2. Who pays, and how is it priced?

There are three common models: the employer pays, the participant pays, or the vendor is paid some other way that is not immediately obvious. The third one is the one to look for.

If participants pay, understand exactly what they pay and when. If the vendor earns revenue from a source other than the sponsor or the participant, ask what that source is. A committee will find out eventually, and it is better that they find out from you.

3. What does the sponsor's team actually have to do?

Plan sponsors rarely reject a benefit because they dislike it. They reject it because the HR team is already carrying more than it can hold and the rollout looks like another project.

Get specifics: implementation timeline, what data has to be exchanged and in what format, whether integration with the recordkeeper is required, who runs enrollment communication, and what the ongoing administrative load looks like once the benefit is live. A vendor who can describe a light footprint in concrete terms is easier to bring forward than one who says implementation is "simple."

4. What are my disclosure obligations?

If you have any compensation relationship with the vendor, direct or indirect, you know where this goes. Confirm it early and document it.

Even when there is no compensation involved, it is worth stating that plainly to the committee at the same time you introduce the benefit. Volunteering the answer before anyone asks is a small thing that pays for itself.

5. What do I get back that I can show the committee next year?

A benefit that generates no reporting is a benefit you cannot defend twelve months from now. Ask what utilization data you receive, at what interval, and in what form. Ask whether it comes to you or only to the sponsor.

You want something you can put in front of the same committee at the next annual review and say, here is what happened. Without that, the benefit is a one-time recommendation rather than an ongoing part of your value to the client.

Where GigMatch lands on these

We built our advisor materials around these five questions because they are the ones we get asked. GigMatch is an employer-paid benefit that helps employees earn additional income using things they already own and skills they already have. It sits outside the plan, requires no plan amendment, and does not require recordkeeper integration.

If you want the short version you can take into a committee meeting, [link to advisor one-pager] or [book 15 minutes] and we will walk through it.

Book a 15-minute intro