Part-time jobs that pay
By Melanie Chambers • Bankrate.com

After a weekend course and a whole lot of dancing in my living room, I became a fitness instructor. Now, I get paid to do something I love, and it didn't require loads of money or time to become qualified. Within a few weeks, I was sweating to the oldies with enthusiastic participants and making some extra money at the same time.

If you have a hobby, there's probably a way to turn it into a part-time job, whether on weekends or after hours on weekdays. Teaching fitness classes or personal training, becoming a continuing education teacher or designing websites for profit are all jobs in high demand at community centres, colleges and universities and that can help you make some extra money to help pay off that credit card debt or invest in your vacation fund.

To learn more about taking the lead and earning some extra cash, read on.

Continuing education teacher
Basket weaving, languages, cooking -- the possibilities are endless. If you have a skill or a passion, you can turn that into a profit by teaching at a local college, city-run program or even your local YMCA.

As an author and journalist, it only seemed natural for Mark Kearney, of London, Ont., to augment his writing career by teaching part-time. He initially approached a college to teach in its continuing education department, and when an opening came up, his experience and education made him the perfect choice. Today, he teaches courses in nonfiction and humour writing at the University of Western Ontario.

The qualifications you need to teach depend on the institution, whether it's a college, university or community centre. But typically, for a non-credit course offered by a university continuing education department, a Bachelor of Arts and experience in the field are required. In most cases, the less formal the institution, such as a community centre, the less formal education is required.

But don't expect to get rich right off the bat. To start, Kearney received about $25 an hour. Today, he earns about $45 an hour and he generally teaches two hours a week and spends another few hours marking and editing papers, the most time-consuming part of the job.

Preparing classes also takes time, and that time is unpaid. But once the class plan is done, you can use it year after year. "I've altered it over the years, but the core of what I want to teach and the order of when I want to teach has pretty much stayed the same over the year," says Kearney.

Teaching also helps him improve his own writing and he says he enjoys inspiring others to pick up a pen. Students who have never written anything before go on to sell a piece of their writing and sometimes, "people literally change their careers after taking my course -- you have a little role in pushing them to follow this dream."

Fitness instructor or personal trainer
Jane Fonda was my first aerobics instructor back when leg warmers were in style, and after years of practice, it only seemed natural for me to become a fitness instructor and teach others something I'd been doing for decades.

You need to become certified to teach a fitness class at most gyms and community centres. Can-Fit-Pro, a division of Canadian Fitness Professionals Inc., offers a well-regarded national certification program. In a $400 weekend course, which includes the written exam fee and a textbook, participants learn physical theory, how to lead a class and how to cue exercises to music. Instructors also need CPR certification, which runs about $100 the first time and then and $30 for annual recertification.

Fitness class instructors can make $12 to $20 per class, while more experienced instructors make between $30 and $60 per class. However, rates depend widely on where you teach -- a fitness instructor in Toronto will make more than an instructor in a small town church's basement.

Personal trainers usually teach one-on-one and have the potential to make more money than instructors. Rates range between $60 and $70 a session at a large gym, but gyms take a commission, as much as 40 percent, depending on your experience, so it's important to figure that out ahead of time.

Being a trainer or an instructor requires a bit of unpaid work. "It's one of those jobs where you can only make so much money doing it because you can only teach so many classes per week," says Amanda Vogel, a writer and instructor based in Vancouver. But the rewards far outweigh the downside, she says. "When I see the same participants coming to my classes every week and making improvements or telling me how much they enjoy that hour of their day, it makes the job very worthwhile."

Website developer
Unlike the past two jobs, becoming a website developer doesn't require any formal education. You generally work for yourself, and your skills and expertise depend on how much you want to learn.

Toronto writer and editor Sue Bowness began learning about building websites in 1997. "I taught myself HTML by reading books and lots of trial and error." Her first few sites took a long time to make, but today, thanks to improved software and more experience, she's able to speed up the process. She says software costs about $500 for basic packages.

Bowness charges about $500 for a basic site and more depending on how involved the site is. "Sites always take longer than you'd expect because of the back and forth with the client." And she warns that doing small projects are barely worthwhile financially. On the upside, designing sites helps keep her skills sharp, and she meets interesting people.

Most recently she made a site for a writer/photographer working on an antiwar project and another for Canadian poet Molly Peacock. "Creating a website for an individual usually represents a very big step for them and their writing or artistic life, and they are pleased to finally be online," she says.

Melanie Chambers is a freelance writer and fitness instructor in London, Ontario.