Shaggy Eells and his partner put up holiday lights on 43 properties last season and walked away with $52,500 in revenue. The work is ladders and extension cords. The business is a customer list that renews itself every December.

People will pay to walk through a field of sunflowers they'd never plant themselves. One Indiana flower farmer made about $4,000 from five weeks of u-pick, then more than twice that from a single festival day. This one is for planning next summer.

HOAs, school PTAs and parents planning birthdays all want a giant movie screen on the lawn, and none of them want to own one. A Dallas dad started with a $300 screen he got as a gift. His first booking paid for it.