I know times are hard here in Florida. Prices are up with everything. So it's important to save a buck here and there. However, this is NOT the way. Meet Suspect Yerrison Perez. He's the man who allegedly thought he could fuel his life of crime by siphoning off over $9,000 worth of gas. This guy did it from various Wawa gas locations in Orange County. I guess he figured he'd pump up his bank account while deflating everyone else's tires.

Now, you might be wondering how someone can steal thousands of dollars' worth of gas without setting off any alarms. Well, it turns out Perez didn't exactly have a secret invisibility cloak. Nope, instead, he relied on good old-fashioned sneakiness and a complete disregard for other people's wallets.

According to the New York Post, this Floridian fuel felon was charged with three counts of grand theft and one count of scheme to defraud, which sounds pretty fancy, but in layman's terms, it means he was allegedly swiping more Wawa fuel than you can shake a dipstick at. He even had an active warrant hanging over his head, just waiting to catch up with him.

But fear not, because the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) swooped in like caped crusaders to put an end to Perez's alleged gas-guzzling escapades. They had been investigating these mysterious fuel thefts for quite some time, and with the help of video evidence, they finally pinned the gas bandit down.

In a statement that probably left Perez red-faced, FDACS said, "Based on video evidence, business records, bank records, and other investigative techniques, Perez was positively identified..." So, Perez, it seems your days of driving off into the sunset with stolen gas are over.

Perez now finds himself behind bars in the Orange County Jail, as he contemplates life without a gas pump to call his own. And according to FDACS, he's also facing unrelated charges, so it looks like this fuel-fueled adventure is taking him down a long and winding road.

It's hard out here. A side gig is becoming essential. Rent prices were already soaring even before gas prices joined in. And inflation is what, 7%? We're not talking about going out money, we need getting by money. When your mom says you need another job, she doesn't need a different job. She means ANOTHER job. Before you get to far, let me put this in your ear when it comes to second jobs. Don't let your side hustle outshine your main hustle. If your main job is paying post of the bills, don't get fired because you're focusing too much on your side gig.

So where to start? You can get part time work at a lot of different places, but then you have another boss. And it can be a pain juggling schedules to squeeze your part time job around your full time job. And what about your family? They need time too. let's focus on side hustles where you set your own hours. There's plenty of side hustles out there, but let's focus on 12, and you can always expand with your own ideas from there. This list is not gonna make you rich, but it can definitely help you get by. Thanks to Joel Anderson at GoBankingRates for some of the info.

If you're looking to work from home for an employer, that's this article:

Let's look at The 12 Best Side Gigs To Help Pay For Gas And Rent

Instacart and Shipt bring groceries. There's Doordash, GrubHub, UberEats to bring food to people. These businesses really exploded during the pandemic and haven't really slowed down all that much. You'll need a vehicle, and some hustle, but you can knock down $22 an hour. Unfortunately, these gas prices are really working against this hustle.

Are you smart, or can at least pretend to be? Check out TutorMe or tutor.com.  If you want to get out there, you can advertise and educate locally. The best at this specialize in test prep. Depending on how good you are, you can make $18-$40 an hour and with the right setup you don't even have to leave the house. Keep the camera pointed up so they can't see your unicorn slippers.

Businesses want people to go into their stores and interact with the employees to see how things are going. Be very careful, there's a lot of scams associated with this. If your potential employer asks you for money or gift cards or anything shady like that - steer clear. There are legit companies like BestMark and Sinclair Customer Metrics.

Hey, people are always looking to flip houses, why not do it with vehicles? There's always beat up, old, and non running vehicles listed online. If you know how to fix them - you can flip them. Check the auctions too.

This can be super sketchy and sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, but it can be done. AirBNB is the best place to look into this, when I first moved to town I used a site called Roomates. If you've got the space, you can make this work. There's also a site called Swimply where you can rent out your pool.

If you're working from home now, this might be something to check into. Turo is basically the AirBNB for cars and you can make around $700 a month. If you have a unique or really nice car you can make more. Jags, Land Rovers, upper end Mercedes and BMWs (cars you can't rent from Hertz) command a high price.

Can you design and draw cool stuff? Check out Redbubble, Merch by Amazon, Bonfire, and Shopify to see how you can make money off those designs.

There's still a niche for this if you have the skill. If you can design a website on Wordpress and have something interesting to say you can do this. It will take awhile to build a following big enough to draw advertisers so you'll need to be persistent. Use social media to help you get there. Plus, once you get good at Wordpress you can charge other people to design their sites for them.

Not to your friends, and not to your family. Use the site called Prosper to loan money to strangers. Sounds crazy? Look into it!

Find something you're amazing at, and teach others. Hone your skills by building a YouTube channel and Tik Tok. When you're ready, it's time to start charging. Udemy is a place for this. Once you've uploaded the course there's nothing more for you to do - just cash the checks.

Here's one I know about. If you've go the voice, a good microphone, and a quiet place to record there's money to be made. It's a real feast or famine so be ready for the highs and lows.

There's a lot of free to enter brackets out there. If you watch a lot of college basketball maybe you've got a chance. Here's ours: