30 Everyday Hobbies That Make Money

Earning money doesn’t have to mean doing work you don’t want to do. In fact, the ideal way to make money is by doing something you actually enjoy doing.

However, a lot of people miss out on the chance to make a living doing something they love just because it never occurs to them that they could make money from a hobby of theirs.

So, in this article, we have enumerated thirty everyday hobbies that you can earn money with, exploring creative ways to make money from your passion

Hobbies for fun vs. hobbies to make money

It is not uncommon for people to suddenly realize one day that the hobby they have been indulging in for years is immensely monetizable. And though hobbies that you have primarily practice for the enjoyment they provide in your leisure and those that you pick mainly for their monetary potential, these two don’t have to always be separate.

Also, there are many hobbies people pick with the primary motivation of making money such as digital assets and crypto trading, intra-day stock trading, professional gambling, betting, flipping goods, and so on.

It is particularly popular among people with artistic or athletic hobbies to earn money from their pastime, exploring creative ways to make money from what they love. And, you can find all kinds of mainstream artists and athletes who have clear entrepreneurial inclinations such as David Bowie, Jay-Z, Conor McGregor, and Shaq. However, before you go ahead and decide to go with a hobby of yours while figuring out the right career path for yourself, remember that sometimes it is precisely the relaxed, leisurely nature of the hobby that makes it so enjoyable and the activity becomes less enjoyable when done as work.

This is not to deter you from trying to make money from your hobby, it is just to set your expectations right for how it is to make money from a hobby. If you are really determined to monetize a pastime of yours, you should be prepared to have the fun marred to some extent.

How to Create A Business From a Hobby

You need to identify the value your hobby can add to the lives of others. It could be anything from entertainment to convenience to luxury. For example, you could offer people lawn maintenance services, seeds and produce to others if gardening is a major pastime of yours. Or if you play music in your free time, you can teach music lessons or play at parties or weddings or come up with other creative ways to make money.

Here are a few quick and general tips to generate business from your pastime.

1. Research other people on the internet who have the same hobby as you and pay attention to their monetization methods.
2. At the start, try to leverage your immediate network for building your business, such as your friends, family, and colleagues rather than generating organic leads.
3. Make full use of the potency of social media to market and promote your business.
4. Understand that transitioning from a hobby to a business takes time. Be prepared for challenges and slow periods, but stay committed to your long-term goals.
5. While the business aspects are essential, don't lose sight of your initial passion for your hobby. Continue enjoying what you do; it's what makes your business unique.

Also, read How to Become Your Own Boss for a well-detailed explanation of the general essential steps of starting your own business.

Top 30 Financially Viable Hobbies

1. Video Gaming

Getting paid to play video games is nothing less than a dream come true. And if you are an avid video gamer, the most convenient way to make money from this hobby is to live stream your playtime.

Twitch is a popular live video streaming platform, mostly known for video game live streams. You can go live on Twitch when it is your gaming time and get much more than endorphins from your hobby.

You can also record your live sessions on Twitch and use the recordings for your YouTube videos and shorts.

Using a YouTube channel to get more viewers for your Twitch channel is a great strategy because you use the same content for both platforms, meaning effort efficiency. And, you stand to gain from your following on either platform blowing up.

If you have an entertaining personality, reviews, walkthroughs (tutorials), and commentary videos can be quite successful on YouTube. But generally, you need to have an interest in the game beyond playing it for this to work. Because you would also need to research and stay informed about the new trends around the game to make content that is both informative and entertaining.

And if you are really good, you can also participate in gaming tournaments online that offer monetary prizes. Networking with other gamers might be a good idea as it will help you stay updated about competing opportunities.

2. Bike Riding

Cycling is a great hobby, with all kinds of benefits for your physical, mental, and financial health. And the environment loves it too.

Unlike going for a drive, going for a ride on your bike causes no air or noise pollution. You get a nice cardio workout, and the rhythmic pedaling as the air caresses your face can be much more relaxing than a car ride. Not to mention the money saved on gas.

But did you know you can also make up to $20-$25 an hour riding around town on your bike? How…? By working as an independent food delivery driver for companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash and Grubhub.

If you are living in America, DoorDash is probably your best option. It is the largest food delivery company in the country and has really minimalistic eligibility requirements for delivery drivers. Besides having a bike and smartphone, you just need to be at least 18 years old and pass a basic background check.

The work is completely independent and flexible. The delivery orders available for you at a particular time are displayed on your Dasher app and it is entirely up to you whether you accept or decline an order.

If you love cycling in your free time and are looking to make some extra money, it is an option you must consider.

3. Performing Arts

If you like to play an instrument, sing, or dance for fun, you can make money by entertaining an audience on different social media platforms.

And if you are really good at it and can impress your audience with your skill, who knows, you may even be able to attract pupils.

Today, it is very common for performing artists to start a YouTube channel and showcase their talent there. And as their digital network grows, it opens up doors to various monetization methods like paid subscriptions, donations, and ad revenue.

You don’t even need a YouTube channel to get started. You can even start with your existing social media handles on Instagram or Facebook and make entertaining reels and other short videos to gain more followers.

Read these articles to know more about making money on Instagram and Facebook.

4. Fitness

Fitness is a trend that is clearly here to stay. And if you have been working out for some time, chances are, you have acquired a decent knowledge about different kinds of exercises and fitness in general.

Working out is not only a healthy hobby but if you are knowledgeable about it, you can earn good money from it as a personal trainer. There are new gyms popping up everywhere and since many trainers work on a part-time or seasonal basis, there is always a good demand for them in the industry.

Besides a passion for working out, you need to have good interpersonal skills and pass certification tests like NSCA or ACE to be a trainer. You might also have to meet some other eligibility requirements based on the laws of your area.

However, you don’t have to pursue professional courses right away. You can start with taking clients unofficially. You can begin with training friends and family to get a feel of it before taking on a professional course in the field.

You also don’t need a professional certification to make tutorial videos on social media where you share your expertise and personal experience of working out with others. So, if you can really talk and make engaging videos while educating people on health and fitness, you could do very well as an online trainer.

Even if you don’t have an instructional bent, but love to work out, you can simply post your workout videos on your Instagram and Facebook and make money as your viewership grows.

5. Posting on Social Media

You are not alone if you enjoy looking for content and pages that align with your interests and curating your social media feeds to reflect these interests. And, if you find yourself to be an avid poster on social media, who knows, maybe it is your hobby.

Of course, there are many ways to monetize your social media following, but most of them need you to meet some sort of criteria or other like having a niche following or having a particular number of followers.

And the methods that don’t have such requirements, usually take putting in a whole bunch of extra effort to make money. However, a recruitment marketing program where you simply use your social media accounts as a platform to give job vacancies a greater reach can be a great, low-responsibility way to monetize your hobby of posting on social media.

With Synkdup’s Headhunter program, all you need to do to make money from your social media network is to give visibility to job openings on your social media accounts.

As a headhunter, you are provided web links to job vacancies across the U.S. You put up these links on your social media in different places like descriptions and captions, and make up to $25 for every candidate who applies through a link shared by you.

6. Gardening

Gardening is not only at the top of the list of easy hobbies to pick up, it is pretty monetizable too.

As people become more environmentally conscious, there is a significant increase in the demand for houseplants of all kinds from exotic cacti to medicinal herbs. And if you have got a green thumb, you can turn your hobby into a stream of income with only very basic marketing on social media.

You can sell your self-grown flowers and other plants or offer landscaping services. And if you grow fresh fruits and vegetables, you can sell them to a local vendor for good prices as there is a good demand for organic and home-grown produce today.

You can start a landscaping service at a fairly small scale by offering to fix up your neighbors’ or friends’ kitchen gardens or backyards. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either, you can start by offering simple mowing and trimming services.

As with many other hobbies discussed here, you can use your own existing social media handles to market your services without creating a separate business page.

Alternatively, you can post high-quality and attractive pictures of your own gardening on social media and promote gardening products for a commission on sales. You can join an affiliate program and promote anything from lawnmowers, pruning scissors, edgers, and rubber gloves to vibrant and attractive flower pots.

7. Drawing/Painting/Sketching

If you are good with a paintbrush or pencil, you can use your art to earn money in several ways. The most convenient way to monetize your artwork these days, of course, would be to upload pictures of it on your social media and garner a big following. Drawing is undoubtedly one of the most creative ways to make money out there. 

You can also sell your artwork online through websites like FineArtAmerica, Saatchi Art, and TurningArt. Or, you can take the traditional approach and sell your art at local markets, craft fairs, and art galleries.

You can also offer students art classes and technique tutorials online or offline. You can post pictures of your artwork on your social media and use them to market your teaching classes.

You can also take part in art competitions that have a monetary prize; it would be a great help to build your portfolio for teaching art classes.

8. Traveling

If you love to travel and explore new places, money is probably the biggest thing standing in your way to do more of what you love. The good thing though, is that you can make money by creating content based on your adventures to finance your traveling.

You can document your journey to places you visit in a vlog or travel log, and if you are able to bring in a sizable audience to the platform you post your journey on, traveling can be a very profitable hobby. It is supposed to be more about the journey than the destination anyway, right?

Travel is one of the most popular niches on YouTube and if you can entertain people with your stories, a travel vlog can be a great way to make money doing something you love.

And if making videos is not really your thing, but you can take good photos, consider becoming a travel photographer. You can sell your photos on stock photo agencies and magazines or businesses in the hospitality industry.

If you like hiking or traveling to areas where people could use a guide to navigate, you can also make money as a travel guide. You just post your adventure photos and videos on your social media handles and promote your travel guide services through them.

9. Writing

Writing is one of the most financially viable hobbies out there. You can make good money by turning your passion for writing into a stream of income as a blogger, email marketer, copywriter, content writer, scriptwriter, etc.

Even the arrival of Chat GPT has only proved to be a useful tool for writers to enhance their writing and explore new ways to monetize their writing skills.

Not only can you make some extra money from your hobby of writing, but you can also very easily turn it into a full-fledged conventional career. But if you want to keep it to a hobby, freelancing and blogging are probably the best ways for you to make money from your writing hobby.

You can find countless writing projects on freelancing websites like Urban Writers, Fiverr, and Upwork. In addition to making money, you can also use your freelancing writing projects as work samples if you find yourself applying for writing jobs later.

If you want to make money blogging, it really helps to have a well-defined niche. Popular niches include travel, lifestyle and home decor, fashion and fitness, health and fitness, and personal finance.

10. Pets

You can also make your love for pets into a hobby that makes money. Based on your skills and preferences, you can offer a variety of services like pet sitting (watching after a pet when the owner is away), walking people’s dogs for them, or grooming pets.

Pet grooming is a very well-paying service and you have to be quite good at it to get work. It may include different things like bathing, nail clipping and trimming, and brushing the pet’s fur.

You would typically go to the pet owner’s residence for grooming sessions after booking appointments online. If you have a knack for taking photos, you can also add the service of pet photography to your offering.

Granted, it is not the most creative way to make money, but it is easy money for sure!

11. Photography

Owing to smartphones, photography is a very popular hobby today. And if you are good at taking photos, you can use your photos to earn money in several different ways.

You can enter photography competitions, sell your photos online, promote affiliate products related to photography on your social media, teach photography classes, or freelance as a photographer.

Posting your photos on Instagram should be a good place to start for most of these methods. Once you have built an audience there, you can start offering photography services for events like birthday parties, corporate events, and even weddings.

This can build your portfolio and help you get more work and even start photography classes of your own online or offline.

But that could take some time. Meanwhile, you can try selling your photos online on websites like Shutterstock, iStock, or Getty Images.

12. Cooking

Cooking is a pastime that not only gives vent to your creative side but also allows you to express your love to your dear ones. Not to mention satiating your cravings for delicious food. And if you are good at it, cooking can be a great source of income. There are various ways to make money from your hobby of cooking, the most obvious being working part-time at a restaurant or something. But that way, it becomes more of a job than a leisurely hobby.

Other ways to make money by cooking include creating an Instagram page dedicated to recipes, a YouTube channel where you share cooking tutorials, and starting a food blog where you share original recipes. All these methods allow you to monetize your passion for cooking without turning it into a job.

It is a good idea to define a niche and pick a specific area in cooking that is your specialty like baking, meal prep, healthy foods, specialty cuisines, etc. You should also try creating a unique culinary style and offering a twist that sets your dishes apart from others.

13. Having Conversations with Friends

Do you and your friends spend countless hours chitchatting with each other? Do you think these conversations could engage an audience? If yes, you might want to give starting a podcast with your friends a shot. Podcast clips are immensely popular on YouTube today, and starting a podcast is a great way to capitalize on the potential of YouTube.

The great thing about podcasts when compared to other kinds of online content is that you don’t have to have a niche or a specific category of topics that you talk about to build an audience. You can have a casual and aimless conversation without any other agenda other than self-entertainment. If you are having fun, chances are, viewers will find the conversation engaging too.

You don’t need fancy cameras, simple cameras on your and your friend’s phones will do just fine. However, since podcasts are fundamentally an audio format, you will need to invest in a couple of microphones. The sound quality is something you cannot compromise on when it comes to podcasts. Once your channel amasses a considerable viewership, you can monetize it in a variety of ways, including affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and ads.

14. Fishing

Catching fish for sport is a great recreational activity if you have extended hours of leisure on your hands. Just imagine yourself lounging on the bank of a lake or river, holding a fishing rod in your hand, on a summer afternoon. And selling your catch is not the only way to monetize this hobby, though it is a great idea.

You can turn this laid-back hobby into a revenue stream in a lot of different ways, depending on your resources and interests. You could, for instance, take photos of your fishing moments and create an Instagram page about fishing.

You can also design and create fishing-related products like fishing lures, fishing apparel, or even personalized fishing gear and sell them to fishing enthusiasts. Or you could organize fishing workshops or camps for children during school breaks or weekends. You could also create an online community or forum for fishing connoisseurs to share tips, stories, and experiences and monetize your platform through memberships or sponsorships. The possibilities are truly endless.

15. Make-Up

Are you someone who is always watching make-up tutorials online? Do you leap up at every chance to do someone’s makeup; Are your friends always asking you to do their makeup for them? If yes, you’d be delighted to know that doing makeup is a really monetizable hobby.

If you want to make money from home, you can make tutorials on different make-up techniques like contouring, highlighting, eyeshadow blending, and eyeliner application. You can upload these tutorials on your social media to amass a sizeable following. Once you have built yourself a decent following, you can start offering services like creating special occasion looks for events such as parties, weddings, or photoshoots. You can even partner with beauty brands to review and promote their products and earn commissions on sales. Another great idea would be to partner with photographers to offer makeup services for photoshoots where you help their clients achieve the desired look for professional images.

16. Interior Decor

It may not be as widely known as many other hobbies, but, decorating your home or room is a very common hobby. If you often find yourself rearranging furniture and other stuff in your place to make it more aesthetically pleasing, maybe home decor is your hobby.

Interior decor involves various activities like furniture selection, deciding color schemes, layout and space optimization, and more. Interior decorators may work on homes, offices, restaurants, or any other indoor space.

To build your portfolio, you can reach out to your friends and family and see if someone would like to have their home decorated. Then, you can post pictures of your decoration projects, including before and after posts, on your social media accounts to promote your work.

Once you have built an audience, you can start offering different kinds of services, such as party decor services for birthdays, weddings, and other special occasions. You could also provide virtual interior design consultations and services to clients who may be located outside your local area.

17. Beekeeping

Beekeeping or apiculture is a very easily monetizable hobby in addition to being a captivating hobby for nature lovers. You can harvest and enjoy the products your bees produce or put them up for sale as per your preferences.

You can package the honey your bees produce at farmer’s markets, through online platforms, or at local stores. You can also sell bee-keeping equipment and supplies to other aspiring beekeepers.

Some beekeepers also make money by offering pollination services to local farmers and gardeners, while others offer bee hive removal services to homes and businesses.

To really make a business out of it, you can develop and market value-added products like beeswax candles, beeswax wraps, honey-based skin care products, and so on.

18. Making Handcrafted Products

In our hyper-industrialized world, artisan products hold special value for the human touch they offer. Handcrafted articles make great home decor products, personalized accessories, and presents and are really popular among millennials and Gen Z. Owning them makes you look more hip.

If you are into knitting, embroidery, wood carving, paper mache, making jewelry, homemade candles, or any other handicraft, you can easily monetize your hobby through platforms like Etsy.

Etsy is a very popular online marketplace known for its handmade and unique products. It allows you to reach a wide audience and sell your handicrafts from the comfort of your home.

Make sure to post quality photos of your products that are high-resolution and well-lit. Also, write detailed and informative product descriptions and use relevant keywords to improve the visibility of your products in Etsy’s search results. You can also offer to customize your products for customers.

19. Polyglotism

Do you have a passion for languages and like to learn new languages in your spare time? If yes, you can use this hobby of yours to make money in many different ways.

If you have a teaching bent, you can give language lessons online or offline. Even if you are not highly proficient in a language, you can still take basic-level classes for beginners. If you live in an area with considerable tourist activity, you can work as a multilingual tour guide.

If you are very proficient in two languages, you can work as an interpreter or do translation or transcription work. You can also create language-learning resources, such as online courses, and put them on platforms like Coursera and Skillshare.

20. Fashion and Sewing

If you have a good style sense and like to sew, you can use your fashion acumen to make money by starting a little boutique. You can create and sell custom clothing and accessories or offer tailoring and alteration services. On platforms like Shopify, Etsy, and WooCommerce, you can very easily set up an online store for your unique garments and accessories.

Instagram is highly conducive to fashion content, and you can very effectively promote your services on the platform for free. Your service catalog could include an array of services requiring varied levels of specialization. You can offer anything from basic hemming, resizing, and repairing clothing to more advanced services like making bespoke garments for special occasions like weddings, proms, and other occasions.

A particularly innovative idea would be to repurpose and upcycle clothing. You could transform vintage or thrifted clothing into unique and trendy pieces and sell them online or at local physical markets.

Another great way to make money by sewing is to work as a freelance costume designer for theaters, film productions, or events. And if you are into teaching, you can teach sewing classes online or offline.

21. Drawing

Drawing is a very common hobby, and if you can draw well, there are many different ways you can make money from this hobby. If you are really good, you can make custom artwork for clients. This can include making family portraits, pet portraits, or portraits of individuals.

If you have the resources, you can create high-quality prints of your artwork and sell them online through platforms like Etsy and Redbubble. You can turn your work into merchandise like posters, phone cases, stickers, and t-shirts. You can also license your artwork and sell it on platforms like Shutterstock and Adobe. These websites allow artists to conveniently showcase and sell their illustrations to a global audience.

Many artists also take on commission-based art projects, such as making book covers, album artwork, illustrations for blogs, and character designs for gamers/writers. If you know and understand the intricacies of drawing in-depth, you can also create and sell art courses on platforms like Udemy and Teachable.

If you have garnered a sizeable and loyal following online, you could supplement your income by creating a Patreon or subscription-based service. You can offer supporters access to exclusive content, such as behind-the-scenes looks at your creative process, tutorials, or early access to your artwork.

22. Flipping Goods

If shopping is your favorite pastime, you can turn it into a money-making venture through flipping. Flipping is when you buy something, and then sell it at a higher price than what you paid for it, often after making improvements or repairs to it.

Most people who flip goods buy used or damaged electronics, furniture, and appliances and refurbish or repair them to a sellable condition.

You can find underpriced items at clearance sales, thrift stores, garage sales, and online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist. Once you have acquired the goods you want to sell, you can sell them through a variety of channels. You could put them up for sale on the above mentioned online marketplaces, or you could set up a booth at flea markets or swap meets.

If you decide to sell online, make sure to create professional listings, optimize product descriptions, and leverage social media advertising to reach a broader audience.

You could also purchase handmade or artisanal products from local craft fairs or directly from artisans and resell them in larger markets or online.

23. Comedy

If you have a funny bone, maybe you should consider doing comedy to make some extra money. There are various ways to do this, including stand-up comedy, comedy writing, improv, and posting comic content online.

To get started, you can visit open mic joints in your city and perform in front of small crowds to test and refine your material. Open mics are great for upcoming comedians who are still trying to find their voice and can also be very useful for getting over stage fright.

If there aren’t any comedy clubs near where you live, you can always start by making comic videos and posting them on YouTube, Instagram, and other popular social media platforms.

24. Correcting Grammar

Do you find yourself compulsively correcting your friends’ grammar? If you do, you can monetize your obsession with grammar by getting work as a proofreader or editor. On online freelancing platforms, you can find many work opportunities for proofreaders and editors.

Many grammar buffs also make money by hosting online grammar workshops and webinars where they teach grammar rules, writing techniques, and editing skills to individuals or groups.

You could also start a grammar-focused blog or YouTube channel and monetize it through affiliate marketing, ads, and premium content for subscribers. Or you could make a LinkedIn profile and offer consulting services to businesses, bloggers, or authors looking to improve their grammar and writing skills. You can make good money by providing personalized feedback and guidance.

25. Calligraphy

You might think that writing in artistic handwriting is outdated, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are many sectors where typing has not quite replaced longhand writing yet, especially calligraphy. These include wedding and event planning, fine art and galleries, typography and graphic design, book design and publishing, etc.

There are various ways you can make money off your hobby of calligraphy. Calligraphers are frequently hired to create elegant wedding invitations, place cards, seating charts, and event signage. Companies that produce stationery, greeting cards, and invitations may hire calligraphers to design and produce handwritten or calligraphy-style text for their products. Calligraphers can also create calligraphic artwork for exhibitions, galleries, and private collectors. Further, High-end restaurants and cafes often use calligraphy for their menus, signage, and special promotions.

To get started, you can make an Instagram page featuring your calligraphy work. The page would serve as your portfolio to attract clients and you can dm prospects with your pitch for collaboration.

26. Reading Books

Are you an avid reader? If you are, you’ve probably got opinions on the books you read – and you could use these opinions to write book reviews.

If you have a collection of book reviews, consider self-publishing them as an e-book or print-on-demand book. You can sell your compilation on platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

You should also consider submitting reviews to literary magazines and journals as some literary magazines and journals pay for book reviews. Research publications that accept book review submissions and follow their submission guidelines.

If you are really good, you could also offer editorial services, such as proofreading, editing, or manuscript critique, to authors and publishers. You could also participate in online book clubs and communities where authors pay for book reviews.

27. Watching Entertaining Videos

If you find yourself spending hours watching videos and shorts on YouTube, maybe it is a hobby of yours. Though you can’t make a significant amount of money with this hobby, you can surely use it to get some extra cash. There are certain survey websites that offer paid video-watching opportunities as part of their surveys. The most well-known among them are Swagbucks and InboxDollars.

CashPirate is another mobile app that helps you make money by providing feedback on videos. If you are fairly articulate, it is one of the most fun ways to make money while having fun.

28. Painting Houses

For those of you who love painting the walls of your house, you could turn it into a stream of income. There are a lot of individuals and organizations looking for renovation services like paint jobs, wallpaper work, and decoration.

It is an awesome way to make money while indulging your creativity. You can offer interior and exterior painting services, furniture, refurnishing, custom mural painting, and painting workshops to clients.

To get started, you should post high-quality pictures of your work around your home on a business account on Instagram. Also, make sure to use engaging descriptions and post with consistency to capitalize on the algorithm. You could also document your home painting and improvement projects on a YouTube channel and monetize your content through various means.

29. Investing

Though investing is primarily a means to make money, many investors like to do it as a hobby for fun. The most popular vehicles for investing include the stock market, cryptocurrency, and real estate flipping. REITs are innovative vehicles that combine the profitability of real estate with the security of mutual funds. If you like being updated about the real estate market, trends, and economic indicators and are fairly good with numbers, you should consider learning more about REIT’s with articles like Is Real Estate Investment Trusts a Good Career Path.

Many successful day traders on the share market also offer consultation services, where they provide trading advice and tips to other investors. And while cryptocurrency is a really lucrative option, it is highly volatile and dynamic, which makes it quite risky.

Other less-popular yet profitable ways to make money by investing include peer-to-peer lending, angel investing, venture capital, and purchasing and holding precious metals to sell them later when the prices rise.

30. Car Cleaning and Restoring

Do you love taking extensive care of your car or bike, do you always look forward to car care time? Do you geek out over automobile equipment and products? If yes, you might as well have fun with others’ cars – and be paid for it.

Car detailing is an in-demand and profitable service that includes the maintenance of the interior, exterior, wheels, engine compartment, etc. of big and small cars and sometimes motorcycles as well.

You can provide car polishing and cleaning services to others to get started and after some time start pitching your other more sophisticated services like oiling and interior cleaning to your clients.

With time it could evolve into a full-blown business where you only manage workers who work for your car cleaning and restoring clients.

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