A DIY website that can help you save

  7 On Your Side

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- In economic times like these, it is good to do more things yourself. Say change the oil or cut your families hair. The website www.ehow.com is helpful to some and a money maker to others.

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The website eHow.com can show you how to do just about everything. A pretty big brag, but not that far off the mark.

Log on and learn to build rabbit cages or start an Internet business from scratch.

"You can imagine, tough economic times people feel a little more empowered. They want to do things themselves, they think twice about calling that plumber who charges $85 just to ring the doorbell," said Gregory Boudewijn from eHow.com

"Have you ever logged on to find out how to do something?" asked 7 On Your Side's Michael Finney.

"Yes, I do, every day," said Boudewijn

"What?" asked Finney.

"I have fixed my garbage disposal. My wife has learned to hang a pendent lamp in our dining room. I have gotten some tax advice -- a lot of information," said Boudewijn.

Amy Kniss uses the site a lot, too.

"I am not good at following real directions, like reading a VCR manual -- that is going to be a disaster, or whatever, how to connect my DVD player to something, it is probably not going to work out. But this, this, is written in basic steps," said Kniss.

And where does this advice come from? From people just like Amy. She writes articles.

eHow pays for advice based on the subject matter and how many read the articles.

"I started writing because it was kind of fun and basically you could write about what you know about and didn't have to do too much research. And from there I figured, 'you can actually make some money doing this'," said Kniss.

And she is, although she won't tell me how much she earns. Some writers are making $10 or so a month, others are actually earning a living, thousands of dollars every month.

"They are everyday people like you and me. People who have free time and expertise and sure there are some aspiring writers who like to be on our site and getting a portfolio of their work, but then there are just average people who are sharing information they have accumulated throughout their lives," said Boudewijn.

They check for plagiarism and have editors going through the articles as well.