We would all love to have more money in our budget. And sure, we scrimp and we save, but the money just doesn’t seem to add up very fast. While tightening your budget is always a good thing (why waste money?), if you want to increase the extra cash you have available, the easiest way is by bringing in more income.
No, I’m not saying you should go out and find a new job that pays more. That’s never the easiest option. But there are plenty of ways to bring in some extra cash.
As an aside, be careful of the online sites promising easy money. Is there ever a truly easy way to earn money? If you’re sitting around with nothing to do, you can take surveys or play with Amazon Mechanical Turk, but you’re going to be making pennies. Yes, pennies add up, but you could clip two coupons a month and save more.
Can you make money online? Absolutely! There are some great sites out there for freelance workers. Are you a writer or an editor? Check out sites like Upwork or Freelancer. Note that they don’t pay as well as a lot of traditional freelance jobs, but it’s a place to start. A lot of the companies that post jobs there are mostly concerned with the price, so you won’t get rich, and you will need to decide if the time you put in is worth the money you get out.
A better option is to take a look around you. How can you make money locally?
Think about what skills you have to offer. Do you enjoy mowing your yard? Put out flyers offering to mow for the neighbors. Are you good with kids and enjoy teaching? Maybe you have the skills to tutor. The same goes for teaching a musical instrument.
Services like Uber and Lyft are getting a lot of attention lately. While the pay is apparently not great, if you enjoy driving, like meeting people, and have a clean car, it doesn’t hurt to try it out. Worst case, you decide it’s not for you and stop driving. (Though not while in the middle of a ride – that would just be rude.)
Consider offering up your services as a pet sitter. Especially if you have friendly pets of your own, people love being able to leave their dog with a family rather than putting it in a kennel. A friend of mine just recently shared pictures of her dog at the dog sitter’s house. The dog was playing with the other family’s dog and just having a grand time. What a great service and an easy way to bring in some extra money!
Someone in my neighborhood was recently looking for someone to watch her kids before school, in the time between when she leaves for work and the bus picks up the kids. Ideally, she wanted someone to come to her home for that hour so the kids could eat breakfast and finish getting ready. Depending on your work schedule, that might be something you could make work.
How are your eBay selling skills? Plenty of people have things they want to get rid of, but they don’t have the time or knowledge to list things on eBay. Offer your services to photograph and list the items for them – and have your fee be a flat rate or a percentage of the sale.
There are plenty of ways to pick up an extra bit of cash here and there. And even better, there are a lot of ways to take something you enjoy doing and make a bit of money doing it. Think about what you like, what you’re good at, and what you’re willing to do, and then start making flyers and watch the money add up.
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