We could all use some extra cash, and there are lots
of ways to make it. We found the best money making ideas and smart ways to
increase your income.
At a certain point, you can’t save any more money;
there just isn’t anything left to cut. And really, saving money is not nearly
as impactful as making more. So whether you want to increase your income to pay
off debt, save for a home, take a vacation, or retire early, we have ways to do
it. What to know how to make money? Here are our favorite money making ideas.
Your Career
You are already spending a big chunk of your day at
your job so you might as well get the most out of it you can.
Fill The Voids
People get hired to do certain things, but they don’t
always do all of those things. Every job has parts that no one wants to do.
Look around your workplace and identify those jobs, even better if they are
things your boss doesn’t want to do, and start doing them.
And don’t wait to be asked to do them, just dive in
and do them. Doing the scut work is what makes you indispensable at a job.
Know Your Worth
You’ve been filling the voids, and nothing is
happening. Everyone is grateful, but no one is promoting you or giving you a
raise. It’s time to start looking for a new opportunity. In fact, you should
always be looking for a new opportunity even if you are 100% happy with your
current job.
The average raise within a company is a measly 3%. The
raise when you move to a new company is 15-20%. If you’re not sure how much you
should be making you can check out sites like PayScale to find out.
Linkedin is probably the best way to find a job or a
recruiter who gets paid to get you a job.
Negotiate
Once you find that new job, you have to negotiate. Too
many people just accept whatever is offered, afraid that if they dare to ask
for more the potential employer will just revoke the offer and hire someone
else.
But they want you. You’ve made it to the point of
being offered a salary because they want to hire you. If you’ve never been on
the other side of a job search, it sucks. It’s a pain in the ass. It doesn’t
suck as much as looking for a job, but it’s close.
That means you are not some supplicant grateful for
whatever you can get. No, you are in a strong position. The other side expects
you to negotiate, that’s how this whole thing works. They give you an offer,
you counter, and you go back and forth until both parties are happy.
Time for a Change
If you not only don’t like the job you are in but
don’t like the industry you are in either, you can do something else. You might
need to improve your skills or learn an entirely new set of skills, but you can
do it.
A listener who drove trucks for a living decided he
wanted a change. He was tired of working such long hours, being away from home
so much and just making average money. So he went to coding boot camp.
Fast forward about two years and the guy is making
four or five times what he was making driving trucks and doing something he
never dreamed of doing.
Now more than ever there are opportunities, often free
opportunities to learn new skills that can put you on the path to an entirely
new career. Americans watch five hours of television a day. If you don’t like
where you are in your career, you can use those hours to learn something that
will allow you to pivot.
Side Hustle
There are dozens of side hustles, so there is
guaranteed to be one of them that you are good at or at least could start doing
and get good enough at that people would pay you money to do it.
Writing
I never set out to become a writer, I just sort of
accidentally fell ass-backward into becoming one. Finding LMM was the best and
luckiest thing that ever happened to me. Every other writing job I got is a
direct result of LMM.
When I decided to leave New York City for New Orleans,
I needed to save money for the move. I made profiles for the freelancing sites
Upwork and Guru.
These sites have gotten me a ton of work on both sites
because I had such a vast portfolio, the dozens of articles I had written for
LMM. Other jobs have come to me because potential clients contacted Andrew and
he vouched for me.
As you heard, after five years, I was able to quit
working a 9-5 job and write full time. If you aren’t lucky enough to find your
own LMM, take Thomas’s suggestion and “create the capital of a different kind.”
Contact blogs and publications focused on the subject you want to write about
and offer to write for free.
Or make low ball bids on freelancing sites. These
things will allow you to build up a portfolio and in the case of freelancing
sites, get good feedback from your clients. This body of work, even if it
wasn’t paid or well-paid, can be the foundation you base a career on. You can
really make a lot of extra money and it can also turn into one of the best
business ideas for freelancers.
Social Media Person
Most businesses recognize the power of social media
these days, but that doesn’t mean they know how to utilize it. If you do and
can convince them that harnessing that power can make them extra money, they
will pay you money to do it.
There are plenty of these kinds of positions available
on freelancing sites, but you’re up against a lot of competition. I think you
will have better odds pitching yourself and your skills in the area of social
media to small, local businesses in your city.
Virtual Assistant
People only have so many hours in the day, and they
have to assign value to their time. Is it cheaper to pay someone else to do
things like return emails, schedule appointments, invoice customers, dispute
charges on their credit cards or to do it themselves?
If their time is valued at $100 an hour and they can
pay a virtual assistant $20 an hour to do them, then the choice is obvious. It
makes sense to outsource those tasks. You can find these kinds of jobs on
freelancing sites.
You and your employer don’t have to be in the same
place. Some VA’s never even talk to their boss on the phone; everything is done
via email or texting.
Real World Assistant
Real world assistants do all the same kind of tasks a
virtual assistant does, but you are working in the same place. You can find
these jobs in all of the traditional job finding places but if you are aware of
some entrepreneurial people in your city and you can somehow wrangle a meeting,
pitch yourself as their assistant.
This is a good strategy particularly if the person is
involved in an industry you are interested in. You can use your time as their
assistant to learn what they know and if you’re lucky, develop a mentoring
relationship with that person.
Task Rabbit
Task Rabbit is a website where people can hire taskers
to do just about anything for them. Apparently, the number one job on Task
Rabbit is putting together Ikea furniture so if you’re good at that; you could
really clean up.
People hire taskers for the same reason they hire VA’s
because their time is too valuable to be spent doing things like picking up dry
cleaning, dog walking and putting together Ikea furniture. But also because
people are lazy, really, really lazy.
Their time might not be worth jack shit, but Chipotle
doesn’t deliver the bastards. But they’re too lazy to put on pants never mind
actually go outside and walk or drive to fetch their own tasty burrito. So they
hire a tasker to bring them a burrito. And a Diet Coke.
Teach Something
There is something you’re good at that other people
would like to be good at. And they will pay you to teach them how to be good at
it too. This can be done online or in the real world. You can tutor online at
sites like Wyzant. You can teach English to Chinese kids at VIP Kid.
You can create online courses for Udemy or Skillshare.
And you don’t have to find students; those sites do that for you. You just have
to create good content.
You can tutor in an academic subject, give music
lessons, dance lessons, cooking lessons, dating lessons. There is a market out
there for all of those. You can advertise them on local Facebook groups or
Nextdoor.
Those tiger parents will pay a pretty penny to ensure
their special spawn get a place in the premiere pre-school and that requires a
very expensive tutor who is you. These jobs are especially good side hustles
because if you’re good, you can get so many word of mouth clients. Could even
turn into your full-time gig.
Sell Stuff Online
The great thing about selling things as a side hustle
is that there are so many things you can sell and so many places to sell them.
Whatever your particular interest is, there is a market for it.
Like books? Sell them on Bookscouter. Like antique
toys? Sell them on eBay. Like thrifting and clothes? Sell used clothing on
Poshmark. Laura is practically running a business doing this at Finders
Keepers.
If you have a lot of kids stuff, toys, books, clothes,
their multitude of gear? Facebook parenting groups are a good place to unload
all of that. If you’re trying to get rid of big, bulky items, use Craigslist,
so you only have local buyers willing to pick the items up.
You can start with your own stuff both as a way to
declutter your house and life and because you don’t need to invest any money.
Use your stuff as your learning curve. Figure out what sells and what doesn’t
before you spend money buying stuff to sell. You always have a garage sale too!
Community Activities
When you see kids’ little league games or adult
inter-mural games being played, there is always a ref or an umpire, and those
people are getting paid. This can be a fun way to get outside, get some
activity, and meet new people while you earn extra money part-time.
But if you want to do this, I would try to stick to
the adult inter-mural leagues and steer clear of kids’ games. Their parents are
like savages and officials have been assaulted by irate parents. Sure you might
get the occasional heckling from a softball player who had one too many before
the game started or even during the game but those parents are out for blood.
Avoid!
Make extra money with online surveys
Want to get paid for your opinion? Using Survey Junkie
you can share your opinion to help brands deliver better products and services.
After you create your profile, they will start matching you to online surveys
you can take online anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
Completed surveys earn virtual points that can be
redeemed for PayPal or gift cards. Survey Junkie is great for anyone who is
interested in earning money from their couch.
If you have some free time during your lunch break or
commercials it’s a great way to make money fast. There are a lot of survey
sites out there but we like Survey Junkie. Sign up to make some fast money
online. Most of the online surveys are pretty easy and you are not required to
sign-up for other services so no annoying spam mail.
For starters, it’s completely free, and you earn 25
free points when you create your account.
Investments
If you’ve listened to the show for any length of time,
you knew we weren’t going to let an episode about how to make more money go by
without talking about investing. Investing is the best way to grow your wealth,
and it’s not hard to get started.
Fundrise
Fundrise is crowdsourced real estate investing. You
couldn’t make these kinds of investments on your own, so you pool your money
together with other investors through Fundrise. They invests in things like
apartment complexes, hotels, and retail complexes.
Fundrise pays quarterly dividends, and they have a new
Starter Plan that only requires $500 to start investing.
Roofstock
Roofstock is how Andrew started investing in rental
properties. Because Roofstock does “turnkey” real estate investing, you don’t
have to be a hands-on landlord, so your lack of plumbing knowledge doesn’t have
to stop you from making passive income by becoming a landlord.
It also means you can own properties nowhere near your
own city which may be too expensive for you to buy in. Roofstock lets you
invest in homes in a low cost of living areas like Indiana, Ohio, and Georgia.
Lending Club
Lending Club is a peer-to-peer lending platform.
People can go there to borrow money for all sorts of things, paying off credit
card debt, paying for a wedding, or home renovations. They don’t have to go
through all the trouble and paperwork involved with getting a bank loan, and
they get a better interest rate than a bank would offer.
The lenders make loans for the same reason banks make
loans because it’s a good way to make money. Lenders make money each month on
interest and the principle of the loans they make.
Dividend Aristocrats
Not all stocks are created equal. Some stocks pay
dividends, and then there are the stocks that are considered dividend
aristocrats.
An aristocrat dividend is a company that has
continuously increased the number of dividends it pays to its shareholders. To
be categorized as such, a company must typically have increased dividends for
at least 25 years.
Coca-Cola and McDonald’s would be two examples. The
S&P 500 has a fund called The S&P 500 Aristocrat Fund that has over the
last five years had returns of 17.56%.
The Sharing Economy
People don’t necessarily want to own certain kinds of
things, cars for example. But they still need cars from time to time. And some
bright people realized that they could make money with their spare time or their
spare things by renting them to those non-buying type people. And poof, the
sharing economy was born.
You can rent out your car and driving services with
Uber and Lyft. You can rent your car to Uber or Lyft drivers who don’t have
cars of their own up to those companies’ standards with Hyrecar and make more
than $1,000 a month. For doing nothing! Be sure to check into what kind of
insurance is required to do this, or it can cost you many more times than you
could ever make.
Rent a room in your house or your entire house on
Airbnb. Depending on where you live, even doing that one weekend a month could
pay your mortgage.
Optimize Your Expenses
It’s true that making more money is more impactful
than saving money, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t save money when you can.
Earny
Have you ever bought something and then seen it
cheaper soon after? Sometimes you can get the difference back either from the
retailer or your credit card company, but most of us don’t bother. Now you
don’t have to.
That’s what Earny does for you. If you are entitled to
a refund or rebate, Earny does the legwork and gets the money for you.
Trim
Trim goes through your credit card and bank statements
looking for recurring charges, things like gym memberships and subscription
services like Audible, Pandora, or Emma and Chloe. The app will send you a
message asking if you want to cancel these services.
If you do, you haven’t been to the gym in months, you
meant to cancel Emma and Chloe after the introductory period and forgot, Trim
does it for you. I love Trim. I used it, and they saved me almost $70 a month.
Billshark
Whatever you’re paying for things like cable,
internet, and your cell phone service, you’re probably paying more than you
should be. But it’s such a hassle to comparison shop to say nothing of having
to actually call those companies up, spend a lot of time on hold and then try
to negotiate a better price.
With Truebill you don’t have to do any of that. They
handle all of it for you. I used their service, and they saved me about $60 a
year on my cable and internet bill. Not a ton of money but $60 I didn’t have
before.
Seated
I loved this app and was using it all the time, but
it’s not available in New Orleans anymore which really sucks. If someone from
Seated is reading this, PLEASE come back to New Orleans. All we do is eat and
drink down here so I don’t know why you left but I want you to come back!
All you have to do is use the app to make a
reservation at participating restaurants, complete your reservation and you
will get $10-$50 in rewards from Amazon, Lyft, or Starbucks. You lucky ducks in
the 14 cities Seated is available in should definitely use this app!