Last July, my second site, MakeMoneyYourWay, was officially launched! As I have said before, this is a site that stands firmly on the earn more side of the earn more/spend less equation. So today I want to make a case for earning more.
As for spending less, you know I hate waste. I do not waste food, energy, and obviously money, to buy things I do not need. I am too lazy to work extra just to throw that money away. That can be considered living with less.
On the other hand I never care much about the price tag for something I want. I bought the most expensive motorcycle I could find on Ebay last year and have only used it 6 months to tour Europe last summer and for about a week during my last month in France. It is now parked in Paris and gives me so much enjoyment to ride that I plan on keeping it until it falls apart, even though that luxury costs me. But back to the point.
Spending less is finite
You certainly can cut the fat in your budget. There are things you are paying for that you don’t need, those magazines that pile up without you reading them, that gym membership you haven’t used in months..Or things that you do routinely that do not bring you any enjoyment, like that 10am snack at the work cafeteria. Why do you go? You don’t really know, the food is bad anyway, and at $7 per visit, it is $200 per month disappearing from your paycheck back into your boss’ pocket. You can make a conscious choice to reduce that. You can even reduce all your spending to a survival budget, eat rice and beans every day, take cold showers and dress at thrift stores. Heck, start making your sidewalk chalk and driving across town to save $0.05 on gas while you’re at it.
There is only so much you can cut on. Say you do listen and cut that magazine subscription. What did you save? $10 per month? Good, it was $10 wasted anyway. But if you happen to enjoy your magazine, why cut it if all you have to do to afford it is work one extra hour per month?
Cutting on everything you do not need is great to get you out of debt faster, and to learn that you can’t have everything. You can make a choice, and get the shiny motorcycle, but not the shiny motorcycle AND the fancy dinners out, AND the designer clothes, AND the McMansion. Or else if you want it all, or want a little more than what you have, you need to earn more.
Earning more is infinite
I know, I am overestimating the entrepreneurial spirit of the majority, and the number of hours in a day. But let’s say your work for $10 per hour, 8 hours a day, at a job where you punch in and out. Ask to work for an extra hour every day, and that is $220 more in your pocket at the end of the month. No extra commuting, no second uniform to wash and iron, and getting home an hour later is not a huge sacrifice to increase your income by 12.5%. When I was working at McD in college, I always tried to stay a little longer, until the manager would kick me out. We were paid for any extra time, 8 minutes here and an hour thirteen there really added up, especially after a certain number of monthly hours, overtime would be paid at 125%. One hour was paid one hour fifteen, side income in addition to your day job income and I was already on site! Check out other ways to make money in college if you think you don’t have the time to squeeze a job between all the beer drinking studying that you are doing.
Don’t have money to start a company? I have listed five businesses you can start with less than $150 over at The Money Principle. And explain here how you can make money with a website. This website has been consistently making over $2,000 a month this year, six months after its launch, and that includes two months of blogging in the dark at first. It takes a couple of hours a day minimum, but now the hourly rate is getting decent.
With $2,000 extra every month, you could afford
– a $5 latte EVERY day
– a $500 weekend somewhere, EVERY month
– a $100 gym membership
– a $150 smartphone plan
– a $100 dinner EVERY week
– a $200 shopping spree, EVERY month
YES, ALL OF THE ABOVE AND still have $500 to, let’s get crazy, save money, max out your retirement account, invest and build wealth. That is without even starting to touch your usual fun/holiday/entertainment budget if you have one. I don’t have a budget because I earn enough to largely cover my expenses and keep building wealth at the same time.
Yes, it takes a little effort to earn more, and yes, your job may not let you work overtime, or it may be complicated with daycare. But sweating the small expenses when you could easily afford them with such little work is just as big a loss of time, that you could put to better use by trying to earn more.
You can visit MakeMoneyYourWay where I share even more ways you can start earning more today.
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I’m definitely in the camp of earning more. Cutting expenses is like playing defense, you’re only protecting what you have. Earning money is playing offense, to build wealth you need to score a lot.
As with anything else, I think a balance is key. People run into trouble when they only focus on one side of the equation. As you say, there’s a lot of value in not spending money on things you don’t need or don’t bring you enjoyment. But there’s also a lot of value in spending money on things you DO enjoy, and you can only do that if you’ve earned enough to afford it. Pushing yourself in both directions can give you a lot of options to spend your life how you truly want.
This is such a huge debate! I am firmly in the “earn more” camp, though I also do many things to try to save money (we coupon pretty hardcore, try to make food at home and bring our own lunch, keep entertainment costs low, etc.). With the internet there are so many ways to increase your income if you are just willing to put in the time and effort, and I especially love pursuing small businesses that have potential to be sold later on or outsourced.
Love this post. You’re killing it Pauline! 2k/month is great, i dont know what im doing wrong! Im a huge advocate of making more money to help offset or improve your financial situation.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. And I would like my place in the ‘earn more’ and increasing income is easier camp, please. Earning more, however, can be also finite: if you earn more only by selling time (just writing and article about this one :)).
Making more money is holy grail of personal finance. As you mentioned, it’s so much more effective than just cutting spending because it’s limitless. You can always earn more. However I also think that most readers don’t have the desire to do what it takes to make more money (myself included)
“A $5 latte every day.” Awesome! I always laugh when I read that people are going to solve their financial problems by cutting out the latte. Just make some cash to afford more lattes. Brilliant advice that I wholeheartedly agree with.
I’m a big fan of earning more. Don’t get me wrong, I do like to spend less – I think balancing both is important. But earning more gives me a pride that spending less fails to provide, and it’s so nice to be able to do whatever I want with money.
Earning more money is my only way out of debt and in to a future of saving but I keep finding or creating hurdles.
Money is such an psychological and emotional thing for me and I can’t seem to get out of the financial rut I am in. I know I need to make more money.
I don’t understand why anyone would feel the need to choose between earning more or spending less. Why not do both?!?!?!
We typically take a balanced approach. We try to earn as much as we can but we don’t cut our spending down to the bare bones.
I agree with Holly. I try to balance between saving and making money. Finding opportunities for both, but not being extreme.
I enjoy both of your websites Pauline and I am learning a lot from you. Thank you for your helpful posts!
thanks Amber!
Good post Pauline! I would tend to agree with Matt and say that some sort of balance is important. Meaning, not cutting everything but looking for ways to save money wisely but also adding as much as you can to that so you get to benefit on both sides. Ultimately, cutting will only take you so far and could arguably lower your enjoyment in life which is why earning more is so vital. Like Joe said though, you’ll rarely solve your problems if you just cut the latte. You need to be earning more, which would allow you to do more in the long run.
I want to make $2,000/month 🙂 Earning more has always been tough for me as my primary line of work, acting, is so inconsistent. The job I had last year at this time is going non-union so I can’t do it. This gives me more time to build traffic on the blog and work on monetizing, but it’s not enough to live on just yet.
I’m definitely all about earning more money. There is no limit! However, we have been lowering expenses as well – and we are happier than ever 🙂
I would love to make 2k on my site as that would help a lot with the income pressure I’ve been feeling. I’m hoping I’ll learn a lot at fincon about ways I can earn more. Especially with BATB since it’s really established.
I always like to work with a mix of these two: staying on a sensible budget, that will still allow us to live nicely and not harbor just frustration and also trying to supplement our earnings, since the more money we earn, the more we can save or use for our daily lives.
I am with you here! Many people focus too much on the spending less, but it only takes you so far. People forget that there are other options to make more money. There are also people that are just scared to try something else in order to make more.
While I am in the camp that believes income is typically not the “problem” with the typical Western budget, I admire and am intrigued by the opposite approach. Earning more does have a (nearly) unlimited potential, so it provides an attractive option of never having to choose between the things we want and the financial goals we ought to address.
You bring up a great point here, Pauline. I like to focus on spending less, but I should be focusing on making more. I guess the reason why I focus on spending less is because the income at my full-time job is pretty finite right now. I should spend more time and energy generating income with my “side hustles” rather than waste it on saving $100 a month.
Earning more will help you “move the needle,” but both are essential: saving is playing defense, while earning is a strong offense.
I’m am of the belief that spending less AND earning more are a killer combo. But you’re right – there’s only so much you can cut out of your budget. With earning more, the only limit is yourself.
I like to find balance as others have said. For a long time, though, I was in the spend less camp. I had kind of accepted that I would never be making tons of money with the field I chose to study. I’ve always lived very modestly, so it wasn’t a huge deal to me. Only recently (since I’ve started reading blogs) have my eyes been opened to the endless possibilities of earning more outside of your regular job. I do think prioritizing what is truly important to spend on is a great way to start cutting back and earning more for what you deem is worth working for.
What it boils down to, to me, is that in order to save money we need to make it first! Thus, while both are obviously very important and essential to financial success, the priority of effort and thought goes to making more money.
I agree with you, you need to earn more so that you can save money! Thanks for dropping by.
I’m always in the earn more camp. But this year, I’ve also joined the spend more camp as I’ve been saving too much all my life. Spent about $20,000 this summer for travel and fun and it was worth every penny. Baby steps.. first summers, then winters, then maybe all year around.
Are you actively trying to make more than $2K/month from your site? Or are you happy with the figure.
Good for you! I am slowly converting to the spend more camp as well. I am happy with the $2-3K the site brings at the moment, don’t want to start pitching products I don’t use just to boost affiliate sales and just want to keep writing and having fun. My goal is to cover my living expenses that are under $1,000 in Guatemala. But at the moment I am traveling around Europe for 10 weeks so it is more of a stretch.
I’m an efficiency fan – trying to find the fastest way to save the most money with the least amount of effort.
Unfortunately, the effort is still high and the money is still low, but I’m looking forward to the point where they can start to equalize and eventually invert!
It comes faster and faster, the early days are tough but it gets better.
I am definitely in the earn more camp and I would love to make an extra $2,000 a month on my site!
I got really lucky with this site, and makemoneyyourway is slowly taking off, it is great to make money while having fun.
I will never make enough money so there is always room for more. As much as I am cutting things to get out of debt, I know I will be able to get out of it even faster if I make more money because you can only cut so much.
I learned that it was possible to earn more money when we were seeking ways to get out of debt. It’s a hard transition now to actually want to spend some of that money for non-essential things. We were set to go camping in Utah this weekend, but it’s supposed to get really cold. We were going to cancel, but then I was like what are we doing? We’re looking forward to this trip, so lets just book a cabin with heat and a bathroom. We can afford it. I don’t ever want to go back to crazy spending, but I’m learning that it’s OK to spend a little more because we are making more, and most of it we don’t spend. I hope both your sites keep growing through the roof. You are a great example of how to do it the right way.
Hi Pauline! We have definitely cut – which was needed and feels pretty darn good, but I do agree that earning more is definitely more important. Things will continue to go up in price and not earning more will make things pretty tight. I can’t live on the austerity plan. I like to eat out and have pints on Saturday nights. Hey, come to think of it, a nice sister site would be Spend Money Your Way.
Hope you’re having a great week!
Hi Pauline,
Making more money is what it’s all about for us but it’s also a learning experience for us. I think spending less and cutting the budget was the easiest part. I like how you mention you are too lazy to want to work and throw money away. It’s funny you think like that because in most cases I’m the same way. Like you I WILL invest in quality products when need be which means you don’t always have to have the cheapest stuff. Saving to get more is not bad it’s smart. I hope now that I’ve moved my site to earn a bit more money on the side.. and who knows where it will take me. Life really is what we make of it. If we give up, there’s not much more to discuss but if we follow through then the sky truly is the limit. Have a great day mate. CBB
Hope you can finally make a little extra for all the hours you put into the blog!
LOVE this, Pauline! We’ve cut expenses drastically and are now working on earning more, and it has really brought a whole new level of peace to our plan, because we are taking the future into our own hands in a positive way, instead of just letting our crappy habits dictate. Whew!
Your goals will be reached so much faster with a little extra. And it will give you more motivation to keep going that’s for sure.
I love your list of things you can buy with an extra $2000 per month. That’s more than a lot of people make, but makes for a nice target.
I know it is a lot and I put a lot of hours to make it happen. A little extra, like $100 or $200 however is feasible for most.
I’m all for earning more but not at the expense of one’s time. My husband got a part-time freelancing job that pays him more hourly than his full-time job so he works one day shift on the weekend. It’s not ideal, but the job is easy and the money is so good that he sucks it up.
But working a part time job after work, say for $10 an hour when you have to commute a bit is not worth it in my opinion. In that case I’d just cut out the extraneous expenses.
Ha! You sound like me, staying a few minutes late every day so that it adds up. When I worked at a bank, We had to work one Saturday per month. But every week my boss would come around telling us they needed coverage at another branch for this coming Saturday. No one else would volunteer but me. It was a cake job – 9-12 – and rarely anyone came in to the branch. I ended up being put on alert since I was accumulating so many hours. I couldn’t work a Saturday for about 2 months!
This is what I’d call focusing on the big wins. There is just so much that one can slash from their budget or squeeze from their dollars and in the process live miserably in the name of saving. Money and life were meant to be somewhat enjoyed and I guess its far easier and liberating to focus on the earning side of the equation which is almost limitless!
” I am too lazy to work extra just to throw that money away.” – That’s me as well 🙂 I tend to work just enough, in my world that means guitar teaching, performing and doing sound at a local comedy club, to pay what needs to be paid with a little extra on the side for fun.
That being said, I am also looking to make some extra coin with my blogs which will allow me to be a tad more selective about how many students I teach…which for me, is a nice position to be in.
Thanks Pauline for an informative read and congrats on all your success!
Take care and all the best.
Lyle
Thank you Lyle! That is great when you are able to be selective with your kind of work or number of hours. HAVING TO teach is really bad. I taught the piano for a few years and some kids were a breeze while others… well, they had to learn because daddy said so and you can’t force someone to learn. It was hard!
I’m of the opinion that earning more is preferable to trying to cut down on spending to a certain extent. Sure cutting out obvious spending disasters is smart, but when it starts splitting hairs like buying generic pasta sauce versus ragu, the best bet is to like you said earlier, just stay an extra hour at work each day. Earn more, keep your same lifestyle, and slowly start building your wealth.
Great comparison. THINK BIG.
Reducing expenses by 10% is much easier for the majority of people than increasing their income by 10%.
However, reducing expenses by 50% is harder than increasing income by that amount.
Reducing expenses by 200%…. you get the picture!!
I couldn’t agree more, Pauline! Maximizing your income is often overlooked as people focus on living a frugal lifestyle. But you definitely need both to become wealthy!
Earning more? I’m all for it! I’m its #1 fan with 5 hustles to boot! But the important thing to remember is that earning more doesn’t solve problems. Evaluating spending habits is essential.