This post is part of a 13 money resolutions for 2013 series. You can check the first post for an updated list of the following ones.
courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
If you are really serious about crushing your debt, you need more money. You can only save so much by cutting on your spending and negotiating your bills.
When I look at my situation, I have eliminated a lot of waste and non essential items in my life, I rarely eat out or go shopping, so in order to find $3000 to throw at my debt every month, I am left with only one option, make more money. There are tons of ways to make extra money, and you don’t necessarily need to spend money to earn money.
Rent a room in your house
You already have a spare room and can welcome tourists for a few days thanks to sites like Airbnb, or simply take in a full time tenants. It has its drawbacks, you will need to sacrifice your privacy, but can make a lot of money without any upfront costs.
Sell stuff online
Part #4 of this series was about limiting the waste of buying more things, but you may still have some clutter at home, that you can get rid of for cash. Take a little time to write the perfect ad, with tons of information about your item and good pictures, and you should sell everything at a good price. Ebay is the go to site for general items, although you may get a better price on specific sites, for example selling CDs, games and DVDs on www.musicmagpie.com.
Take a night shift as a waiter or a barista
Taking a second job just to repay your money mistakes doesn’t sound very appealing but it can really boost your repayments and a social job at a bar or a coffee shop can even be fun. And you get tips.
Babysit some kids
Ideal for students or bloggers, since you can study or run your online endeavors while the kids are asleep.
Find a writing gig for a popular blog
You can find such jobs on job boards like the one on Problogger, on Elance or just by asking your favorite blog if they are looking for staff writers. I used to double my day job’s salary by writing for a few travel blogs. Now I have cut back but it is still a nice part of my income.
Sell your crafts on Etsy
If you make jewelery, clothes, fun gadgets… consider opening an online shop to sell your craft.
Other odd jobs that I have had which didn’t interfere with my study or work hours included
Call center employee
Tutoring
Teaching French and Spanish
Translating websites
Translating business documents
Waitress at weddings and events
Lunch supervisor at the school’s cafeteria
Supervisor at school field trips
Substitute teacher for primary school
Hostess at Disneyland
Sports shop employee on weekends
Database entry
Hotel clerk
Night inventories in supermarkets
Testing cosmetics
Most of them were paying close to minimum wage, but offered very flexible hours. I could do the database entry when I wanted, the supermarkets’ inventories were from 10pm to 6am once a quarter, and I could say no to field trips when busy. A little bit here, a little bit there allowed me to graduate college with savings.
There are only so many areas where you can save money, whereas the possibilities to earn extra income are endless, and if you put that extra money towards your 2013 goals, you will reach them in no time.
This year, I plan to make extra money with
Selling plots on my 90 acres land
Starting a B&B at home
Writing gigs
Rental income
With the ambitious goal of finding $3000 a month to put towards debt.
You can start small, it doesn’t take much and you can’t lose by trying to make extra money. $3000 at 18% is costing you $540 per year in interest, so on top of your earnings you will avoid spending that interest money.
Do you have an extra income target this year? How do you plan on earning it? On a related topic, Miel&James share 9 top ways to make extra money on DINKs Finance
Yes! Let’s all make more money together 🙂 Every time I read your stuff, I think you are a brave soul Pauline! Thanks for inspiring me to look for new ways to make money and to live an adventurous life.
Thank you Greg for your kind words!
I agree. You are very creative. I have no doubt you will increase your income this year .You have definitely given me some ideas to think about when it comes to bringing in more money in my life.
Thank you Miss T, good luck with bringing in more as well!
We have 3 spare rooms in our house (soon to be 2) and I have thought about renting them out, but I just don’t like the idea of living with strangers. I know it would be an easy way to make money, but what if they are weird crazy stalker rapists? How would you know and now they are in your house!
Never had that kind of crazy. My friends in NZ rent their rooms to students coming for 2 to 6 weeks to learn English. They have to cook breakfast and dinner for them, and the money is pretty good. If you don’t like the person, you can ask the agency to find another placement, or just think that you only have two weeks to bear them!
Good post Pauline! Cutting corners and being frugal is helpful, but will only take you so far. If you add that to extra income then it can be pretty powerful. It’s amazing the number of ways you can make extra money, especially now in the age of the internet. By the way, working at Disney…that must’ve been fun. 🙂
It was fun for a while, but behind the scenes the magic disappears! I could get my friends and family in for free though, so big savings.
I really like the idea of renting a room in your house, but that option would look different for every person. We rented our room to out brother in law for a few months, but I’m not sure I could do it for a stranger.
Creating a blog has been the best extra income I’ve made in awhile. It’s taken a lot of work but it’s seemed to pay off.
Having lived with roommates for years, I don’t mind sharing a common space. Being married and in your family house is different, the ideal is to have a basement with independent entry, or a loft.
Hi Pauline,
Have you thought about dividend income stocks to help supplement your income? I started investing in them years ago, but now they provide me with almost $25k/yr in income. They take time to generate a passive income stream, but if you give it some time, the growth with the dividends helps make a big impact!.
By the way, I have also decided to take the Yakezie challenge! I will be submitting my challenge post on my blog today, so will be looking out for you on the forums! Best with your quest.
Good luck with the challenge! I have only invested in index so far because I am too lazy and uneducated about the matter to risk my money, and don’t trust fund managers since many don’t beat the index. At the moment, I have three investments bringing in a steady 25% and more per year, and I doubt stocks would do that in this economy. Although diversification would be good.
OK, now I am going to say it (and please people don’t be alarmed we have not completely lost the plot) – this year we will make (none of this ‘may be’ and ‘would like to’ stuff) $70,000 in side hustle. And we have a plan :).
Yeaaaaaah!! That’s huge! HUGE! with caps! Will you share your plan on your blog? I certainly hope so, looking forward to following your progress!
We’ll share the outline of the plan and will update. Main stands of the plan are simple: sell labour, move into selling reputation and invest. A strategy that can’t fail :).
It most certainly can’t!
Thank you for the mention, Pauline, you are too sweet. I still need to come up with a new financial goal for 2013 and will be referring to your listed sources of income for inspiration. Also the bed and breakfast project sounds absolutely lovely. Would you be maintaining most of the duties? I’d really like to open a pawn shop!
A pawn shop uh? I would be too scared of customers waiting for me in a dark alley with a gun to get their stuff back! My B&B would have two rooms at the moment, when our third room is ready and we move there. The handyman can clean the room, I can make breakfast and wash the bed sheets. I don’t expect much more than a couple of bookings per month but if things really pick up, a maid charges about $100 per month to come for 4 hours every morning.
Great tips! we have a renter moving in a couple weeks from now. We are using her first few months rent to fund some upgrades/renovations to the apartment area. I think it’s a great investment that will bring in some more cash. We also have a large and growing pile of stuff that we will sell on ebay when we have time (or at a garage sale in the spring).
Cool! Rental money is among my favorite, such little work for quite a good amount.
Thanks for the mention.
Once my brother got to middle school, my mom stopped doing day care and became a lunch lady instead.
My mum taught at my school I hated that! Now as a maybe future parent I understand how convenient and cool it is to earn money with the same hours and location as your kid, but seeing my mum all day at school was really annoying, especially as a teen 🙂
Great post! I’m always looking for extra ways to make money on the side, and I’ve been able to pay off lots of debt, take great vacations, buy my condo, and beef up retirement savings by doing so!
I also briefly worked at WDW–I agree with the “magic” being lost! 🙂
Goals gets so much easier with a little extra money kicking in!
We plan on selling some more stuff on both Craigslist and Ebay to bring in some extra money. I hate clutter so that’s a big part of it too!
win win !
Another great post Pauline. Sometimes you have to make more money because we can only be so frugal and save. You always have great ideas on how to make extra cash.
Thank you Grayson! It is easy to make extra cash, opportunities are everywhere if you open your eyes.
I need to get motivated to put that huge pile of ‘stuff’ I’ve collected up for sale online.
It is time consuming to put the ads up. Sometimes I make packs of things that go together and sell them a big cheaper but save some time.
I hear ya, and I’m thinking the same thing… I need more income in order to accomplish my goals – you can only cut so much. This year I hope to make something on my blog (even if very little) and also open another web business that I am currently building out.
Good luck with your goals Jason!
Pauline,
What an incredible post..I love it! Crazy enough, I have not thought about making any money writing; probably because it is going to take me some time to see myself as a “writer”, instead of all the other things I am. That said, I am definitely checking out Problogger and others.
I am letting the cat out of the bag a tiny bit here, but my goal this year is to take a pay cut in order to raise my income later. Long story…Ill explain on the blog soon!
Great post!
thank you Tony, looking forward to following your progress!
Great list Pauline! I am always working on ways to make more money. One of the things I want to look into after reading so many PF blogs is dividend income.
Thank you Sicorra. Dividend income sounds interesting, I’ll try to read more about it as well, I have to say I know very little.
I love that you were the lunch lady! Did you have to wear a hair net? I worked at a convenience store. I made pizza and fried chicken and had to wear the dreaded hair net.
I hope to bring in some blog income. It’s starting to trickle in. I’d like to look into Problogger as well. Our rental kicks in about $300/month if we don’t have any repairs, and if I can get my dang business sold, it should be a good year.
I had a hairnet at McD but not at the cafeteria. I was supervising the kids to behave while the lunch ladies served lunch. Avoid food battles, take the youngest to the toilet, make sure the allergic ones don’t eat peanuts, that kind of fun stuff.
My time at home with my kid is so important. I know its crazy to say that, but I did PC work on the side for so long and now I just really need to be home when I am not working my full time job. Also, if I have more DMI the only thing that will happen is it goes above and beyond my plan! Ugh, what to do!
I value my time as well but there are activities that aren’t time consuming. Say you do crafts together and you sell them afterwards it can be a fun project for both of you.
Taking on a night job as a bartender or server can be a great way to make quick cash. It’s not for everyone though. But in the states, if you give excellent service, you can make a good chunk of change.
I am glad I did it when I was young. Long hours and heavy tray lifting, I wouldn’t to it now.
Great list of ways to make money – should help anyone who is at a loss. Really like that you are thinking out of the box on many of these – esp. selling the land plots, so many people hold on for dear life.
Thanks Dorethia! Sometimes you have to be creative..
I like the open-minded, expansive thinking here. There are quite a few opportunities for people to make extra income if they consider a wide range of possibilities. In the case of paying off debt, it’s a reality that one needs to eradicate it in order to get ahead. Thus, the sense of urgency and interest in thinking broadly about ways to make more money is a good thing.
On a side note, the notion of 90 acres to work with is pretty cool!
Yes it should be pretty fun!
Great list you have there! I’m focusing on rental property, dividends, selling used/old stuff, and hopefully finding a way to generate some online income. Looks like you have a solid plan in place to help you achieve your goals.
Take care!
Thanks! The plan is here now it’s time for action.
I’d LOVE to be able to make some extra money but don’t exactly have a plan yet…ideally I’d love to make $500/month extra. We’ll see 😉
$500 would be sweet! There are plenty of ways you just have to start somewhere!
You’ve got a ton of good ideas on here! I’m a little partial to the blogging income 🙂
Blogging income is sweet but if you need money quickly or have only a few hours per week to pursue your site income, not the ideal way to go!
Wow I would love to meet you — based simply on the odd jobs alone. Plus, please tell me you have a French accent. Please?
oui 🙂
Thanks for your motivation, Pauleen! New reader:) I’m curious how you got involved with the data entry job! Thanks!
Welcome Erika! The data entry job was a friend who was starting a niche yellow pages for legal professions. It was about 10 years ago so I had to send FAXES to the businesses to confirm their details, then enter. A lot of work when you see it all online now, but the company got a head start and is still successful.
Thanks Pauline! Just always looking for supplemental income to keep up with increasing expenses and 3 kids:) Thanks for your informational posts:)
check task rabbit, elance and odesk to start with. And tacklingourdebt.com, Sicorra has some great working from home ideas.
Thanks again!
I like the idea of selling all my old stuff on eBay. I have tons of books I no longer want and tons of other stuff, I think I give it a shot. Thanks for the tip.
Artists and crafters with substantial local followings are able to make a good deal of money by opening online stores. There is a big market for inexpensive contemporary artwork. Reasonably priced prints in nice frames are dependable money-makers, as are handcrafted clothing and jewelry. Not much is lost if the artist fails to sell any of his work. Many marketplace websites only charge small fees to keep items listed until someone buys them.
thanks for the tips
Hi Pauline,
It is interesting that you left France to go to Guatemala and my goal is to leave Canada to go to southern France. I love the fact that there are so many opportunities to make money online now where my daughters and grandchildren are.
Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
Dale Kathryn
Hi Dale, thanks for stopping by! there are lots of opportunities indeed, they all require effort and dedication but they are there for anyone to take.