Do you want more from life — more money, more freedom, more security, and more time for the activities you love?
Of course you do.
No matter where you are in life – or where you hope to be – taking steps to improve your life now can help you achieve your goals faster. And yes, one of those steps should be building wealth. Because, when you have extra income working for you, amazing things can happen.
Like anything else in life, however, the road to wealth is rarely a straight line. You might have to fail a thousand times to learn the secret that most wealthy people already know – that earning more money is your ticket to freedom.
Here’s another secret no one wants to talk about: Most successful people fail a lot. They might try ten different business ideas that are absolutely awful before they find one that helps them grow rich.
The secret to their success? They keep trying and they keep moving forward no matter what anyone says.
My Journey Toward Earning More Money
When I was 19-years-old, I landed my first “cool job” in the mall. Suddenly, I went from being broke to making “real money” for the first time in my life. As a teenager who had never really worked before, I felt I had finally gotten my big break.
After I deposited my 1st paycheck, however, I went completely off the rails. I went straight to the mall to stock up on new clothes and nutritional supplements (protein powder and creatine for my big guns!) without worrying about how much I was spending – or if it made sense at all.
Unfortunately, the feeling that came with achieving adult status was short-lived. Why? Because I found out how bad I was with money just a week later.
I had bounced not one – but two – checks!
Not only was I broke once again, but I had to pay stupid overdraft fees, too. I was irate!
Although I felt like the world’s biggest loser, this was a pivotal point in my life. Once my dad heard of my struggles, he offered sound fatherly advice.
“Try budgeting your money,” he said.
As a 19-year-old, I balked at the idea. In fact, the idea of budgeting made me downright nauseous.
While his advice was solid, I decided to take an alternate approach to improving my finances. Instead of cutting back on things, I wanted to make more money instead.
Here’s the thing: My dad’s advice was, and still is, awesome. Cutting back on spending isn’t a bad idea for anyone, and it can make a big difference in your finances over the long haul.
However, I always believed (and still do) that finding ways to make more money would make a much larger impact on my life.
It turns out I was right.
Tweet: “Finding ways to cut your spending is practical, but also boring. Learning how to make more money is a lifelong adventure.”
Here’s the truth all the savings gurus in the world refuse to acknowledge: There are only so many ways you can cut your expenses. You can cancel your cable television subscription, quit dining out, and make your own laundry detergent if you want, but your bills can only be hacked so far.
On the flip side, there are literally hundreds of ways to earn more money. And with each new strategy you learn, you can begin working towards building real wealth and achieving financial freedom.
Who is This Guide For?
If you’re tired of struggling, earning more money might be the answer you’re looking for. When you take steps to earn more money on your own, it no longer matters what your boss agrees to pay you – or if you’re able to pick up overtime at work.
By taking the bull by the horns, you’re putting your financial future in your hands. While that might sound scary, it’s one of the most freeing feelings in the world.
Is this guide for you? Here are the top ten signs earning more money might be your next best step:
- You’ve maxed out your earnings at your 9-5 job, but still want more.
- You’re tired of cutting expenses to achieve minimal results.
- You have the time and the drive to earn more money on the side.
- You’re sick of wishing you had more money, but never doing anything about it.
- You’re a hard worker who is willing to try anything.
- You’re not afraid to work hard to get what you want.
- You have a ton of goals to achieve, yet fall short on funds to make them happen.
- You want more out of life than your friends, your parents, and their parents had.
- You’re ready to get started making more money today.
- You won’t give up until you’ve achieved financial success.
Since you’re already reading this guide, chances are good that at least a few of those statements describe your life. But, what are you going to do about it?
Keep reading to learn brand new ways to turn your financial life upside down by earning more. Learn how to make fast money, build an online business, and start earning passive income for life.
Making Quick Money
If you need money now and don’t have time to wait, this guide provides actionable strategies you can implement today. While these strategies won’t necessarily help you grow wealthy, they can help you earn extra side income or help you pay down debt. They can also help you earn money that buys you time while you launch your own business. Want to know more? Keep reading to learn how to make some extra cash right away.
Become an Uber driver. If you want to start earning some cash on the side, driving for Uber is a no-brainer. If you have a newer, clean, and safe automobile and a clean driving record, you can apply to drive for Uber and be on your way within a week. Check out our post for more information on how to become an Uber driver!
Earn free money by opening a new checking account. Believe it or not, but Chase offers a sweet $200 bonus when you open a new Chase Total Checking® account. Sign up for the new account, set it up for direct deposit, and you’re good to go! This is by far the best offer out there, so don’t delay if you want a quick $200 in your bank account.
Take online surveys. Online surveys offer one of the fastest – and easiest – ways to make money quickly. With a website like MySurvey, you can earn $.50 to $1.25 just by answering a handful of questions every day. If you meet certain qualifications, you can earn more than $5 per survey taken from the comfort of your own home. Make sure to check out some other survey sites that offer cash back, gift cards, free products, and more:
Try SwagBucks. Earning money and gift cards through SwagBucks is easy. Simply sign up for an account, then use their handy dashboard to surf the web, watch videos, take surveys, and more. You can also earn cash back on your regular shopping just by clicking through the SwagBucks shopping portal. You can get $5 for signing up HERE.
Sign up for InboxDollars. InboxDollars offers yet another way to earn free cash fast – and from your couch! Just by signing up, you can score a quick $5 bonus. Beyond the bonus, you can earn money by using their search engine when you browse the web, watching videos, printing coupons, and more. If you’re always on the internet and want to earn free money for doing nothing, this is a no-brainer.
Have a yard sale. If you need a quick infusion of cash and have “extra stuff” laying around, having a yard can help you accomplish two goals. Not only will you get rid of your clutter, but you’ll earn extra cash, too. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Sell your used electronics. If you have old laptops, cell phones, iPods, or other electronics, you can make some quick money by selling them right away. If you don’t want to list them on a website like craiglist.org, you can use a website like Gazelle.com instead. With Gazelle, you can get connected with buyers who are actually looking for the used electronics you have.
Sell your plasma. While selling bodily fluids isn’t sexy, it can help you earn extra money pretty fast. The first step to getting started is to figuring out where you can sell plasma in your area. From there, you simply need to show up. Make sure to get there early if you don’t want to spend hours waiting in line. In the end, you can earn $40 – $80 for each plasma donation.
Resell unused gift cards. If you have a bunch of gift cards laying around, there are plenty of ways to offload them for a profit. Websites like CardPool make it easy to sell used gift cards for a profit, and from the comfort of your own home. While you won’t get the full value of your used gift cards, you can get pretty close. And if you weren’t going to use the gift card anyway, this money can truly come in handy.
Resell items on eBay.com or craigslist.org. If you’re fairly savvy on “what’s hot” and what’s not, you can earn some extra cash fairly quickly on eBay. Look around your house for valuable antiques or name brand clothing that fetches top dollar, then list on eBay for a quick return. If you think you’ll be better off selling in your local market, you can also place a free ad for your stuff on craigslist.org. Remember, anything you sell means more quick money in your bank account.
Making Money On The Side
While making money fast can get you out of a jam, the real key to wealth is growing your income steadily over time. While you can earn more money at your regular job, starting a side hustle is a great way to earn extra money and gain control over your life. If hustling is your thing, consider these opportunities for earning money on the side:
Tutor kids in your area of expertise. If you’re especially knowledgeable in a specific subject, you can earn big bucks tutoring kids in your area or online. This is especially true for notably difficult subjects such as math and science. If kids are struggling with subject matter in your area, you can often earn $20+ per hour just by helping them learn. If you have trouble finding kids to tutor in your area, you could always become an online tutor with a website like Tutor.com.
Start a babysitting club. One of the easiest side hustles in existence is babysitting. Why? Because kids are fun and easy to watch most of the time. Plus, you can make big money if you get the right kind of jobs. If you live in a neighborhood with plenty of kids, scoring some babysitting work should be easy. Simply post your intent to find babysitting jobs on craigslist.org – or on your neighborhood Facebook page. You can also set up a profile on a page like Care.com.
Watch dogs using Rover.com. If you love dogs and want to make money taking care of them on your own schedule, Rover.com provides an awesome opportunity. With this website, you can create a profile online then get connected with people who need animal lovers to watch their pets overnight or during the day. Not only can you set your own rates, but you can decide which type – and size – of animals you want to watch. Best of all, you can watch dogs only on days and weeks when you’re available.
Mow lawns. Mowing lawns and doing basic lawn care has been a top side hustle for decades. This is mostly because the work is so easy nearly anyone can do it, but also because so many busy homeowners just don’t have time. If you want to start mowing lawns, raking, or pulling weeds on the side, ask people if they need help online or pass out flyers in your neighborhood. Once you have a few clients, you’ll get more customers through word of mouth and referrals.
Housesit for vacationing families. If you know a lot of people who vacation constantly, offering to become a house-sitter can be lucrative. Depending on the situation, you can earn up to $50 per night just for staying in someone’s home. If you don’t know anyone who needs a housesitter personally, you can always set up a profile on a website like TrustedHousesitters.com. Once you do, families searching for a housesitter will be able to find you and interview you for jobs.
Start a handyman business. If you’re especially handy, starting a handyman business is a great way to earn money on the side. As a handyman, you can easily earn $40+ per hour just by performing basic household maintenance or fixing common household problems. Some days, you might repair or replace roof shingles. Other days, you’ll clean out dryer vents, hang new lighting fixtures, or fix a leaky sink. If you know how to perform these tasks, you might as well start getting paid!
Pick up a part-time job. While a part-time job might not be glamorous, it can help you earn extra money on the side. Depending on where you work, you could easily boost your income by a few hundred bucks per week. And if you’re willing to work in the service industry (think: bartending or waitressing), you could make even more. Remember, part-time jobs don’t have to be forever! However, they can make a big difference in your bottom line and help you achieve your financial goals.
Become a part-time photographer. If you have a knack for photography, it’s not hard to market your services and start earning cash on the side. Families everywhere love to hire affordable photographers to take family, birthday, and anniversary photos. Try marketing your skills online by setting up a simple Facebook page for your photography business. Once you get a few clients and some sample photos to share, you’ll be on your way.
Also remember that you don’t have to pick up photography work from clients. Photography websites such as Shutterstock and iStockphoto make it easy to market and sell your photos online. You may get a percentage of profits each time your photo is downloaded or a flat fee to sell your picture upfront. Either way, this is a great way to market your photos and earn real cash on the side.
Wrap your car for cash. If you have no qualms about advertising a specific service or company while you drive around, you could wrap your car and earn money in return. If you drive enough and meet a specific set of requirements, FreeCarMedia.com will pay you up to $400 per month to advertise for different companies on your own automobile.
Paint houses. Nobody likes painting the interior or exterior of their home, yet we all need painting done every few years. If you have some painting skills, this creates the perfect opportunity for you to earn big money painting on the side. Most of the time, you can pick up painting jobs through word of mouth or by marketing your services online. You can usually earn $20+ per hour or more for most jobs.
Clean other people’s houses. Cleaning houses is a great side hustle because you can do it on your own schedule and earn $25+ per hour for each job. To find cleaning jobs, start by asking around for referrals. You can even offer to clean someone’s house for free or for a discount to get your first “client review.”
Making Money Online
While there are plenty of ways to make money in your community, the internet is a treasure trove of side hustle opportunities. With an internet connection and laptop, you can start your first online business. Cha-ching! Check out some of the best ways to earn money online.
Start a blog. The first online side hustle I’m going to mention is obvious. Just like I did many years ago, you can start a blog. While growing a blog might seem complicated, it’s actually easy – and cheap – to get the ball rolling. For less than $100 per year, you can start a blog that creates real passive income over time. While it helps to have writing skills and a niche you’re passionate about, you can start a blog about almost anything!
No matter what, you must remember that there are tons of ways to make money with your own website. Not only can you seek our sponsorship opportunities, but you can make money through ad revenue, affiliate marketing, and more. You can also use your blog to market other services or side hustles you have, including freelance writing, website design, or virtual assisting.
Pick up freelance writing. If you have good or great writing skills and a passion for writing essays or interesting stories, you could easily parlay those skills into a lucrative online writing career. It’s not hard to get started (especially if you have a blog), and the opportunities are limitless. If you think about it, every business has a blog these days, and even those that don’t need to hire writers to create the content for their online business pages. Want to know more? Read how one online freelancer makes more than $200,000 per year creating online content in this post.
Market your online skills on Fiverr. If you have any web-based skills at all, you can pick up some side jobs on websites like Fiverr.com and Upwork.com. After you create an online profile, you can pick up work creating web pages, designing flyers, or creating one-of-a-kind logos for personal blogs or businesses. The sky is the limit and your income will vary depending on your level of skill.
Become a virtual assistant. Believe it or not, nearly all online entrepreneurs hire virtual assistants to handle at least part of their tasks. While some virtual assistants work mostly on crafting and replying to emails, others design spreadsheets, create slideshows, or help their clients with various online tasks. If you have experience with WordPress or making Pinterest images, your skills could be in especially high demand. Amazingly, some virtual assistants earn as much as $25 per hour from the comfort of their own homes!
Write an ebook. If you love writing and want to become an author, it’s possible to write an ebook and sell it online. You can either sell your book on your own website or market it online through websites like Amazon.com. If you’re unsure how to get started, websites like CreateSpace.com make the book publishing process easy. All you need is an idea and an internet connection to get started.
Create and sell your own products. If you have an idea for a product and know how to leverage your online presence to create sales, it’s possible to make money selling your products online. If you’re curious what type of products you should sell, it helps to start by thinking through what you’re most passionate about. If you’re crafty, you could create any number of products and sell them online through a website like Etsy.com, for example.. Like most other online side hustles, the sky is the limit with this one!
Last year, I interviewed Steve Chou from MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. In our podcast interview, Steve explained how his wife created her own products to sell online. Years later, she quit her job and started earning six figures from home! That’s pretty amazing when you think about it, and it just goes to show just how much opportunity is out there.
Create and sell your own course. If you have a specific skill that other people are always asking about, it might be time for you to create your own online course. Course topics can vary, but they currently include everything from digital scrapbooking to writing and more. Even I created an online course for financial advisors last year, then managed to bring in six figures in income the first year!
Make Money for the Long Run
While making money in the short-term can change your life, making money for the long run is even better. Why? Because the more money you can earn passively, the more wealth you can grow over time. And if you really put the work into earning long-term income, who knows what could happen? Maybe you could quit your job to pursue your passion, or just retire early and quit working altogether.
Either way, the best way to get started is to experiment with one of these long-term income strategies:
Invest in Lending Club. When you think of Lending Club, the borrowing aspect of their business model probably comes to mind. However, it’s possible to use Lending Club for the exact opposite reason – making money! With Lending Club, you can invest your own cash across hundreds of loans and earn anywhere from 4 – 15% return each year.
While it’s possible to lose money with this peer-to-peer lending platform when people default, they make it easy to reduce your risk by spreading your investment out over hundreds – or even thousands – of loans. With a $2,500 investment, for example, you can spread your risk out over 100 loans. If you want to earn money over the long run, investing in peer-to-peer lending can be a smart move!
Get started with index funds. If your goal is making money over the long haul, index funds provide one of the greatest opportunities in existence. With index funds, you can gain broad market exposure and avoid “putting all your eggs in one basket.” Better yet, index funds come with historically low fees that let you keep more of your investing dollars in your own pocket.
You can lose money with index funds, which is why it’s important to consider this strategy for the long-term. Over time, index funds have proven to be lucrative investments that pay off in a big way.
While you can invest in index funds nearly anywhere on the web, I always recommend using Scottrade due to their low fees and friendly online interface. If you’re not familiar with then, check out more details in our Scottrade review.
Grow your wealth with a robo-advisor. While investing in your work-sponsored 401(k) plan is always a good idea, many people choose to invest in taxable accounts as well. Either way, you can gain an edge and possibly score greater returns over time if you hire a financial advisor – or even a robo-advisor.
With a robo-advisor like Betterment, you can aggregate all of your accounts in one place, get tailored advice on increasing returns and improving tax efficiency, and get access to special tools that can help you build more wealth over time. If you want to learn more, make sure to check out my Betterment investing review.
Open a Roth IRA. If you’re just getting started down the path of building long-term wealth, it’s important to start with retirement. With your work-sponsored 401(k) account, you can grow tax-deferred wealth until you’re ready to retire and potentially score a sweet employer match (free money) all along.
In addition to your retirement accounts through work or self-employment, you may also be able to open a traditional or Roth IRA if you meet specific income retirements. However, Roth IRAs are one of the best retirement accounts out there in my opinion. Why? Because the money you deposit now will be tax-free by the time you retire – and it grows tax-free all along! If you’re worried about your tax load in retirement or simply want to stash away more money while you can, the Roth IRA is the way to go. Read my post on the best places to open a Roth IRA before you get started.
Invest in real estate. Many years ago, I had the bright idea to invest in real estate with my father-in-law. We found an old duplex that we liked, started hatching a plan to become landlords, then looked for financing that would help the deal go through. Unfortunately, we quickly found that a) we didn’t know what we were doing, b) we were overpaying for the property, and c) this was a bad idea. Fortunately, the deal fell through and we got our initial investment back.
While I may not be made out to be a landlord, lots of people earn real passive income by buying investment properties and renting them out for the long haul. While becoming a landlord can be lucrative, I take a different approach to real estate investing these days. Instead of buying properties, I buy notes that list real estate as the underlying investment. That way, I’m investing in real estate but don’t have the hands-on responsibilities of a traditional landlord.
If you love real estate but don’t have what it takes to become a landlord, you could always consider a platform like Fundrise. With Fundrise, you invest your money in real estate notes but leave the heavy lifting to someone else. Believe it or not, Fundrise investments scored an average return of 13% last year!
Make sure to check out my Fundrise review for more details on how the process works, and who it’s good for.
Create a niche website. While starting your own blog is all the rage these days, a lot of people choose to take a less personal approach to website building. With a niche website, you can earn passive income through brand sponsorships, advertisements, and affiliate marketing, but without making it about you or your life.
Most people who build niche websites build them around specific areas of interest where they are especially knowledgeable. That could mean creating a website around a specific sport, your favorite product, or a diet program you’re especially passionate about.
To make your niche website work, it’s important to learn SEO, or search engine optimization. If you get all your ducks in a row, a niche website is an awesome way to earn sweet passive income over time.
To Make More Money, Change Your Mindset
Do you hear yourself complaining you don’t have enough time, resources, or connections to make more money?
If you approach every situation focusing on the things you don’t have – the scarcity mindset – instead of what you have –the abundance mindset -, then your situation will never improve.
By shifting to the abundance mindset you’ll focus on the possibilities of making more money and begin working towards those goals. And most importantly, you’ll take action.
No matter where you are in life, it’s possible to make extra cash that can help you pay off debt, build wealth, and pursue your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and don’t let anything stand in the way of what you truly want.
If you want to make more money, you have to get out there and take it. No matter what, nobody can – or will – do it for you.
The post The Ultimate Guide to Making Money appeared first on Good Financial Cents.
Source Good Financial Cents http://ift.tt/2lvA0N2
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق