When You Need A Bigger Shovel: How To Earn More

Have you read numerous 250 Ways To Save Money blog posts only to realize you are doing all 250 things and yet you still aren’t making financial progress?

If you answered yes then chances are your problem isn’t your spending it is your income. You need to earn more income each month.

Increasing income has always been second to making current income stretch farther in our household and yet it has also been needed on a regular basis.

For our family, for the most part, we have had my husband take a second job working for another company, but I know for others their work schedule is just not regular enough to work another job around it.

If that is your situation, here are a few things, beyond going out and getting a second job, that can help you earn more money each month.

7 Ways to Create A Bigger Shovel Without Gaining Another Boss

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1. Resell like mad and pay off a debt

Do you have a few small debts that perhaps you could knock out with a yard sale, a Craigslist blitz or a selling frenzy in a Facebook buy and sell group? This might not take as long as you think. I have personally made $600 at one yard sale, and I have read of people selling items within minutes in Facebook buy and sell groups.

What I am going to tell you to do with the money goes against all debt snowball rules…ready….. use the money to pay off your small debts and then don’t roll all of  the payment savings into the next biggest debt, instead use a percentage of it (say 10 to 15 percent) to give yourself some budget breathing room. So if the debt that you knocked out had a $100 payment each month you would add $10 to $15 to your monthly budget and then roll the other $85 to $90 into paying down the next debt faster.

Yes I know that goes against all the rules that debt free  gurus  chant over and over but for people on a small income this can in my opinion inspire you to pay off more debts faster than putting 100% on to the next debt. Why? because people on small incomes are looking at years to close to a decade of peanut butter sandwiches with the 100% snowball plan but this way you get a reward of a turkey sandwich once and a while along the journey to becoming debt free, and you haven’t increased the timeline all that much.

Seeing extra money in the spending budget each month can be just the incentive a family on a small income needs to push themselves to earn more and pay off debts faster. They start to feeling the positive effects of more wiggle room in the budget right away. Once you feel like you have enough breathing space in the budget  (say you can now afford meat in all your sandwiches) stop taking from the snowball with the next debt payoff and return to the 100% snowball plan.

2. Sell other peoples stuff

When I use to do eBay and Craigslist on a fairly consistent basis I use to have friends ask me if I would sell their stuff and charge them a fee. I never did feel confident enough at my reselling skills to take them up on their offers but if you do I say go for it. Spend sometime researching online as to what to charge and how to set it up good systems before jumping in.

3. Sell a product locally

Do you make cupcakes everyone raves about? Find out what you need to do legally in your area to sell them to others.

Do you make dog biscuits that drive the dogs at the local dog park wild?  See if the pet stores in your area will sell them for you.

4. Start a service oriented business

Walk dogs in your area. Mow grass. Weed flower beds. Clean windows. These type of jobs are more flexible than working for someone else because you are in charge of setting the hours.

5. Sell your products or service online

If you love to craft, sell your products on Etsy.

If your a teacher and you make up printable products for your class already try selling them at Teachers for Teachers.

Are your pictures amazing? Perhaps you could sell them to stock photo companies.

If you are talented in photo editing, or editing essays, or another type of service that can be provided online then look into getting started on Fivvr.

6.  Fill in small cracks of time with filling out surveys & participating in point programs

I am lumping survey companies and point programs together because they are both ways to make a small income in little moments here and there through out your day.

For instance you can get Radio Loyality going within Swagbucks , set a timer to remind you to look for the captcha in 30 minutes to enter and get your points, and then go clean your home while the music plays. You can do a survey while watching TV at the end of the day when you are too tired to do anything else.

I earned $50 a month regularly combining point programs and surveys when my kids were little and I really never spent more than 3 or 4 hours a week at it tops. In those hours I was also working on something else too.

Of course that was over 10 years ago and now there are more companies to work with and more ways to earn (smartphone apps were not around when my kids  were little) . I think if some one were to spend the same amount of time as I did today they could earn $100 or more each month through these programs.

15 Websites And Apps You Can Use To Earn Gift Cards

Survey Companies

• Paid Viewpoint (offers simple and quick surveys, and you don’t get screened out)
• Earning Station
• MySurvey ( this is the company I did the most surveys with when my kids were little)
• MintVine
• Opinion Outpost

Point Programs

• Swagbucks   ( I have readers making up to $100 a month with Swagbucks)
• InstaGC   (Best part about InstaGC the you get your gift card payout instantly! )
• Bing Rewards   (such a simple no-brainer program)
• My Points   (the first point program I ever joined and 10 years later I am still a member)
• Reward Shopping (spinning the super lucky button is addictive and I do it while scrolling Instagram)
• Inbox Dollars   (Inbox dollars has many ways to earn points)
• PrizeRebel (PrizeRebel has low cash out values starting at just $2 and you receive gift cards in around 24 hours)

7. Buy items for Resale

Whether it be yard sale items to list on eBay or clearance found items to sell on Amazon, buying to resell can bring in a nice sum of money each and every month.

 

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