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When You Need A Bigger Shovel: How To Earn More

May 22, 2015 By Victoria 10 Comments

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(Links in this post are affiliate links. I will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking those links. See my disclosure page for more information)

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?

How to earn more money each monthIf 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

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.

For more ideas see

17 sites to earn money at home

10 work at home jobs with low start up fees

6 Types of daycare you can run out of your home

 

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Filed Under: Frugality

Comments

  1. Marina says

    May 22, 2015 at 6:21 am

    Great tips! I love to resell everything I am not using anymore. We tend to buy so many things – and most of them we use only for few times. It’s a shame not to resell them.

    Reply
    • Victoria says

      May 22, 2015 at 7:40 am

      Yes very true. It is better to resell then just let those unused items sit and lose even more value.

      Reply
  2. Mandy says

    May 22, 2015 at 6:51 am

    Great tips! It’s funny how much money you have in things you don’t use around your house that people would pay money for on Craig’s List, or at a yard sale!

    Reply
    • Victoria says

      May 22, 2015 at 7:40 am

      Yes, I once sat out this ugly loud print chair that didn’t even have a straight frame worth reupholstering on our lawn during a yard sale and said to my friend this will never sell and even put a price on it that was way too high, and it was the first thing to sell! My friend and I had to hold in our laughter until the buyer left.

      Reply
  3. Monique says

    May 22, 2015 at 8:17 am

    These are great tips. I would hire someone to wash my windows. 🙂 Service jobs are really great and can save people a lot of time so they can do more of what they love.

    Reply
  4. Sam @ SimplyEssentialProducts says

    May 22, 2015 at 8:51 am

    This is so interesting – I never think to buy to resell! And the stock photo idea is brilliant!

    Reply
  5. Ann says

    May 22, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    I can see myself coming back to this post again and again as I have to re-evaluate our situation over and over through the years. And the thing is that these are all DOABLE — they are not weird or impractical. Good stuff! 🙂

    Reply
  6. Julie @ Logger's Wife says

    May 28, 2015 at 11:46 am

    #1 is something I agree with. We actually paid off a debt and are only rolling a small amount of it into another payment. We needed the income right now more.

    (visiting from Thrifty Thursday)

    Reply
    • Victoria says

      May 30, 2015 at 9:38 am

      Yes, I think the key to rolling your debt snowball is deciding which one helps you reach the most important goal right now. For us when we had debts (we are debt free now) that meant giving us a bit of immediate wiggle room in the budget so we didn’t have to be so reliant on overtime to make our bills. Then if we did get overtime it could go to debt.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. What I'm Reading This Week #9 - says:
    May 30, 2015 at 5:02 am

    […] How to Earn More Money Each Month  Are you trying to pay off debt or save for a big purchase?  Snail Pace Transformations gives 7 ways to make more money.  Give them a try! […]

    Reply

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