I was reading an article on Ramit’s website I Will Teach You To Be Rich, in which he discusses a problem that a lot of financial bloggers encounter. He states that many financial bloggers post about how to spend less, while largely ignoring how to earn more money. Although spending less is super important, earning more can make an even greater impact on your finances. You can only cut so much out of your budget, but an increase in income can mean more money to pay off debt, go into savings, buy designer purses, whatever you choose.
One of my goals has been to do some social media management to increase my income and resume experience. After one month of setting up clients, I have one already underway, one who I will be working with starting next month, and one that will be using my services at an unknown point in the future. Although it is definitely not enough income to live off by itself, I am happy to be increasing resume experience and the extra earnings will be put towards my student debt. This will help ease the money pressure as I am going to be potentially jobless for three months. I’m really pleased with how well I am doing with this goal. I feel completely lucky that I have already been able to bring to fruition some of the goals I started on this blog less than a month ago. I guess once you start really trying, your hard work does pay off!
Ramit is absolutely correct in stating that people need to try to earn more income. I have been able to lower my basic necessities to roughly $950/month, and am unable to cut anymore. I could cut out some variable spending, but I think I have been doing a decent job of that as well, and I don’t want to live so frugally I get burnt out. So adding in some extra income that can be thrown straight at my loan is the best option for me. I will also still be budgeting a large portion of my normal pay cheques towards my loans.
What are some of the ways you have increased your income?
I completely agree…there comes a point where you can’t cut expenses any lower!
Exactly ! I’m pretty much at that point now.. I could get rid of the car but it’s pretty necessary as there is no mass transit here. Thanks for the comment. :)
The only downside to increasing income (at least in NZ) is the higher tax rate on secondary income sources!
I’ve done tutoring, editing, writing, mystery shopping … and I think that’s about it. Social media management is part of my job, and I might look at offering that as a freelance service too.
That is very annoying about the tax rate in NZ! I hope it’s not the same here. I don’t make much at my first job so hopefully that helps. Mystery shopping seems interesting, did you like it? And you definitely should if you have the time, I find it a lot of fun !
Yeah, after a year of stepping back from side hustling I think I’m ready to step back in! The main thing will be to try and find clients (had someone reach out to me over Twitter who never got back to me, grr).
Mystery shopping can definitely be fun and you can get some great freebies, though it doesn’t pay much in terms of cash in hand. I also forgot – I do online surveys but again, small fry – but the effort required isn’t massive. I’ve also done a few in person market research focus groups which can be lucrative if you qualify, but those don’t come up all that often and they often don’t want you if you’ve recently participated in other focus groups!
Our school doesn’t technically allow grad students to have a second job, but a lot of people get away with various freelancing type things. I’ve tutored during the last two summers through school. It’s nice, because it’s all school-sanctioned and stuff, but we do get taxed (unlike private tutoring, where if I didn’t make much money I wouldn’t have to worry about taxes).
I also do some online surveys and stuff, mostly things that earn me hotel points (saves money when we travel!) or gift cards. It isn’t exactly the same as increasing income, but the gift cards can be used for stuff we would buy anyway, so it’s sort of the same end result!
Tutoring is a great thing ! I stupidly turned down an offer to tutor while in college. I was 19 and very immature and didn’t feel like it. (Pretty smart.) If you don’t mind me asking, what survey websites do you use? I am always wary about them because you never know how legitimate the company is, so I would maybe try it if someone I knew had success with it. Thanks for commenting !
I like eRewards for earning hotel points – the point value if you redeem for gift cards is not very good, but for hotel points it seems like it isn’t too bad. I’m not going to be taking extra vacation nights because of it or anything, but it will speed up my accumulation of points quite a bit.
I used to use My Points a lot in college, because I’d have my computer with me all the time and I’d usually have a few minutes between classes, so I got a handful of gift cards that way. I don’t use it as much anymore, but every once in a while I’ll do some of the surveys or click through the emails to get a few points…I’m almost at a gift card, so I’ll probably focus on it again until I can cash in :)
I haven’t done any surveys for cash, because I’m also wary of them.
It’s definitely easy to make more money. I can only cut back so much, although if I cut back TOO much, I risk not having fun or a life anymore where it isn’t just 100% work work work, save save save.
It’s true. It’s tough trying to make more money as well, but I think with enough effort it will work out. And I’m now trying to find the balance between cutting too much and cutting just enough. It definitely takes time. Thanks for reading !
Have you read http://annienygma.com/ ? She blogs about being a very low income single mother without child support. She has written several ebooks and is managing to live on the income. You certainly have the creativity and writing talent to be writing ebooks. I don’t have much in books (other than a few favourites) any more but my kindle is stuffed full of cool books. They all fit in my purse!
I think it all depends on where you are starting from. It sounds like you were pretty frugal to begin with, but there’s a bunch of people out there who have a ton of financial “fat” still to be cut. I know that’s true because I was one of them. Although I’ve been able to increase my income a little bit by performing at work and picking up some work on the side, cutting my spending has had a much greater impact on my net worth. I guess it’s different for each person, but I absolutely agree that focusing on increasing your cash intake should be a significant part of the puzzle.
You’re right for sure. I didn’t have a ton that I was able to trim off my budget. But the small trims I’ve made make me even happier. Paying a $33 phone bill is so sweet to me now because I know I inconvenienced myself for the sake of saving $40/month. If you’re doing a lot of extra spending, cutting it is definitely important! :)