We all want to make more money, and there are countless articles online on the subject. But most of them will earn you just a few bucks. We will show you seven ways to make real money.
We Love Money
We love money, and we know you do too, but money isn’t free. We’re going to have to put in a little effort. So we want our effort to be worthwhile. Ready? Here we go.
- Get a Raise
You can’t just walk into your boss’s office and ask for a raise. Well, you can, but you’ll probably be told, “No.” You have to go in armed with some data. The first thing you want to know is whether or not you are earning what other people in similar industries, positions, and geographic areas are earning.
You can research this online at sites like Salary.com, PayScale, and Glassdoor. You can also talk to colleagues at your job company and from other companies and networking events and conferences.
You might find people are tight-lipped, there is a lot of stigma around discussing salary, but the more open people are about the subject, the more leverage we all have to negotiate a raise.
Once you know what you should be making, you need to convince your boss that you’re worth more money. Document ways that you have added value to your company; show processes you’ve created that streamline work, show your boss how much money you have saved the company by finding less expensive vendors or negotiating better prices with current ones, show how much you’ve increased sales in the past quarter.
Prove that you have saved and made the company money and you deserve to be rewarded.
- Work Overtime
Not everyone is eligible for overtime, but if you are, it can be lucrative. If you aren’t allowed to work more than 40 hours per week, you may be able to earn more by working a different shift (second and third shifts often pay more than standard shifts), weekends, and holidays.
- Change Jobs
Getting a raise is great but if you want to make more money, change jobs. The average raise is just 3%. The average salary increase when changing jobs is between 10-20%. That is quite a jump.
And if you want to keep making more money, don’t stay in a job longer than two years. Times have changed, and companies do not reward loyalty. Those who stay in a job longer than two years can expect to make 50% less over the span of their careers than those who change jobs frequently.
- Get Paid to Shop
Drop is an app that lets you earn points when you spend money on your favorite brands including Uber, Amazon, and Target. You link your debit and credit cards, and when you make purchases with chosen brands, you earn points.
The points you earn can then be redeemed for gift cards.
- Get Rewarded
The right credit card can give you all kinds of rewards, cash back, airline miles, hotel points. But not all of us are taking advantage of those rewards. And it’s understandable; they can be hard to keep up with.
Birch Finance does the work for you. Link your credit cards, and Birch Finance analyzes the activity on those cards. It will show the rewards you earn for each purchase and tell you that you could have earned better rewards using a different card.
- Start a Side Hustle
When people hear the term side hustle they often think of online businesses, and you can make money online but to make real money takes time. We want money now.
There are tons of ways to make money that don’t involve a computer, or specialized skill, and don’t have a high bar for entry.
Drive for Uber or Postmates, baby or pet sit, rent your house on Airbnb a few weeks a year, do lawn work, clean houses. Americans watch an average of 5 hours of television a day. You can take some of those wasted hours and do something that will make some real money.
- Sell Stuff
Start with your stuff. Go through your house and see what you can sell, clothes, purses, books, furniture, exercise equipment. Your house is full of stuff you don’t use. Start easy, have a yard sale. Even better if you can get some neighbors involved. The bigger the sale, the more people it will attract.
Take note of what sold well. Now find more of that stuff and research the best place to sell it. Clothes do well on Poshmark and eBay. Books do well on Bookscouter and SellBackYourBook.
Now go out and buy or find the things that sold well and resell them. Hit up yard and estate sales, thrift stores, consignment stores, and dumpsters on college campuses at the end of each semester. Check out the free section of your local Craig’s List and Facebook groups in your area too.
Money to be Had
We spend too much time doing unproductive things like watching television and reading stuff on the internet. If we spend some of that time looking for ways to earn, we can make some real money.
Now that we have all this extra money saved and earned, we’re going to learn how to make the most of it, stay tuned!