In the past year, I've spent most of my working hours helping people and businesses that want to earn more money. Regardless of whether it's an individual or a group, they want to be more financially productive during the work day.
Based on this work, I've discovered two things about earning more money.
[See 10 Ways to Start Earning Extra Money Now.]
First, you need to be willing to work more if you want to earn more. Everyone wants to magically earn more money by working less, but it doesn't work that way. Second, you need to be willing to try new things. You don't necessarily need to be creative. You just need to be willing to try to earn money in a different way than you currently are doing.
Here's how you can earn an extra $1,000 this month:
1. Tutor someone. I know tutors who are charging more $100 per hour. It doesn't take much extra work to pocket $1,000 per month with rates like that. Do you know a subject particularly well? Go to wealthy neighborhoods in your area and start selling your knowledge. There are a lot of parents willing to pay to help their kids get ahead.
[See 11 Secrets of Frugal Bloggers.]
2. Flip items on Craigslist. While I'm all for getting rid of junk, this method will only make you extra money until you run out of things to sell. If you want to make sustained money, you need to do some Craigslist arbitrage.
Here's how it works. First, choose a few items to track on Craigslist. These are items that you are going to keep an eye on and snatch up when good deals become available. High-priced items, like washers and dryers or laptops, work best because you can make a decent profit on them. You can easily make $50 or more per sale by flipping those items on Craigslist.
Sometimes you may even find a person giving away a dishwasher or a refrigerator for free. Pick these items up and you'll get pure profit by reselling them.Obviously, this idea will work better if you live in a heavily populated area where goods are changing hands more frequently.
[See Do You Need a Second Job?]
3. Write for money. If you have decent writing skills, there are many options for earning more money. For example, all sorts of blogs, magazines, and businesses hire freelance writers to create brochures, articles, and other forms of the written word.
If you're a good writer but don't have the time to write a lot of extra articles, you can try what I call the "eBay Ad Strategy." There are many high-priced items selling on eBay, such as cars, boats, and motorcycles. Many of these items have terrible descriptions and sales pages. You can contact the owners, tell them that you will write a great sales page for them, and simply ask for 1 percent of the selling price as your fee. They don't pay you anything unless the item sells. This makes the offer appealing to them and because it's a high-priced item, you can easily earn a nice chunk of change from a little bit of work.
4. Create a Kickstarter project. If you're an artsy type or a hopeful entrepreneur, Kickstarter could be the perfect way to earn more money and pursue your passion. Kickstarter is an online platform where people share their ideas for creative projects and ask the public to help fund them. There have already been a number of popular success stories. In many cases, independent movies, music albums, and even businesses wouldn't exist without the initial funding they received from the Kickstarter community. If you put together a good proposal, it is very reasonable to think that you could land $1,000 in funding. You can get more details on how the process works at Kickstarter.com.
[See New Fund Could Help Finance Your Startup.]
5. Create your own travel business. If you know a city or tourist destination particularly well, you can easily make an extra $1,000 by running a small travel business. Here is an example. I have a friend who loves scuba diving. He knows a few locations very well. Someone asked if he would act as a guide, and my friend had the bright idea to start doing it all the time. He started putting together scuba vacation packages, and now that's his full-time job. He offers a full pre-paid package that includes lodging, meals, and scuba equipment, plus a markup for him.
You could use a similar strategy in almost any popular destination or activity. Restaurant hopping in San Francisco, kayaking in Canada, hiking in West Virginia, you name it.
6. Rent out your room on Airbnb. Airbnb.com is an online marketplace where people buy and sell the space they own. Some people rent out their vacation homes, some rent out their floor and an air mattress, and some rent out the treehouse in their backyard. (Seriously.) If you have space in a popular area, then you can easily create your own hotel of sorts.
[See Housesharing: A Hotel Alternative for Frugal Travelers.]
Airbnb is exploding in popularity and makes the entire process painless. If you live in a relatively popular area, you could easily make a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars renting out an extra room--or just your couch.
7. Sell your skills as a freelancer. You might be surprised by the tasks people are willing to pay to have done. A skill that seems ordinary to you might be extraordinary to someone else, such as dog walker, Website designer, home organizer, marketing consultant, or personal cook. There is no reason you can't sell the skills you already have for some extra money.
James Clear is the founder of Passive Panda, a website about earning more money, time, and freedom. Join Passive Panda's free newsletter for fresh ideas on earning more money, and check out this list of articles on self employment ideas for freelancers.
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bublle rawr of CO 10:49AM May 16, 2013
KhaliaNicole of WA 4:14PM April 10, 2013
Chris Kostopoulos of NY 1:32PM April 01, 2013