The quickest way to reach your financial goals is to find how to earn more money. There is unlimited upside to what you can achieve when you learn how to earn more money. It can be done in a number of ways, such as a side hustle, earning passive income, or even trimming your monthly budget.
By learning how to earn more money, it opens your imagination to what is possible for you considering your situation. Whether you are tight on time or can’t live any more frugal, there will be ways to increase your income, as there are plenty of different ways to do it.
How to earn more money: The 4 Categories
I’m going to split the different ways how you can earn more money into two categories, which include the following:
How to Saving money
1) Find hidden money: This is a deep dive under the bonnet of your expenses to establish quick hacks to reduce your costs, along with some principles for future purchases.
How to Earn more money
2) Earn more money at your current job: What your options are and how you might go about negotiating a raise.
3) Passive income ideas: There are ideas that have a low barrier to entry and options with a higher cost of investment.
4) Start a side hustle: Everyone seems to have some sort of side hustle these days. I’m going to suggest some of my favorites and explain what their characteristics are that make them good.
The best ways to save more money
1) Find hidden money.
This is not a mission to find the coins down the side of a car seat or move into complete frugality where you solely shop in the reduced aisle. This is a list of savings hacks that ensure you are getting the best value for money, which will increase your savings.
Nail the easy wins.
Negotiate lower monthly bills: If you’ve been with a company for a long time, ask for a loyalty reduction in your premiums; if they say no, say you’re going to test the market. More often than not, they say, “I’ll see what I can do.”
You can do this with:
- Car insurance
- Internet
- Gym membership
- Phone bills
Reduce subscription services and membership fees: Every few months, check the subscriptions you pay for each month. They might feel cheap individually, but they all add up if you don’t cull the ones you don’t get real value out of. Here’s an example of what I mean:
- Netflix
- Amazon Prime
- Apple Music
- Spotify
- Audible
- Other
Ask yourself the question: Can I cancel at least one of those streaming services? Clarkson’s Farm is over for another year; do I still need Amazon Prime?
Refinance or relocate your home: Firstly, by refinancing the mortgage on your home, you might be able to save thousands on your interest repayments. This is not so relevant and can have the opposite effect when interest rates are rising. Although, in low interest rate environments, it’s an effective way to add extra money to your pocket each month.
Secondly, moving home to alternative areas in the same city or a completely different location in the country can reduce your housing costs. For example, moving from Oxford to Nottingham will reduce your rental costs and mortgage loan significantly when looking for a like-for-like property.
Principles for easy wins with expenses
- Don’t buy if you can’t afford it twice over.
- Spend now to save later. It’s significantly better and cheaper to continuously maintain aspects of your life rather than waiting for large issues to arise, for example, car repairs, house repairs, and fitness.
- Buy on value, not lust. Try to have a set amount you want to spend and don’t go over it.
- Purchase last year’s models. For example, phones
- Pay yourself first. At the start of the month, before you pay rent, put your budgeted savings into another account. See it as your own personal monthly tax that will look after you in the future.
The Best ways to earn more money
Extreme frugality only goes so far, and the people who make rapid progress towards big financial goals are the ones who both save money and learn how to make more of it.
2) Earn more at your current job.
- Research your position and pay. Before you ask for more money, having knowledge of what your competition pays helps you rely on those numbers when negotiating with your boss.
- Timing is everything. When you have been given some new responsibilities or have recently completed a successful project, it might be a good time to ask for a raise. Having the results or accomplishments helps prove your worth and gives you more weight.
- Be open to moving jobs and/or countries. If you have carried out the last two steps and nothing has changed then approaching companies, you are confident will pay more is the next step. Start reaching out for meeting with them to promote your accomplishments. Furthermore, moving countries can increase your wages due to different market norms and reduce your tax bill as different countries have different tax rules.
3) Passive income ideas
Savings in high-yielding accounts: Always have it working, even if it’s an emergency fund or money that is soon to be spent on something.
Invest in rental properties. This gives you the monthly cash flow that acts as an extra paycheck, which tops up your income and increases your savings rate, as well as providing long term capital growth. Specific property investments are broken down in the following articles to give a deep dive in different property investment sectors.
Lend your money out. Peer-to-peer lending can be done through official companies such as Crowd Property or through trusted private entities. They use the money to carry out projects and pay you a set interest rate for the time that they carry out the project. For example, someone who is running a property refurbishment project, and you lend them a percentage of the equity for the project. Once the project is completed and refinanced, they will pay the initial capital back with the agreed interest rate. Common time periods are 6–18 months.
4) Start a side hustle.
Side hustles can vary massively, and for something to stick, it needs to be something you enjoy, as you tend to be doing it at unearthly hours after a long day. Although this is how to make extra income while working full-time. By no means is the following an exhaustive list, although it covers a couple of side hustles you can do from home on top of a full-time job:
Freelancing on sites such as Fiverr, where you can advertise your expertise to other employers requiring your freelance services,
- Web designer
- Graphic designers
- Outsource writers
- Proofreaders
- Video editors
- Sound designers
- Bookkeeper
- Photographers
Creating a blog on your specific area of expertise will take a long time to generate traction as Google needs to trust you. Once you get regular eyes on your site, you can benefit from product sales, advertisements, and affiliate marketing. Blogging can be on any topic you want and have detailed knowledge of. If you’re a great cook, start a food blog. If you’re passionate about fitness and nutrition, start a health blog. The options are endless with blogs.
There are plenty more options that could be your route to earning more income each month from a side hustle. When deciding, first understand your strengths and what value you could provide someone else, and then start promoting that in your chosen market.
final comments on earning and saving more money
Consistency and mindset are key, whether you’re starting a side hustle or trying to change your monthly habits to become more frugal. The extra money you create through these actions allows you to do so many different things: pay off debt, plan for large purchases, relieve financial stress, achieve financial freedom, etc.
You can try one or all of the aspects listed above. Even starting with something small like calling your car insurance company or competing companies to see about a lower rate is a great first step. Keep snowballing from there, and after a year, you will see some big changes in your life.
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