Winning With Money - A Few Ways To Earn Extra Cash

Winning with money starts with a combination of spending less (covered in Part 1) and earning more. Today I explore different ways to earn a little extra cash. There are all kinds of ways to earn a little more money - none of them will get you rich. But when money is tight sometimes a little bit can make a big difference. From selling old electronics, to simple online tasks - here's my list of little ways to earn extra cash.

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast, Working on Amazing. This is a podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I'm using that word rebuild specifically, because we're designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life. If that's you, I'm sorry. I know how itchy and overwhelming it feels when your life was going one way.

It was like on train tracks, and suddenly the rug gets pulled out from under your feet, and you are no longer on train tracks. You're going something different. Everything has changed.

All your hopes, all your dreams, all your plans for the future have just totally been erased, and it feels like you're starting over. For me, that was a divorce after a 20-year marriage. For my sister, it was the unexpected death of her spouse.

All I know is that a lot of women face this. You are not alone. I also know so many women come out on the other side better for it.

Like, when you take the time to be purposeful about how you rebuild your life and are careful about what elements you choose to focus on, you can have a life that was better than what you had before. You really can't. It's amazing.

We're working on it. We're working on building an amazing life. So I'm so glad you're here with me today.

If you remember, last week, we talked about our financial health, because that's one of the areas that I focused on. When I rebuilt my life, I focused on my financial health. Money can cause us so much stress and so much anxiety, right?

And getting on track and learning how to win with money is so important, especially for us as women, especially for everybody. It's just really important to figure this out.

And for some of us, it's like a beast that's been on our back since we were born, because it's been on our family's back. It's just something that has always been a struggle, but you can win with money. You really can.

It takes some self-discipline, but you can. So last week, we talked about ways to save money.

Because if you really want to simplify and boil it down to its essence, the best advice I can say about winning with money is you've got to spend less than you make. And that's easier said than done, I know.

So last week, we talked about ways to save. So we're spending less, right? And we talked about just different ideas, kind of spitballing.

Yeah, I know that you can't implement every idea that I talked about.

But if you can implement two or three and save money, that's less that you're spending and more that you're saving that you can put it into your savings account or you can use to pay down debt if you have debt. Okay?

So last week was about saving money. This week is about maybe earning a little extra. Because those two things work in tandem a little bit, right?

So when money is really tight and it feels like our entire budget is being taken up with necessities and there's just not a lot of extra room, the two things we need to do is we need to figure out where we can save and then how we can maybe earn and

bring in a little bit more. So last week was things that we can do to save, and this week we're going to be talking about maybe some creative ideas to earn a little bit more money.

Now, huge caveat, none of these ideas are get rich quick schemes, none of these ideas will make you a millionaire. They are simple little things that might bring in extra money. You already have a full time job, you already have a full schedule.

So, what can you do a few hours here and there, you can carve out a little bit of time.

What can you do to make that time useful to bring in a little bit of extra money to pay off a certain bill that you owe, or to get your savings account to a certain level, okay?

So, we're trying to save money by spending less, and we're trying to earn a little bit more, just a little bit. And some of these ideas, you'll have heard of. Some of them are, maybe you haven't heard of.

Different things. I've tried to come up with a bunch of ideas across the board, so that maybe everybody can find, hey, I might be able to do that one, because it's all different types and styles, okay? I've tried several of these.

I haven't tried them all, but I generally know somebody who has made money doing one of these ideas. Now, I broke it down into three main categories of ways to earn extra money. There are things we can do to earn extra money.

There are things we can sell to earn extra money, and we can drive to earn extra money, okay? So I'm going to talk about each category.

Let's go ahead and tackle drive real quick, because I think it's the one we're going to be the most familiar with, all right? So you could drive for Uber or Lyft. You could drive for Uber Eats.

So instead of picking up passengers, you could pick up food. You could... Amazon Flex has a program.

You could sign up for Amazon Flex. Have you ever had a package delivered, and you realized that it was just a normal car delivering it? It wasn't like a UPS truck or a postal service car.

It was like just a normal car. They were probably in the Amazon Flex program, and they can pick up the package and deliver it.

Amazon, most of their packages are delivered through those mainstream ways, but sometimes if there's a package that's off the regular route, or if there is a lot of packages, especially like around Christmas, you could probably do this.

You could do, pick out packages and deliver them with Amazon Flex. You could also do something like Instacart, where you go shopping for somebody and deliver that. There are pros and cons to all of these.

I have not done any of them because I don't like to drive. And all of them fall under that driving category.

But they're flexible enough that you could just say, okay, on Saturdays from, you know, one to five, I could drive around and do a few things and earn a little bit of extra money.

It's up to you how you feel, but those kind of fall under that drive category. We're pretty familiar with them, but I had to list them as an option.

If you like to drive, if you have a reliable car, this could be a real option for you, something to think about. Okay, so that's out of the way. Let's talk about things that you can do to earn extra money, task, thing like that.

Okay, so the first one you may have heard of, you may not, is called Amazon Mechanical Turk, T-U-R-K. That is where it's, you've heard of crowdsourcing and things like that.

So there will be a task, and it will be very simple, very small task, that AI can't quite do yet. It needs human intelligence. Maybe it's writing a product description.

Maybe it has something to do with picking a photo or something like that. And it should be a very short task, and you can sign up for these, and you earn a little bit, and then you do the next task.

So you do several tasks over the course of an hour, and maybe, you know, you earn how much ever. Once again, not get rich quick. You're not going to make tons of money.

But if you're somebody who you have some hours in the evening, maybe you put your kids to bed, and you just watch TV in the evenings.

Maybe if you're trying to pay down that or build up your savings, you could open up your laptop and sign in and do a little bit. Definitely do your research.

I have signed up for this several years ago, not currently, and done tasks through this program. There are pros and cons. There are people who hate it.

There are people who like it. Get a feel for it. Read some reviews.

It doesn't hurt to try. It is a legitimate program. All right.

Another thing you could do if you want to open up your laptop and spend some time and maybe make some money is website experience tester.

Okay, so testing websites for companies is important before they sometimes launch a new page, a new area on their website. It goes through testing. Some people test on a higher level than others.

Some people have that knowledge where they can do more. It's more technical knowledge. You could fall into that category.

But you could also just fall into the category of, as a user, I clicked this button and it didn't work. It's a button that I should be able to click. It didn't work.

The color contrast, I can hardly read the words because the background is yellow and the words are white or whatever. Little things like that. And just the way, if I click here, does it take me there?

User experience, they need somebody to test it. So that's Try My UI. If you Google Try My UI, that will lead you to a place you could sign up.

I will say with this, you do get a free trial. It used to be you could just sign up and do it. Now there is a fee for it.

You get a two week free trial, so you could try it for two weeks and see if you make enough money to renew your license and do it more. That's up to you, but it is something that I did sign up for several years ago, and it's interesting.

Once again, not get roots quick, but something that you can make a little money on, maybe, possibly. You could take online surveys. I have done this.

I have never made great money at it, but I also know people who have, who have really done it. So you could do a place called Survey Junkie. You could do My Points.

And then the one that was my favorite, that I felt like was the best, was Pinecone. Pinecone Research, they only accept people to apply certain times of the year. They don't, they are always open to accept applicants.

And the other thing with Pinecone, I like them, but you're going to earn $3 to $5 here and there sporadically. It's when it comes up. So it's not consistent.

It's not like some of these other things where you can just log on and click off a few hours and make a certain amount of money. It's, you're on their timeline. When they have a survey come up, then you can, you know, do it.

But surveys, some people, I mean, I knew back when my kids were little, in elementary school, I knew some moms who really earned extra money doing surveys. That was their, their spending money. So it's a possibility.

Next possibility is, are you really good at a certain subject? Like, are you really good at math? Maybe you could be an online tutor.

There are companies that hire people who are good at specific subjects to tutor children. I myself am horrible at math. I am not good at math.

I need to hire a tutor to help my child because I can't help them at math because I'm not good at it. So you hire somebody and you go to this, maybe a company that is legitimate, and then they hire tutors.

So it could be that you say in the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 8, I can tutor people online. I can tutor kids, whatever it is. You know your schedule, but you could set just certain times and maybe tutor people.

Similarly, but slightly different. Maybe you're not good at a specific subject, but if you have a college degree, if you've gone to college, you could teach English as a second language to children in other countries.

You may have heard of something called VIP kids. So you sign up with them, and then you start teaching English to children maybe in China.

And you generally are dealing with just one child at a time, and you're helping them learn how to just speak conversational English. You're helping them learn what the words mean and that.

So they like to hire people who have college degrees because they're wanting to bet themselves as whatever to the people they work with. And because they work, schools sign up with them, different things. Anyway, it is a possibility.

I signed up with them. I went through the whole process. I didn't end up setting my tutoring schedule because at the moment, all that got finalized.

My whole life and schedule completely shifted, and it just didn't work out for me. But I did start the process with VIP kids.

I know there are several other companies that do that, not just VIP kids, but it's the same model where somebody from America, who is an English native speaker, teaches children from another country how to speak English.

So if you kind of like teaching that, that's something you might be able to do, and you can set up your schedule so that on Saturdays or whatever, you got a little extra time, you could maybe do that. Other things, other options.

Okay, you can do something. I think we've all heard of this website, it's called TaskRabbit, where people need things and you sign up for the task, and you do them for other people, and like, I need somebody to help me whatever, garden.

I need somebody to go pick up my prescription from Walgreens. I need whatever it is. That could be worth looking into.

You say, okay, I've got a little bit of time, I could pick up a task, make a little bit of money. Two more options, they're old. You have heard them, they're oldies, but they're goodies.

You could babysit or you could pet sit. I think pet sitting is a real viable option because people care so much about their pets right now. I grew up in the 80s, and maybe you would have a neighbor come over and put food in the dog bowl.

But now we spoil our pets. I spoil my pets. I mean, I totally do.

So pet sitting is a pretty viable option for people, especially who, when they're going away for the weekend, want their pet to stay at home. They don't want to put them in a kennel or go to some other place with a strange environment.

They want to keep their dog or their cat in a normal, familiar environment. So pet sitting is an option. And babysitting, I mean, I know that that's what you did when you were in high school.

I did that in high school. But it could be, depending on the groups of people you know, it could be a way to make extra money. So it's just a thought.

We're going over all the options, right? One of them might stick for you. OK, so those are things you can do to earn extra money.

So we talked about driving. We talked about things to do. Now we're going to talk about things to sell or rent.

And some of the things you'll have heard of, but I bet there's some on here that you haven't heard of. So first of all, Fiverr. Fiverr is a site where people can offer their services and other people buy them.

So if you're good at music and you can write little jingles or you're good at graphic design and you could say, I can make your flyer or your this or your that, I'm really good at that, then you could sell your ability to do that.

I saw one person on Fiverr, and this was a while back, but they lived at the beach. So they would write messages in the sand at the beach and take a picture and they would sell those. I thought that was cute.

What do you have this you need that you could sell? What skill do you have? What do you have access to that maybe you could sell?

So that's an option. There's Etsy. If you're crafty, you might be able to open up a shop and sell stuff on Etsy.

I bought lots of stuff throughout the years on Etsy. I like Etsy a lot. I don't sell stuff on Etsy because I'm not crafty.

I wish I was. Canva. Now, I love Canva.

Canva is a website, C-A-N-B-A. Canva. You don't have to pay for Canva.

There is a free use portion of their website, but then you could pay for Canva Pro and have access to more features and more images and graphics and stuff like that.

So the way this one would work is in Canva, you can make forms, you can make tiplets, you can make worksheets.

So if you're really good at that, if that's something that is your skill set, you can make those and then sell the link on Etsy to those worksheets.

What is good about that is if you sell the link to your worksheet, like somewhere like Etsy or wherever, you're not having to go in and package it.

Every time you make a sale, put something in a box, take it to the post office, all that, it's just a link. And that makes it amazing, super easy, but you put the work in up front by making a template or making a worksheet.

So an example might be if you are a kindergarten, first, second grade teacher, early grades, a lot of times they use worksheets. Maybe you've made a great math or science worksheet.

And other teachers might say, hey, I'm willing to pay for that, to be able to download it and print it and use it with my kids.

So I feel like teaching is a great place for the worksheets, but there are other professions and places where you need a form, or you need a template for something specific.

And yeah, I've got to go in and change out, you know, and be able to type in my business name and my, but in Canva, you can make it, so there are only certain fields that are, they can change the text, but the rest of it is kind of locked, so that it

can't be changed. So if you're good at making forms and templates and worksheets, if, like graphic design, you just get it, like fonts and page layout, colors, if that's your wheelhouse, this could be something that you're good at.

If you know different things. Like I said, a teacher knows other teachers. They're probably on teacher forums, so they could maybe sell those.

And I think that is a lot of teachers have that as a side hustle. But then there are other people who know other types of forums that their profession needs. So it's an option.

All right, what else? We all have so much stuff. So you can sell your stuff on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, places like that.

When I moved last, I tend to, I've moved a lot in my life. And when I move, I tend to give things to Goodwill or other people. I've given away some really nice stuff, but I don't think to sell it.

That just does not cross my mind. So this last time I moved, there's a family friend, and her business is estate sales. And she's really good at it.

And she's like, Tiffany, you can sell this and make money with it. And I'm like, huh. And so there was a couple of things, a furniture set that I was, I really was going to give it away.

But she's like, just try to sell it. And I was amazed. It sold and I made money.

And there was one other thing. She was like, let's try to sell it. And I made money.

And it just shocked me, I guess, because I hadn't really done that. And I have friends who put things on Facebook Marketplace all the time and are very, very successful with it. So it's an option.

I think you have to have a skill set for that. Like you have to see it a certain way. But it is, we all have probably way more stuff than we need.

And you could probably come up with some stuff that you could just say, you know what, I don't use this. It's a nice thing. It's a valuable thing.

I could sell it. So, that's an option. Maybe you really like to take pictures.

Like you take a lot of pictures, and you're good at it, you have a good eye for it. Maybe you could sell your pictures. FOP, it's spelled like soap, but with an F, F-O-A-P, FOP, is a place you could go to sell your pictures.

Once again, this is not Get Rich Quick. You're not gonna make tons of money doing this. But there are companies that need a picture for their website or whatever, and so you can upload your picture.

Maybe it'll sell, maybe it won't. Look into it, see if you really like pictures, if you feel like you've got a lot of pictures, maybe of interesting places you've been or whatever.

Maybe you live in a unique area and you have a lot of detailed pictures of that. It could be a way to make a little bit of extra money. Another thing you could do is sell old electronics, okay?

There's a website called Declutter, D-E-C-L-U-T-T-R. Declutter, and I mean like DVDs, old cell phones. We had this stuff laying around our house, unless you've moved recently and then you've gotten rid of all of it.

But we all had DVD collections. We were so proud of collecting DVDs. Do you remember that?

And now nobody uses DVDs anymore. Might as well sell them if you could get something for them, so they're not just taking up space. Most of us have an old cell phone laying around, some kind of old electronic that we don't use anymore.

Maybe just sell it. It's not, you know, it's an option. What about this one?

I thought this was really interesting. Are you recently out of the baby phase? Do you have baby equipment?

You can rent your baby equipment. It's called baby quip, baby Q-U-I-P, baby quip. And this is really helpful when people travel, because you know how strollers and playpens, like nobody wants to fly with that.

And even when you're in a car, sometimes space is really limited, and you don't have room for the pack and play or the high chair. So when people get to where they're going, they would like to rent baby equipment.

If you live near an airport, this could be a really good thing for you. So it's a thought. If you're in that, you know, just recently exiting that phase in your life, because most of that stuff is really good stuff, it generally isn't worn out.

Babies grow so fast, so fast. And they grow out of it, and it's still really good stuff, right? So anyhow, if that's the phase you're in, I have no more baby equipment left.

My kids are all past that phase by a long shot. But if that's the phase you're in, that's something to look into. Another interesting one is called Fat Llama.

And it's a website to rent just your stuff. So maybe you have sporting equipment that's like maybe a little bit specific, you could rent that.

Maybe you have sound equipment, you were going to be a DJ, you were going to do this, you were going to do that. And right now, it's not being used, and you don't want to sell it. Well, this is a site that you could rent it out.

Maybe you have really good photography equipment. You know, anything, just unusual type of equipment, think about it, like look at it, see what other people are listing, and maybe you have something like that.

We all live such different and varied lives. Sometimes you have some interesting things, and you don't even think about it, and it's taking up space, and you think, well, I don't really want to sell it.

I know I'm going to get back into that at some point. Well, maybe right now, while you're in this place, we're trying to make a little more money, maybe you could rent it. It's a thought.

These are all just options. None of them are going to make you rich, but there are some ideas to get the juices flowing. How can I bring in just a little bit of extra money?

Because if you save $200 a month with what we talked about last week, and you bring in another $200 a month with what we talked about this week, just a few little things, that's like $50 a week, right?

But put it together, and now you've got $400 extra in your budget, because you've saved some, you've earned some, and that makes a difference. That's money to pay down debt. That's money to go to something else.

Oh, the last thing I didn't mention in the cell section, I just looked at my notes, you could sell plasma.

I don't do this one because I have low iron, and most of the time, even when I try to give blood, I try to give blood when I can, because I'm O positive, and they really like O positive donors.

And I needed a blood transfusion when I had a major auto accident, so I really do try to give blood when I can. But a lot of times, they're like, no, your iron is too low.

But if you are able to, I know multiple people who have done the plasma, donated plasma, but you get like a Visa card that they put money on. I believe you can earn up to $500 a month doing it, but I think average is more like maybe two or 300.

I think to earn the extra money, you've got to refer people, so you might not want to do that. But $200 or $300 a month, that would be extra money that you could save, extra money that would pay down debt.

And it does mean actually physically go into those locations where they withdraw, you sit there for 30, 40 minutes, whatever it is, but it's an option. So these are all just different things that you can do to bring in a little extra money.

Because, like I said, at the end, if we save a little, we earn a little, it's going to make a difference. We've got to look for the little gaps, the little places. A penny saved is a penny earned.

I remember thinking that. And when I grew up, that was a saying I always heard. But if you save a little, right, and you earn a little extra, it ends up working out.

It really ends up helping. So, see what you can do. How do you earn extra money when you're in a tight spot?

These were some different ideas, but I know you've got other ideas that are creative. What are you going to try that I mentioned? Or what have you done that I didn't mention that other people need to know about?

Hey, look, this is a different way to earn a little bit of extra money. Now, I know there are other things out there, so I would love to hear your ideas. I would love to hear how you earn extra money when you need to make a little extra.

What has been successful? What has worked for you? I would love to hear it.

So you can find me online, www.workingonamazing.com. You can find me on social media. I'm on most of the platforms, but I do hang out on Facebook the most, working on Amazing.

Drop me a line. Let me know how you earn extra money. And let me know if any of these ideas work for you.

What you like and what seems to click with you. I really appreciate you joining me today. I look forward to talking to you next time.

Bye.