In 2016, our family did a great job in working towards our goal in our journey towards obtaining financial freedom. If you read 3 Steps to Accomplishing Your Goals in 2017, you would know that we were able to accomplish 75% of our 2016 goals. Although it was not 100%, we are grateful, that we were able to work towards a set of plans together and check off the majority of them off of our list. This year, however, our family has declared 2017 to be a year of increase…increase our means of paying off even more debt. In order to accomplish this, we have to use the tools that have allowed us to get this far and incorporate more tools that will allow us to get even further.
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By little or by much, our goal is to make it happen in 2017. So, in reading, researching and reviewing various ways which other families have earned extra income to put towards paying off debt, we put together our top three ways to earn additional income in 2017. And believe me when I say, we are doing them all!
- Get a Side Hustle! I can never overestimate the importance and the power of having a side hustle. Having a side hustle is the reason we have been able to pay off over $40,000 worth of debt in under two years. Having a side hustle is the reason we have been able to save for our emergency fund. Having a side hustle is the reason we have been able to plan our family vacations. Having a side hustle is how we plan on obtaining FINANCIAL FREEDOM! So, what can you do as a side hustle? Just about anything! I believe you can use your natural, God-given gifts or even the skills you are currently using on your 9-5.
- If you love gardening, start a landscaping business.
- If you love children, babysit on the weekends.
- If you love cooking, sell pre-made dinners to busy moms during the week.
- If you are an administrative assistant, try being a virtual assistant.
- If you are a teacher, start writing curriculums for homeschoolers
- If you are a great speaker, create videos on public speaking and sell them to leaders.
There are so many ways to earn additional money. Just determine a need and meet it using your skill-sets.
- Start a Blog. I started blogging as a means to show other families our journey to becoming debt-free. I love writing about our story, while helping other families do the same, but in doing so, blogging has become a business in itself. How?
- It has allowed me to give out free, quality content to my readers…and if you have your own business, you can do the same. For example, if you have a landscaping business, you could send out a blog informing readers about the best flowers to plant in the spring or the best time of day to water the grass in the summer. Giving out this free information will allow more people to “follow” your blogs, leading to more people obtaining your services for landscaping.
- Blogging also allows you to create a means to showcase products you develop. For example, since I have started blogging, I have created multiple T-shirts on Getting Out Of Debt as well as an E-Book on “How to Turn a Hobby Into a Business”. Blogging helps you to determine products your readers/clients may like and/or need and, thereby, allows you to disseminate the information to them readily.
- Blogging also allows you to showcase and highlight other people’s products whom you trust and love through what is called “affiliate marketing”. For example, Michelle Schroeder-Gardner of Making Sense of Cents, is a personal finance blogger who I follow. She brings in six-figures per month from her blog and she recently created an online course called “Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing” (which I just completed and love, by the way). If you clicked on the link here and decide to take her course as well to learn how to start making six-figures using a blog, I would get a percentage of what you paid her. This is called Affiliate Marketing and bloggers are earning a ton of money (when used correctly) as additional income. If you do not have a website and do not know where to start, click here to start a blog within minutes.
- Shopping! I know it seems counterintuitive for me, the person who blogs about eliminating spending, telling you the third way to earn money is to SPEND; however, hear me out. Spending is inevitable! We live in a world where we work to spend. Between buying clothes, diapers, cars, houses or just food, we have to spend money; therefore, since spending is a necessity, we might as well find a way for it to work to our advantage. And this has become one of my goals for 2017.
- When it comes to shopping for clothes, household goods or even doing taxes, I have found a site that allows me to earn money back on my purchases and it is called Ebates, you may have heard of them. Ebates offers you discounts on purchases as well as cashbacks on the purchases you make. Since I do most of my shopping online, I downloaded Ebates as a Google Chrome Extension on my laptop and whenever I go to a website that has an Ebates coupon/discount, it will ask if I want to use the discount. So far, I have saved money on purchasing “middle-of-the year school uniform pants” purchases and saved and earned money on the cost to do my taxes via Turbo Tax this year. Try Ebates! So far, I love it.
- When it comes to grocery shopping, I have been using the app called Ibotta. And so far, this has probably my favorite grocery app. With Ibotta you open the app, choose the store your grocery store and choose items you will most likely purchase. Once you actually purchase them, you just take a picture of the receipt and the item you purchased and get money back, plus you earn $10 on your first use of the app. So far, I am loving Ibotta as well. Both Ebates and Ibotta allows you have the money you earned place on your PayPal Account (if you have one) or they can just mail you a check.
So, these are three ways we are earning additional money in 2017. While, #1 may be allowing us to earn more than #3, we do not sleep on any money. All money, big or small, can help us reach our goal of getting out of debt. So, let 2017 be a year of trying various means to earn additional income and let me know which one have worked the best for you and your family.
