Blog - Making Sense Of Cents

25 Of The Best Weekend Jobs – Make Money This Weekend!

June 1, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you looking for the best weekend jobs?

There are several positives of finding weekend work.

Some people like that they are only working on the weekend, but weekend jobs also let you make money in addition to your Monday through Friday job.

Weekend jobs are a flexible way to make money in your spare time, and that’s a great thing for lots of people.

For people with regular 9-5 jobs, you are probably limited with the amount of money you can make at your job, like if you are paid a salary.

A weekend job lets you make money in your spare time.

Or, perhaps you are in school or staying at home with your kids. You need a job that works with your schedule. Finding a good weekend job will fit in with the rest of your life so you can make money in your spare time. [Read more…]

13+ Easy Zero Waste Swaps That Will Save The Environment And Money

May 27, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you looking for easy zero waste swaps that are good for the environment and will help you save money?

I’m always looking for things that I can reuse, and I love when I am able to find easy zero waste swaps.

Not only do they produce much less waste, but many times I am able to save money and space (because I don’t have to store as much!). So, many of these easy zero waste swaps are great if you travel full-time as well!

If you’re not sure what I mean by easy zero waste swaps, I am talking about replacing disposable household products with ones you can reuse over and over again. And, there are swaps for all over your house – there are low waste swaps, plastic free swaps, and more.

As a full-time traveler, one of the problems we have with disposable items is that we have to store a lot of things, and many of them will just be thrown away. [Read more…]

How We Reached Financial Independence Using Airbnb & Real Estate – Plus Strategies During The Pandemic

May 22, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great guest post from Boris and Susan. They purchased their first real estate property in 2017, and became Airbnb hosts. This was a 4-bedroom home that ended up generating them $120,000 in revenue in the first 12 months. They now host close to 10,000 guests per year across all of their properties and do all of this remotely. Below is their story, enjoy!

A foreword given the current state of the world

We wrote this post back in February to describe and share our experience using real estate and Airbnb over the past 3 years to build additional sources of (semi-passive) income. As everyone else, we had no idea that the world would change so dramatically in less than a month after that.

However, although it certainly did change – especially given that the travel and hospitality industry came to a grinding halt and caused a few heartburn-filled weeks – the fundamentals remained valid.

As we’ll discuss towards the end of the article, we’ve been able to make adjustments and pivot in a way that kept our properties occupied, covering costs, and still generating a profit (albeit a smaller one than usually).

The truth is that if we’re looking at a 3-9 months horizon, things will remain challenging and uncertain. However, this was never a short-term strategy for us, as we try to plan for the next 3-10 years and make decisions based on that sort of a timeline. But first, let’s start in the beginning.

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Here’s how it all got started as Airbnb hosts.

For many years, real estate was not really on my radar.

I was happily renting, enjoying the flexibility that it offered, and generally thought of real estate in the context of owning your own home – mainly that it limited your options and didn’t really bring too many positives, other than the hassle of maintenance and doing your own lawn every Saturday.

When I met my wife, Susan, on the other hand, she grew up with a completely different mindset.

When she was growing up in China, the common wisdom was that you should always strive to own your own place as soon as you can afford it.

When she moved to the U.S., she maintained the same viewpoint that owning real estate is a key to becoming financially secure. [Read more…]

Why Save Money Now? 9 Reasons That Will Help You Start Saving

May 18, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Learning to save money is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

Saving money can help you prepare for emergencies, start a business, retire, and more.

Financial security is one of the best reasons for why you should save money, and being prepared financially is one of the best feelings in the world. You can travel more, pursue your passions, quit a job you don’t love, try new things, and more.

But, I hear over and over again from people that they don’t want to save money now because they think they have the rest of their life to do so.

However, that’s far from true, especially if you want to be prepared for emergencies or retire.

When you decide to start saving money now, you will be ready to live the rest of your life.

You can take chances, try new things, and be ready in case something awful were to happen. Saving money gives you the freedom to worry less and live more. [Read more…]

How to Optimize a Blog Post for SEO

May 15, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great article from Trinity Owen on how to optimize a blog post for SEO. I hear a lot of questions about SEO from readers, so this is perfect timing! Trinity has been researching and testing work from home opportunities for more than 10 years and enjoys sharing the information gathered with fellow introverts. Concurrently, she works as a freelance SEO auditor, consultant, and writer. She also has a free 6 Day SEO Boot Camp that you can sign up.

They say SEO takes time.

You can dot your i’s and cross your t’s, but for some reason, a blog post that you optimize for SEO could take six months to a year (or more) to rank on Google, right?

Wrong.

While there’s always the possibility that a brand new blog post needs time to build authority and rank on Google, it shouldn’t take a full year.

In all my years as a freelance SEO, not once did I stumble upon an old blog post making its own way to the first page of Google after a year or more in existence.

If an older post climbs the ranks, it’s because someone revisits it and optimizes it for search engines. [Read more…]

How I Make Money Selling Printables On Etsy

May 14, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 8 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Do you want to learn how to sell on Etsy?

Looking to make money selling printables on Etsy?

Yes, you can sell something like printables on Etsy – and never have to ship a thing!

Creating printables on Etsy can be a great side hustle because you just need to create them once, and you can sell them an unlimited amount of times.

Today, I have a fun interview to share with you. I interviewed my friend Cody on how to sell printables on Etsy. I’ve met him in person a couple of times, and he is full of knowledge, especially when it comes to side hustling!

Cody started with zero graphic design skills and didn’t know how to create printables when he first started. It’s something he learned as he went along. [Read more…]

Free Debt Thermometer Printable

May 13, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Looking for a free debt thermometer printable?

Making your goal visual is a great way to find motivation for paying off your debt.

Having your financial goal displayed in front of you can make it that much realer, plus it’s nice to have a constant reminder of what you are working towards.

One way to do this is to have a debt thermometer.

With this free printable, you can keep track of your debt payoff progress.

How to use this debt payoff thermometer printable:

At the top, under “Total Debt,” you will write down how much debt you have.
Then, on each line below that, I like to write out how much debt you’ll have to pay off in order to color each section. For example, if your total debt is $10,000, then each 10% amount would be $1,000.
After you reach each level, you then color up to that line so that you can better visualize the amount of debt that you are working with.

You can get the free printable by signing up below.

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