Blog - Page 2 of 228 - Making Sense Of Cents

Want To Make An Extra $100 A Month? Learn How To Become A Mystery Shopper

February 6, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Want To Make An Extra $100 A Month? Learn How To Become A Mystery Shopper Back when I had student loans, one of the things I did was learn how to become a mystery shopper so that I could make extra money. No, it did not make me rich, but it gave me a little bit of extra income, and it also allowed me to go out to eat and get free things that I probably would have bought anyways.

Mystery shopping also helped me pay off $40,000 in student loans in just 7 months.

I remember when I first heard of being a secret shopper. I was working at a retail store and we regularly had mystery shoppers come in to grade how we were doing. We never knew who the mystery shopper was, but we would get to read their report afterwards.

I thought it was so interesting that people were getting paid to shop!

Not long after hearing about it, I learned more about how to become a mystery shopper and actually became a secret shopper myself. [Read more…]

Want To Be A Full-Time Traveler? 13 Ways To Make It Happen

February 4, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Is Full-Time Travel A Dream Of Yours? 13 Ways to Make It Happen #fulltimetravel #travel I know that full-time travel is a dream for many. However, it doesn’t have to be just a dream.

We sold our house, moved into an RV, and started traveling around four years ago, and last year we sold the RV and are living on a sailboat. In the past few years, I've met many full-time travelers. There have been people who have saved up enough money to travel for an extended amount of time, those who are retired, those who find odd jobs on the road, those who work while traveling, and more.

I've met some really interesting and awesome people along the way, and they all really prove that anyone can make full-time travel possible.

But, it all depends on how badly you want it.

And, yes, you can do it with a family too. If you don’t believe me, read Becoming an RV Family – How We Travel Full-Time With 4 Kids and 2 Dogs. [Read more…]

12 Free Resources To Grow Your Blog Fast

February 1, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 19 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

12 Free Resources To Grow Your Blog Fast #howtomakemoneyblogging #howtostartablog If you're looking to start a blog or if you already have one, I have some great free resources, checklists, and guides to share with you today.

The resources in this blog post will help you create your blog, come up with blog post ideas, grow your blog income, design your website, learn how to share your website in order to grow your page views, and more.

These are all super valuable resources that will help you start on the right foot!

First, if you don't have a blog, then I recommend starting off with my free blogging course How To Start A Blog FREE Course.

I started my blog, Making Sense of Cents, in August of 2011 and have built a great business. It allowed me and my husband to leave the day jobs we disliked to pursue something that we loved. Now, we travel full-time, make a great living (last month we made over $100,000 blogging), have a flexible schedule, have more time to spend with loved ones, and we will be able to retire early. [Read more…]

My Quest To Be More Present And Enjoy Life More

January 28, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 43 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

My Quest To Live In The Moment And Enjoy Life More #howtoliveinthemoment #dreamlife Lately, I have been wasting so much time on social media and on other things that it has started affecting other areas of my life. There are so many distractions in life, and I want to change that.

In fact, I started writing this blog post at around 10 a.m., and it is now 6:30 p.m. the following day, and I am just now really getting started.

I've been getting so distracted by so many different things that it has caused me to waste a huge amount of time, and therefore, I have not been able to live in the moment like I would really like to.

I constantly have something on my mind, and I feel like I'm not always enjoying the fun moments. This is because I'm always thinking about other things and distracting myself with everything that happens in life.

Due to this, I recently shared this on Twitter: [Read more…]

How One Blogger Grew His Blog to Over 2 Million Visitors In A Year

January 23, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Here's how one blog grew to over 2,000,000 visitors in a year. This blogger has earned over $750,000 in income from their blog due to this one trick! #howtomakemoneyblogging #howtostartablog Today, I want to introduce you to my friend Bobby Hoyt of Millennial Money Man and Facebook Ads For Bloggers. In just three years, Bobby has been able to earn over $750,000 in income from his blog, and I don't see that slowing down anytime soon.

Bobby is a former band director who left his teaching job after making $3 from his blog (yes, just $3!). He’ll tell you that was not the best idea for everyone, but it worked for him and he now blogs full-time.

See, he's doing something a little different than the average blogger, which is focusing heavily on Facebook to drive his traffic and increase his blogging income, and he has seen great success from it!

He grew his blog quickly with Facebook advertising, and he is here today to teach you all about it. He strongly believes that Facebook ads is a great way to grow your blog’s email list, increase your page views, increase your affiliate income, and more. He’s seen it work for him, and he uses this course to teach others how to have the same success. [Read more…]

Learn how to downsize your home, stress free!

January 21, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 11 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you ready for something simpler or smaller and wanting to know how to downsize your home? It can be big process and less and less people seem to be doing it these days.

The average home size in 1950 was less than 1,000 square feet. Fast forward to 2017, the average home size has increased to nearly 2,600 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Related posts:

When we did live in a “normal” home, it was fairly close to that average home size. The house we owned in the St. Louis, Missouri area was around 2,500 square feet if you included our finished basement, and it was just for myself, my husband, and our two dogs. [Read more…]

How We Paid Off $20,000 of Student Loan Debt in 12 Months at 23 Years Old

January 18, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 9 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

As you all know, I love a good debt payoff story. Melanie reached out to me recently and asked if she could share how she paid off her debt. Below is her story, enjoy!

Hi, I’m Melanie! I’m a CPA by day, and personal finance blogger at Melanie De Jong Blog by night! I’m 24 years old, and I reside with my husband and beautiful baby boy in Northwest Iowa. My husband and I paid off $20,000 of student loan debt fresh out of college while living on just one income for 5 of those months AND paying for part of a wedding and a honeymoon (and no, we don’t make a fortune). Our debt payoff story has inspired me to help and encourage others to become financially free! Here's our story.

When the confetti stopped, the champagne was done being popped, and I settled into my new job and new home post-college graduation, the last thing I wanted to think about was how in the world I was going to pay off my student loans. [Read more…]

Subscribe Via Email