Extra Income Archives - Page 47 of 51

Extra Money Ideas

July 12, 2012 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.

Shorter post today. Super busy with all the car stuff, work and school. But of course I don't want to leave you hanging 🙂 and I also have a lot of stuff on my mind that I love getting your opinions on.

Yesterday, I made a post about maybe getting a part-time job. A lot of you said just relax, and a lot of you said I should try and find something and come up with extra money ideas.

There are a lot of things out there that I could do. I'm still not sure how much time I would want to dedicate to it though. Once I graduate and get promoted at my work, I'm sure there will be a lot more stress involved and I probably won't want something that takes up too much time.

However, I have no kids or anything, so I know I will have time.

Here's a list of things that I could do:

Create another blog. I could start being more professional with this and start learning what all the blog terms like SEO and everything really mean, and then apply it to my blog.
Tutor. I have a lot of people who are always asking me to tutor them, but I always say no. It wouldn't be a bad idea though.
Work at the tanning salon with my friend. She doesn't make the greatest money, but it's not hard work.
Bartend. A lot of my friends are bartenders and make decent money. Plus they get free drinks from other bartender friends that we know and free drinks at their bar.
Volunteer. Yes I wouldn't make any money, but I could finally start volunteering at the animal shelter.
Retail store. I could maybe ask for my job back at where I used to work, and I'm sure she would say yes. She still loves me.
Do medical research tests. I would never do this. I hate shots, needles, blood being drawn. But my friend does work at a medical research facility and she's always telling me about the awesome pay they give. This is something I'd never do, but I thought I'd throw it out there for others.
Find a temp job. Some of you mentioned this, what type of skilled temp jobs are out there that you guys were mentioning?
Babysit/nanny. I did this when I was much younger, and haven't watched a little kid in forever. But I do remember that the pay was good when I was in middle school. I got paid $10 an hour which was pretty nice.

What would or do you currently do for extra money?

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

July 5, 2012 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.

June was good for us. We accomplished a lot of goals and got a lot of stuff done around the house.

We changed our basement, living room and garage. My mom gave us most of her furniture and this allowed us to get rid of the things in our house that we hated. We moved our couch downstairs and put her couches upstairs (because hers wouldn't fit down our basement stairs). Our basement now looks super nice. She also gave us her fridge (which she just recently bought for $3,000).

Over the weekend, the boy gutted the garage and took out all the shelving. We put our old fridge in there and he built new shelves that are nicer. Our whole house looks so much better now! Now, we just need some floor to ceiling pictures (we want these for the basement), and we need carpet in the living room.

June was also a 3 paycheck month for me, which made it even better of course! The third paycheck definitely helped out. I was able to pay for my my WHOLE summer tuition bill with the extra paycheck, a little savings and extra income. No student loans for this semester. I know this isn't a huge thing for others, but I've taken out some form of student loans EVERY semester so far.

You can find my 2012 yearly goals update here (I updated this recently).

We are also thinking about planning a vacation to Turks and Caicos in November. Has anyone ever been? Is November a bad time (weather-wise)?

June Goals

Reassess our budget and cut out $25. PASS! Recently I told you all that I managed to get a lot of our bills cut, and we also cancelled our gym membership. It's definitely the little things that count! I think we managed to cut out around $75 out of our monthly budget.
Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. PASS! I haven't been doing extremely difficult work outs, but I have been doing something nearly everyday, which counts for me.
Make an extra $1,000 this month. PASS! Yes we are a tad below ($6 under), but this is still a pass in my book. Thanks to extra rent money, this was definitely possible. See below for a break out 🙂 Also, I didn't factor in the fact that it was a 3 pay check month for us into the extra income. I worked at my normal job for this, so it's not considered “extra” for me.
Gut my closet and re-do it. PASS! We didn't gut it, but we put in extra shelves and cleaned the heck out of it. It was a disaster before. I still need around 100 hangers though (which is sad, I know).
Eat in at least 5 times. PASS! We have been doing great with this. I plan on doing an update to our food challenge post soon.
Study everyday for at least an hour for part 4 of my work certification test. FAIL! I haven't been doing great with this. This is something that I definitely need to work on. I took a small test this past Saturday, but my main test is in August in D.C.
My last semester starts this month and I have my annual review, do great! PASS! I've definitely been ahead with my school work. My annual review went well also. I should probably make a post on that too.

July Goals

Cut my food budget down to $400. In the past we have been extremely bad with this. I want it to be $400 for groceries and for going out. I know we can do this. Hopefully us switching to cash will help.
Workout at least 4 times a week and run with my dog. I've been doing much better with this, but I know that I can do better. My gym membership is now cancelled, but I can still run with my dog. Hopefully the weather cools down!
Make an extra $1,000 this month. This will be a lot easier now that we're getting around $600 from rent income.
Study everyday for at least 2 hours for part 4 of my work certification test. The test is coming up very quickly!
Read 2 books. I hardly ever read books. However, I just found my Kindle after it being lost in the house for over a year. So I'm going to start reading! WOOHOO

Blog Goals

Twitter followers: Goal was for 350, I'm currently at 742. My goal for July is 850.
Alexa rank: Goal was to be under 90,000. I'm right around 89K now. I seem to still be stuck at this amount even though my reader numbers keep going up. How do I decrease this more? I'm really not too worried about it though.
RSS readers: Goal was for 650, I'm currently at 860. My goal for July is to have 950.
Guest post at least 2 times this month. I'm horrible with this! Does anyone want a guest post? 🙂

Extra Monthly Income in June

Advertising on my blog – $525

Surveys -$3
Mystery Shopping -$216
Rent -$250

So I actually made $994 extra last month!

How did you do in June? Any extra income?

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

June 3, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 28 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.

May was good, but we had a lot of big expected and some unexpected expenses. Between my plumbing mistake, and us wanting just to replace all the pipes, that cost around $400 (before drywall). I also had to get new license plates (and pay all the fees and taxes), my sister moved in, and a bunch of other small things happened.

The weather has been brutal this month, so I'm assuming that our air conditioning bill will prove that. This weekend has been cooler though. Gotta love Midwest weather. One day it's 100 degrees and the next day it's 50.

I'm really hoping for a great June! It's a 3 paycheck month for me, which I am definitely looking forward to.

You can find my 2012 yearly goals update here (I last updated this a couple of weeks ago).

May Goals

Reassess our budget and cut out $25. FAIL. I don't think I cut anything out.
Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. FAIL.
Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. PASS. I made money from selling clothes, but I used that same money to buy stuff back, so I actually PAID in the end.
Make an extra $600 this month. PASS. I made $672! See below. I feel like I'm forgetting something and that it should actually be higher.
Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. FAIL. Haven't done this at all. Now that we have another roommate moving in (more on that later), my future closet will instead be his bedroom. But I convinced the Boy to completely gut the closet I have now and redo it to make it nice.
Eat in at least 5 times and make 1 vegetarian meal a week. FAIL. We've been horrible with eating in. This is something we WILL succeed at in June.
Do great on finals. PASS. I could've done better, but laziness definitely took over.

June Goals

Reassess our budget and cut out $25. I'm finally going to cut our cable bill this month. No, I will not get rid of HBO (come on, True Blood starts this month!), but I will ask them to lower it since our contract will be up soon.
Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. I will do this…
Make an extra $1,000 this month. Now that we have another person moving in (I'll update you all on this soon), I am going to bump this up. I don't have anymore textbooks to sell, but I'll figure out ways to make more.
Gut my closet and re-do it. We plan on testing our DIYing skills this month. I want to paint, all new shelves and to clean it.
Eat in at least 5 times. Definitely something we will accomplish this month!
Study everyday for at least an hour for part 4 of my work certification test. I really need to study everyday!
My last semester starts this month and I have my annual review, do great! This will be my final semester, and then I'll have my Finance MBA. I also have my annual review this month at my work. I need to really get across my strengths in order to make this Finance MBA worth it to my company (and my salary).

Blog Goals

Twitter followers: Goal was for 350, I'm currently at 450. My goal for next month is 600. Help me with this 🙂
Alexa rank: Goal was to be under 90,000. I'm right around 85K now. I'm happy with this now. I think this has started to plateau. Any help on lowering this? I'm not sure what to do next.
RSS readers: Goal was for 650, I'm currently at 670. My goal for June is to have 750.

Extra Monthly Income in May

Sponsored Posts on my blog – $350
Surveys -$12
Mystery Shopping -$90
Sold textbooks -$220

So I actually made $672 extra last month!

How did you do in May? Any extra income?

Saving While on Vacations

May 25, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a 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.

Kauai

Many people are going on vacation this weekend for Memorial Day, and many people are also planning a summer vacation, so I made a vacation savings post for today (and also to enter the Budgets are Sexy contest)! I also love talking about vacations and dreaming about them, so of course that's another reason.

I've been thinking about vacations a lot lately. Who doesn't? I would love to travel everyday for the rest of my life, but of course that's not very realistic (at least not at the age of 23!).

We spent a lot of money on our last vacation, that is a fact. However, we saved money in many ways on this vacation as well. This vacation could have easily cost around $5,000, but we spent much less due to me looking for deals.

Our greatest savings was with our airfare. It's nice that I'm able to travel for nearly free (and sit in first class nearly every time) because of my dad's retirement benefits. I know not everyone can do this so I won't go too in depth on this. [Read more…]

Getting a Second Job?

May 23, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a 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.

Hopefully all of this hard work allows me to retire on the beach sooner.

I keep telling all of you that my goal right now is to increase my income and not cut too much more out of our budget. The only way from here is up! I choose not to cut from my budget anymore for a lot of reasons. I'm happy with my budget where it is now and eliminating items such as cable wouldn't make me that much happier.

My budget is low and at around $2,100 a month. Our after-tax monthly income is over twice as much as our budget, so there is plenty of room for us to enjoy the things that we want. We do have a lot of mortgage and student loan debt though. Extra income would be helpful. AND it would allow us to potentially retire earlier.

Now, just because I say I won't cut things, doesn't mean that I won't try to find good deals though! I'm still going to try and lower my cable bill. And I do kind of want to start couponing again, mainly because I like getting things I already use for free. 🙂

Now, there are many things out there that can be done for extra income. However, what is the point where I reach my limit?

Around a month ago, over at Punch Debt in the Face, he talked about when you give up the extra income for your freedom. This led me to wonder what my limit is.

I get paid salary at my job, so there is no paid overtime. The only way for me to make more income is to do something on the side.

Right now I am doing mystery shopping, surveys and making a little bit from my blog. Right now altogether this makes me around $500 a month, but once I graduate I'll have more time to make more as well.

I've worked full-time since I was 16 (and have gone to high school, undergraduate and graduate school full-time at the same time). Right now I go to the office M-F of course and from around 8am to 5pm. Then of course when classes are in session, I head to classes for another 12 hours a week.

This all adds up quickly and leads to NO free time.

When I'm done with my MBA, I definitely plan on taking a long break, but eventually I know I'll have too much time on my hands. There's only so many months where I could come home from work and sleep everyday. Eventually that has to get boring right? Ok maybe not…

I could get a part-time job. This will help me pay off my debt even faster. There's retail, waitressing, bartending, etc. that I could get into. I still don't know if it's all worth it though for the minimal amount that I'd be making.

What will I do with all of this free time? The amount that I could get from another side gig that I most likely won't enjoy would be minimal, so when's the point when I say no to extra income?

Would an extra $500 for a part-time job a month be worth it? I'll have my degree and hopefully be making more, so I think I'd prefer my freedom more. Of course if we needed the money, I would get a part-time job, but at the moment I think I'll enjoy myself.

When does money just become money and
not worth risking happiness for you?

Cheap or Frugal

May 22, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a 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.

I am cheap in many ways. I need to learn how to buy things for quality over quantity.

As you all know, last week I asked you all on Twitter if $70 was too cheap for unclogging our kitchen drain. A lot of you said it seemed cheap. I wasn't sure because last year we easily found a plumber for $90 to unclog our bathroom sink.

Well of course it turns out that $70 is way too cheap. I chose cheapness over quality workmanship.

The $70 plumbers were young. The owner of the plumbing company was only 2 years older than me (yes I Facebook creeped). They also weren't as knowledgeable as the plumbers who came to fix their mess.

We finally finished all of the plumbing yesterday. The new plumber we hired (who is our friend) came over and we decided to replace the rest of the copper piping in our house and it ended up costing $300 altogether. We still need to fix the wall and hire someone to patch it back in, but that won't cost too too much.

If I would have kept searching for a plumber who had a good reputation, I most likely could have avoided all of this. But I am glad it's all done! If the dumb plumbers wouldn't have messed up, then we wouldn't have noticed that our other pipes needed to be replaced within the next year. So thankfully we got to find out before our walls flooded from a busted pipe.

We found out that we do have roots growing in our pipe (the part of the pipe which is under the basement). The plumber said this is a common problem in many houses nowadays. Anyone else ever had to deal with this?

Another cheap thing that I'm guilty of is that I buy a lot of clothes from Forever 21. The clothes are cute, but not things that I'd wear for multiple years. The quality stinks and doesn't last long, and usually the items aren't “classic” pieces which will always look good.

This is something that I need to stop! Cheap clothing overtakes my closet but I should be going to better stores. I need to learn from Bridget badly!

Other things that I do that are cheap and definitely not frugal nor healthy, is that when I can't find something healthy to make, sometimes I'll just throw random crap in a bag for my work lunch and eat it all. It's usually extremely random things and lots of unhealthy things such as lots of different chips.

This is definitely cheap. I'm foregoing my health for a couple of dollars of savings. I don't do this often, but every now and then.

I consider myself not cheap (but yet still frugal) in many ways:

I always make sure to tip well. I would never be so cheap as to where I leave minimal or $0 tips.
I will always buy higher quality food for my dogs. They are worth it.
I always take good care of my car. I want it to last awhile and that means that I have to take care of it.
I always fall for warranties. This is something that's bad though (and NOT frugal). I feel like items always break when I buy warranties for them, but when I decide not to buy one, they break immediately. So now I always buy the extra insurance (such as for a rental car).
I do buy quality electronics and other items. Such as TV's, cars, phones, etc. I do believe cheap and good quality items are worth it (except of course I need to learn for clothes).

Are you cheap or frugal? What are some cheap or frugal things you do?

Financial Milestones in Your 20s

May 16, 2012 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.

We paid for this with CASH

There are many things that I want to accomplish in my life. Starting the things listed below will only make life easier for the most part. When you look at my list below, I have 11 checks so far so I'm about half way done. Some things I partially do, but decided not to say that they are a “check.”

However, I do think I'm doing good with this list, there's nothing I'd really change about what I'm doing now in order to have more “checks.”

Erika and Vanessa both shared a list of their financial milestones. Check theirs out! Below is my list:

Finance a dream vacation…in cash. Check! I've paid for all of my vacations in cash. I went to Kauai in March and this was definitely a dream vacation.
Pay off your student loans. I haven't paid them off completely. I have paid some though, and I plan on paying for this upcoming summer semester completely with cash. This definitely requires some saving and buckling down this summer.
Automate paying your credit card bill in full. Check! I pay my bill in full always.
Get rid of all bad debt. Check! “Bad debt” depends on the person, but all I have are a mortgage and student loans. I consider these to be “good” in my life.
Build an adequate emergency fund. Check! Our emergency fund is currently at $15K, we do want to take this and start applying it towards debt though. Our fund doesn't need to be this high and could be better used in other places.
Make your first, and last, investment mistake. I'm still making investment mistakes. I'm still trying to understand everything. I guess since I work in the finance industry, I am much more critical and analyze the market a lot.
Develop a statement of cash flows. I do this in my head, but I've never written it down. Probably need to do this though. I always make sure there's plenty of cushion in our checking account so that we never bounce anything though.
Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k). I don't save nearly enough right now. This is something I need to work on, but I do want my debt to be gone quickly. Right now I save between 10-15% of our after-tax pay every month.
Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power. Check! I'm about to get my Finance MBA. WOOHOO!
Take a career risk. Never done this. I've only had 2 jobs my entire life. 5 years in retail management and 2 years as a financial analyst. Definitely no career risk there.
Negotiate something. Check! I always negotiate on vacations. When I booked our Vegas Bachelorette trip for this August, I called many places and eventually got a great deal. I asked this to match a price I found somewhere else, and they even threw extras in.
Earn your first side grand. Check! I've made nice side money from my blog, mystery shopping and surveys.
Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal. I don't have any separate accounts, but I do think this would help since the money would be separated from the other accounts.
Set a target retirement date. This isn't set in stone of course since we are still young. Hopefully around the age of 50 though. This most likely won't be a complete retirement though. I still see myself doing some sort of part time gig when I'm older.
Monitor your credit. Check! I check this all the time, especially since someone stole my social security number when I was younger. Things always tend to pop up but for the most part I am safe now.
Say no to a financial salesman. Check! I'm actually pretty good with saying no. My friends and bf always laugh because I can walk away so easily and not care. In Kauai, some guy tried selling us a timeshare and after about 15 minutes of him talking, I looked at my bf and I could tell he didn't want to be mean. So I told the guy no and walked away. My bf still thanks me for having no heart when we are around persistent sales people.
Give just enough to make it hurt. We hardly give. We used to give around $100 a month to United Way, but we didn't realize until now that they are extremely corrupt. So we have limited this greatly and now we only give around $20 a month.
Invest $1 for every $1 you spend- in progress. Check kind of. We save around 50% of our after-tax income every month, and soon this will be much more.
Start a 529 College Savings Plan. Ehh not really interested in this at all.
Buy a house. This is something I just added (thanks to Work Save Live). This is a CHECK for me!

How many have you completed? Any input on the list?

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