Extra Income Archives - Page 54 of 54

Being a Landlord

September 18, 2011 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.

Me and the BF are always thinking about what we would do with the house that we have now when we eventually buy a bigger house. Would we rent it out or sell it? We are seriously thinking about renting it but we need to know all facets of this.

We have a lot of friends and family who are serious house flippers and landlords. And they ALL have their scary stores which sway me to not even consider renting. A lot of people don't pay and you more than likely can't get your money if they don't. Where I live, you also are not allowed to kick people out (this is probably similar to a lot of places, but I don't know).

Anyways, if we did rent, there is the potential that we could make a nice profit. We've thought about staying in our house for awhile, but we decided that we want more land. We live on less than 1 acre right now, and we both want more once we both have higher incomes. We don't plan on renting or buying a new house for at least 5 years, as we've only lived in our current house for about 2 years.

What are your experiences with renters and rentals?

An Extra $20,000

August 30, 2011 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 11 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.

What would you do with an extra $20,000?

I recently read this article which said:

“CNN recently created a video in which they asked New York residents in Central Park a simple question “How would you spend an extra $20,000?”

What can you do with $20,000?

You could buy a Mini Cooper
You can invest it for 30 years and turn it into $265,353 at a 9% rate of return…
You can buy 40,000 donuts which is enough to last you 109 years (without inflation and the cost of your heart surgery).
You can stay at the Burj Al Arab for 3 nights
You can live in Thailand for two years
You could feed 80,000 children in Africa for a day or 220 for about a year.”

Would you buy a car, use it as a down payment on a house, pay off loans, splurge on something, or what?

How I plan on increasing my income and therefore my savings

August 25, 2011 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 26 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.

Me and the BF have been talking, and we want to pay down our debt faster, and start putting more in savings.

We want to add around an extra $1,000 (after tax) to our monthly income. This shouldn't be too hard.

Our steps for doing this include:

1. Doing more secret shops. I have made around $250 so far. My plan is to make around $150-$200 a month.

2. Continuing with my online surveys. Probably only around $30 a month. But this along with Swagbucks will probably be around $50 a month altogether.

All the money I earn from Swagbucks I use for Amazon gift cards, and I plan on just using this for Christmas time for the kids in the extended family.
From the survey company that I participate through, I also get lots of free products. These are not just trial sized products (actually none of my surveys have includes trial sized items). I get full products such as 8 rolls of toilet paper, 5 tubes of lip gloss, $200 to spend on Captain Morgan, gift cards to spend at grocery stores, TRESemme conditioner and shampoo and so on. All of this free stuff also saves money.

3. We have a friend moving in with us. This person is going to pay $300 for rent and utilities altogether. Our house isn't huge but we have a finished basement, so altogether our house is around 2,500 square feet. So, with a roommate we still won't be cramped.

FYI, we are not having them move in just for the money, just so everyone knows.

4. Also, hopefully I can convince the BF to get a second part-time job. His hours at his current job have been cut (but he's still making the same amount of money, I have no clue how that worked out), so he has time now. Now I just need him to be motivated to look.

I know he can find one, a lot of our friends own restaurants and businesses and they are always asking him if he would like to work with them. I estimate that if he can find a part-time job, that he will make somewhere around $500 a month.
He asked for more hours today (right after I posted this) at his work and now he's making an extra $300 a month from work.

5. And then I plan on maybe getting a side job also. As many of you know, I have been asking you what you do and pretty much just bugging everyone. I'm not sure how I will have time for a side job, as I work 50 hours a week and I attend MBA classes full-time as well (12 credits this semester).

I have two friends who are beer cart girls (both work at a different golf course, and they are both teachers and beer girls on the weekend). They make AT LEAST $300 every weekend, for just one day and just a couple of hours.
They usually work from around 9am to around 1pm. So this sounds like pretty easy money to me. They also always tell me to join them because they always need help.
So even if I worked just two days a month, I should clear at least $300 (pessimistically thinking) a month from this.

I know that all of this won't happen, but that's why my goal is only for $1,000. We then plan on paying off my student loan that actually has an interest rate right now. This loan is at around $5,700. So if we can pay off this loan in 5-6 months, we would then be able to start paying off my car completely and have that done within 4 months after the loan is done. So sometime by before next summer, I should be free of my student loan (that has interest) and my car loan! Then after this, I will be graduating with my MBA soon after, and then I can start working on paying down my enormous student loan.

What have you been doing to make extra income?

Do you have any side jobs?

August 11, 2011 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.

DailyWorth published a new article yesterday. You can find it here.

I love the Money Fix Series because it is very relate-able.

Stephanie has a budget shortfall of nearly $500. She has cut nearly everything out she doesn't need and she still has this shortfall. The author of the article suggests that she find some part-time work.

I have been trying my hand at side gigs for about a month.

I secret shop for Best Mark (this has brought in more than $100 so far and I've only been doing this for less than a month)
I participate in online surveys (these don't pay a ton, maybe around $3 per survey)
I'm also trying my hand at writing for Yahoo. I have found it very hard to find myself to write for them though. I have no motivation. I need to change that.

Your turn: Do you have a budget short-fall? What do you do to fix this? Do you have any part-time work? Or freelancing gigs?

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