Best Financial Tip: Make More Money
Most people only dream about making more money, but in reality it’s easier than you think. You can make more money by getting a raise or a promotion at work, or by changing careers to a more lucrative field. You can also get a second job, or start your own business on the side.
The point is you don’t need to create a real estate empire or inherit a million dollars to start living more comfortably. You just need to get creative and start hustling. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can achieve your financial goals when you start earning more money.
Three years ago, I made a career change that boosted my income by about $10,000. Then we decided my wife would stay home full time with our kids.
We could have cut our budget to the bone and made things work. But instead of spending my free time on the couch watching Seinfeld reruns while our kids were in bed, I decided to start a blog and do some freelance writing on the side to make more money.
Related: 35 Ways To Save Money
It took some time, but after a few months I started earning a few hundred bucks from advertising and writing. Boomer & Echo is only two years old now, but it’s one of the biggest personal finance blogs in Canada. I’ve also been writing twice a week for Moneyville, an off-shoot of the Toronto Star.
How To Make More Money
A friend of mine has his own landscaping and snow removal business in addition to his full time job. It’s grown so big that he’s had to hire two employees to keep up with demand.
A local entrepreneur started his own DJ business and has been booked solid for weddings and Christmas parties for years. His taste for entrepreneurship didn’t stop there, as he started a Booster Juice franchise a few years ago and just opened up his second location in the mall this past summer.
Related: The Cost Of Starting A Franchise
I found out that quite a few people I work with have their own gigs on the side. Here’s what some of them are doing:
- Photography
- Promotional items (sourcing pens, t-shirts and other promotional items for your business)
- Mortgage broker
- Freelance writing for local magazines and newspapers
- Content creation for local websites
- Bartender
I’ve also met some people who are doing some amazing things online. Steve from My Wife Quit Her Job started an online store selling linens and now teaches people how to open an online store, starting with a free 6 day mini-course.
Peter from Bible Money Matters was designing logos for websites on the side, and so he created a site called Logos for Websites (clever!) and does logos, headers, e-book covers, and Facebook and Twitter backgrounds.
Young & Thrifty bought a house in Vancouver and rented out her basement to help pay the mortgage off faster.
There are a million examples of how to make more money. Cutting your expenses can only go so far. The path to financial freedom becomes much easier when you make more money.
Related: Our Fast Track To Financial Freedom
Having multiple streams of income also helps protect you from financial disaster, in case you lose your main job or become disabled.
So there’s my best financial tip – go out and make more money.
True story. Being frugal, cutting expenses to the bone is fine (so long as a person doesn’t develop a poverty mentality). But moving a budget around is zero-sum thinking.
Increasing one’s income is like expanding the pie. And it can afford a ton of freedom and choice to hard workers, as you’ve experienced. Great tip.
Pie? I like where you’re going with this…..
What is a ‘poverty mentality’? Does Warren Buffett have a poverty mentality? I would say yes he does. Everyone is different in their relationship to money. Some can win the lottery and gain a ‘rich mentality’ then end up losing it all and become poor again.
Having multiple sources of income probably requires creating and developing different pies instead of just expanding one pie. eg. a network marketing business, investing in crypto currencies like Bitcoin or real estate investing are separate businesses with different tax implications, and some might require setting up different small business structures.
I`ve been thinking about this more lately. Living frugally only gets you so far. At some point you`ve got to start upping the income
Couldn’t agree more! Combining some extra income along with some simple planning ahead, which is what my financial literacy post is going to be about later today, is the one two punch that will get your finances on track in a hurry and give you some breathing room.
Thank you. This is very practical. I work as an accountant but I also do freelance job, and recently I realized it’s better to build my own blog as well. I can make more money on freelance jobs however it would not provide me passive income – so I decided to become more serious on blogging and COD is burn!
I guess this would be the ideal thinking that it’s better to make more money than live within your means and constantly cut your budget. And while not everybody is skilled with words, if you have the desire to find that certain spot you think you can excel in, you need to grab that opportunity and take action.
It is all depends on what your goals are. Yes of course we all want to be financially free so we aren’t burdened the stress and strains of the day job, but to put making money before my family doesn’t work for me. By all means, make sure you get what you deserve for your daily grind, but I have already sacrificed time with my family to make more money and have found it is not worth it for me. So side gigs are put off until my kids are no longer interested in me (probably sometime in their teens). Until then I will be cutting and curbing my spending to ensure I can spend the most time I have now with my family. Then perhaps we can talk side gigs in 10 years. Please note that doesn’t stop me from trying to be financially free, it just means I won’t get there as fast as I possibly could. You only live once and your kids are only young once.
@Devin – I agree, your family should come first. I can do my side gig on my laptop from the comfort of my living room, and I usually write articles and work on my business in the evening after my kids go to bed. It’s worked out well so far, but I’ve definitely been a lot busier since we had our 2nd child.
I’m a laboratory technician but unfortunately we don’t get paid very much for the work that we do. Just recently I’ve been going into forex but I’ve found that there’s a lot of risk taking involved. As of now, I’m looking into ways to supplement my income by blogging and writing about things that I enjoy doing most. It is still in the early stage but I hope I’m moving in the right direction. I’m definitely not giving up until I’ve attained something in life.