Whenever I read about personal finance, specifically stuff about how to pay off debts, the mantra is generally “decrease spending and increase income,” but the emphasis always seems to be on decreasing spending. I don’t doubt that that’s the better of the two strategies, since if you’re in the hole it’s best to stop digging. But at the same time, as I try to curtail my unnecessary spending (which I’m having mixed success with, *cough..shoes..cough*), I thought, why not balance this with trying to bring in some extra income? So I sat down and made a little plan:
1. Apply for a $500 scholarship that my school has for part-time grad students. It’s probably a long shot, but since my grades are good enough I thought I should give it a try. I dropped off the application on Monday, so now I just have to cross my fingers and wait.
2. Do some freelancing. I signed up for oDesk and so far it’s working out well (and I like it better than elance). I stick to my standards, don’t apply for anything that looks sketchy or lame, and look for positive feedback from providers before bidding on a job. Right now I’m still wrapping up my semester but I’m hoping to do more freelancing in the summer.
3. Promote my favourite blender. I am a total Vita-Mix devotee, so I’m happy to promote them. People who buy one using my link save $35 on shipping, and I get a little commission to throw at my debt, so everyone’s happy.
4. Sell unneeded “stuff”. I did that when we last moved and ended up making $1000 by downsizing – that’s almost a year’s part-time tuition for me so I was thrilled. There’s still too much “stuff” though…I need to declutter in a big way! I haven’t ever used eBay as a seller and I’m hesitant about the shipping aspect, but I’m thinking about trying it this summer to get rid of various things that are cluttering up my life.
5. Blog? I write a shoe blog for fun, and I may see if any shoe companies want to advertise with me, but that’s a tricky subject since I don’t want to gum up the whole place with ads. I did write a sponsored post last year, which was interesting. Might look into that a bit more.
6. Mystery shopping. This one’s a bit “out there”, but I signed up with a few local companies to try it out. I have no idea if it’ll work out or not, but I thought, why not give it a try.
Anyway, these are my ideas so far. But the main thing is, I really do have to cut back on my spending. Maybe if I can make some good progress on the freelancing, I can designate that as my “fun money” in my (non-existant) budget and be really disciplined with my 9-5 paycheque.
