Do you feel burdened by your big debt? One of the most important things you can do to get rid of big debt is to increase your income. Penny pinching is great but you know what? It is probably not enough when you are deeply in debt. You will most likely need to do something besides scrimp and save to pay off your debt. You are most likely going to have to increase your income. But don’t worry– it doesn’t have to be anything crazy. It can be as simple as asking for a raise at work or snagging a different job with a better salary. And if neither of those are viable options, consider one of the fun things you can do to increase your income listed below.
I know increasing your income can feel TOTALLY OVERWHELMING, especially if you are already working full time and have other responsibilities to worry about. That’s exactly why I came up with this list of FUN things you can do to increase your income. Increasing your income is actually more simple than you might think, considering there are many ways to earn money simply by doing the things that you are already doing.
(1) Start a blog about something you are already doing.
One of the most fun things we do to increase our income is… you guessed it! Run this blog. In mid 2016, we started documenting our debt repayment journey. At the time we did not personally know anyone with as much student loan debt as we have and we wanted a place to provide people with catastrophic amounts of student loan (or other) debt together. We started blogging using Bluehost as our web host and have had a wonderful experience using them. We started out using their most basic/cheapest package and it was enough for us. If you have been sitting on the fence about whether or not to start a blog, check out our post HERE. Starting a blog (or other online business) is one of the CHEAPEST ways to start a business and start generating lots of extra income. Running a blog is not easy by any means, but if you are looking for a cheap way to earn extra money, it really can’t be beat.
(2) Earn money for your regular shopping.
A fun thing you can do to increase your income without ANY extra effort on your part is to take advantage of free apps and websites that offer cash back or other rewards for the shopping that you are ALREADY DOING. It’s like getting paid for shopping. How fun is that?
- IBOTTA. We started using Ibotta this year to earn cash back on all of our regular grocery shopping. We’ve earned hundreds of dollars and haven’t had to waste any time clipping coupons. We simply choose the rebates we want and then scan our receipts after we go our grocery shopping. Learn about it here or sign up here to get started (and get $10 free just for signing up!).
- HONEY. Another thing we do when we do ANY shopping online, is check for promo codes using Honey. Basically, you install Honey into your browser and then it scans the internet for any coupons, rebates, or other deals and AUTOMATICALLY applies them to your shopping cart. SO EASY. You can sign up for Honey by clicking here.
- EBATES. In addition, I don’t know why it took me 20 years (they’ve been around about that long!) to find E-bates, but it is literally one of the best things that has happened to me. We do a lot of our shopping with Amazon, and you get free cash back to thousands of websites, like Amazon. So, one fun thing we do is earn gift cards using Swagbucks, and then shop through E-bates, to earn gift cards for spending our gift cards. Chee hoo!
(3) Take online surveys.
One of the EASIEST (but not necessarily most lucrative) ways to increase your income is to take simple online surveys for cash or other rewards. This works well for us because it is something that we can do in the evenings after our brains are fried from long days at work. We sit down, pop on a show, and start taking online surveys (or work on our blog or do other things to earn extra money). Its a good way to unwind and we earn cash or gift cards to places we routinely shop, like Amazon.
(4) Start selling stuff from home.
One easy and fun thing you can do to increase your income is to start selling stuff. The most obvious place to start, is by looking around your home for things that you no longer need or want, ,and start selling them online. We live in a tight space, so we routinely sell things in our home that are taking up too much space. We prefer to sell things locally instead of online to avoid shipping costs. We do this by posting things on Facebook’s marketplace or by creating ads in our local online newspaper’s classified section. And you will be surprised how much stuff just sitting around your home will add up! On one of our first ventures trying to free up space in our apartment and earn extra cash, we earned more than $3000 selling stuff that was just sitting around not being used!
Once you’ve sold everything at home that you can in good conscious get rid of, you can start selling other products online. You can easily do things like shop at thrift stores and upsell products or grab all non perishable items on the clearance rack at your local grocery store and resell them using e-bay or Amazon. The sky is the limit when it comes to sales!
(5) Start a business or create a product.
Another fun thing you can do to increase your income is to start a business or create a product. A lot of people would advise you not to start a business (or do anything else risky with your money) while you are paying off big debt. But the reality is, you are MUCH more likely to be able to have the income you need to pay off big debt if you start your own business. The key is being very careful in how you start your business. You should look for business opportunities that are not too risky and don’t involve investing much. What, you don’t think that exists?? There are plenty of businesses that you can start up for less than $100. For example, I recently created a product that cost me next to nothing. I wrote an e-book. While I did invest quite a bit of time in the evenings and on weekends into researching and writing, those were my only initial start up costs! And I had a total blast writing it. And now that my e-book is making a little money, I can justify putting some of that money back into my product by paying for Facebook and other ads to help me sell more of my product. If you aren’t opposed to multi-level marketing business, there are plenty of businesses that will let you sell their products with little to no investment.
The reality is increasing your income can be fun and easy and should definitely be a part of your plan if you are trying to get out of big debt. All you really have to do is get creative and try to monetize some of the things that you are already doing and increasing your income will be a breeze!
What fun things have you done to increase your income? I’d love to hear from you.
Hi there! I’m Amber! And welcome to the Deeply in Debt blog where we’re offering simple solutions for big debt.