Earn Extra Income

While the theme of my blog started off essentially as a place to share my thoughts about retirement investing, I often find my mind racing to help others in the short term in terms of financial decisions.  As someone who always juggled multiple jobs and side hustles as a teen, I’ve always had a knack for earning extra income, and today I’m going to share with you some ways that you can do just that on your spare time.  Some of these tasks and jobs will require a lot of time, while others will simply be changing habits.

The inspiration, for me, to earn extra money was that I was sick and tired of my parents telling me “No!” every time I wanted something new.  Whether it was new hockey skates, soccer shoes, Girbaud jeans, or even a Nintendo game, nothing felt worse than having a desire to get something new and upon asking my otherwise generous parents, hearing the sound of rejection.  I started off doing things that twelve year olds can do.  Things like officiating sporting events, taking in people’s mail while they were away, mowing people’s lawns, and even shoveling snow. As I grew older, I found myself having jobs at gas stations, tool companies, restaurants, bars, and even retail shops in the Mall of America in my home state of Minnesota.  I have never been one to sit still and be complacent, so the desire to earn has been with me for quite a while.

As an adult, I dug myself a huge financial hole by moving to Miami’s South Beach, where drinks cost as much as a 12 pack of beer does back in Minnesota, rent is sky high, and sports cars are the norm.  Trying to keep up with the crowd and not miss a party made my credit cards test their limits, and sometimes, even decline.  The embarrassment of those times led me to always find some ways to earn extra income.

Learn How to Make More Money on the Side

If you can learn how to earn supplemental income, you can use that money to do things like pay down debt, live a better life, or simply take a vacation.

I have many articles in a series of generating income in non-traditional manners (read, a job!) all over this blog.  Here are some of the ones that i urge you to check out if you are serious about earning extra money from a non-traditional source:

#1:  Jason Bond’s Trading System – a great way to learn swing trading of small cap stocks.

(I’ll be updating this as I generate more ways to make money that I truly believe in. I don’t just promote scams and am highly selective over what I recommend people due to having a reputation and public following.)

Personally, I feel like all my money is side income because I work online, from home, dating back to 2002.  I’m a Digital Marketing expert, and have my hands in lot of things, from e-commerce, to affiliate marketing (basically blogging and reviewing products), to SEO consulting.  While it may feel like it’s a side income, it’s my main income, and I’ve done all right for a guy who graduated college with less than a “B” average and very low high school SAT scores!  This Digital Marketing thing started as a reason to move to Miami in 2001, but ended up becoming a passion of mine that I became very good at.

I’n not one of those people to publish income reports or photos of my bank account, because frankly, I think that’s about the cheesiest thing I’ve ever seen people do, and everyone has different goals and aspirations in life.  Rather, I like to share with people FACTS and give them the heads up on things that have worked for me to pay off debt, live a life that most people dream of, and be entirely mobile.  Yes, I am a Digital Nomad!  Although I will say, I really do like my home office set-up and being around the house with my son and two dogs!

How to Make Extra Money and Income Online

Some of the things you see below have affiliate links in them, but that doesn’t mean I am biased. Like I said earlier, I am here to help people achieve financial greatness and suggest ways to make extra money.  Having companies share a slice of the wealth with me once in a while or advertise on my blog doesn’t change my integrity, rather, it makes me want to come product more content and change more lives because it all makes it worth while spending time doing so.

Here are a few ways you can earn money online, from a laptop or PC, whatever you prefer.

• Blogging.  This is probably the easiest way to get started making money online.  I always teach people that I personally mentor to find something they are passionate about, rather than chasing some “hot niche” that they heard is booming.  When you are passionate about your blog, you will update it more frequently, sort of like I do here on my blog.  I know people who make anything from a few hundred dollars monthly up to seven figures yearly – simply by blogging and then monetizing that blog.
• Sell Stuff Online.   There are so many apps these days that make it so easy to get rid of old junk, or on a high level of thinking, simply arbitrage things that you find at an outlet mall for a great deal.  eBay is obviously the first one that comes to mind, but don’t discount Amazon, OfferUp, Mercari, and others as they have made this extremely feasible.
• Answer Surveys.  There are a lot of companies out there that will pay you to share your opinion.

List of Survey Companies That Will Pay You

• Survey Junkie
• American Consumer Opinion
• Opinion Outpost
• VIP Voice
• Earning Station
• Harris Poll Online

More ways to earn money online include: 

• Peer to Peer Lending. This is where you can lend money to people in a non-traditional way and earn a higher percentage than you could in most investments.  Here is my list of the best peer to peer lending websites.
• InboxDollars.  They allow you to take surveys, shop, and play games.  It’s quite interesting.