Find Your Talents

 Saving and budgeting your income is one thing, increasing it to better your lifestyle or make you more financially stable is another.

 If you are a stay at home mother, you have to consider the cost of daycare, as well as the cost of transportation and work necessities (clothing etc) when deciding if a job outside of the home is feasible.

 If you decide a job outside the home will just not work for you at this time, then you have to consider other options.  There are a great many ways to earn the extra money you need without leaving the house, or going out only when it suits your particular schedule.

 So first off, get out a piece of pen and paper and write down all of your talents.  What are all of the things you consider yourself good at.  Once you are finished ask a few friends or your partner to look over the list and tell you if they agree with your assessment and if they have feel you have left anything off of the list.

 The next step is to look realistically at that list, and see what services you can provide for people that you can charge a fee for.  For example, if you sew well, you can offer to do alterations, or if you are great at organization and come up with great party ideas, become a birthday party organizer for parents with more money than time.

 With the internet, there are many things you could do for people that live a great distance from you.  For example, with our birthday party organization scenario, you could book all the services needed for the party online, or by telephone.

 If you can, try and work on multiple ideas until you find one that “fits” with both your lifestyle, the time you have to devote for it, and the profit margin you are getting from it.

 The possibilities are limitless.  Check the list below for ideas on ways you can earn some extra money.

 1.  Planning children’s birthday parties

2.  Planning, organizing and dispersement of corporate gifts.

3.  Teaching craft lessons or other types of lessons (music, knitting, crocheting)

4.  Shopping for shut ins or the elderly (buy their stuff when you go out to do your own shopping).

5.  Block mother: Keep an eye on children prior to their parents getting home from work (They check in with you, you prepare them a snack and drop it off, make sure they are starting on their homework)

6.  Watch over children swimming (make sure you have all safety devices and are an excellent swimmer)

7.  Swimming lessons, dance lessons.

8.  Basic computing for kids or adults. 

9.  Basic car maintenance and repair (how to change a tire, check the oil and other fluids)

10.  House cleaning, garden work or lawn cutting.

11.  Home organization (Cleaning out closets, buying organization baskets, shelving etc.)

12.  Baking.  Cakes for birthdays etc. but even things like bags full of cookies that could be kept frozen.

13.  Snow removal, leaf raking/blowing.

14.  Sell handmade items that you have sewn, knitted or crocheted.

15.  Faux painting, painting walls and/or furniture.

16.  Christmas decorating, shopping, wrapping.

17.  Homework help

18.  Dog sitting, dog brushing, grooming, and walking, training

19.  Vacation planning

20.  Computer research of any kind.

21.  Cooking (frozen dishes to heat and serve)

One Man’s Garbage....

Ever drive to work on garbage day and see everything but the kitchen sink put out by the road waiting to be hauled off to the garbage dump?  Well a lot of it is junk, but one mans junk can be another mans treasure and as budgets get tighter and more people are trying to make ends meet you are going to see less and less of these “throw-aways” going to the dump and more and more being recycled.

In the past I have thrown things away, too lazy and too much in a hurry to try and sell it but it seems not matter what it is, there is someone who stops prior to the garbage men arriving and they take it away. 

I love to watch them, and see how they quickly pull up, size up the item and decide in an instant if the object is worth the time/effort to take it home.  The last item I put out to the road for disposal was a black leather office chair approximately 1 1/.2 years old.  When I bought it I spent all of my time trying out every chair to make sure there was enough back support and that it was in the correct place.  Well, it never occurred to me at the time was to make sure the seat had enough padding since I spend over 80 hours a week at my desk, the bottom padding is important.  Within the first day I knew that I would not be keeping the chair long, but months went buy before I finally replaced it.

 The lady that picked it up the chair first made sure all wheels were in tact.  She then twisted it around to make sure there were no rips or tears and then finally swivelled it to make sure it moved correctly, and, within one minute, she arrived, checked out the chair, put it in her back seat and was gone.

 The original cost of the chair was approx $200 and it was in perfect condition.  It is not the most comfortable chair in the world, but then again, how many people will be spending 80+ hours a week sitting on it. 

 Now for someone that doesn’t have an office chair or needs one, what I threw out would be perfect.  It needs no repairs and it is something someone on a budget or someone looking for extra money needs to keep their eyes out for.  If a person is not in a market for an office chair, something like that would be the perfect item to sell for extra cash at a garage sale, free classified listings in papers at home, or even on Craigslist.com

 In the end though, those of us on a budget and trying to do better financially should always try to sell or trade everything we no longer need instead of throwing things away and to always keep an eye on others garbage for items you can fix, sell or use yourself. 

Earn Money, Gifts and Services Through Credit Cards

I never used to be a big fan of credit cards. I believed they ended up costing you money and obviously that is not what I want. Over the years though I have realized that I was not paying attention to exactly how things worked and because of this I was losing out on both savings and benefits for my family.

First of all you need to do your homework and research credit cards available. You are looking for either a cash back credit card, a reward point or air mile type program. You want to select the one with the biggest rewards. When comparing cards to see which offers the best rewards program, take into account some cards have fees and the savings will be offset by the cost of the card.

Once you get your card you have to follow ONE rule, and that is to pay off the card balance in full each month. You do not want to be paying interest, your goal is to save money, not lose it. So what do you use this card for you ask? The answer is everything possible! The idea is to filter your monthly spending first through your card instead of paying cash and this is how you do it.

Say your budget has $100 a week for groceries. Instead of going to the grocery store and paying cash or using your debit card, you would pay for it with your credit card. If the bill comes to $95, after paying for it with your card, you go home, log into online banking and put $95 on your credit card. Your credit cards will always have a zero balance, you show an excellent payment schedule on your credit card and you have accumulated a few bonus points with the reward program. Most utility bills, phone bills etc. can all be paid with your card in this matter. When you put all of your purchases and pay off all of your bills using a rewards card, rewards add up fast and you don't go into debt.

There is however one situation when I will allow a purchase on the card before we have the money to pay it off immediately and that is when we are making a major purchase that is greatly reduced in price. As long as I can fit paying it off within 30 days I will go out and get it. For example, if you are purchasing a fridge for $2,000 and it is 40% off, by making that purchase NOW would be saving $800 (plus tax). There is no way 30 days of interest will be more than the amount you saved so in this situation it is wiser to buy the fridge now, because in 30 days when you DO have the money for it, chances are it will no longer be on sale.

Making your money go farther, last longer and do double duty for you is worth the time and effort you put into it. Not only can credit cards save you money when done correctly, they can in reality help you earn more money by providing a means to purchase goods/services through their points systems.