I mentioned last week how I was going away on vacation again for reading week (Feb. 17- Feb. 24). If you have been reading this blog then you know that I went to Jamaica in December after exams were completed. This begs the big question; how can someone that writes about personal finance spend so much money on vacations? To be honest my goal was to go away again without touching my savings. How did I do this? Below I have listed a few methods I used to earn an extra $1,000:
Dividends
I’m not going to give any stock tips but my personal preference with investments these days is share’s that pay a decent divided. I found a share that pays monthly dividends which in the last couple of months has earned me roughly a couple of hundred dollars.
Total money: $200
Selling Stuff On Ebay
I looked through old stuff around the house that I could potentially sell for some money. I was able to dig up a chair that I once picked up from a wrestling event with a picture of a wrestler. I put it on ebay to see if anyone would be interested and I found a girl from Germany that was willing to pay decent money for this chair. The chair is a bit of a collectors item but either way it served no purpose for me.
Total money: $400
Ticket Broker
A quick way to earn some decent money is to buy tickets for popular events and then resale them online for a nice profit. Granted this method will fail if you try to do it for every single sporting event or concert. For certain events it works perfectly but the hard part is being one of the few people that is able to score tickets. You can sell the tickets through ticketsnow, ebay, or craigslist.
Total money: $800
Blogging
This method will not earn you any serious money but any compensation for doing something that I love is great. When I started blogging I was well aware that I would not make a fortune nor would I be able to do it full time. I advise anyone that is going into blogging for the money to STOP right away. The effort that I put into this blog could be applied to a part time job where I would earn at least 10 X more money every month. I run this blog because I’m truly passionate about the subject and I love to learn from others. I figure if I can earn $50-100 a month I will at least cover the costs and maybe profit a coffee or two.
Total money: $900
Credit Card Cash Back
I switched to a rebate rewards credit card about a year ago since I was making so many purchases on my credit card. I’m working on building my credit by having people in my family use my credit card for any large purchase. As a result of this I was able to build my credit and get some cash back at the end of the year.
Total money: $1,000
There you have it an extra $1,000 earned in a couple of months. By practising what I preach, read in the comments section of Studenomics, and read on other blogs I have been able to earn enough extra money to travel for the second time this winter. For the next week I will be laying in the sun but as mentioned before there will still be posts up here at Studenomics.
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I have no idea what the rules are where you are, but up here being a scalper is illegal. Ticketmaster is actually getting in big trouble for having an ad that refers people to a website that harbours and abets ticket reselling.
Is a good list though, and a good point. Be creative and don’t be lazy.
Flowers… @};-
Jasmin
Interesting post. There’s a lot of ways to make extra money out there. eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon are all great places to do it.
Thanks for the tips.
I used my credit card cashback to pay off the last little bit of my car a month early.
With the economy in the pits, I’ve see tickets to popular events going down on a few occasions. I’ve watched it twice recently with big music stars coming to town. I’ve done/I do everything else on this list though.
What rewards card do you use? What kind of level of purchases did you need to do to get 1000 back ?
Coming up with a $1,000 extra bucks is not as tough as people think.
Is it easy? Of course not.
But if you really need $1,000 and you’re willing to work and be creative, I think anyone can come up with that in under a month.
Writing an ebook, authoring a niche website or marketing a product as an affiliate are good ways to earn $1,000, but you have to start a couple months out from when you need the money, unless you already have a solid readership or subscriber list.
Not a bad list. A few thoughts, though:
-While dividends can be a good source of current income, it’s usually better to just reinvest that money. Not only will the money be able to compound, but many investment sites (like Sharebuilder, which I use) allow you to automatically invest the dividend proceeds for free, saving on the commissions. Not a reason to delay taking the money if you need it, but something to consider when you do.
-As has been mentioned, ticket reselling is at best a questionable tactic, and at worst, sometimes illegal. You should definitely proceed with caution if you’re using that technique.
-Good points on blogging for money; it’s definitely not a path to instant, easy wealth. I’ll be happy when I reach the point of $50-$100 a month, personally; congratulations on getting there yourself.
Have a good vacation!
It is important to remember that most of the ways you earned income above are taxable. This means you have to earn more than $1,000 to cover the tax costs. Self-employed income from blogging and investing income (dividends) do require quarterly tax estimates to be filed.
Hey – nice list, I like it. It’s always good to be able to generate some nice income on the side. Enjoy your trip.
I second Roger in saying that I prefer to have my dividends re-invested (in fact that is one of my major gripes with Scottrade… they don’t do this automatically).
My favorite one up there is the eBay suggestion. I actually worked for an antiques dealer for a few years listing his inventory on eBay. He paid me $20-25/hr cash so it was a pretty sweet gig to have.
Where have all your posts been this week!? I actually linked you from my newly created blog as I am a fan of yours!
Hey guys,
Thanks for the great comments and for keeping this blog running while I’m on vacation. A lot of good points have been mentioned in this discussion. All I will say to defend myself is that this article was written to show the readers of Studenomics that I practise what I preach. It goes without saying that certain streams of income require more time to develop and of course every source of income is taxable.
I really appreciate everyone taking the time to comment and share their honest opinion.