Cutting expenses isn’t the only way to solve your budget problems and improve your financial position. Increasing your income is more appealing from many angles. But everything you do to improve your financial situation is a challenge, and will require some effort and/or sacrifice. These are only some examples to stimulate your thought processes. Some you may not want to consider, while others may be a good fit.
Here are some strategies to consider:
- Improve your skills so that you can get a promotion or new job.
- Ask for a raise! (If you don’t ask it’s unlikely you’ll get one.)
- Change careers to a higher paying one with more opportunities.
- Get more education so that you can obtain a higher paying position and/or enter a new field.
- Work overtime if offered.
- Get a part-time (2nd) job.
- Open a business. For example: EBay seller, handyman, flea market merchant, on-line business, consultant, etc.
- Relocate to an area with more opportunities, better pay, and more jobs.
- Advertise on line, on your car, in your yard, etc. (A friend lived on a busy street, in a commercially zoned district and had a full-size billboard erected on his front lawn.)
- Become a tutor in your area of expertise, (academic, music, language, etc.)
- Turn your hobby into a profit-making enterprise.
- Become a “Mystery-Shopper” for pay.
- Sell things you have but don’t need. (Some folks have a yard sale every weekend.)
- Rent a room or get a roommate; rent out a 2nd home or vacation property.
- Make current investments that will turn into future income (e.g., IRA, 401K, SEP, Brokerage account, income property, etc.)
