Find more money without more work
You’d love to find extra money for that last drink before last call. Extra money to for business-class instead of coach would be nice. Finding extra money to pay off extra debt would be extra? Find extra ways to find extra money below.
Hear 10+ ways to find extra money on this Queer Money®:
20 super-simple ways to find extra money
1. Get better insurance
Insurance is expensive (and a pain to get right), but it doesn’t have to be (either). That’s why we’ve partnered with Lemonade.
Lemonade makes it easy to get the right amount of coverage for homeowners, pet owners, life insurance, car insurance and renters insurance.
Lemonade’s easy to work with and is as charitable as it is helpful. One creative way that we love is how Lemonade gives back by letting its customers donate any unused premiums to their charity of choice. Donations have gone to amazing organizations such as Citymeals on Wheels, Code to Inspire, March for our Lives and, one of our other partners, The Trevor Project.
Learn more, save more by signing up with Lemonade here.
2. Slash your credit card payments
Use the Debt Lasso Method to cut your credit card interest rate payments and free up more cash to pay your credit card debt off faster.
On average, each American has a balance of $5,551 on each credit card and pays an interest rate of 16.5%. If you reduce your credit card interest to 0% (with the Debt Lasso Method), that’s $916 extra a year to put toward your credit card principal balance! If you put nearly an extra $1,000 toward your credit card balance each year, how soon would you be debt free?
3. Get free stuff
That’s right. One of the best ways to find money is to not spend the money you already have. But how do you get free stuff? One of the easiest ways is to sign up to be a product feedback rep. How do you do that? We like Pinch Me.
Pinch Me is free! You sign up. Select the types of samples you’d like to start receiving. They show up at your door and you get to use them. Then you log into the Pinch Me site and provide some brief feedback on the products and voila! You just saved yourself some money and got some free stuff. Who doesn’t love some free stuff?
4. Get paid for your opinion
We all have one right! So why not get paid for them There are plenty of survey sites looking for your opinion and willing to share some of their revenue. Our favorite is Survey Junkie. You’ll get paid to watch videos, review products, take surveys and even shop. We suggest setting up a strategy to make $1-3 a day by answering surveys while watching TV.
You could earn an extra $350-1000 a year with this alone! Sign up today.
If you’re looking for ever more opportunities to get paid, check out Swagbucks. In addition to making money by taking surveys, you’ll also earn money when you shop online. We know you already shop online a bit, so why not get paid or at least get some cash back!
Check out Swagbucks for more info.
5. Grocery shop on optimal days such as double-coupon or special sales days
First, subscribe to the Sunday paper because they’re packed with coupons. Then, clip and file your coupons. This is old school but it works. Then, go to each of your grocery stores’ websites to check the in-store sales.
Armed with your coupons and in-store sales info and knowing what you already have in your kitchen, create a weekly menu. Try to buy very little, if anything, at full price and waste no food. Two great tools we use regularly are the Honey Extension and Ibotta! Before you shop, check to see if any of the items you plan on purchasing have discounts available for in-store shopping on Ibotta. If your favorite store is Target, see what coupons they have for items at Target. If your favorite store is Whole Foods, check for discounts.
This is all part of the strategy that helped us cut our food spending by over $30,000 a year!
This brings us to point #6.
6. Use a menu and grocery list every week
Look over your fridge and cabinets and use your existing items as the launching point for your menu for the week, using up anything you didn’t eat the previous week rather than letting it rot and throwing it out.
Once you have breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinners planned for the week based on the above steps, create a grocery list of what you need for the week that you don’t already have.
Religiously stick with your grocery list and proudly use your coupons. Bunch your coupons together per store and use your own bags to get the bag discount. Save every penny possible!
7. Grocery shop 21st-century style
Download Ibotta to your phone and find immediate discounts and rebates on items you already buy from your favorite stores, restaurants, grocers and movie theaters when you scan receipts with your smartphone camera. These discount and rebate savings can go toward your debt.
Get immediate in-store and online discounts to thousands of retailers with even more coupons by using the RetailMeNot website or app, SlickDeals and Entertainment.com (not your mother’s Entertainment Book). These sites are great for getting things you already buy at a discount and putting your saving toward your credit card debt.
Finally, download the Honey extension to your computer to get applicable discounts, free shipping and promotions automatically applied to your shopping buys.
8. Only grocery shop once a week
We know exactly what it’s like, you’re driving home and have no clue what’s in the fridge, so you stop to pick up a few things. You decide on a menu in your head, shop and boom, you’ve spent $50 getting everything (some things you already had but forgot) to create a one-time meal. Each of these single trips adds up and wrecks your food budget.
We’ve been there. Don’t do it!
9. Get paid to shop for others
We recently discovered Instacart. It’s a great way for us to save time and money. We don’t impulse buy because we aren’t at the store. We also save time. But, our time could mean money for you. This is the perfect after-school, work or weekend way to earn an extra few bucks a day. Do it a few times a month and you could be adding an additional $100-200 to your wallet each month. Learn more and sign up to be an Instacart shopper.
10. Use cash
It’s a dying art, but people who use cash for their everyday spending spend 12% – 18% less than those who use credit cards. For example, “McDonald’s reports its average ticket is $7 when people use credit cards versus $4.50 for cash.” So, use cash and save yourself 12% to 18%.
It’s easier to use cash when you have a budget. When you know how much you’re spending you can grab the cash you need on the way home from work or before you head out.
11. Save on your online purchases
Wouldn’t you love it if every time you went shopping online you save money? Would it be great if there was a way to find the best coupon codes for almost every purchase you make when you’re shopping online?
Guess what? There is. The Honey browser extension can be added to Chrome or other browsers and it will search for coupon codes when you are on your favorite shopping sites, like Amazon or you can shop directly from the Honey site for bigger discounts. The great thing is it’s free and saves you money. Plus you can earn points towards gift cards when you shop at select sites.
Download the free browser extension and join Honey.
12. Improve your credit score
Having a good or great credit score will save you a $hit load of money over your lifetime.
Whether it is for the interest on credit cards, loans or a mortgage, the better your credit score the more money you get back into your pocket. In fact, we’ve helped some folks improve their credit scores and then helped them use the Debt Lasso method to lower the credit card payments.
How do you improve your credit score? Simple, have a plan.
It all starts with knowing your credit score, what makes up your credit score and the steps to improve it. We suggest signing up here at Credit Karma to easily track your credit score, then signing up here for Experian Boost to improve your credit score by 5 – 50 points in 15-minutes or less.
Credit Karma is a great place to start with building your credit. You only need your social security number, phone number and your address to sign up. Once you sign up you will see your credit score and then a list of items that help make up your credit score. You will see things like the amount of credit you have, how often you are making payments on time, whether you’ve opened any recent accounts and the total amount of credit you have available.
Credit Karma gives you a list of suggested steps to take that will help you improve your credit score. You don’t need to take them all right away, but slowly work away at them and you will see your credit score start to increase. So, sign up for Credit Karma for free today.
13. Cut back a little on all your expenses
You aren’t one for the dramatic but the subtle? Try a corporate-like corporate cutting. Departments and whole companies often cut a percentage of expenses across the board. For example, cutting 4% on all expenses. Do the same. Need some help figuring out how and where?
This is why the Budget Buster Bundle’s so perfect. First, the Spending Analysis will help you identify the one to three outliers that are causing all your problems with money. Simply cutting on reducing these expenses will make your financial life significantly easier.
Second, the Spending Reduction will help you see how and how it will look to reduce or cut all your expenses. This way you’ll free up cash to put toward other financial goals.
14. Return unused items
Have a collection of things and clothes you’ve never used, return them.
Return. Them. All.
Stores like Amazon, Nordstrom, Home Depot and Target have amazing return policies. Ideally, have the tags and receipt. Have at least the debit or credit card you used, and you’ll get a full refund. Then, do #4 and save your receipts.
15. Redeem gift cards
Don’t have actual things to return but a collection of gift cards with a few cents to a few dollars? This is found money if you take them to PlasticJungle.com. Sure, you’ll only get 80% value, but it’s money you didn’t have to buy things you don’t need.
16. Lower your student loan payments
One of the best ways to land more cash in your pocket is to stop paying high interest rates on your public or private student loans. Our niece used Sofi to refinance her student loans and is putting over $200 a month back into her wallet.
Refinancing her student loan debt is going to save her over $25,000 in ten years. Imagine what you could do if you refinanced your student loan debt? Or, don’t just imagine and do something about it.
17. Pay attention to your money
Experts agree that simply paying attention to your money and your spending helps you better manage and spend your money. If you have no idea how much money you’re bringing home or where it’s going, you can’t have a realistic handle on or control your money. Exercises such as the Spending Analysis, this Spending Reduction and budgeting are the best ways to pay attention to your money.
18. Increase allowances on your W-4
Your W-4 lets your employer help pay your income taxes in advance. A percentage of each paycheck is sent to the IRS to pay your income taxes. For most, this means getting a tax refund between February and April the following year. If that’s you, you’re giving the IRS a no-interest loan.
Who gives a no-interest loan? No one, except you to the IRS.
Request a new W-4 from your employer and increase your allowances so you pay less throughout the year. Please keep in mind that this may reduce or eliminate a tax refund, and the extra money you receive in each paycheck should go toward your credit card debt. Talk with an accountant about how best to calculate this for yourself.
Click here to find an accountant near you that’s right for you.
19. Cut the cable cord
Get all the Golden Girls you need with debt free TV. What are the pros and cons of kicking cable to the curb like the latest queen on RuPaul’s Drag Race?
For many of us, the thought of cutting the cord for debt free tv is like watching Britney cut her hair all over again. Ultimately, at the cost of $150+ per month, this is a no-brainer because you probably only watch a handful of the shows on those 36 million cable channels you have, and most of your favorite shows are now on Amazon Prime, Hulu and/or Netflix.
20. Reduce and cut your bills
The Trim App can negotiate your bills and cancel subscriptions for you. Similar to other money apps, you download Trim to your phone and connect it to your bank accounts, then Trim goes to work for you by canceling unwanted subscriptions – those recurring bills you keep forgetting to cancel – and negotiating down your bills for you.
Trim saves the average user between $5 – $50, then keeps 25% of your first month’s savings. However, that’s $5 – $50 of recurring savings a month. Annualized, that’s $58.75 – $587.50 after the first month’s 25% fee.
You can get Trim for free or pay for Trim Premium to have access to more money-saving features. If you open Trim’s high-yield savings account, you’ll get a 4% annualized yield on the first $2,000 you to save using Trim’s money-saving features.
21. Get the right amount of car insurance and no more
A very expensive and recurring expense for most Americans is car insurance. Most of us just chalk it up as a cost of living, and we don’t research better-priced and more appropriate car insurance for ourselves because it feels too hard. But, it’s not.
In just 2 minutes and with no fees, Gabi Auto Insurance will search over 40 providers of auto insurance on your behalf.
On average, Gabi can save you up to $720.
Get a great quote and learn more about Gabi’s mobile app here.
9 not-so-easy ways to find extra money
22. Sell stuff
Most of us have more stuff than we need. Remember that food processor you got a few years ago for Christmas and never used? Will you ever read all those books you’ve been collecting? How about that gently-used clothing you’ve been holding onto for when you’re no longer holding onto that extra weight?
Sell it! Sell it! Sell it! Two of our favorites are Decluttr.com and Swap.com. Swap is also a great place to buy gently used name-brand clothing for deep discounts.
23. Ask for a raise
You may not want to find an extra job to find extra money, but you may be able to find extra money at that job you already have. It’s not easy, and it takes time, but earn it and ask for it – a raise, that is. If you need help writing the perfect request for a raise, read our six tips to write the best annual performance review ever.
24. Rent your extra space
If someone’s willing to pitch a tent in someone else’s backyard – keep it clean – you may have more space than you need to rent to a needy inhabitant. You may not want them living in your backyard, but if you have extra room in your house or above the garage, a perfect option is to host via MisterBandB, the largest network of gay-owned or gay-friendly rooms, apartments and houses available for a night or more. We also like Airbnb because they are so broadly used. Learn how to be an Airbnb host.
25. Change banks
If you’re paying fees of any kind at your current bank, leave. Whether you’re paying ATM or low-balance fees, find a more appropriate bank, even if it’s a virtual bank. Regardless of your needs, you don’t need to pay fees. Of course, the freer the bank account the lower the savings rate.
26. Rent out your car
Have a car you never or rarely use, use Turo.com, JustshareIt.com or GetAround.com to rent your car to people who temporarily need it.
27. Sell your photos online
If you’re even a modest photo hobbyist, sell your iPhone or Android photos online to Shutterstock, Photoshelter, Fotolia, DreamsTime and/or iStock.
To sell photos online, you must master Instagram. Believe us, Instagram is as much a science as it is an art, but most artists are also good with science. So, don’t go it alone. Our friend and colleague offers her amazing course to walk you step-by-step with blowing up Instagram. Sign up here for The Instagram Masterclass.
28. Use the Saver’s Credit
Take advantage of the Saver’s Credit. Instead of taking a tax deduction on your individual IRA or company-sponsored retirement account contributions, file for the Saver’s Credit. The Saver’s Credit may take up to $2,000 off your tax bill. Talk with your accountant first.
Now that you have 20 new ways to find extra money without finding extra work, you have 20 more ways to pay off your credit card debt faster. Be smart with the extra money you find and the extra money you find will work for you.
Again, click here to find an accountant who can help you with this tax trick.
29. Get better-priced drugs
YouDrugstore offers Americans medications sourced only from Canada with Canadian pricing. Registration and shipping are both free for orders over $100.
YouDrugstore offers everything from the most commonly-prescribed drugs to rare prescriptions, both brand name and generic drugs.
Sign up for YouDrugstore today and start saving!
30. Buy better-priced health insurance
Finding and buying health insurance easier and more affordable with GoHealth.
After answering just a few questions, GoHealth searches leading health insurance companies, such as Cigna, BlueCross BlueShield and Kaiser, to give you a select list of the most appropriate health insurance for you and your family.
This is too important to daily for even a day. Go to GoHealth today!
Resources to find extra money:
- Credit Card Pay Off Plan
- EPRA on Queer Money® EP262
- 6 Tips to Write Your Best Annual Performance Review Ever
- 5 Building Blocks of a Happy Gay Life
- Debt Free Guys on Facebook
- Debt Free Guys on Twitter
- Queer Money Facebook Group
- Queer Money on Instagram
- Subscribe on iTunes
- Email [email protected]
Here’s more info to help find extra money:
- How to Start Being a Happy Gay
- Debt Lasso Method: Best Way to Pay Off Credit Card Debt
- Making More Money Than You Can Count with Real Estate Investing