6 Ways You Could Be Earning Extra Income
For the average Canadian, there is literally always something they could use some extra money for. It could be for home repairs, replacing a major appliance, covering an extra kids’ program, getting a new car or just to rebuild savings after having to deplete them. Earning some extra income on top of what one takes home from their full-time job offers a person an increased level of freedom or flexibility in their life (of course, pending they’re using that income for productive purposes - extra income can easily be frittered away on non-essentials and not go towards solving problems). As such, it’s safe to assume that most people would agree that they’d like to be earning more than they are currently. The issue is that millions of Canadians already work 40+ hours each week, meaning they don’t necessarily have the time or energy to take on another job. That means, it becomes a bit challenging to figure out ways to increase one’s income without going to the length of getting a second job or completely switching up their career path. Of course, saving money is always going to be the most prudent financial decision you can make when it comes to allocating your money in an effective manner. If you’re diligent about saving part of every paycheck you receive, you’ll at least have some liquid cash you can put towards life’s bigger expenses when you need it, meaning you’ll feel “richer” than someone who earns the same amount as you but spends all their extra cash on non-essentials. However, beyond saving, if you’re trying to increase the amount of money you have to work with, there are a few different ways that you could be growing your income without having to take on a second job.
We wanted to highlight a few of these options, as the holiday season in particular often pushes people to think about the limitations presented by their current income level. These strategies are not one-size-fits-all; some will work for just about everyone, while others are only effective options for people with a specific skill set. Still, if you’ve been thinking about how to earn some cash lately, it’s worth considering some of these strategies. You may find that the time you devote to pursuing that extra income doesn’t feel like work at all!
Sell Your Old Stuff
Perhaps the most obvious way to earn extra income is to sell your old belongings. Most people do occasionally sell an item or two, but you can actually make a great deal of extra cash by remembering to regularly examine the sum of your belongings with a discerning eye. The average Canadian household owns a ton of extra stuff they’re not using anymore, or brought home and never used; this includes items like old sports equipment, household accents and furniture items, clothing and shoes, children’s toys and more. This isn’t to say you should be selling things you love to earn more, but many of us hold onto our belongings long after we’ve really stopped using them. There usually isn’t much of a reason to keep these items - it’s usually simply the sense of attachment that many people feel to their material belongings that keeps them from throwing them away. So, if you know you’ve got a ton of stuff in decent condition collecting dust in your basement, why not put it up for sale? Clearing your household of things you’re not using is a great way to minimize clutter in your home while also increasing your cash flow.
One of the best parts about selling your belongings is that it’s a relatively low-effort way to earn more income with no real downside - if your things don’t sell, you haven’t wasted that much effort trying to make it so. All that’s required of you is a small amount of time to take photographs, gather info (ex. if there are specific measurements your buyer would want to know) and post your items for sale. The key here is that the items you intend to sell have to be in decent condition (nothing too heavily used) and of significant enough value to make your sale worthwhile. That’s not to say you can’t sell lower-value items like books or CD’s - you just won’t be likely to earn a great deal in the process or find buyers for them rapidly. Aim to keep your costs minimal or non-existent; you shouldn’t have to spend money, or only a very minimal amount, on ads or boosts to be able to list your items for sale.
To maximize your potential earnings, try to get specific in terms of where you’re listing your items. Of course, Kijiji is the favourite online marketplace of many Canadians, offering you the chance to categorize your items so that potential buyers in your area can find them quickly by search. But, there are other places to consider posting your items. For example, if you’ve got a set of old golf clubs to sell, doing a quick Facebook search might point you in the direction of an open group of avid golf lovers in your area that might have an interested buyer for your clubs. Alternatively, you could look for item-specific marketplaces. We’ve mentioned Poshmark, the mobile app that offers people a platform to sell their used clothing, before in Money Talks posts, as it’s a great way to turn your old styles into cash. Alternatively, you don’t need to limit your search to online marketplaces. You could hold a garage sale and potentially make a killing in just a few hours. Or, if that’s not your style, there are plenty stores that will buy back your old items from you for a reduced price; for example, many sports stores will often buy back used items like skates, padding, ski equipment and more if you ask. Ultimately, we all own a finite amount of belongings, so this strategy can only be employed on occasion (you won’t be earning consistent income from this type of selling without eventually having to sell things you actually need). But, this is probably the easiest way you can boost you savings without getting a job, so it’s definitely worth a try!
Side Hustle
You may not have a stash of old belongings to sell, but you can almost certainly create something new worth selling. Particularly if you work in a job where you’re focused on something that doesn’t offer you a creative outlet, using any talent or skills you have to your advantage could be a great opportunity for you. Commonly referred to as having a “side hustle”, creating a product for sale or offering your services on a small scale is an excellent way to bolster your full-time income. Running a micro-business means you retain a lot of control over how often you want to work, how much you want to produce, how much you want to advertise and so on. Ultimately, the key here is that because you get to choose exactly how much time and effort your willing to commit, you can tailor it around your existing schedule and lifestyle.
There are a variety of items that you could produce to sell. For example, if you’re an excellent baker or chef, there may be opportunities for you in advertising around your local community to see if you can make pre-ordered meals for neighbours or for events. If you’re creative, you could produce items and sell them in local markets or online on a platform like Etsy; this gives you a ton of flexibility, particularly if your items are customizable for your buyer in some way (ex. customized pet supplies are a hot item!). However, you don’t need to be an excellent artist or a particularly creative thinker to have a side hustle. There are a variety of different services that are valuable to other people that you may not even consider to be “special talents”. For example, if you speak another language fluently, you can offer translation services to those who need them for a reasonable price. You could advertise your services on a website like Fiverr and set your price, allowing interested parties to find you as they need to. Depending on your physical capabilities, you could even be offering up services like lawn maintenance or snow shovelling. There really is no limit to what you could be building a micro-business around, and if you’re offering up something you already enjoy doing (or at very least, are very skilled at), earning that extra income won’t feel like such a “job”.
Pick Up Odd Jobs
You don’t need to get a full-on second job to earn extra income (and you probably don’t want to if you don’t have to), but have you considered having a very minimal part-time job? If you have some extra time or flexibility in your schedule, consider making yourself available for types of hourly work that don’t require a significant commitment on your time. For example, dog walking and babysitting are two examples of jobs that generally pay a decent hourly wage but don’t require you to commit a large, set amount of time to it each week like a job for a larger organization does. If you like spending time with kids, you could try to find an opportunity to babysit one or two odd nights a week. Alternatively, if you prefer animals to people, you could try to find a standing dog walking appointment a few times a week. By doing either of the aforementioned jobs, you could be earning close to $100 (a rough estimate) extra per week on top of your full-time income. Of course, this does still require a time commitment; you’ll have to sacrifice some personal time to make it work. But, pursuing these kinds of relatively informal jobs will still generally allow you a great amount of flexibility in your life while earning you extra money.
If you’re not sure where to start, ask people in your network if they’ve got something for you, or if they know of someone else who does. For example, your neighbour may have a family member that needs an occasional sitter, or for someone to shovel their driveway here and there. Particularly in the time of COVID, there may be people in your area that would be willing to offer you a decent tip for shopping for their groceries for them. If you’re not having much luck finding openings through your family and friends, taking your search online is the next best thing. For example, for any job related to pet care, considering checking out Rover. Pet owners can use Rover to find pet sitters, walkers, care providers and more of all different experience levels and price ranges; you’ll need to set up an account with the backing of a few references, but could then pretty easily advertise your services to pet owners in your area.
Take Surveys
This option is admittedly a bit boring, but you can actually earn some extra cash by taking surveys online. Just about every large organization in the world relies heavily on market research to shape their product/service offerings, and they want feedback from everyday people about how they interact with those types of products and services. There are a ton of different kinds of market research, but conducting surveys is one of the most common types, due to the fact that surveys can be broadcast to huge audiences and allow for a great deal of results to be collected and analyzed. As a reward for those who participate in their surveys, large organizations often offer cash incentives, gift cards and more. If you’re interested in giving this strategy a try and don’t know where to start, The Balance Everyday has compiled a list of The Best Paid Survey Sites in Canada.
Again, fair warning; you’ll have to devote some time to answering these surveys. In general, the surveys that are going to pay out the most rewards or money are going to be extremely detailed and going to take you some time to complete. But, if you’ve got that kind of patience, you could be earning extra income while filling out surveys and watching TV on the couch!
QUBER’s Referral Program
Of course, it’s obvious why we’d mention it, but you could earn a serious amount of money by challenging your friends to join QUBER! We love to offer our users rewards for spreading the word about us. If you Challenge a Friend to join our exclusive $150 Referral Saving Challenge and they successfully complete it, you’ll both earn $10. In other words, you’ll both earn just over 6% interest on that $150 saved, and for you, you’re getting it for free! There’s no limit to the amount of referral incentives you can earn, so encouraging your friends to grow their savings could end up being very lucrative for you.
Alternatively, if you’re more interested in winning our upcoming Save to Win grand prize of $5000 on January 8, you can earn extra ballots by referring your friends. If you Refer a Friend to QUBER and they create an account with us before the end of the day on December 31, you’ll be awarded one extra Save to Win ballot. Again, there’s no limit to the amount of referral incentives you can earn!
For more info on our Referral program, visit the Referrals section of our FAQ’s.
Affiliate Advertising
Finally, if you’ve got a knack with the written word or other kinds of content-creating skills, affiliate advertising might be an excellent option for you to earn an extra source of income. Affiliate advertising works when a business offers individuals or other businesses the chance to earn money for funnelling sales leads towards them. In other words, the affiliate encourages their following to make purchases from the business, and when they do, the affiliate earns a percentage of that sale in return.
In order to become an affiliate advertiser, however, you’ll need to be consistently generating some kind of content with an audience that would facilitate you making affiliate recommendations. That means, in order for you to be an effective affiliate, you need to be referring people to products they’ll be likely to buy in a somewhat organic way. Blogging is generally the most common avenue of content creation for people who want to get into affiliate advertising. For example, someone who is very interested in cars and car maintenance/repair could start a blog that focuses on that, and partner with a company that sells car parts or accessories as an affiliate. Think about any topic you’d consider yourself to be an expert in; chances are, there are other people out there who are also interested in that same topic, or at the very least, might be interested in learning more about it. You don’t need to be an “influencer” to get into affiliate advertising, though you can understand why they’re great at it. If you’ve got a special interest that lends itself to creating niche content, you’ll likely be able to grow your traffic to a point that can earn you a fair amount of extra cash through your referrals. The only thing to consider here is that it’s going to take a fair amount of work to get a blog going and to maintain it, and there’s no guarantee that if you do put in the work, you’ll earn a proportional amount of income in return; this definitely is not a “get rich quick scheme”. However, this strategy will offer you an opportunity to devote time and focus towards a topic you love, and give you the chance to engage with other people who feel the same way as you while also earning extra money. If this sounds exciting to you, you should absolutely look into it!
Of course, the reality is, there is no such thing as “free money”; there are rarely moments in life where one can earn money without working for it. Pursuing any of the above options is going to require a time commitment and some effort on your part (except QUBER’s referral program… *wink*), meaning you’ll be working extra hours beyond your existing job. But, if you’re willing to sacrifice some of your extra time and put in the work, you can create a new stream of income for yourself that will offer you the flexibility to do more of the things you’d like to in life. If you want it badly enough, earning extra income is absolutely within your reach!
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Have a suggestion for something you’d like us to write about? Shoot us a message at contactus@quber.ca and we’ll get to work.