Inflation has run rampant over the last year. We have quickly found our grocery bills, power bills, and almost anything else we can think of become more expensive, even though we haven’t got any additional value out of it.
This has hit our bank accounts, hard. One solution is to earn extra money. If your current employer won’t come to the table (they’re experiencing hardships as well, remember) then we have to rely on ourselves. But how do we achieve more income?
Here’s some ways to top up your income during a downturn so you can cover rising costs and have more money in your pocket at the end of the day.
Pay Off Your Debts
Economists say that inflation is like an extra tax on your income – and if you have lingering debts your first focus should be to pay them off as quickly as possible. When interest rates go up, so do all forms of credit – credit cards, personal loans, and so on.
Freeing up your capital to invest in different forms of income streams means you’ll be able to achieve extra earnings faster, instead of trying to play catchup with ever ballooning debts.
Side Hustles
The term “side hustles” has become popular over the last few years, referring to side-projects or microbusinesses people run in their spare time in addition to their regular job. Side hustles can range from teaching people a skill or sharing your talents with others.
Some side hustles may involve selling what you naturally do as a hobby: crafts or candles, for example. You may want to start tutoring local students in the field you’re an expert in.
Another tried and true side hustle is driving for rideshare services such as Uber or becoming a delivery driver for DoorDash or UberEats. If you’re handy on the tools, you could help out people with gigs on Airtasker. Do people say you have a nice voice? You could do voiceovers on Fiverr or Upwork!
Here are a whole bunch of side hustle ideas you can find inspiration from. In this day and age, you can monetise anything; you just need to find your niche and give it a go!
Renting Rooms or Equipment
If you own property, you can easily turn this into passive income. If you own a car for example, you may want to make it available for rideshare services such as CarNextDoor if you aren’t using it during the day (or night.) If you do drive into work, you can even rent out your parking space.
This can be lucrative if you work near a major employer hub such as an office block, factory, or shopping district. If you have a spare room, you can rent these out to ongoing tenants or as part of short-term accommodation by advertising the room on Stayz or AirBnB.
If you have ample storage space, you can also rent this out to potential customers. You can even rent out your tools or equipment to people who need them – perhaps you have a cordless drill or lawnmower that’s going begging!
Upcycling Hard “Rubbish”
They say some people don’t know the value of a dollar – and will toss out perfectly good furniture, electronics, and other items as part of hard rubbish.
Patrolling leafier suburbs during hard rubbish or scrolling free giveaways on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree may unearth something that just needs a little TLC – which you can sell for a profit. The same goes for your own hard rubbish – perhaps a lick of paint or a bit of repair can turn unused “junk” into cash.
(Remember to check council bylaws and make sure it’s legal!)
Building Passive Income
Before the pandemic, keeping your cash on hand was a good idea; now it’s all about generating income from what you have. Passive income is income that you don’t exchange your time to earn – though it may involve that up front, it’s income that is steady and substantial without expending any additional effort.
This may come in the form of investing your cash into high-interest bank accounts, term deposits, share portfolios, property, and other income generating assets.
If you don’t have swathes of extra cash lying around and aren’t prepared to take on a risk at the moment, there are other ways of generating passive income that use your brain.
Making content such as eBooks, stock photos, or videos are “make once, sell many times” types of intellectual property. If you have an interest in something, it’s likely someone else does too.
Cashback Apps
Producing content may be time consuming, but there are even easier ways to earn passive income. One idea is to use cashback apps that give you some type of reward for shopping at certain retailers.
Microinvesting apps also work in a similar way, “rounding up” purchases to the nearest dollar and investing it in shares and managed funds.
There are many ways to set yourself up to earn more money during times of economic downturn. It does take a little effort to get started but once you are, you could be living pretty knowing your bills are more than covered.
