Small steps to boost your income

It’s no secret that I sometimes struggle with money – with only working part time at the moment, in the past I’ve had to miss out on things I’ve really wanted to do simply because of lack of funds. Unfortunately the country isn’t in the best state at the moment ; it’s almost impossible to find a job these days and even when you have necessary experience, jobs are still few and far between. Luckily, since I first began university, I tried to find some other easier ways to up my funds a bit to help tide me by. Although none of my methods were necessarily as good as working full time, having some extra cash thanks to these small steps actually benefited me a lot and to this day I still use a lot of them. I’m looking for a full time job based more around my degree in the long run, but thanks to some of these ideas I’ve found ways to help tide me by during those times when I don’t get as many hours at work or actually really need the type of money I’d earn if I did have a full time job.

 Survey websites 

Survey websites are a great way to get some extra money if you’re willing to put the time and effort in. Putting a couple of hours aside each day to answer a few surveys will benefit you in the long run, but it’s definitely a method that requires a lot of effort if you want to start earning a lot of money. Most surveys offer between 50p - £2.00 for a 10-30 minute survey which means some bad points include the surveys can be quite boring and long winded, especially when you don’t see results right away. However, sometimes putting one day aside a week (or a couple of hours per evening) helps spread things out a bit and within a month you could earn quite a lot of money just for offering your opinion. There are tons of websites about, some offering cash paid direct into your paypal and others offering vouchers for websites such as Amazon and others. That’s just the basics – there’s a lot more to be said about the ways in which you can commit yourself more to this method – but I’ll be having a friend do a guest post on this soon!

 Ebay  
Ebay is an absolute godsend if you have the time and patience. I bet you’d find tons of clothes lying around your room that you don’t wear anymore – why leave them in your wardrobe collecting dust when you can sell them and make someone else happy? I put loads of clothes on EBay last month and earned about £200 and this was literally stuff I’d never even worn. Clothes with tags still on go for so much more and it’s always an idea to look into selling things on EBay as a kind of on the side business. You can buy lots of cheap clothes from boot sales and charity shops and sell them for much more than what you paid on EBay and a lot of people who don’t have the time to do it all actually pay other people to list stuff for them. You could also do this if you don’t have time yourself.

 Cash for Gold 

If you have any gold lying around, it will be worth a lot more using cash for gold websites as opposed to EBay or anything else. Jewelry from over the years just gets piled up and you’ll probably find you don’t actually want old rings/necklaces etc from old boyfriends that you forgot they gave you. Sell it on and earn some money out of it at least and if your ex was a bad boyfriend then it’ll feel even better selling it ;)

 Cash back websites 

I’ve already blogged about cash back websites before, but generally cash back websites are really beneficial if you do a lot of online shopping. It takes no extra effort on your part – simply set your home screen to the website of your choice and next time you want to buy something online, click onto the website via the cash back site and earn a percentage of what you pay back. Different websites offer different deals and some even offer freebies where you can earn a little bit of money each day just by clicking through to certain sponsors. Bigger buys = bigger earnings obviously, and things like phone contracts, car insurance etc can give you payouts of up to £100 or more.

 Competition entering 

Not all competitions offer cash, but some do and those that don’t offer great prizes. This is pretty straightforward too – you’ll find a variety of different websites dedicated to avid compers who post full lists of competitions to enter daily. Generally the smaller the competitions the more chance you have of winning – but don’t let that defer you. Some competitions offer top prizes of things like holidays, thousands of pounds and more – and after all, someone has got to win right?!

 Mystery shopping 

Mystery shopping isn’t as popular in the UK, but it DOES exist. I’ve yet to find a website that offers glamorous assignments like staying over night in 5* hotels and such, but I’ve recently gotten into mystery shopping myself lately and have to admit, it’s helped boost my income a bit! The best part is that it’s actually fun – you’ll find assignments for pubs and supermarkets and really all you have to do is visit a place and pay attention. Some tasks ask you to purchase items or food, which are reimbursed, and you also get paid for actually doing the assignment.

These are just a few tips that can help you boost your income just that little bit more. Although I wouldn’t say you could earn enough money to give up work completely, these are definitely ideal for students or people working part time like myself. A lot of them do depend on how much effort you’re willing to put in yourself but at the end of the day a lot of them are really quite easy in regards to how much you can earn! I hope this post helps!