Ranking the 36 best ways to make extra money on the side in 2019

Side hustle is the new side chick. Gig economy is THE buzzword lately, no doubt. Everyone wants to bring in a little extra money.

If you’re always broke, trying to pay down that debt or save some side cash and just can’t…

If you hate your job and feel like a scrub when you go to work every morning…

If you’re not feeling on your A game and smiling every time you check your bank account…

It’s time for you to start reeling in multiple streams. If you’re not part of the digital revolution, you’re gonna be left behind.

So, without further ado, here are the best ways to get that side hustle going in 2019. No BS surveys, no secret shopping for $2 checks, no guinea pigging yourself to mad scientists, just straight, legit ways to make extra money.

Be sure to check out how to make money fast, best small business ideas, and work from home jobs too.

Ranked by potential to go digital and scalability (because turning your side gig into your FT money maker is the dream), here we go…

47. Teach yoga

You can’t go anywhere without running into lululemon wearing green tea drinkers talking about their auras.

It costs a few hundo to get certified, but you can easily make that back in a day if you can fill a class with 30+ people willing to pay $10 each. The industry is way saturated though, so it’ll take time to build up the credibility and fame you need to really make a dent.

46. Odd jobs/chores

Offer to help neighbors, friends, or acquaintances with chores in exchange for some cash. Maybe check out Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, but remember to consider the safety hazards of meeting people off of a website like these.

Instead of only looking around manually for jobs, sign up for TaskRabbit. TaskRabbit lets people post all sorts of odd jobs, from grocery pickup to calling customer service on your client’s behalf. (1)

45. Driving around

Lyft drivers in big cities make a solid $377/month, and Uber drivers rake in $364/month. It’s definitely not quit your day job material, but it’s not bad for a little side money. The more you drive, the more you’ll make. (1)

Best part is you can work whenever you want for Uber and Lyft simply by clocking in on the app. Try driving during weekend nights for the surge pricing, if you can tolerate drunk people, of course.

You do have to have a car that’s less than 10 years old, and piling on the mileage every weekend will take a toll on your car’s value and longevity.

44. Sell your plasma

You can make money selling your body… as in your blood plasma. Many donation centers will pay you $20+ per visit to sit there with a needle in your arm for an hour or a bit longer. Might not be a whole lot, but you can watch Netflix while you’re in the donation chair if you want.

Make sure you meet the requirements before you try signing up. (2)

43. Babysitting

Parents will always be willing to fork over some cash to watch their child if you’re qualified. Ask your friends and acquaintances since people who know you are more likely to trust you.

Or, you can list your services on Care.com and wait for the parents to come to you. (2)

42. Dog sitting

People will pay a good $15-$20 for you to take their dog on a walk during your lunch break. If you can manage to take 10 dogs out on your lunch break, that’s $150 in your pocket.

People will pay even more money if you take care of their dogs during long periods of absence, such as when they go on vacation or travel for work.

Get on Rover.com, set up a dog walker profile, and start getting yourself some good reviews. (2)

41. Website testing

Ever been on a website that’s laggy, ugly, or terribly unintuitive? You can get businesses to pay you for telling them how crappy or good their website is that by signing up for a website testing service.

UserTesting, a leader in the website testing market, will pay you $10 for every 20-minute video test you complete. (3) $30 an hour isn’t bad for such a simple gig, and you’re doing a good deed for web surfers everywhere.

40. Movie extra

You don’t have to live in Hollywood to be a movie extra anymore. In fact, film-making hubs are exploding around the country and places like Georgia and Louisiana are taking over the movie industry thanks to tax breaks. (3)

You can make around $50-$100/day as a movie extra, and you might get to see yourself on the big screen.

39. Art Modeling

No, you don’t need to be jacked and shredded to be an art model. Some might require you getting nude, but if that makes you uncomfortable, there’re plenty of art modeling gigs that don’t require you to strip down

Sitting still (nude or not) for a few aspiring artists could earn you $20-$30 an hour. Reaching out to local art schools is your best bet for finding work, but browse online job boards too.

38. Flight searching

On Farefetch, people post flights they want and how much they’re willing to pay. If you find it for cheaper, you pocket the difference. It’s actually pocket change most of the time, but you can nag $50 or $60 for some flights. (4)

37. Essay ghostwriter

It’s a moral gray area for sure, but if you’re decently smart and willing to go full-on no shame and write essays for college kids online, you can make pretty good side money.

You might only make a few hundred per week to start, but if you can upgrade to writing history papers for rich ivy leaguers or college entrance essays for wealthy foreign kids, you can start making a few hundred per essay. (5)

36. Private lessons

Good at guitar? Former basketball player? Start giving private lessons in your skill for pay. As a nice little bonus, teaching others how to do a skill usually strengthens your own ability to perform that skill.

35. Data monkey

The money is literal nickels and dimes, but you can do it just about anywhere. Sign up for Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and pick up small, quick tasks while you’re sitting on the subway, or the toilet, or in your lame office job. (6)

Nickels and dimes add up to dollars, and you could probably rake in an extra $10-$15/day if you’re really diligent about it.

34. Translation

If you happen to speak two languages fluently, you’ve got a big money making skill. Pass their exams, and websites like Gengo, OneHourTranslation, and Unbabel will pay pretty decent side dough for you to translate stuff.

Just don’t expect to rely on your Duolingo skills forever… cash in now while you still can, because artificial intelligence is literally getting better at translation by the minute. (7) (8) (9)

33. eBay flipping

Go ahead and pop some tags with $20 in your pocket. This is about that thrift shop swag.

When you find something good, nab it and then sell it for twice the price on eBay. Repeat the process at garage sales, flea markets, Craigslist, and basically wherever you can find a good deal. One guy made $30,000 in side money in one year selling crap he found at flea markets. (10)

32. Rent stuff

The sharing economy isn’t the future, it’s already taken over. 44.8 million adults used sharing economy services last year, and that number will double by 2021. (11) Get on it.

Rent your spare bedroom on Airbnb. Rent your clothes on Style Lend and Date My Wardrobe. (12) (13) Rent your car on Turo. (14) Rent your RV on RVShare. (15) Rent just about anything you have laying around on Loanables. (15)

31. College coach

There are families out there that will shell out $42k large to someone who can help their kid get into an Ivy League. (16)

But even if you’re just helping kids get into mediocre colleges, editing their college entrance essays, or guiding families through the financial aid process, this is a solid way to make extra money if you know a thing or two about college admissions.

30. Personal trainer

Do you even lift, bro? If you can, you could make about $13-$17/hour in side cash as a personal trainer at your local gym. (17)

However, if you take your personal training to the digital world, virtual personal trainers can scale up and make a lot more money. Not only can you coach clients online, but you can write workout plans and sell them to fitness hopefuls.

Training Journal says virtual coaching is the wave of the future. (18)

29. Online sales rep

If you’ve got sales chops and aren’t afraid of a few no’s, try picking up a part-time, work-from-home, commission-only sales gig.

If you end up working for a startup, prove yourself by making big sales. You might be able to negotiate yourself a little equity if you want to.

28. Proofreader

Calling the grammar police. Now you can make money off your annoying habit of correcting everyone else’s sentences.

Websites like Fiverr and Upwork make it easy to make side money by proofreading everything from high school essays and letters to corporate announcements and manuscripts from budding writers. (19) (20)

27. Transcription

It’s about as thrilling as a repair manual, but transcribing audio to text pays consistently, and you don’t need to have any skills. Transcribers can make anywhere from $12-$20/hour on websites like Transcribe Anywhere, Rev, and TranscribeMe. (21) (22) (23)

26. App developer

Back in 2011, global app downloads hit around 2.5 billion. In 2018, that number was a whopping 194 billion total downloads. (24)

How many apps do you have on your phone? If you can write code, or learn to write code, focus on mobile app development. The demand is insane.

25. E-commerce

Take those friendship bracelets you used to make for your buddies and sell them on Etsy for side money. If you’re too lazy to turn your house into a Hobby Lobby and go full-on arts and crafts, start an e-commerce site that runs completely on affiliate links and enjoy the passive income.

24. Print-on-demand T shirt business

Launching your own t shirt business can’t be any simpler thanks to print-on-demand.

All you have to do is create the design (or just buy a design from someone else), sign up for a print-on-demand service like Teespring or Merch by Amazon, and handle the marketing. The print-on-demand service creates your shirt whenever a customer orders one.

23. Flip websites

Buy a few domain names you think will be in demand, and then sell them a year later. Or even a few months. One guy netted a $58,000 profit in less than 2 months by flipping 8 different domains. (25)

22. Email marketing

How many email newsletters are you subscribed to? Do they bombard you every day with content? That’s because it makes them money.

You too can make money with email marketing, and not just as a freelance copywriter. Grab a cheap subscription from an email marketing service, start up a niche email newsletter targeting a specific audience, then send them interesting and helpful content on the daily.

Monetize your efforts by partnering with relevant companies and doing affiliate marketing. It’s like blogging, but in your inbox.

21. Podcasting

Podcasts are hot, and only getting hotter as people find ways to cram learning into their busy lives.

Pick a non-saturated niche, have some interesting stuff to talk about, acquire a microphone and recording software, and start inviting guests if it’s interview style.

When your audience grows, you can earn income through ads/sponsorships, premium episodes, live shows, and your own products.

20. Graphic design

Creatives will want to get in on this. Designing a simple logo for a medium-sized company can net you $2,000 in your spare time. Of course, you have to have a killer portfolio built up to start raking in that kind of cash.

19. Blogging

Obviously I’m into this one, mostly because it’s a great way to build your brand and get your name out there. But it’s also a good way to make extra money on the side.

Pick a specialty that’s not already totally saturated and start a niche blog. Write epic content, network, do guest posts, and build an audience. Monetize. Think affiliate links, sponsored content, and ads in the short run, sell a product or service in the long run.

You can also scale in the long run by hiring writers to help you pump out more content and keep your blog growing.

18. Investing

Investing is a solid way to accumulate passive income on the side, but it usually takes years, if not decades, to see any substantial returns.

Common advice is to invest in “growth stocks” while you’re young to take advantage of the stocks appreciating in value.

But dividend-paying stocks are also a solid investment choice. Build up enough investment in dividend-paying stocks over time, and your dividend earnings could be paying the bills.

Slow and steady can win the race.

17. Video editing

Content may be king, but video content is the future.

The market is ripe. Download some free software (Wondershare Filmora and Lightworks are good) and start learning. (28) (29)

16. Self-publish a book

Anyone can be the next Ernest Hemingway now. Platforms like Nook and Kindle let you publish whatever you want, and if it sells, they’ll give you a cut. Amazon’s Kindle pays out 70% royalties if your book is priced at $2.99 or below. (30)

Hire a ghostwriter, pump out some cheesy fiction 50 Shades of Gray style, and wait for your movie deal.

15. Online tutoring

If you’re that nerd who always wants to go to pub trivia on a Friday night, you can make decent money offering homework help and tutoring online.

Tutors.com and WyzAnt will pay you to tutor in a subject if you can pass a test proving your expertise. (31) (32) If you want something more passive, eNotes.com pays around $8 every time you write an answer to a high school kid’s study guide question on their forums. (33)

Do you have a degree/are you currently a college student? Chegg will pay you $20 an hour (and they’ll pay you each week) to tutor students from wherever you want on your own schedule. (34) You can work as much or as little as you want.

14. Dropshipping

Dropwhatting? Dropshipping is basically setting up a website with killer SEO that sells a super niche product (think baseball caps or coffee mugs) and then transferring all your customer orders to a super cheap, third party manufacturer (think China, India, etc).

They make it. They ship it. You basically just sit back and watch the orders come in.

However, thanks to Amazon, the gap on this is pretty much constantly closing. Why is someone going to buy from your site when they can get the same thing on Amazon?

It’s still viable for now, but it might not be eventually, so get in while you can.

13. Virtual assistant

Assistants are basically glorified minimum wage coffee boys…unless you do it online.

Virtual assistants work for baller internet entrepreneurs and can do anything from Pinterest management to seeking out new clients invoicing for freelancers. It pays well, especially if you have specialized skills. And it’s one of the fastest growing jobs in the digital/freelancer world. (34)

12. Travel agent

Physical travel agencies may be a thing of the past, but online, they’re thriving. Freelance travel agents can set up a once in a lifetime vacation and reserve everything for you, for free.

They make their money by skimming a commission off the top of the hotels and tours they book. When you’re booking trips for fancy execs to the Four Seasons in Paris for $600+/night, a 10% commission on a 5 night stay is $300, without tours and transportation.

11. Social media specialist

Social media advertising budgets have DOUBLED since 2014, and they’re on track to grow a whopping 26.3% this year.

Start by writing status updates for small businesses for about $1/piece through social media agencies like Emphatic and Writer Access. (35) (36) Once you’ve got it down, learn some analytics, and start marketing yourself directly to clients as a specialist.

10. Online teaching

You don’t even have to be a certified teacher, and you might be able to make more than one, thanks to the internet. Check Skillshare and Udemy if you’re looking for websites that let you create courses and charge people who take them. (37) (38)

My advice: pick something you actually have some expertise in. Teaching is one field you can’t fake… at least not if you want to hit it big.

9. Voice acting

Were you that kid in high school who was in the drama club and walked around singing musicals all the time? Put that voice to use and make some money.

Voice acting is actually something you can do online and make good money, if you have some decent sound equipment. Voices.com, VoiceBunny.com, and Voice123.com all let you make a voice actor profile and apply to freelance jobs. The average gig on Voices.com last year paid $277.32. Not bad. (39) (40) (41)

8. Instagram influencer

This is THE buzzword of 2010s. Making money on Instagram sounds like total BS, but actually, if you have 20k+ followers, companies will actually pay you decent money to post a photo of their product.

If your follower count is in the 6-figure range, you can expect checks in the thousands… for ONE photo. #lit (42)

7. Online agency subcontracting

After you establish your presence online in some freelance skill, scale that skill up by starting an online agency and subcontracting the real work.

You focus on sales. Hire freelancers from sites like Upwork and Fiverr and subcontract your work to them by sending them your client projects.

Send the finished projects back to the clients and profit.

6. Photography

If you’ve got a camera and an eye for a good shot, get snapping.

Choose a nice (high school grads, engaged couples, newborns) and stick with it. You can do commissioned photoshoots, but you can also just sell stock photos online on iStockPhoto and Shutterstock for some passive income. (43) (44)

5. Web design

Every single business on the face of the planet needs a website nowadays. Learn code online from a place like Codeacademy or Skillcrush and start designing. (45) (46)

Good web designers can charge $75/hour and some even manage to rake in $100/hour. (47)

4. Content writer

Content has been king for a while, and it’s not going anywhere. As long as businesses exist online, they’re going to need content writers to keep their blogs fresh.

Get your name out there by guest blogging, climb your way up to contributor status on Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Forbes, etc. Offer content writing services and watch the cash flow in.

3. SEO consultant

If you’re looking for an internet gold mine, this is definitely one of them. Just look at the uptick in searches on “how to seo”.

A lot of fakers out there though, so get some practice in. Here are the basics: keyword research, blogging, link building. Go.

2. Facebook ads

Looking for a side gig with 3+ million potential clients? Learn how to run a solid Facebook ads campaign and you can take your pick. (49)

Good social media marketing is huge right now, digital marketing specialists even argue that Facebook ads are more effective than Google ads in many ways. (50)

1. Local lead generation

100% real talk, this is one of those side gig unicorns that can easily become a full-time income on a half-time work schedule. But like anything that leads to long-term success and not just 15 minutes fame, you have to put in the work in the beginning.

That being said, providing leads to local businesses is the most consistent way to generate a good amount of income on the side (we’re talking 4-figure checks…to start).

Why? First of all, the market cannot be saturated. What you’re doing is local, so you can replicate it in thousands of different towns and hundreds of industries. The combinations are endless.

Plus, when you provide this service in Springfield, Illinois, competition is cut down to you v. the balding schoolteacher who decided to take a crack at SEO during his summer vacation instead of you v. the entire internet.

The paychecks for one batch of leads are probably more than you’re making in a month at your current wet rag of a day job. There is literally nothing more valuable to local businesses than leads to paying customers. Tell a business owner you’ve got a stack of them and watch his pupils turn into dollar signs.

Don’t believe me? Your loss. Sorry not sorry.

from MLM Companies

Ranking the 31 best ways to get rich in 2019

So you’re trying to get that paper. You don’t want to be a businessman, you want to be a business, man. I don’t hate it.

You’re gonna need some mad skills though, or at least a lot of patience. Don’t think anything worthwhile comes easy.

Be sure to check out how to make money fast, how to save money, and ways to make money online.

Luckily, thanks to the world wide web, you can learn just about anything from your home.

But I won’t make you wait any longer… here are the best ways to stack that paper in 2019.

32. Network marketing

I live to knock it, lol, but even I was raking in 5-figure paychecks through MLM before I gave in to my own sense of self-respect.

If you’re crazy enough to think you could somehow make it into the top .0001% as I did, network marketing could work for you. The first step is to lose your shame. The second step is to lose your friends and family.

Still want to do network marketing? You’ll want to make sure you aren’t joining an actual pyramid scheme.

Pyramid schemes are illegal basically everywhere, but that doesn’t stop people from starting one and hiding behind an MLM label.

Here are a few ways you can distinguish between the two:

• Primary earning method – Is the compensation plan set up in a way where you earn more from selling products or recruiting new members? Pyramid schemes tend to do the latter.
• Emphasis – Aside from the compensation plan, does the company make a huge deal out of recruiting without caring much about their products? Could be a pyramid scheme.
• Do they pay attention to their market? If there’s no interest in consumer demand, that’s a sign they care only about adding new members to the pyramid.
• Upfront investment size – Pyramid schemes usually require a large upfront “investment”, which just gets you your items. MLM’s sometimes charge upfront, but the fee tends to be pretty small.

None of those bullet points will 100% tell you if a company’s legit or not, but they do point you in the right direction.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to research the network marketing company further.

31. Real estate

Barbara Corcoran did it, and you can too.

While the average real estate agent banks about $54,000/year, there’s no limit to the amount you can earn in this job.

The Wall Street Journal recently published the salaries of the top 1,000 real estate agents, and the #1 head honcho grossed a whopping 1.4 billion, with a B. Even #250 made $60 million in annual sales. (1)

Normally, I’d say start investing in real estate yourself.

But not everyone has the money to buy up rental properties, nor do they always know what they’re doing.

Starting as a real estate agent is a great way to earn a nice paycheck while you’re learning the ins and outs of real estate.

Then you can jump ship and start your own little real estate empire.

30. Index funds

When Warren Buffet hits you up with investment advice, you listen: index funds.

This is the slow way to riches, but it’s almost certain. You can average a solid 8.5% return on index funds, which means that you’d be a millionaire in 20 years if you start investing $1,587/month now. (2)

29. Virtual reality

So, a couple years ago I blogged about how the VR industry was expected to blow up. Over 12 million in headset sales predicted for 2016. (3)

A funny thing happened in 2016: almost 100 million were sold. (4) 

The best part? 96% of these were low-cost, partial VR headsets, and the market for those in China is expected to hit $8.5 billion.

You don’t have to invest in crazy tech and clunky, futuristic headsets. Plastic and cardboard units that cost $30 and attach to your smartphone will do just fine.

Start up an SEO heavy e-commerce store if you’ve got the digital marketing skills, or start a highly targetted niche business, like selling VR headsets to the wedding market (except don’t, because that niche is taken by LiveKnot). (5)

28. Networking

There’s this legend of an Italian billionaire who was asked, “If you had to start all over again, from zero, what would you do?”

He said he’d take any job he could get that paid $500, buy a nice suit, and go to a party filled with successful people. If you’re not a people person, learn to be one.

Why?

Because it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Dale Carnegie (yep, the dude from How to Win Friends and Influence People) once taught public speaking to Warren Buffett. His advice? Smile, listen, be genuinely interested in other people, remember their names, and offer lots of praise.

27. Consulting

You can start off at a big 5 consulting firm (think PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Accenture) and make over $70,000 as an entry-level consultant, easily hitting 6-figs when you go Senior. (6)

Then go freelance for more freedom and more money.

Alternatively, if you don’t have consulting experience but can get a very specialized skillset, go into freelance niche consulting (financial consulting, marketing consulting, etc). Without decades of consulting experience, you’ll have to charge based on your performance – in other words, your rate will be based on the results you deliver. If you’re good, this just means more money.

26. Investment banker

Think Wall Street. Think Goldman Sachs. Think J.P. Morgan.

Banking has produced some of the world’s richest people…. if you can avoid getting thrown in Martha Stewart prison, that is.

That being said, the median salary for investment bankers is $100,000. (7) 

However, you’ve gotta hustle if you want to get to that 7-figure salary. It’s not just 40 hours a week.

It’s more like 90-100 hours most weeks for your typical analyst/associate, according to a former investment banker and author named Andrew Gutmann. (8)

To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent to a little over 16 hours a day, 5 days a week, but usually that involves coming in on the weekend as well.

Not everyone will succeed in a job with those hours.

But those that make it to a VP position can easily pull 7 figures a year.

25. Public speaker

Build a brand for yourself and a recognizable name, and you could be snagging 6-figure speaking engagements presidential-style. PublicPaidSpeaking.com is a good place to start…some of their “non celebrity professional speakers” are banking “individual profits of over $800,000 a year.” (9)

Yeah, you read that right.

24. Life coaching

If you’re that friend that everyone goes to for advice, life coaching could potentially bank you a multi-million dollar practice on the internet. The industry has been booming ever since the economic crash in 2008. (10) People in hard times will spend every last cent they have for someone who can fix their problems.

Becoming a thought leader by starting your own blog, guest blogging, writing on LinkedIn, and self-publishing on Amazon. As soon as you score your first high-profile client you can start name-dropping, and the requests will fall into your lap from there.

23. Kid-Friendly YouTube videos

How many times have you gone to dinner and seen a kid glued to their iPad watching YouTube while Mommy and Daddy get some private time?

There’s an entire app called YouTube Kids, and it gets 8 million weekly users. (11) The best part? The quality of your vids can be absolute garbage, because kids don’t care either way as long as you keep them mesmerized. One of the richest YouTube millionaires is a 5-year old who makes videos of him opening toys. Literally, that’s it. (12)

22. Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin skyrocketed in 2017, reaching almost $20,000, but has since fallen to hovering around $8,000-$10,000.

While not as big of a moneymaker as it used to be, cryptocurrency is still a promising way to make money.

There are two routes you can take depending on how tech savvy you are. If you’re less tech savvy, invest. It’s a gamble but one with potentially huge returns. If you’re more tech savvy, launch a crypto ICO. Basically, you start your own cryptocurrency and hack it via a crowdfunding technique called “Initial Coin Offerings”.

Ethereum started as an ICO, and it was priced at only $12. Nowadays, it hovers around $180 depending on the day.

Keep in mind that your coin has to have a unique, useful idea behind it. Pumping and dumping coins might’ve worked years ago, but people aren’t going to invest in random coins anymore unless there’s a compelling reason.

21. Blockchain

Blockchain is the technology that cryptocurrency uses to record transactions. It’s basically a decentralized, encrypted way of recording transactions digitally so they can’t be hacked or altered (or at least without a genius hacker).

Companies are currently developing blockchain solutions for nearly every field, meaning plenty of lucrative investing opportunities await.

If you’ve got a blockchain solution idea and you can sell yourself to angel investors, you could start your own company instead.

20. Gaming

Everybody would’ve laughed in your face if you said you were going to become a multi-millionaire by playing Doom back in the 1990s.

Fast forward a couple decades, and you now have people like Ninja making half a million for live-streaming his Fortnite sessions. (13)

You wanna make money playing video games? Playing in tournaments and being an e-sports athlete is one way, but the big money’s in streaming on platforms like Twitch and making YouTube videos because the income is much more passive.

Granted, it takes a long time to build an audience, but I mean you’re playing video games while you’re doing it, not running a blog or anything.

It’s a brave new world.

19. Podcasting

Everyone’s favorite podcaster Joe Rogan was allegedly earning $75,000 per episode of his Joe Rogan Experience podcast back in 2016. (14) That number’s gotta be much higher now.

To start a podcast, you’ll first need a topic, preferably something interesting. You’ll also want to decide on a name as well as the length you want each episode to be.

Aside from that, the rest of it comes down to creating your brand and planning/recording your episodes.

18. Dating apps

Almost half the population of the U.S. uses online dating now, and a third of new marriages start online. (15)

This is a huge market to capitalize on. Sure, you’ve already got your Tinders and Grindrs and eHarmonies, but there’s plenty of space left for the niche dating market.

Just look at Spark Networks, owner of Christian Mingle and Jdate (a Jewish dating site). They consistently gross over $100 million a year for matching up religious singles with other singles of the same religion.

Find a niche that’s not taken, turn it into a mobile app, and pair it with the addictive gameified interface of Tinder. You’re welcome.

17. Niche Sites

You can get rich selling products without having to manufacture them or even set up a store with affiliate marketing.

Niche sites are one of the easiest ways to go about this. You basically build a site/blog around an extremely niche topic and target ultra-specific keywords to bring in visitors that are highly likely to buy. All you need are your standard website pages (home, affiliate disclosure, privacy policy, etc), a few simple blog posts targeting your keywords, and some affiliate products.

Once your niche site pulls a decent income, you can scale by hiring writers or VAs to manage your site and pump out posts, then you can start another site and repeat the process.

You won’t get rich overnight, but as your site reaches more people thanks to your SEO efforts, more people will buy through your affiliate links, growing your income.

If you ever get sick of running your niche sites, you can always sell them for a nice profit.

16. Marijuana

Large-scale legalization of weed in the US started with Colorado and Washington in 2012, but it’s slowly spreading all over the states.

And in Canada, it’s been legalized federally.

If you have no moral qualms with your money flowing into the marijuana industry, you can capitalize on the legal acceptance of pot in two ways.

The first would be investing in marijuana stocks. As you’d expect, these are quite volatile what with all the political battles over the little green plant. Don’t worry, though, as the industry is expected to reach over $23 billion by 2022. (16)

Or, if you live in a state where recreational marijuana is legal, you could start your own marijuana business in the form of either a dispensary or a grow operation.

Neither are cheap, and starting either one requires jumping through a ton of legal hoops for obvious reasons. Plus, you gotta operate your business on an all-cash basis since it’s still banned federally.

But nearly 90% of dispensaries, wholesale cultivators (grow operations), and even companies making weed-infused products were profitable in 2016. (17)

What better way to make some green than with some green?

15. Flip websites

Imagine making $58,000 in profit over the course of 2 months just by buying and selling domain names. Well, it’s been done. (18)

Domains are basically digital real estate. Domain flipping sites like Flippa make it easy to try your luck, but if you really want to make good money, do your research and base your domain purchases on knowledge and skill. (19)

14. Amazon self-publishing

Thanks to the internet, anyone can publish a book now for free. But you have to put in solid marketing effort to make sales.

You don’t have a publishing house doing all the work for you, but you’re also raking in most of the profits. Self-publish on Amazon and sell your book for $2.99 or less, and you get to keep 70% of the royalties. (20) If you can sell 477,783 copies (indie self-publishing star Amanda Hocking was doing 100,000/month in sales in her prime), you’ll make your first million. (21)

Then if you want, start your own website and sell your books on there at whatever price you want. You’ll get to keep all your profits.

Just make sure you can handle all the admin and marketing stuff, or better, hire someone else to do it.

13. Content farm

If you’re looking for the next big thing, content marketing is already it. The industry is on track to rake in $313 billion by 2019, so get on it now. (22)

If you can learn how to write epic content that drives sales (and get your name in Forbes and HuffPo), you can charge hundreds per article.

Even better, start a content farm, hire writers off of freelancing websites, and skim passive profit off the top.

Starting a content farm will require you have the cash to pay your writers. Without it, your best bet is to do the writing yourself until you’ve got some money.

12. Instagram influencer

Grab that iPhone, download some photo editing apps, slap a filter on your selfie and post. Simple.

Instagram “micro-influencers” (10k-50k following) don’t make huge bucks…more like $50-$100 per post. But if you can grow your following up to 6-figures, you could rake in thousands for posting one sponsored photo. (23) Making a paycheck has never been easier.

11. Software development

Unlike web development, this is learning coding and development that’s focused on building software. It has a lower ceiling but a higher average income.

Learn some of the more lucrative frameworks and systems (like Spark and Cassandra) and some of the highest paying programming languages (like Scala and F#), and you’ll hit an average salary of $125,000. (24)

With enough experience, capital, and entrepreneurial skills, you could launch your own software company and maybe even become the next Silicon Valley success story too.

10. Video post-production

Video is IT. By 2020, video is expected to make up a whopping 90% of all internet traffic. It’s already on a huge upswing, having grown 71% year-over-year in 2016. (25)

You could go through the trouble of writing scripts, hiring actors, directing, and getting expensive filming equipment, or you could just start your own company that offers post-production video services (editing, adding in music, credits, etc).

That’s the part that most people outsource anyway. Once you build your name, start your own video editing training school to really bring in the passive income.

9. Web design

Websites like Codeacademy and SkillCrush will teach you web design for fairly cheap, and some websites even teach it for free. (26) (27)

Web design is the less technical, more design-oriented side of creating websites. You get to design layouts, make sure color schemes work well, and all that fun stuff. While it doesn’t pay quite as well as web development, you don’t have to learn as much code and you can still earn $75-$100/hour. (28)

8. Social media consultant

Facebook has over 3 million companies using their ads, and over 60 million using their pages to promote their business. (29) Instagram has over 1 million advertisers, and it’s bound to keep growing. (30)

If you’re that friend who’s always scrolling social media, editing photos, hashtagging, and whipping up clever captions, you can make money doing that. Get analytics and ads on lock on your skills list, and you can make good money doing what you do best.

7. Data scraping

You can do this manually without any programming skills, it just takes a lot longer. But if you come up with a good, unique idea like

• Scraping emotional reactions to certain types of content on Facebook
• Gathering leads from online business directories for B2B service providers
• Gathering contact info for homes that were recently purchased
• Scraping for keywords in user reviews of a certain product

Businesses will pay for the data if it helps them sell their products.

Now imagine if you did know how to code and could create computer programs that scrape all this data for you in seconds. You’d be making sales faster than you could keep up with them.

6. e-Commerce

Pick a niche product. I mean really niche (think “Disney coffee mugs” or “small travel backpacks”).

You don’t have to manufacture the product – you can fill orders via Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), dropshipping (basically online retail without inventory), or even plain old affiliate marketing.

Kick your SEO into full gear. Once you’re #1 on Google you’ll start seeing some handsome profits with little to no effort aside from maintenance.

You can boost your sales by spending on ads (or hiring an expert to do the ads for you) once you’ve got cash rolling in. No need to if you don’t want to, but do it right and your profits will increase.

Then you can scale it by outsourcing all the menial stuff to virtual assistants. Hey, you’re creating jobs now!

5. Web Development

Again, you can learn this online, even for free.

Unlike web design, learning more advanced coding languages and becoming a web developer PAYS. One developer wrote in Business Insider of a typical job offer – $150,000 salary, $10,000 signing bonus, all kinds of freebies, from gym memberships to free meals on the daily, and flexible work hours. (31)

Of course, if you take all that coding knowledge and use it to start your own hit website (think Facebook), the sky is the limit.

Again, websites like Code Academy, Khan Academy, and Code.com (among a ton of others) are filled to the brim with coding lessons and other good stuff.

But as you know, the best way to get better is to practice. Once you’ve learned some stuff from your free online resources, you’ve got to start building websites with your skills.

4. Blogging

Bloggers don’t actually make money, right?

Nope, not a myth. If you hit it big with your blog you can clear six figures a year EASY.

Just look at Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. I mean, he regularly clears six figures every MONTH.

Sure, he’s got like 100 income sources at this point, but according to his income reports, affiliate marketing alone earns him around $100,000 a month give or take.

For more proof, just search the web for “blog income reports” and you’ll get endless lists of, well, blog income reports.

If you get really big, think Mashable, Tech Crunch, and Endgadget status (yes, they all started as blogs), you can even score a lucrative takeover. Ariana Huffington eventually sold the Huffington Post for $315 million to AOL. (32)

3. Mobile app creator

Mobile apps routinely hit 250 billion downloads worldwide this year. (33)

Platforms often pay 70% profits on your app sales, so if you’re selling an app for $4.99, that can add up quickly. Sell half a million downloads, and you’re looking at a $1,746,500 profit.

That might sound hard, but there are actually thousands of apps that have hit over a million downloads, so hitting half that is definitely possible.

2. SEO consulting

Having a digital presence is a must for any business nowadays, and the only way to get there is through SEO. Because of that, companies will pay huge amounts to someone who can provide results…I’m talking page one Google results.

The hourly consulting rate for a legit SEO specialist is $100-$300. (34)

1. Lead generation for local businesses

If you’re looking for automated, digital, and scalable, this is it. If you’re looking for a market with low competition that is almost impossible to saturate, this is it. If you’re looking for guaranteed five-figure paychecks, this is also it.

The bottom line is that this method works better and more consistently than almost any other for generating passive income. You’re building out niche websites that focus on specific products and specific locations, so when your competition is cut down to people advertising limo services in Dayton, Ohio, hitting it big is a lot more do-able.

Use SEO to get to the top and let the leads come in overnight. Once you can offer local businesses a stack of contact info for people who have already said they’re interested in the product or service, they’ll start handing you money faster than you can count it.

from MLM Companies

Ranking the 20 best tips for starting a business in 2019

I’m guessing you landed on this page because you’ve been scheming up ideas for starting a business.

You’re on the right track in life.

Since I’ve built a couple 6-figure businesses in my day, I figured I could drop some intel for y’all.

There’s no better feeling than quitting your day job and building something that’s 100% for you. Coming up with business ideas for your business is the easy part.

The hard part is deciding which ideas are worthwhile, and then actually acting on them.

Although I’m a bit biased towards digital businesses, these tips will work for any type of business.

Let’s go.

30. Elect your LLC as an S-corp

When you file your taxes, you can elect to be taxed as an s-corporation instead of an LLC, even if you are an LLC.

They’re pretty similar, but an s-corp filing looks at you (the owner) as an employee of your business rather than a partner and pays you a salary. The salary you pay yourself is the only part of your earnings subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes, whereas without the s-corp status, you’d be paying that on all your profits. (1)

29. Solve a pain point

If your business idea does one thing, make sure that it fills a market need. Basically, look for a market first before you create a product (too many people do this the other way around).

How do you know if your idea does solve a pain-point in society?

Test it. Spend $100 on Facebook ads and target your product to your audience. Decent sales means you might be on to something.

According to Fortune Magazine, 42% of failed start-ups said that a lack of market need for their product was the reason they failed. [2]

28. Stop chasing shiny objects

Once you pick a business model, commit to it. Dropping your business 3 months in to chase the next hot business model will just lead to failure after failure.

Truth is, you can succeed with nearly any business model. When you’re deep into business model X and not seeing results, it might look like business model Y works better, but chances are your situation would be the same if you had started out with business model Y.

You just have to stick with it for the long term and block out any “grass is greener” thoughts.

27. Set specific short and long-term goals

Long-term goals are the big wins you’re going for, while short-term goals are the day-to-day or week-to-week accomplishments that keep the motivational fire burning.

It’s important that your goals are more specific than “make a lot of money” too. For example, say you want to make $100,000 in revenue this year. Break that down to a daily revenue amount (about $274) and strive to hit that amount each day.

26. Sharpen your sales skills

At its core, business is just selling. Brush up on your sales skills, but also your copywriting skills. Take courses, read books, etc.

Also, if you’re afraid of selling, now’s the time to squash that fear and get over it.

25. Outsource

You should outsource two different kinds of work:

1) Low-value, time-consuming work

2) Work you’re not good at

The former type of work is usually filled by virtual assistants, while the latter might entail functions like accounting, content marketing, or legal stuff.

Websites like Fiverr, PeoplePerHour, and Upwork are good for outsourcing one-time jobs you don’t want to do at a low cost.

24. Start a low-cost business

The second reason start-ups fail? Lack of sufficient capital. Nearly 30% of failed start-ups have cited this as the reason their business went south. [3]

Starting a business with a low budget, or even no budget, is possible, especially nowadays with the internet. Dropshipping, blogging, affiliate marketing, and info products are all great examples.

23. Bootstrap

Bootstrapping is the way of the future. Plenty of today’s biggest companies started out bootstrapping, or completely funding themselves rather than accepting outside funding and venture capital at early stages.

This gives you full control over your business, teaches you to be scrappy in times of hardship, and according to the Harvard Business Review, bootstrapped companies actually attract better talent.

Dell, Facebook, Apple, Coca Cola, eBay, Microsoft, and plenty more were all bootstrapped. [4]

22. Start while you’re still employed

Have a job? Stick with the job, save some emergency cash, and pour your spare time and money into your business until it’s making a steady income. When the timing’s right, jump ship and go into full-time business mode.

Some might actually fare better jumping ship early to get that “I need to succeed” psychological boost (the “back against the wall” method), but don’t do it that way unless you’re fine with the risk.

21. Take consistent action

Reading every business book on earth won’t earn you anything if you don’t take action. Neither will overthinking your business idea for months.

Obvious enough, but many people either say they’ll start a business and never do or give up after the initial rush of starting something new fades.

Don’t give up and quit overthinking. Act. Working on your business consistently every day is what brings results.

20. Don’t fixate on mistakes

Fixating on your mistakes too long can demoralize you into working less on your business.

Instead of wasting your time freaking out about something you did wrong, learn what you can from your mistakes and apply your knowledge moving forward.

After all, failure is a necessary part of success. Just search the internet for “famous failures” and you’ll see.

19. Manage your finances correctly

Mixing your personal and business finances is a big no-no. It makes it hard to keep track of things for taxes, but the law will also determine there’s no legal separation between you and your business by “piercing the corporate veil” and then strip away your LLC protections.

Get separate business checking and savings accounts and perhaps a business credit card for your business revenues and expenses. Unless you’re paying yourself, don’t draw on business funds for personal use.

18. Learn digital skillsets

I know I’ve said I’m digitally-biased, but this is important for all businesses nowadays. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re starting: the internet is how you spread the word, even if you’re in the brick-and-mortar game.

According to Forbes, these are the 7 most important digital marketing skills right now: analytics, SEO, HTML, WordPress, video, basic design skills, and SQL. [5]

Remember, you can outsource these… and if you want to take it all on yourself, there are plenty of trainings and software programs out there to help you out.

Learn the basics so you have the digital literacy to build your business.

17. Never stop marketing

Especially in the early stages of your business, you always should be marketing, even if you run a client service business and your client roster is full.

Because if 2 clients suddenly fire you tomorrow, you’ll be left out to dry unless you were looking for more clients.

16. Get good at time management

As an entrepreneur, time management means two things:

1) Focusing on the highest-ROI tasks first (selling, growing the business) and proceeding from there until you reach the lowest-ROI tasks.

2) Actually making time to get each task done throughout the day.

Try something like the Pomodoro technique. You’re “on” for 25 minutes, “off” for 5, rinse and repeat. Take a longer break every 4 Pomodoro sessions. (6)

15. Create multiple streams

I’m a big believer in diversifying and multiplying your income streams.

As a business owner or self-employed entrepreneur, not creating multiple income streams and sales channels is akin to an investor investing all their money in one company. What happens if that one company’s stock plummets? The same thing could happen to your income if you don’t multiply your streams.

Start with one, pour your time and resources into it, but then branch out from there when it’s finally bringing in decent cash — this will help you grow, and it’s the only way to achieve a sense of stability. Trying to build several new streams at the same time will only waste your money and burn you out.

14. Learn to pivot

If something isn’t working, don’t continue to beat a dead horse. Try something new instead.

Starting a new business is all about experimentation. If something isn’t working for you, just drop it and move on.

In the beginning, Dropbox, now a $1 billion tech company, tried again and again to explain their product to people via text, but no one was buying in. So instead, they decided to switch it up and make a funny video, almost as a joke, to describe their product instead.

What happened?

They went from 5,000 wait list sign ups to 75,000… overnight. [7]

13. Start with a minimum viable product

Don’t delay your launch. All you need to get started is an MVP (minimum viable product).

Once you’ve got that out on the market, you can tweak and improve until you’re raking in the cash.

Groupon started out as a group of friends and entrepreneurs who wanted to score discounts by buying things as a group. They made an app that allowed them to coordinate a group of 20 people (yep, just 20) who all wanted to buy the same thing, and then struck a deal with a local business. After realizing the power of group buying, Groupon was born. [8]

12. Start your business in Wyoming

You want to start up in a place that has a history of entrepreneurial success and a large pool of talented employees, but also (and more importantly), a good business tax climate and low costs.

Wyoming hits a home run on all these fronts, especially tax climate: they don’t have a corporate income tax, individual income tax, or gross receipts tax. They also have one of the lowest sales tax rates in the country. [9]

You can also consider Delaware or Puerto Rico (6% flat tax!) if your business is digital and you’re feeling alpha.

11. Don’t be afraid to experiment

Entrepreneurship = experimentation. Drill that into your head.

There’s a really good chance that your original idea to what you’re trying to do will evolve into something completely different, and that’s ok.

In fact, economists from the Harvard Business School published a study asserting that experimentation is not just key to, but in fact IS, entrepreneurship. [10]

10. Get some productivity apps

Todoist for organizing your work and keeping your to-do lists, Evernote for storing ideas or writing things down, Quickbooks for accounting/bookkeeping, etc.

Those aren’t your only options for those functions, so look around if you prefer something else.

Don’t go overboard on productivity apps. At some point, you’ll spend more time managing them than the time you saved using them in the first place.

9. Scout your competition

Know what they’re selling and for how much.

Know their conversion rates and their traffic analytics (Ahrefs, Alexa).

Read what people are saying about them. Read the reviews. Study their social media interactions. Check out news about the company and your industry in general.

What PPC keywords are they bidding on? (Spyfu)

What are they blogging about? If their SEO game is strong, how are they getting their links? (Ahrefs, Majestic)

8. Find a mentor

Get yourself a mentor. Forget originality — there’s nothing wrong with a copycat if they’re living a life you admire.

Do some googling, and find yourself an influencer in your industry. LinkedIn is a great place to do this if your niche is technical or business related, or if you’re more into something creative or visual do some searching on Instagram. Find their blog. Follow them on Twitter.

Read everything they put out, but more importantly, seek ways to serve them and expect nothing in return.

7. Build your network

“Your network is your net worth.” #truth

In the book Neighbor Networks by Ronald Burt, it’s shown that networking with a bunch of different people can boost your cognitive abilities and emotional intelligence.

And of course, networking can land you more clients and customers for your business. You might even meet a future business partner.

Thanks to the internet, networks are everywhere.

Facebook groups, sub-Reddits, and LinkedIn are probably the best places to start.

6. Use crowdfunding

82% of businesses fail to bring in enough cash to sustain themselves. Basically, there’s a good chance you’ll run out of money and flop early on. [11]

It’s not that hard to get funding for your business nowadays if you know a thing or two about PR and digital marketing.

Enter: crowdfunding. Websites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe have made it super easy to raise money for your idea, and you can still call yourself self-funded this way because it doesn’t count as venture capital.

5. Track everything

Remember how I said experimentation is at the core of entrepreneurship?

Well, experiments are about more than just trying a bunch of new stuff. You also have to track the success and failure of each thing you try in order to know what works and what doesn’t.

Test your ideas. Run polls, do A/B testing, track when something is doing well and figure out why. Then scale it.

4. Start a blog

Why do I have this blog?

I could just do my own thing, bring in my money and end it there. So why do I go through the trouble of spending 20+ hours on posts like this?

Because I think it’s important as an entrepreneur and business owner to share the knowledge and expertise you gain along the way.

Starting a blog that helps others offers them value, which is one of the best ways to get people to trust you and come back for more. It builds your cred and reputation, and it’s one of the best marketing tools out there.

Not to mention that constantly pumping out blog content means you’ll start to rank for certain keywords in internet searches.

3. Learn SEO

Imagine a successful business without Google involved.

It’s hard. Without traffic, (which is mostly Google, Facebook or YouTube) you’ve got nothing.

Lack of SEO is a big reason why businesses fail.

What really is search engine optimization??

1) Build out baller, organized content going after keywords….like this post… “how to start a business”, which gets searched 39,000 times per month

2) Get other people to mention or link to your articles

That’s 80% of SEO. Congrats.

2. Build time wealth

There’s a lot of talk nowadays about following your passions, finding your dream job, and turning what you love into a career.

Why not just make a ton of money and build a business that allows you to have time wealth?

Once you have an online business making $10,000 per month, you’ve built a lifestyle that allows you to follow your passions.

You don’t even need to be passionate about your business, although it definitely helps.

1. Help local businesses

Here’s the thing: there’s no more predictable path to building a profitable business than focusing on local services.

Competition isn’t there.

Instead of trying to start your own local business – which would require inventory, start-up capital, a storefront – you can help these businesses by providing them with leads to build their business.

Local lead generation provides more value to local businesses than just about anything else.

What business will tell you, “No thanks, we’re good, not interested in more leads..”

1) Build out websites that go after local niches, like pest control in a big city or a personal injury lawyer

2) Collect leads through email opt-ins or a phone number that you rent so you can listen to the calls

3) Collect money either through a pay-per-lead model or pay-per-sale, depending on what you negotiate with the business owner

Leads are the superpower of the Internet. Few people understand this.

Recap

There’s really been no better time to start a business.

There are some key takeaways when it comes to starting your own business that I want you to remember from this article:

1. Do something digital

Why? Low start-up costs and quick feedback loops, which validates your idea without spending more than $500.

Freedom to work from wherever you want, whenever you want.

2. Do something that can be automated

There’s no sweeter feeling than going to bed at night knowing that the paychecks you’re making will keep rolling in, even in your sleep.

Time is your most precious resource. Figure out which of your business ideas you can automate, and go with those.

3. Do something local

You may have dreams of going global, but start local first. Narrowing your focus and targeting a specific area will give you a huge competitive advantage.

4. Do something scaleable

Being able to reel in passive income is sweet, but it’s a little underwhelming when you’re reeling in $2.03 a month from your Amazon affiliate account.

It’s gotta scale.

—

Whatever you do, the most important advice of all is this: start your business.

Start something, because more than likely, your business will evolve anyway as you work on it daily.

Stop sitting around scrolling through articles.

I wasn’t shy about my #1 recommendation (local lead generation) because I’ve seen it work for many, many people.

I’ll Paypal you $500 if you show me a better business to start than our method.

from MLM Companies

Ranking the 39 best ways to get out of debt in 2019

Whether your mountain of debt started with a shopping spree where you got a little trigger happy with the plastic or pursuing a fancy liberal arts degree, you’re here because you want to take a bulldozer to that mountain and finally be #debtfree.

Sitting on a big pile of debt is basically burning piles of money on the reg. For some perspective, Americans with commercial debt spend, on average, $1,300 per month on interest payments. (1)

That’s more than a lot of people’s rent, and it does nothing but keep collections at bay.

This only solution is to pay your debt off faster. This post covers how to do that in 3 different ways:

1. Improving the terms of your debt
2. Cutting costs
3. Making extra disposable income

Be sure to check out my other rankings: best online business ideas, small business ideas, and how to make money fast.

Let’s do this. Ranked by how quickness, sustainability, and ease, here are the best ways to get out of debt:

39. Do the math

If you’ve got $20,000 in credit card debt and you’re making $300 payments each month, it’ll be just over 12 years until you’re debt-free. You’ll have basically lit more than $23,000 on fire in the form of interest payments.

Use a debt repayment calculator like Credit Karma’s (2) to crunch the numbers and figure out exactly how long it’s going to take you to pay off your debt and how much you’ll be paying in interest.

38. Automate your finances

Self-made millionaire David Bach wrote a whole book on this one called “The Automatic Millionaire”, saying that it’s “the one step that virtually guarantees that you won’t fail financially.” (3)

Set a goal for when you want to finish paying off your debt and use the flipside of that debt calculator to calculate how much you’d have to pay each month to do that. Set up automatic payments on all of your credit cards and loans to that monthly minimum.

Recent college grads: the US Department of Education gives you a 0.25% interest discount just for setting up autopay, and many private lenders give you up to 0.50% off. (4) Not a lot, but it takes like 20 seconds to sign up for autopay.

37. Pay the maximum

A whopping 73% of Americans die in debt. A big reason is that many of them (yep, lookin’ at you) are only paying the minimum on their debt, which is the best way to stay in debt forever.

Instead, pay the maximum amount your budget will allow each month. Those courtside tickets can wait until AFTER you’ve paid off your debt.

36. The “avalanche” method

Call it the avalanching, stacking, or the ladder method, it’s all the same: hands down the most financially savvy and efficient method for paying off multiple different streams of debt.

Pay off your high-interest debts first (usually your credit cards). Set your automatic payments to the minimum on all of your cards and loans except the one with the highest interest rate: throw all the money you can at that one until it’s gone. Then target your second highest interest rate using all the extra money you have in the absence of the first debt, and so on.

35. The “snowball” method

For those who need to be coddled a little, snowballing is paying off your smallest debts first so that these little wins can motivate you to attack larger, more intimidating debts.

That initial boost of confidence that the snowballing method creates has helped people tackle $50k+ in debt in just a few years. (5)

34. Cash out your credit card cashback

If you’ve got cashback sitting around on any of your credit cards from incurring all this debt, you may as well take advantage of it.

Don’t try to earn any more cashback until you’re debt-free, though.

33. Put windfalls towards your debt

Put any random money you earn outside your regular income towards your debt.

Whether it’s a work bonus, birthday money, a holiday gift, your tax refund, or a $100 you found on the ground, directing that money towards your debt puts you a little bit closer to debt-free status.

32. Sell stuff

Don’t lie, you probably have a basement, garage, or closet somewhere that looks like an audition for Hoarders (without the dead cats, I hope). I’m not going to preach to you about the “life-changing magic of cleaning out your garage”, but I am going to preach to you about how selling crap you don’t need to pay off debt you shouldn’t have is a good idea.

What’s that? You’re too lazy? You don’t even have to leave your house. Sell stuff from your phone on Letgo. (6) Try out Decluttr. (7)

31. Downgrade your stuff

Lifestyle inflation is real. People don’t like to downgrade their standard of living. But you have to if you want to double down on your debt.

This couple even sold their brand new car and got a used junker when they realized they could have used that money to pay off their debt. It probably stung a little, but they managed to pay off $52,000 of debt in just 18 months. (8)

30. Free entertainment

Instead of spending money on movies or concert tickets, seek out cheaper ways to have fun.

Look online and see what kind of free things are happening around your city. Outdoor festivals, movies in the park, all that stuff.

No need to be deathly bored while you’re climbing your way out of debt hell.

29. Garage sale arbitrage

Dig through cheap crap at garage sales, strike gold. Buy valuable items for a fraction of what they’re worth, and resell them online for a huge profit. Repeat.

Corey Levitan, a writer for Men’s Health, banks an extra $20,000 a year doing this. And he only spends 3-5 hours/week on it. (9)

28. Shop through cashback sites/apps

Cashback sites like Rakuten (10) give you money for shopping online and in-store, kinda like a delayed discount. When you cash out your earnings, put it all towards your debt. Also, use a debit card instead of a credit card when doing this unless you want to spend more time paying it off.

Don’t go on a shopping spree just for cashback, though. That’s exactly how a lot of people end up in credit card debt – cashback rewards on their credit cards.

Save these sites for those everyday purchases you have to make, like groceries or maybe clothing.

27. Buy everything with cash

Many studies have shown people generally spend less when they pay with cash than they pay with credit. (11)

Think about this: not only do you have to visit an ATM or bank any time you need cash, but watching those green bills leave your hand is more difficult than swiping/chipping/tapping a piece of plastic.

Also, you won’t be adding more to your current credit balances.

But this applies to debit cards, too. No debt involved with debit cards, but it’s still easier to swipe it than to hand over bills.

26. Keep the change

Take all the loose change you find or get back throughout the day and put it in a jar. Each month, deposit it all and use it to chip away at your debt.

25. Negotiate your bills

Anyone who tells you that you can’t negotiate bills is a liar. Everything is negotiable. According to Consumer Reports, 89% of people who try to bargain are successful at least once. (12)

Try your hand at haggling with your cable and internet bills, and then move up to the big leagues: medical bills, credit cards, and car insurance.

24. Lower your rent

Bargain with your landlord, especially if you live in an apartment: offer to extend your lease, give up your parking space, agree to show your apartment to potential renters, get some roommates, pay a few months’ rent upfront, or refer new renters for a discount.

The best time to negotiate is a few months before your lease ends.

23. Negotiate your credit card interest rate

Sometimes it really is as easy as just asking.

Time Magazine’s money experts recently did a personal finance boot camp that recommends you call up your credit card company and ask them for a lower APR. 80% of callers asking for a lower interest rate were successful. (13)

22. Don’t close credit cards

The second you pay off one credit card, you’ll probably want to immediately call up the credit card company and close it. Don’t.

Unless your card charges an annual fee, keep it open. Check the FICO 5. (14) One of the biggest factors making up your credit score (30%) is your credit to debt ratio. The less credit you have available to you, the higher that ratio, the lower your credit score.

21. Freeze your credit cards… literally

Of course, keeping your credit cards in your wallet after you pay them off is like a recovered cocaine addict keeping an old stash in his bedroom.

Stick them in a bowl of water and freeze it. Every time you want to take the plastic gods out on an impulsive shopping spree, you’ll have to wait for a block of ice to thaw while you think about your life choices.

20. Monitor your credit report

Monitor your credit report on a regular basis for any errors that could be hurting your credit score. If you see any, immediately submit a dispute to get them removed so you can nudge your score upwards to secure better interest rates in your negotiations.

Each of the 3 credit bureaus gives you 1 free report a year. (15) Sites like Credit Karma (16) let you look at your report as much as you want with no penalties as well.

19. Rent your stuff

Airbnb’s cutesy tiny houses and extravagant vacation rentals are taking over, but you don’t have to have real estate to make money renting things out anymore.

Rent out your bike/recreational gear on Spinlister. (17) Got an old bridesmaids dress or fancy tux lying around? Rent out clothing on Style Lend (18) and Date My Wardrobe. (19) Compete with Alamo by renting out your car on Turo (20) or GetAround. (21) And you can rent just about anything on RentNotBuy and Loanables. (22) (23)

18. Borrow against your life insurance

If you’ve got a permanent life insurance policy with a cash value, you can borrow from it to pay off your debt. Just make sure it doesn’t backfire. Interest rates are often lower with this method, but there are penalties involved (including burdening your beneficiaries if you die before the debt is paid off) and you could risk losing your life insurance.

17. Make every debt payment on time

No, not just to keep collections at bay. Paying your debts on time keeps your credit score as high as possible, seeing as it’s the most important (35%) of the 5 FICO credit score factors (24).

A higher credit score gives you more leverage when negotiating down your interest rates with your credit card companies. It also helps you secure a lower rate if you want to refinance/consolidate your debt, which you can learn about in the next two tips.

Also, paying on time means you avoid late fees, which are just a waste of money.

16. Refinance your debt

If you qualify for refinancing, you should 100% do it. Basically, you get a new, better (lower interest, usually a personal loan) loan to replace one of your old (higher interest) loans. You can cut years off of your repayment schedule by refinancing.

Pay attention to the term length of the loan you’re refinancing your debt with, though, especially with long-term debt like mortgages. Let’s say you have 5 years left on a 30-year mortgage. Refinancing to a lower interest rate will lower your payment, but you’ll end up paying thousands more in interest.

15. Debt consolidation

Consolidating debt is simply combining multiple debts into one debt by taking out a lower interest loan. Most of the time, consolidating your debt also involves refinancing your debt (see previous tip) – especially if you have several high-interest debt sources.

In addition, you can spend less time juggling 5 different debt accounts and making sure to pay everything on time. Less chance of incurring late fees or worse – the wrath of collections.

If you’ve got debt from more than 2 different sources, you should definitely consider a debt consolidation loan.

14. Balance transfer credit card

Live-saving credit cards exist: they offer a 0% interest rate for a specific “introductory period”, which can be 6 months, 12 months, or even 21 months. You transfer your debt to this card and pay it off interest-free.

Just make sure you pay it off in time, and don’t use it to spend.

The Chase Slate is the only 0% APR balance transfer card with no fees, (25) and the Citi Simplicity offers the longest introductory period of them all (21 months). (26)

13. Loan forgiveness

If you’re a teacher, public servant, permanently disabled, Peace Corps volunteer, nurse, or law enforcement and you have student loan debt, the government might actually pay it off for you.

You don’t get away scot-free, though; these programs usually require you to make 120 qualifying payments (aka 10 years of monthly payments) before you’re considered for loan forgiveness. Check out the Federal Student Aid website for details. (27)

Whether or not you’re forgiven for your gluttonous spending on a metaphysical level is another matter.

12. Have a small emergency fund

If you don’t have some cash set aside for emergencies, you’re going to incur more debt if you get into a bad car accident or something similar.

It doesn’t have to be a lot – $1,000 should be enough for the moment, and you can build it up in increments of as little as $50 a month if you need to.

11. Quit investing

Here’s the thing: paying down debt gets you a guaranteed return (in the form of interest you no longer have to pay), and that return is almost always more than you’d earn on the stock market and always more than you get from a savings account. (28)

Drop the investments for now and put any savings in excess of your small emergency fund toward being debt-free. Not only that, but consider selling some investments and putting the proceeds towards your debt.

10. Become a digital nomad

It’s no secret that I think working from home is the future, and I’m not alone. (Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fast Company all agree). (29)

“Digital nomads” have traded in the 9-5 for a digital career that lets them roam the globe while they rake in cash. Aside from the obvious perks – from showing up at the “office” in your swim trunks to your “office” being a tropical island – you can also save tons of money by living somewhere cheap. The cost of living in Thailand is half what it is in the United States. Think about it. (30)

9. Gig economy jobs

Drive for Uber, doing odd jobs on TaskRabbit, shop for people with Shipt, you get the idea. These aren’t the most glamorous ways to make some extra cash, but money’s money and these jobs aren’t too hard to sign up for.

8. Teach a skill for pay

Monetize a skill you have by teaching others how to do it. Know how to play the guitar? Give private lessons. Excellent at a language? Find a language tutoring site and sign up to tutor others.

Even better, make an online course or eBook that teaches your skill for some passive income. Just make sure the content is actually useful.

7. SEO consulting

If you can learn a thing or two about SEO and find a company that would like to improve their SEO (every company), you can rake in enough side money to be out of debt asap. Entry-level SEO Consultants make about $50,000-$60,000/year…with no experience. (31)

6. Be a Virtual Assistant

If you don’t have time to learn technical skills, Virtual Assistants can make money doing any odd job that remote workers need help with, from making phone calls to making Pinterest boards. Find gigs on Upwork – according to them, Virtual Assistants are one of the fastest-growing freelance positions. (32)

5. Content writing

Can you put together a well-written sentence? Know how to capture an audience with some well-crafted words?

Content is still king, and writing it pays well too because you can’t outsource it to just anyone (we see you, wannabe internet companies trying to get away with hiring amateur Malaysian teens to write your blog).

Freelance writers can make anywhere from $30 to $70 an hour. (33)

4. Facebook ads

There are over 25 million businesses using Facebook to market themselves. (34) That’s 25 million potential clients if you know how to run a successful Facebook ad campaign because many business owners are completely clueless when it comes to social media.

Brush up your skills and start offering to do Facebook ads consulting to small businesses in your area.

3. Open an e-Commerce shop

If you want to reel in the side money, this one takes some time to build up, but it’s passive, which you know I love. E-commerce is projected to make up about 13% of all sales this year, and it’ll be up to 17% just 5 years from now. (35)

Make something and sell it. Even better, find yourself a dropshipper and cut out most of the work. Either way, get a piece of that pie.

2. Learn to code

The national average salary for a computer programmer is $84,360. (36)

Combine that with the fact that this job is 100% digital, and you’ve got a recipe for success. Imagine living on a Caribbean island where you can live comfortably on $1,200/month while you’re raking in $7,000/month. Your debt will be gone in no time.

1. Provide leads online for local businesses

Nothing out there beats raking in hot leads for local businesses. You might as well be handing over stacks of cash to these companies, so trust me when I say this: small businesses pay good money for leads.

Plus, local lead generation hits the money-making trifecta: it’s remote, scalable, and automatable. Plus, you’re cutting down on the competition by focusing on local areas.

TBH, it doesn’t really matter whether you stack your debt, snowball your debt, avalanche your debt or any other fancy terms that basically just mean paying off your debt.

Unless you want to spend the next 50 years of your life picking away at a mountain of debt with a toothpick, you need to do more than stop buying pumpkin spice lattes. You need to increase your earnings fast… local lead generation is your bulldozer.

from MLM Companies