I think the most common excuse for people not travelling is that it’s too expensive. And truth is travelling can be expensive. Part of the reason I moved to London was so that I could save money on travelling in Europe. But even having done that, some places like Paris and Copenhagen are still very expensive to visit. So, if you can’t relocate to save on travel, there’s plenty of other ways to make extra money.
It might be worth mentioning that I do have a full time job currently, and that’s how I pay for a lot of things. But, about a year and a half ago, I received a pay cut at my job. Naturally, I started freaking out. I could hear Sallie Mae on the other end of the phone already demanding her payment. How will I eat? How will I pay my (very expensive) rent? I went into survival mode and came up with some creative ways to make extra money. Side note: after having executed this plan to make more money, I then realized my pay cut wouldn’t affect me as much as I had originally thought. My math was wrong, did I mention I have a college education?
1. Teach English
Teaching English is one of the easiest ways to make extra cash. There is always someone who wants to improve, especially if you live in a multicultural area. I used to do this for children when I was living in Seoul and could charge up to 50,000 won ($44/£33) an hour (sometimes more, depending on your location). Some parents only wanted their children to interact with an English speaker so there was no actual work involved. There was one ‘lesson’ I had where I would play games (in English) with 3 children for an hour and a half and was paid 120,000won ($105/£80). It’s literally the easiest money you can come by!
So after my melt down about my pay cut at work, I posted an ad on Gumtree offering my English services. Emails literally poured in from foreigners wanting to improve their skills. Within a week, I had about 3 regular students I saw every week. This netted me around £150 ($198) a week. That’s an extra £600 ($794) a month! Where, oh where would you travel to with £600? Thailand? Egypt? Ibiza?
2. MLM
First off, what’s an MLM? MLM (Multilevel marketing) are home based businesses in which you sell products and get others to sell the products too. A lot of people inaccurately refer to these as ‘Pyramid Schemes’. Think Avon or Mary Kay.
Although MLMs have a bad reputation, I can tell you honestly that they are in no way a bad thing. I’ve seen loads of people get out of debt, buy houses and take dream vacations all with money they’ve earned working an MLM. What’s also awesome about MLMs is that you can make money WHILE travelling because a lot of the work is done from your phone or a computer.
There’s tons of MLMs around, but as you may or may not know, I work one in an effort to make extra money to travel. So (and I’m going to be completely biased) I’ll explain about the MLM I work, and how’s it’s enabled me to earn extra cash.
I work an MLM called itWorks. This company sells amazing health and wellness products that promote weight loss and overall health. They are brilliant because they offer endless amounts of bonuses on top of monthly commission checks. All of this is earned by working on your phone and reaching out to friends and family. If you sign up under someone who knows what they’re doing (like me), they’ll give you every single tool you need to be successful and make money! If you’re interested, go to my website www.shapesofwellness.com. And let’s earn you some travel money!
3. Sell Your Belongings
Selling things is another great way to earn extra cash. These days, Ebay and Pay Pal make selling your belongings the easiest (and safest) thing in the world. I recently sold a handbag and a pair of shoes which netted me £240 ($318). And it all took about 5 min to post to the Ebay app. Now if you’re anything like me and have an unhealthy emotional attachment to your belongings, prepare for anxiety. But that only lasts until you drop the package off at the post office.
Nothing to sell? Believe it or not, people will buy ANYTHING these days and people are also always looking for a bargain. Try selling your name brand clothes at a really discounted price or old electronics. Once you start selling, you’ll start coming up with really interesting things to put up next! I’ll be putting up my broken Fitbit tonight!
Still have nothing to sell? Why not make things and sell on Depop or Etsy?
4. Taskrabbit
Taskrabbit is a brilliant little site that allows you to post yourself to do jobs for people in exchange for money. They offer a variety of categories like dog walking, secretarial work, even setting up that pesky Ikea furniture. Payment is usually hourly but you can charge a minimum of £13 ($17)/hour.
The one downside is that Taskrabbit picks and chooses who they allow to be ‘taskers’ on their website. They ask you to choose which type of jobs you’d be interested in doing plus a short summary to describe yourself. Based on that, they’ll either contact you to go to the next step or not. Sadly I have no tips on how to make it as a ‘tasker’ as they rejected me. Sometimes I feel like Sallie Mae is conspiring against me.
5. Paid surveys
No, I’m not talking about those online ones. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that promise loads of extra cash but are infrequent and pay pennies per survey? So unless you do like 300, you’re not making substantial money? Yea, those.
What I am talking about is Market Research. These are surveys that companies conduct to get consumer feedback on a wide variety of things. They are also in person and you are handed an envelope with cash upon completion. These surveys are such a good way of making a little extra here and there. Some people even do them as their primary source of income. I wouldn’t recommend that as companies have certain demographics they look for when conducting and you won’t always fit the profile.
I recently did one for a charity. I came in for 30 min and they asked me questions about some design changes on the charity’s logo. 30 min later, £30 ($40) cash in hand.
There’s tons of companies out there that do this sort of thing (you can just google ‘paid market research’) but I’m signed up with this onehttp://www.peopleforresearch.co.uk/participant/. They notify me via email of upcoming surveys along with criteria for participating. A warning though, if you are notified via email of a survey, respond quickly because spots fill up fast!
6. Topcashback
I recently discovered this site and so far have about £120 (£159) pending in my account already. The idea is simple. First, sign up to Topcashback.co.uk. From there, you click through to sites, make purchases and get cash back! It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Topcashback will tell you how much percentage of your purchase you’ll get in return so aim to make purchases on sites that offer a higher return. There are tons of sites you can shop on through them to earn money. What’s also brilliant is that sites like Expedia and Booking.com are on there so you can earn money back on travel just for travelling!
It might be worth mentioning that I do have a full time job currently, and that’s how I pay for a lot of things. But, about a year and a half ago, I received a pay cut at my job. Naturally, I started freaking out. I could hear Sallie Mae on the other end of the phone already demanding her payment. How will I eat? How will I pay my (very expensive) rent? I went into survival mode and came up with some creative ways to make extra money. Side note: after having executed this plan to make more money, I then realized my pay cut wouldn’t affect me as much as I had originally thought. My math was wrong, did I mention I have a college education?
1. Teach English
Teaching English is one of the easiest ways to make extra cash. There is always someone who wants to improve, especially if you live in a multicultural area. I used to do this for children when I was living in Seoul and could charge up to 50,000 won ($44/£33) an hour (sometimes more, depending on your location). Some parents only wanted their children to interact with an English speaker so there was no actual work involved. There was one ‘lesson’ I had where I would play games (in English) with 3 children for an hour and a half and was paid 120,000won ($105/£80). It’s literally the easiest money you can come by!
So after my melt down about my pay cut at work, I posted an ad on Gumtree offering my English services. Emails literally poured in from foreigners wanting to improve their skills. Within a week, I had about 3 regular students I saw every week. This netted me around £150 ($198) a week. That’s an extra £600 ($794) a month! Where, oh where would you travel to with £600? Thailand? Egypt? Ibiza?
2. MLM
First off, what’s an MLM? MLM (Multilevel marketing) are home based businesses in which you sell products and get others to sell the products too. A lot of people inaccurately refer to these as ‘Pyramid Schemes’. Think Avon or Mary Kay.
Although MLMs have a bad reputation, I can tell you honestly that they are in no way a bad thing. I’ve seen loads of people get out of debt, buy houses and take dream vacations all with money they’ve earned working an MLM. What’s also awesome about MLMs is that you can make money WHILE travelling because a lot of the work is done from your phone or a computer.
There’s tons of MLMs around, but as you may or may not know, I work one in an effort to make extra money to travel. So (and I’m going to be completely biased) I’ll explain about the MLM I work, and how’s it’s enabled me to earn extra cash.
I work an MLM called itWorks. This company sells amazing health and wellness products that promote weight loss and overall health. They are brilliant because they offer endless amounts of bonuses on top of monthly commission checks. All of this is earned by working on your phone and reaching out to friends and family. If you sign up under someone who knows what they’re doing (like me), they’ll give you every single tool you need to be successful and make money! If you’re interested, go to my website www.shapesofwellness.com. And let’s earn you some travel money!
3. Sell Your Belongings
Selling things is another great way to earn extra cash. These days, Ebay and Pay Pal make selling your belongings the easiest (and safest) thing in the world. I recently sold a handbag and a pair of shoes which netted me £240 ($318). And it all took about 5 min to post to the Ebay app. Now if you’re anything like me and have an unhealthy emotional attachment to your belongings, prepare for anxiety. But that only lasts until you drop the package off at the post office.
Nothing to sell? Believe it or not, people will buy ANYTHING these days and people are also always looking for a bargain. Try selling your name brand clothes at a really discounted price or old electronics. Once you start selling, you’ll start coming up with really interesting things to put up next! I’ll be putting up my broken Fitbit tonight!
Still have nothing to sell? Why not make things and sell on Depop or Etsy?
4. Taskrabbit
Taskrabbit is a brilliant little site that allows you to post yourself to do jobs for people in exchange for money. They offer a variety of categories like dog walking, secretarial work, even setting up that pesky Ikea furniture. Payment is usually hourly but you can charge a minimum of £13 ($17)/hour.
The one downside is that Taskrabbit picks and chooses who they allow to be ‘taskers’ on their website. They ask you to choose which type of jobs you’d be interested in doing plus a short summary to describe yourself. Based on that, they’ll either contact you to go to the next step or not. Sadly I have no tips on how to make it as a ‘tasker’ as they rejected me. Sometimes I feel like Sallie Mae is conspiring against me.
5. Paid surveys
No, I’m not talking about those online ones. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that promise loads of extra cash but are infrequent and pay pennies per survey? So unless you do like 300, you’re not making substantial money? Yea, those.
What I am talking about is Market Research. These are surveys that companies conduct to get consumer feedback on a wide variety of things. They are also in person and you are handed an envelope with cash upon completion. These surveys are such a good way of making a little extra here and there. Some people even do them as their primary source of income. I wouldn’t recommend that as companies have certain demographics they look for when conducting and you won’t always fit the profile.
I recently did one for a charity. I came in for 30 min and they asked me questions about some design changes on the charity’s logo. 30 min later, £30 ($40) cash in hand.
There’s tons of companies out there that do this sort of thing (you can just google ‘paid market research’) but I’m signed up with this onehttp://www.peopleforresearch.co.uk/participant/. They notify me via email of upcoming surveys along with criteria for participating. A warning though, if you are notified via email of a survey, respond quickly because spots fill up fast!
6. Topcashback
I recently discovered this site and so far have about £120 (£159) pending in my account already. The idea is simple. First, sign up to Topcashback.co.uk. From there, you click through to sites, make purchases and get cash back! It’s easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Topcashback will tell you how much percentage of your purchase you’ll get in return so aim to make purchases on sites that offer a higher return. There are tons of sites you can shop on through them to earn money. What’s also brilliant is that sites like Expedia and Booking.com are on there so you can earn money back on travel just for travelling!