What is additional income and how to find it? Where do you find additional income? There are several ways to find additional income. It does not have to involve getting a second job, though that is always an option.
You can always be entrepreneurial, even when in debt. It is an asset not a liability, in my humble opinion anyway.
When looking for additional income you need to be creative. You need to ask yourself what are my skills? What is my life experience? What do I have to offer?
In this digital world an additional income is more possible than any time in history. You can take advantage of this digital revolution.
If you have experience in information technology, sales, or marketing you can sell your skills online. But even if you do not have such skills, you can sell physical products online. The options are wide and varied.
You can also earn additional money without spending time online. Here are examples of how you make money, both offline and online.
Freelance Gigs
Working from home has become a buzzword since the coronavirus pandemic. It has become more acceptable in the working environment.
But this does have to involve working for someone else. If you have the necessary skills, you can use this to your advantage. Here are two examples
Fiverr.com: This is an online marketplace where you can offer your skills as a freelancer providing a service to others.
This could include graphic design, digital marketing, writing, and translating services, video editing, music and audio production and even creating business plans.
Initially sellers charge five dollars for their services which is where the name originated from. But this can increase to twenty thirty or even up to thousands of dollars depending on their rating experience and expertise.
If you are a budding freelance beginner in need of extra money this is ideal place to start.
Virtual Assistant: another way you could earn good money as a freelancer is to become a virtual assistant. This is where a person working remotely can do administrative work for a company or an individual, on a flexible basis.
Tasks may involve bookkeeping or doing specific tasks such as email marketing, creating blog posts or scheduling a social media campaign.
Virtual assistants are highly effective for the small business or entrepreneurs who are unable to keep up the daily tasks necessary to run their enterprises. Especially those enterprises who have not grown big enough yet to take on full time employees
Virtual assistants’ salaries can start at $7.00 an hour, but they can range all the way up to $10,800 a month in some cases, though this is rare (Source: smallrevoution.com)
Like with the freelance work on Fiver This is dependent on the level of experience and expertise of the virtual assistant.
Selling on eBay
If you do not have any skills to trade online, all is not lost because hidden in your own home there is likely to be a treasure trove of items to sell on eBay.
You can sell almost anything on eBay. Indeed, you could make a part time or even a full-time income selling there.
You can check the value of your items by doing a search under “completed listings” You can even auction your items if you are unsure of the value.
Do not assume your items will not sell, they will eventually. I was amazed by what I sold on eBay. Items I considered junk others were prepared to pay for. Your item will sell even if takes weeks or even months. You just need to be patient with eBay.
Of course, there are some categories where there more competition than others. Clothing for example. But do not let this stop you. The more items you list the more potential buyers view your listings. That is how eBay’s algorithm we works.
eBay make their money by charging you fees on the items you sell. But do not let this put you off. Depending on what country you live in eBay allows you to list a certain number of items per month free of charge.
After selling items in their home, many sellers go on to source items from thrift stores and garage sales. In my part of the world, they are known as charity shops and car boot sales. But the same principle applies. You buy locally and sell to the world.
So, open an eBay account and start selling today. It could be your first step on your journey out of debt.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great low-cost way to make additional income. But it does take time. Sometimes quiet a lot of time before you make any money at all.
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that there no customer service requirements at all. You do not need to handle shipping, deal with suppliers or enquiries or manage complaints.
You are not even selling your own products or services. What you are doing is promoting a product on behalf of a merchant which offers you a commission on the sale of that product. Usually a percentage of the sale.
This works well for the merchant too as they do not pay a commission until a sale is complete. The merchant also does not have advertise the product, the affiliate or partner is doing that for them.
The affiliate normally promotes the product via a website, social media, or email campaign which in turn leads the prospective customer to the merchant’s product via an affiliate link.
Affiliate marketing can be used to promote a physical or digital product. The largest merchant in the physical category is Amazon through their associate’s program. There are also several affiliate networks who assist in connecting with affiliates on behalf of affiliates
Print on Demand
Another business you can start with little money is print on demand drop shipping. This involves customising products such as clothing and jewellery to your own specifications via a third-party application and selling them on your own e-commerce website.
The advantage of this business model you do not need any inventory upfront. When you receive an order on your website a third-party application such as Printful prints your order and delivers it to your customer.
Printful already has a catalogue of clothing houseware and jewellery products on it’s platform ready to for you to customise them to your own liking.
You can do this by adding your own logo to the product for example, or in the case of clothing not just adding a logo but changing the whole appearance of the product.
In this way an item like an ordinary plain white t-shirt can be turned into something unique for your brand. For example, if you are into surfing, you can create a range of t-shirts portraying surfing logos.
Printful charges you for using the product collections on it’s platform and delivery fees, however the purchase price you charge your customers is up to you.
The platform is integrated with your website, so when you receive an order, it is ready to be processed.
All you need to do is market your products. Easier said than done but there a wide of options available for this such as social media, blogging and SEO. Instagram and Tik Tok are particularly good outlets for marketing customised products as they are so visual.
Hopefully, these suggestions are something to consider for you in your goal to get out of debt. Who knows starting a side business may be your road to financial freedom?
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
