Ways To Make Extra Money – You Must Stop Leaks As Well As Fill The Bucket

In today’s sluggish economy money is as tight as ever. Forget about raises, people are generally just happy to be employed. However, this is our reality and we have to find ways to make extra money to make ends meet. You may have heard the analogy that making money is like filling a bucket of water. The more money you make the more your bucket fills up. Only the bucket also has holes that allow the water or money to flow out representing our expenses. It is always important to seek new ways to fill your bucket and make more money but sometimes there are leaks present that drain the bucket dry leaving you with nothing at the end of the month. Here are a few things you can do to fill those holes by reducing expenses leaving you with more money for the things we really need.

In order to find out if we can reduce spending we must get an accurate idea of how much we spend per month and on what.  Tracking your monthly expenses can seem like a daunting and tedious task at first but it’s not difficult if you start with your known expenses.  Tracking this on an excel spreadsheet is ideal but if you don’t know how to use excel then old fashioned pencil, paper, and calculator will work just fine.  Start adding up your mortgage or rent, utility bills, such as gas and electric, phone, water, etc.   Then add other recurring expenses such as car payment and insurance, health club, etc.  Watch out for this one because there are all kinds of recurring payments that we forget about or no longer utilize.  Finally, and usually the most surprising are all the miscellaneous day to day expenses that really add up.  You may have to track your expenses on paper for a week or longer to get an accurate picture of your other expenses.  Once you know how much spend per month you can go though the list and begin to prioritize that list.

One big cost saving measure is to consider reducing how much you eat out.  This is can include things as big as going out to dinner every night to expenses as inconspicuous as getting a three dollar latte every morning.   Just to illustrate the power of this one change in behavior is to add up how much you can pay for Starbucks coffee.  If you drink a three dollar latte every morning you will spend around $1100.00 in a year and that doesn’t include any pastry or sandwiches and I never just get coffee!

Take a close look at all of the recurring expenses.  As I found there were so many things I was paying for every month that I forgot about or never use.  Some of these can include magazine subscriptions, unused health club memberships, video clubs, and other unnecessary memberships. 

Ultimately, you can save tons of money by taking an honest inventory of your monthly expenses and being a little conscientious about where you spend your money.  Reducing expenses is essentially like making more money because you’ll have more money at the end of the month for the expenses you really need.