Taking each day as it comes will most certainly see you enjoy life to the fullest. Yet, such a lifestyle will most definitely leave you without a proper plan for the future. No matter how well you’re doing at the moment, in the end, Karma always finds a way to get you back to square one. This is why so many people start saving money by cutting their expenses in half and denying themselves any luxuries to insure their safe financial futures. While saving isn’t a bad form of insurance per se, it surely is the dullest one by far. The reason being, saving is a lot like crash dieting, it won’t work and you’ll just hate yourself even more afterwards. However, what you should be doing is actually earning more money, so you don’t have to resort to cutting corners in the first place. There are lots of ways to earn some extra cash online, and here are a few ideas to get you started:

Freelancing jobs

Freelancing is probably one of the best ways to earn some extra money online. In fact, a lot of people out there take on freelancing as a full-time job. Websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and 99Designs have plenty of jobs lying around, depending on your skills. They can be anything writing related, marketing, IT tasks, design, SEO, and so on. What’s important to note here is that your work depends on your overall reputation, as it’s usually a bidding competition between you and the other freelancers, and the only thing setting you apart is your reputation. Therefore, you need to focus on the quality of your work if you wish to receive those 5-star reviews and get well paid for your troubles. If this is too much for you, you can always go on TaskRabbit or Mechanical Turk to complete much simpler tasks, or even try becoming a virtual assistant which doesn’t take you a lot of time and can earn you some cash in the process.

Forex trading

This part-time job isn’t just for the financially savvy people, but for anyone who’s willing to invest some of their time and money into learning the ropes of the trade. The good thing about Forex trading is that it’s super flexible. As long as you carry a laptop around with you, there’s no reason to worry about a schedule. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a vacation in Hawaii or sitting at your local bar, trading will only take a few moments of your time and afterwards you can continue doing whatever you want knowing that you’ve literally earned yourself a break. In addition, you want to stay clear of shady dealers and find a legitimate fx broker that will offer you the best leverage ratios and a demo trial to sharpen your skills first. Moreover, leverage allows you to generate more profit with each exchange, which otherwise wouldn’t be possible, and every small bit counts.

Build a blog

If you’ve ever searched the web, you’ve probably come across this advice in some shape or form, and for good reason too. Many have turned their blogging hobbies into profitable businesses, but building a successful blogging enterprise takes more than just sharing quality content on it. Views are great and all but they won’t be landing you any money if you don’t create a solid infrastructure for your blog beforehand. In order to convert those views into something that will pay the bills, you need to utilize some of the following methods: Ads, affiliate marketing, subscriptions, services, donations, and so on. A general rule of thumb is to incorporate all of these into your monetization efforts in order to make sure your blog generates a sustainable level of income. So, get Google AdSense for your ads strategy, implement Amazon Associates to cover your affiliate marketing and use a website like Patreon to offer some additional services to your loyal subscribers and to get some donations as well.

Sell your crafts

If you’re more the artsy type, then you should definitely use this to your advantage. Get some extra cash by selling your photos online on sites such as Shutterstock and iStockPhoto. As with freelancing, the competition can get a bit rough but, as a passive form of income, it’s worth your time. Additionally, if you have some creative stuff of your own, such as handmade jewelry, clothing or other accessories you should try starting up your own online shop. You can do this on Etsy which specializes in the selling of said products, or you can Shopify it. These platforms help you avoid a lot of hassle with setting things up, so you can focus more on promoting your business on social media or even a blog, if you have one.

All in all, there’s no reason for you to be stingy with your money when, nowadays, you can pretty much turn any hobby into a part-time job. Stop cutting corners and enjoy yourself for a change. Get that extra money from online jobs and insure yourself for both today and tomorrow.