Increasing your income is paramount to achieving financial freedom. Your debts and expenses can always be reduced or eliminated. It’s much harder to increase your income over time, so you need to start doing it sooner rather than later. Here is how to make money, which will help you pay down debt or invest at a faster rate.

How to Make Extra Money: Achieve Financial Freedom Through Hustle

Making money should be at the top of everyone’s minds wanting to achieve financial freedom or success. Why? It gives you a number of things that are important like flexibility and freedom. Money is not the most important thing in life, but it’s a means to start living free.

I’ve created a handful of websites that have allowed me to acquire real estate and invest more money at a faster rate. I’m a big fan of using side hustles both on the ground and online.

I was able to increase my net worth from -$60,000 (yes, negative) to over $500,000 in 5 years.

I didn’t let it stop me there. I used online income sources such as freelancing and building websites to unlock more flexibility in my lifestyle.

Why do I love income more than saving money?

I don’t want to work a desk job for the rest of my life. I want to explore the world. Interact with others around the world and build a business that is stable for family.

With the Information Age and technological innovation, it’s now easier to make money on our own terms than ever before. With the click of a button or the press of an app, we can start earning more money.

Student loan debts are crippling young adults’ financial conditions. Student loans have limited people’s ability to buy their first home, travel the world or even get married.

When you increase your income, you can pay off your student loan debt, car debt or other debts much faster. It’s as simple as that.

Already paid off your debts? Earning additional income can be a much-needed boost to start investing in real estate like through crowdfunding platforms such as RealtyMogul or Fundrise. This can then provide additional cash flow and equity appreciation to your financial picture.

One thing about making more money is that it can become a full-fledged business. Anytime you start making side hustle income, you should think about it as a business.

Pros and cons of making extra money

Some of my favorite benefits of making extra money include the following:

Ability to repay debt faster

Helps you save faster, which can be used to invest more money or used as financial flexibility

Making extra money is always scalable

scalable Some of the most effective ways to earn additional cash flow can be done from anywhere

You are always making money for yourself, not someone else

There are some downsides to focusing on earning an additional income:

In certain cases, you trade time for extra money

Side hustles can distract you from your career

In my opinion, the pros of earning additional cash flow will always outweigh the cons.

At the end of the day, I want to put more money in my pocket. Not someone else’s.

Good things come to those who hustle. Click To Tweet

How to Make Money – Effective Ways to Earn Additional Income

I’ll highlight my favorite ways to make money, which will help you grow your income effectively and practically. First, we need to breakdown ways to make money. There are only two options:

Make Money Online Make Money Offline

Each of these methods is a lot different from each other. I’ll highlight my favorite ways to earn extra money within each of these contexts.

What does it take to make additional side hustle income?

It takes a lot of work, determination and motivation. Side hustles would just be called “side” if you didn’t have the “hustle.”

Good things come to those who hustle.

Ways to Make Make Money Online

I slightly prefer making money online versus offline. I love the functionality and freedom that it brings over offline money making opportunities. Plus, I believe online money is a lot more scalable.

Working from anywhere in the world is very appealing to me.

My guide outlines a number of different online income opportunities, but I will break down the core opportunities below.

Blogging

People are hungry to learn every single day. In recent years, everyone has been hungry for instant information and instant answers.

Have a specialty or know something technical? You can literally start blogging to help people learn from your personal experiences. Or, you can write about something that is a hobby. I have a travel blog that I use to channel my inner creativity and wanderlust.

I think that everyone should have a blog. You already document much of your life on social media and every single person on this planet has an interest or hobby that someone else would love to learn from.

The best part about blogging is that you can get started quickly with the help of full-service hosting providers. I suggest that you start with Bluehost to get your blog off the ground.

Use my link and get started with a FREE domain for only $3.95/month.

Then, you can migrate to a larger provider such as Siteground.

Blogging is a great way to participate in the growth of the Information Age. The best way to do it is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). An average person conducts 3–4 searches every single day on Google and 15% of all searches on Google have never been searched before.

There will always be a need for fresh content within the context of Google.

Additionally, over a third of Google search queries are 4+ words long.

If you want success in blogging, you need to build an audience…

There’s plenty of ways to generate a new audience. Either paid or organically. The most effective way is by building an audience organically. That is how you will get the highest return on investment (ROI).

Become an expert at audience building and the rest is history.

For me, I created an audience in a short period of time using organic methods and providing helpful resources.

This led to me increasing my email list by 554% in less than 6 months…

With no paid ads.

I started with Leadpages and their free 14-day trial. I nearly doubled my audience during that timeframe and knew that I had to keep using Leadpages to accelerate my growth.

Use my link and get the free trial going today. You have nothing to lose and have everything to gain.

If you sign up for my FREE email course, you will learn the exact steps and strategies I used to start building a massive audience.

Here is a graph of the growth over time from using Leadpages.

Sign up for my free email course highlighting the very exact secrets I used to blow up my email list.

I’ll send you the exact tips in a step-by-step way to help you build an audience and grow your earnings online.

Join the course now by clicking the below.

JOIN THE EMAIL COURSE NOW

The benefits of growing my email list were tremendous. This resulted in the following:

More pageviews, More engagement and Overall more growth. Leads to… more profit.

Those three things equal more profit to your bottom line for making cash online.

These tricks were the best thing to happen to my blog and my personal goals. It was a true game-changer.

Pros of Blogging

Here are the various pros of building a blog to make extra money:

Easy to scale

Limited cost to start and to run

High free cash flow business

Ability to work as a solopreneur

Opportunity to stack several revenue streams, including advertising, affiliate marketing, courses, eBooks and so much more

Eventually could become completely passive income

Cons of BlogginG

Here are the various cons of building a blog to make extra money:

Time-consuming

Somewhat time limiting (SEO, in particular, takes a long time)

It takes a lot of hustle and grit

I make over $100,000 from blogging and sold a site for $200,000. Making money from blogging isn’t just a dream. It’s a reality.

You need to work hard and be persistent. In the end, it will be so worth it. These are some more pros and cons of blogging in our thorough analysis. I’ve even given you a few ideas on how to come up with a blog name.

START BLOGGING NOW

Need more help to get started? Read my step-by-step guide to starting a niche blog.

Freelancing

I love freelancing as a form of income. You are able to learn every single day while acting as an entrepreneur.

Plus, you get to meet people around the world. Some of the best ways to make money as a freelancer include the following:

Freelance consulting Writing Typing and data entry Social media Financial modeling / accounting Graphic design Transcription jobs

The best way to make money as a freelancer is to immediately think about it as a service or advisory business. You should target businesses as your clients rather than consumers. Businesses have much larger budgets.

What would you rather have?

5 clients paying you $2,000 each per month for a total of $10,000 per month, or 20 clients paying you $500 each per month for the same total of $10,000 per month.

With fewer clients, you can focus on the key parts of growing your freelance business like scaling and finding new clients. This will allow you to outsource some, if not all, of the work.

If you haven’t provided freelance services before, you will likely need to start low and offer your services for a huge discount. This can help you build up a client base and a reputation.

I’m very bullish on the freelance economy. I believe more and more people will be hired as freelancers as companies remain leaner and continue efforts towards globalization.

See Related: 70+ Ways to Make Extra Money

Pros of Freelancing

Here are the various pros of freelancing to make extra money:

Highly scalable

Can work from anywhere

Great way to earn money right away without investing a lot of money upfront

You can earn your money instantly (blog or revenue accounts have slight delays in cash payment)

Opportunity to build relationships around the world

Cons of Freelancing

Here are the various cons of freelancing to make extra money:

Initially trade your time for money

You can be limited in your face to face interaction with others, which can get isolating

Not fully digital requires some discussion offline

You need to treat freelancing as a business right from the start. Here are some freelance business ideas to help you get started.

Once you are ready, use these top freelance apps to start landing jobs.

E-Commerce Websites

The trend of e-commerce is growing rapidly. The rise of Amazon and people’s desires to order products digitally have been a boon for many entrepreneurs around the world.

There is significant market share for the taking here. It won’t come easy though.

E-commerce is one of the harder industries to crack the code in. Unlike blogging, you have to be an expert at knowing your audience and customer.

Blogging you can simply be yourself and you will likely build some sort of following. Here you need people to trust you and be willing to buy from you.

Sites like Shopify have allowed people to start e-commerce stores pretty easily and you actually don’t have to own any inventory.

You can start making additional money with drop shipping, which is where you ship directly from the manufacturer to your customer.

In addition, e-commerce can be done by selling digital products as well.

Pros of E-commerce

These are some of the pros of using an e-commerce site to increase your income:

Significant upside potential

Low startup costs

Huge market opportunity

Opportunity for passive income

Cons of E-commerce

These are some of the cons of using an e-commerce site to increase your income:

Requires significant time and intellectual capital

You need to be very strategic about your product and customer

Lower margins from higher operating costs

E-commerce is a tough game, but one that you can try for little upfront costs. Shopify will give you a free theme and will allow you to start selling products immediately during a free 14-day trial.

From there, you only pay $29/month. It’s a great way to test the waters and see where it takes you. You can use e-commerce to make money from your hobbies like designing t-shirts, making household items, etc. The options are endless.

See Related: Ways to Get Free Money Right Now

Real Estate Crowdfunding

Real estate crowdfunding is a great way to make some additional money online both passively and actively. I’ve been using a few platforms to park some additional cash that I’ve earned from other side hustles.

I built a rental property Excel spreadsheet that will help you invest smarter, not harder. It’s completely free to download.

Real estate is a relatively stable asset class that provides both income and capital appreciation. In an offline sense, I own rental properties that provide me cash flow and repayment of my mortgage.

However, I use real estate crowdfunding to make additional income from a commercial property perspective.

I love using RealtyMogul and Fundrise together to find new commercial real estate investment opportunities.

Pros of Real estate crowdfunding

Here are the various pros of real estate crowdfunding:

Ability to earn additional income passively

Opportunity to build long-term wealth through capital appreciation

Invest at your discretion and build your balance over time

Cons of Real estate crowdfunding

Here are the various cons of real estate crowdfunding:

Not fully scalable

Requires significant upfront investment for meaningful income

Limited control in your outcomes

You can try real estate crowdfunding now by signing up for RealtyMogul or Fundrise now. Check out our comparison of RealtyMogul vs Fundrise to learn more.

Ways to Make Make Money Offline

In contrast to making money online, here are some of my favorite ways to make money offline. Making money offline is completely different than online.

Online money making opportunities take a bit more hustle and grind. They often take a while to make significant sums of capital.

With offline money making opportunities, you can get started immediately and, more often than not, you can make money with no experience, college degree or advanced degree.

Offline money making is a great way to earn some of the “small wins” in increasing your income. Even a small $25-$75 of additional income can be used to pay down debt or invest sooner.

You can even use offline money to invest in your online money making opportunities.

Gig Economy Jobs

With the explosion of geo-location apps like Uber and Lyft, a number of other verticals have popped up offering people to make money with the push of a button.

People around the world can now perform gigs in-person that will provide a service to someone else.

Here is a breakdown of some of the best gig economy jobs that are worth your time to make some extra money. With all of these apps, you can simply apply to be a contractor to work whenever you’d like.

Your hours are completely up to you.

Ride Sharing

Uber

Lyft

Delivery Services

Contractor Services (B2B)

Field Nation

Field Engineer

Work Market

Contractor Services (B2C)

Task Rabbit

Thumbtack

Zeel (massage services for customers)

Soothe (another massage service)

Rover (dog walking and sitting, get $10 when you sign up)

Renting Your Home

Airbnb

VRBO

HomeAway

Renting Your Car

There are a ton others out there and they keep growing. The above are the top services that will ensure you start making cash flow immediately.

These apps already have an established reputation with millions of customers, helping ensure that you get hired from the moment you are approved.

Pros of Gig Economy Jobs

These are the various pros of conducting gig economy jobs to make some extra cash flow:

Easy way to make money instantly

Limited specialized skills required

Instant payment

Flexible timing, make money when you want

Certain instances can be somewhat passive income (i.e., Airbnb, Turo)

Cons of Gig Economy Jobs

These are the various pros of conducting gig economy jobs to make some extra cash flow:

Not fully scalable in certain instances

Mundane and manual labor

Will you use a gig economy job to make extra money immediately? You can use these to start your money-making journey off slow. Shoot for small goals of making $200 per day then work up from there.

Like what you are hearing with these gig jobs? Here are several other top apps to make money on the go.

See Related: Get Paid for Leaving Your Computer Running

Manual Labor Services

While some gig economy jobs are certainly manual labor, here are some ideas that allow you to make some extra cash instantly but aren’t necessarily available through a gig economy app.

These jobs have limited barriers to entry to starting and you can actually make extra money in the form of hard cash payment. Who doesn’t love some cash?

To get started with labor or service based jobs, you likely need to use a service like Craigslist, your local bulletin board, word of mouth, job postings and other classifieds.

The best part about these types of jobs to make money is that you get paid cash instantly.

List of Manual Labor Jobs

Shoveling snow Mowing lawns and landscaping Clean houses Babysit children Help people move Wash windows Repair bicycles Clean boats and cars Haul other people’s junk Tutor students Clean carpets Install flooring Donate blood or plasma Donate your hair

Pros of Manual Labor and Service Jobs

These are the pros of doing manual labor or service-based jobs to make money:

Cash payment

Flexibility in hours

Get to work on a number of different jobs and tasks

Cons of Manual Labor and Service Jobs

These are the cons of doing manual labor or service-based jobs to make money:

Tough and draining work

Can be hard to find these types of jobs

Lower pay relative to specialized services or even gig economy jobs

Limited scalability

Manual labor and service jobs offline can be a great way to earn some extra coin quickly. You can use these small labor jobs to pay off debt and invest faster.

Or, use these jobs to save up some money to start your own website or digital opportunity.

Want some more ideas? These are some of the most proven under the table jobs to consider.

Side Hustle Flowchart – What Side Hustle is Best?

Use our flowchart to decide the best side hustle for you to make extra money.

Need more ideas? Here are 70+ ways to earn extra money.

Conclusion on How to Make Money

Making extra money can be a lifesaver for your financial future. A dollar today is worth less than the future, but if you earn a dollar today that can be invested today is a whole lot better than nothing at all.

Here are the most attractive options that I use to make additional income, which helps me have a more flexible and fulfilling lifestyle.

Blogging : I continue to believe that blogging is a great way to earn some additional income. It’s a straightforward way to start earning income without much of a startup cost. I love the upside potential too. Try creating a blog by using my link with Bluehost for only $3.95/month, which includes a free domain !

: I continue to believe that blogging is a great way to earn some additional income. It’s a straightforward way to start earning income without much of a startup cost. I love the upside potential too. Try creating a blog by using my link with Bluehost for ! Gig Economy Jobs : I have extra space in my house that I use to rent space on Airbnb. It’s a great way to earn income passively that I can use for other ventures. I focus my efforts on building new websites since I earn a higher return on this than spending my time on gig economy services.

: I have extra space in my house that I use to rent space on Airbnb. It’s a great way to earn income passively that I can use for other ventures. I focus my efforts on building new websites since I earn a higher return on this than spending my time on gig economy services. Real Estate Crowdfunding: Use real estate crowdfunding as a way to stash away your hard-earned money. This can be a way to stash it, but also make extra money from your side hustle income. Use platforms like RealtyMogul and Fundrise to start investing in commercial real estate. Read our RealtyMogul review.

Are you ready to make money? Let’s get started. Follow the Financial Wolves blog to learn the best-kept secrets in money making.

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