Making Money on the Side

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One part of my plan to retire at 50 is to continue to make money on the side. That might more properly be called semi-retirement. However, if I don’t have to work and can make money when I choose to that is good enough for me.  Any money I earned would be to do things beyond my ordinary budget or to provide a larger cushion of savings.

There are many ways to make extra money.  I’ve covered a few of them with my alternative income ideas.  There are a lot of blog posts out there on how to make extra money.  Here are a few of them:

“Need extra income? Here are some ideas”  from MSN Smart Spending.

“11 Great Ways to Earn More Money” from Free Money Finance.

“5 Ways to Earn Extra Cash” from Get Rich Slowly.

“26 Ways to Earn Extra Money” from The Wisdom Journal.

Not all the ideas are non-job ways to make money but there should be a few ideas there that will work for you.  If you focus on thinking of ways to earn extra money more ideas will probably come to you.

September Credit Score

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My credit score for this month went up to 731 from 725 last month.  My credit score has been going up steadily the past few months after it went down earlier this year when I used a balance transfer from a credit card to pay down one of my student loans.  I don’t plan on using my credit any time soon but having a high credit score can also affect how much you pay for insurance and other things  and if I do decide to apply for more credit having a high credit score should make it cheaper .  I get my credit score for free with my credit card from WaMu.

Getting Cash Back On My Tuition

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For reasons that are still unbeknownst to me not all of my tuition was automatically paid out of my financial aid. This created an inconvenience for me since I now had to pay the remaining balance by cash or check. Since I have several checking accounts but no checks this left me with the option of paying by cash.

I decided to get a little cash back for my inconvenience. I ordered $500 in dollar coins from the U.S. Mint. These coins sell at face value with free shipping. I used my credit card to pay for them earning myself $15 cash back.

The university cashier didn’t seem real pleased to be paid with dollar coins but he accepted them without complaint. The few minutes I spent ordering the coins were well worth the $15 return to me. I’m not sure how long the U.S. Mint is going to be offering this free shipping deal but I’ll probably take advantage of it again.

Living on $700 a Month

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Back in January I posted my sample $1000 a month budget.  I don’t stay strictly on this budget but it is a fairly accurate representation of my monthly expenses.  Frugal Freedom lives on even less and posted her $700 a month budget.  Below is her monthly budget.  I combined some expenses into categories to make it easier to compare to my monthly budget.

  • Food $150
  • Transportation $256
  • Utilities $149  (electric,internet, and phone)
  • Life Insurance $47
  • Everything Else $98 (trash,Christmas, property tax)

The main difference in our budgets is that she doesn’t have a rent or mortgage payment in her budget because she lives in an RV.  She does have a house with a mortgage but I’m guessing she doesn’t include it here because her renters cover the mortgage payments(?).  Other than that our budgets are pretty similar.  One difference is that she doesn’t have any money budgeted for entertainment or health insurance.  She also spends money on life insurance which I don’t have because I have no need for it.

This does show that you can live on very little money if you plan for it.  If anyone else has a low monthly budget they’d like to share I’d like to see it.