If you have one of those typical, 9 to 5 jobs you’re probably fortunate if you get one raise a year. And if you’re really good at your job you might see a raise of 2% or even 3%. That can be kind of disheartening. You work your posterior off for 12 months and then see your income increase by just a few dollars a week. As an example of this let’s suppose you currently earn $65,000 a year. A 3% raise would be $1950 – before taxes. Divide this by 52 and that’s just $37.50 a week before taxes or hardly enough for dinner at a nice restaurant. It might be a stretch especially if you have a lot of debts to pay on top of your multiple bills.
But there’s an alternative. You could give yourself a nice raise practically immediately and here are six ways to do it.
Buy a franchise
You could make a big pile of money by buying the right franchise. This is where you pay to use an established company’s name, trademark and way of doing business. There are franchises available for health clubs, hair care studios, cleaning services, food and financial support services. As a general rule the franchisor will provide you with expertise in starting the business, marketing and managing it and with the requisite training. This makes it relatively easy for you to hit the road running. Of course, the good franchises require a minimum amount of cash to even begin the discussion. This could come from equity in your home, savings, your stock portfolio or 401(k). As an example of this, the Subway sandwich shop requires you to have $12,500 in available cash but your total investment to get one of these stores going varies from $92,050 to $222,800. On the other hand there are franchises such as YoNaturals that offers vending machines stocked with organic snacks and might be a better choice if you want a home-based business and not one where you’d be running a sandwich shop seven days a week. The important thing is to do your due diligence before you sign any franchise agreement. While one of these businesses is not a certain thing successful ones can easily generate six figures a year.
Share your expertise
One of the best ways to give yourself a raise is through part-time gigs you could do nights and weekends. Do you speak a second language? You could offer classes at your local community center or local library. If you’re great at math, physics or chemistry start tutoring and earn as much as $60 an hour. Are you a talented writer? Offer workshops on creative writing. When you stop to think about it the opportunities for these part-time jobs are almost limitless. With a little bit of effort you could generate as much as $500 per month and if you have mad IT skills you should be able to double that. Web designers can get anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars to create company websites and IT consultants generally charge around $80 an hour or more.
Get a roommate
This could be tough if you’re married and raising children but if you’re flying solo you might think about renting out your basement or spare bedroom. How much you could earn will depend, of course, on your town or city and the features you have to offer. However, it’s likely you could bring in $500 to $1500 a month and that’s without doing much of anything. Of course, you will want to be careful whom you take in. Be sure to do a criminal background check and get referrals from her or his former landlords. You should also check credit scores and confirm their employment yourself.
Become a public speaker
If you are scared of public speaking it would be good to get over this and do it quickly. People who can attract a crowd like politicians, celebrities, and best-selling authors can get $50,000 or as much as $100,000 per speaking engagement. Of course, if you don’t fall into any of those three categories you might have to settle for $500 to $5000 per engagement but you will need to have a new and fresh topic or at least a new take on an old one. And be prepared to start speaking for free until you build a reputation. Think about your areas of proficiency to create subject matter. Don’t make the mistake of limiting yourself to motivation lectures or financial workshops. Think about your hobbies and how they might be turned into a subject matter for seminars. You could sign up with a speaker’s bureau that would get you opportunities but they will take a cut of your fee, which will probably be 30%.
Make stuff and sell it on Etsy
This website now has more than 30 million members worldwide. It’s become a strong competitor to eBay but is different in that it specializes in handmade and vintage items. If you can draw, paint, sculpt, throw pots, crochet, knit or find collectible items from the 1950s and 60s you could make good extra money selling the stuff on Etsy. And if you can make really unique items you could price them really high because you would have no competition.
If the idea of making and selling things on Etsy appeals to you, here’s a brief video, courtesy of National Debt Relief, with 10 tips that could help ensure your success.
Earn passive income
If your goal is to achieve financial freedom you need to find passive sources of income. This means things that generate income with very little involvement on your part. Examples of this include publishing royalties, dividends from equities, rental income and profit from business partnerships. Of course, it would require a large upfront investment to buy a rental property but the potential payoff can be huge. Also, experts say it’s best to buy multi-family units instead of single-family homes. If you were to buy a four-unit property you could make $400-$600 a month whereas a single-family rental would likely earn you only $100-$150 a month after property taxes, insurance and maintenance. Of course, over time your income should increase while your expenses remain about the same – assuming you get a fixed-rate loan to finance your purchase(s). And one of the best parts of this is that you would have someone else helping you pay off an appreciating asset.
