Spending Money to Save Money

Part of living on one income is protecting your assets and investments, and sometimes that takes cash. For example, we have a nice computer that we bought a few years ago and have used extensively for both household and business tasks, including working with intensive movie software. Lately the computer has been slowing down and we decided that the best thing to do was to buy an external hard drive to free up some space so the computer won’t have to work as hard.

We waited for a good deal on the hard drive but still spent about $75. In addition we also need to purchase more RAM. All in all we will spend about $100 on our computer. Hopefully this investment will take some strain off of our computer and prolong its life, so that we don’t need to buy a computer in the next couple of years while we are working so hard at saving money.

A sound part of any budget is including maintenance money for assets such as your house, car or in our case, computer. I have written about the book America’s Cheapest Family and one of the successes to their sound financial status is preparing for maintenance and emergencies. Yes, at times it hurts to spend money when you’re trying so hard to save, but in the end sometimes the best thing for your financial bottomline is to spend money where it will count and prevent hardships down the road.

Using Your Talents to Make Money

As the economy struggles, it is more important than ever to stay current on your skills and talent and be creative on ways you can make money by using your skills.

Tim and I  have both used our talents throughout our marriage to make extra money when needed. Tim is a whiz at computers and technology and has spent hours teaching himself how to build websites, market websites and create videos with advanced software. Because of these skills he has been able to pull in extra money through the years when certain projects come up. He hasn’t done a freelance project lately because his interests now lie elsewhere, but we could always fall back on his talents for extra income if needed.

I have played the piano since I was a child, and although I have no degree in music I still love to play and have kept up my skills. When a few friends asked if I played the piano or knew anyone who taught piano lessons, I volunteered that I could teach beginning lessons. I made it clear that I was only comfortable teaching beginning piano lessons and after 2-3 years their children would most likely need to move up to a more advanced teacher.

After setting up a few arrangements I began teaching piano lessons once a week. Since we don’t have a piano yet I drive to their houses and teach lessons in their homes. We also arranged that they would watch my son while I taught their children. I adjusted my rates to include the cost of travel and the service of the childcare they were providing me.

Although the extra money I make each month is a small boost to our income, I don’t teach lessons just  for the money. I have found that teaching piano lessons gives me a creative outlet and provides a social experience. In addition I love teaching children the power of music. But it’s great to get paid for something that I love doing.

I believe everyone can learn a skill they could monetize for extra income when needed. Although this site is based on living “ononeincome”, finding little ways to add income certainly helps your financial bottom line. In addition, it’s always nice to get paid for something you enjoy doing. Whether your talent is sewing, writing, woodworking or countless other hobbies see if you can find a way to earn a little extra money doing what you love.

Little Things to Earn Extra Cash

Since we’ve had a little extra time during the holidays we found a few things around the house that could help us get extra cash to put into savings.

1. Fill out rebates from the holidays
Many larger purchases may be eligible for rebates. They take some time and effort but can be well worth the hassle. This year we bought a Remington from Dick’s Sporting Goods for our family Christmas present. The night that we brought it home we made sure to fill out the rebates for a $20 gift card from Dick’s and a $30 rebate from Remington.

2. Sell items on either Ebay or Craigslist
We sold many of our unnecessary household items before we moved across the country last winter. But we still have a modem that we no longer use yet we kept putting off selling it. We finally decided to post a listing on Craigslist and see if we can get $20-$30 for it.

3. Close an account we no longer use
Last year we got a toll pass for a close major city when Tim was hunting for jobs. Since we haven’t visited that city in over a year we decided to close the account and return the toll device. We should get back the $10 deposit and about $35 that we still have in our account.

These specific rebates, items to sell and returns are unique to our situation but there should be something that you could get a little bit of money for by just spending a few minutes filling our paperwork or posting a listing online. In some of these cases, a little bit of effort goes a long way.