20 Creative Ways to Earn Money

Perhaps your regular job is not earning you enough money, or you have just lost your job. If you are looking for new and creative ways of making money, then look no further!

1. Take online surveys.

People these days make as much as 500 dollars a month filling online surveys. Some online survey sites are Toluna, Vivatic, MySurvey,YouGov, SurveyBods, Valued Opinions, The Opinion Panel, iPoll, Global Test Market, Hiving, PanelBase, Harris Poll, Opinion Outpost, Yourword, Pinecone, IPSOS, New Vista. You can make as much as 5 dollars filling out some surveys.

2. Sell your knowledge in book-form.

If you have some knowledge on a particular topic and you love to write, you could write a book. You can publish to the Amazon Kindle store and keep 70% of your earnings.

3. Join a direct-selling company.

Some people earn as much as a six-figure salary selling products of brands they love. However, some brands require resellers to pay money up front to get started with these programs.

4. Sell your photos.

The photos you take can be sold to photo agencies like IStock or Shutterstock. Each time someone downloads your photos you get 25 cents.

5. Start your website/blog.

You could earn a six-figure salary annually from your blog or website. Through affiliate marketing, Google adsense and subscribers, you could rake in some cash.

6. Become a freelancer.

You could make money by selling your unique set of skills as services. You could try doing web design, content writing, and programming for many clients. Many people who do this earn between $40k to $100k a year.

7. Be a secret shopper.

Being a secret shopper means visiting shops to provide feedback to agencies on how their products are doing. The smartphone app Streetspotr could be helpful in the direction of getting mystery shopping job.

8. Sell your junk.

By selling junk on popular site like eBay could earn you as much as $2,000–$3,000 a month. You can sell what you no longer use, or you could buy other used items and sell those.

9. Do small tasks for businesses.

Small businesses need translators and transcribers, while others need people to write product reviews. You can earn a pretty decent amount from doing this.

10. Rent out your room.

You could take in a boarder to rent out an extra room. This could put more cash in your pocket if someone moves into your room or even onto your couch

11. Start a small or part-time business.

You could have an expertise or hobby which you could turn into a small part time business. Part time jobs like teaching guitar lessons and picking up trash for neighbors have been become profitable for their creators.

12. Be a coin collector.

You could buy coins from banks in large stock and find the ones that are worth something. Perhaps you’ll find a silver coin or gold coin, or a rare item. According to a CNN article, “presidential dollar errors can be worth $50 to $5,000 each; uncirculated state quarters can sell from $10 to $50 per roll; and rare error coins can value up to $35,000″.

13. Be a music reviewer.

If you are a music lover, you can make money reviewing artists online for cash with Slicethepie. Some users of the site claim to earn as much 60 dollars a month on the site.

14. Buy and sell domain names.

A domain name is a website address. You can buy a domain name for as cheap as $3, but you can resell such an address as a premium domain to someone who needs it for as much as $2,000.

15. Walk dogs.

If you love walking and exercising, you could rake in cash by walking dogs for people who are busy or at work. All you need to do is reach out to dog owners and market yourself.

16. Be a ghost writer.

The publishing business is experiencing a big boom with online publishing. You could advertise your skill to persons who will be interested in allowing you to ghostwrite their work.

17. Sell your services on Fiver/Craiglist.

You could make money selling small services on Fiverr and craigslist. The default price on Fiverr is $5, but you can quickly make this amount add up depending on how many gigs you take on.

18. Sell old water at busy and hot vacation spots.

Busy vacation spots could be ideal for selling cold water or lemonade. The demand is high and also the profit margins in certain locations like Las Vegas.

19. Become a tutor.

You could become a tutor to high school or A-level students and local GCSE students. You could also do this online and earn as much as 10 dollars per hour.

20. Sell old CDs, games and movies.

You could sell old CDs, games, and movies for free on Amazon Trade-In orMusicMagpie. You can earn anything from 20 cents to 30 dollars per item.

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10 Financial Goals To Pursue Before You Reach Your 30s

Have you set your financial goals? Being in your 20s is an exciting time – you finally have the freedom to set your own rules, and you understand the value of independence. However, a big part of independence is being able to support yourself financially.

It is a great feeling knowing you are on track with your money, and now is the perfect time to start working towards financial security.

Check out 10 financial goals to pursue before you turn 30.

1. Focus On Paying Off All Of Your Debt

This does mean all of your debt; student loans, credit cards and any auto debts. All of these payments come with interest, and some of the interest is very high. Focus on paying off your debt first; the repayments and interest will keep sucking up your money until they are totally paid off.

Paying off your high interest debt makes hitting financial goals and saving money much easier, and you will feel great once you have made that final payment!

2. Create A Monthly Budget Plan

Saving and paying off debt is much easier when you have a budget plan in place. When you have a free evening, sit down and write down all of your earnings and expenses. Set money aside for rent, bills, food, entertainment, paying off debts and savings.

When you have a set amount of money to spend, you will notice you are saving money without having to think about it too much.

3. Stop Impulse Spending

Impulse spending can decrease your savings – as well as often being a waste of money! Before you buy yourself something, ask yourself these questions; Do I need this? Why? Am I paying for this with my weekly allowance, or with my savings?

A good rule of thumb is if you are paying with your savings, put it down. If you are paying for it with your weekly spending budget, come back the next day and buy it then if you still want it.

4. Set Career Based Financial Goals

It is likely you already have plans to advance your career and earn more money, but writing these plans down can help you to solidify them, as well as motivating you to work towards them. Try to set a rough time limit to achieve them, as this way you can check that you are staying on track.

5. Get Rid Of One Luxury

Most people have a few luxuries or treats they regularly buy. Try to track your spending for a month and see if there is any money that is being wasted.

For instance, many people buy lunch or coffee every day, but swapping to homemade can make a big financial difference. Try to cut out one luxury, and save the money instead. Keep your other treats as a reward for your savings!

6. Pay Your Bills On Time

One of the most important financial goals in your twenties is to pay your bills on time. Unpaid bills will leave you with bad credit, and they can pile up and become even harder to pay. Try to stay on top of the bill by setting up an automatic payment so you never miss another one.

7. Aim To Have Emergency Savings That Equal 6 Months Of Living Expenses

It may seem like a large amount of money, but through monthly saving you will eventually have enough savings to cover half a year of living expenses. The future is uncertain, and your life will feel less stressful if you know you have a safety net for worse case scenarios.

Try to also put your savings in a high yield account to benefit you financially as you save.

8. Save For A Home

It isn’t essential to save for a home in your twenties, but if you have paid off all of your debts it is often a smart idea. Saving up for a home takes a long time, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will be able to get on the property ladder – if that is something you are interested in doing.

9. Invest Wisely

Investing is a useful way to increase your savings, but be sensible if you are going to invest. Seek guidance from trained professionals, and let them support and guide you whenever you make investment decisions.

Try to take notes, too, as they will help you to make your own financial decisions in the future.

10. Start To Save For Retirement

While saving for retirement might feel like something you could put off for another decade or so, putting a small amount of money aside each month will make a huge difference.

It doesn’t have to be much at this point, so take a look at your budget and see how much you can spare. Even $10 a month will help to set you up for the future.

A general rule of thumb is to try and save 5% of your wage, and slowly raise that up to 20% over time.

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8 Things Which Shouldn’t Appear In Your Professional Resume

These days your resume should be able to tell your story in one page. This is what sells you and makes you more visible among the pack. Some resumes can be a turn off, especially when you get one from a seasoned job seeker who has spent some time in the job market. Here are some things you should not include in your resume if you are not a fresh graduate.

1. Your internships

Employers are not concerned about what you did while you were in college. They want to see the job experience you have acquired recently or what actions you have been taking all the while you got out of school. It will be better for you to remove your internship time from your resume and focus on something recent and essential to the current job you are applying for.

2. Your college grades

Maybe this was important and worthy of note to any employers you were trying to impress fresh out of college. But your GPA and college really doesn’t matter now as the employer is concerned about the experience you have acquired with other employers and jobs. What was performance like and how will you fit into their present company culture? That should be more emphasized rather than showcasing your GPA somewhere in the resume.

3. Your extra-curricular activities

While this may have applied when you were a fresh graduate it really doesn’t carry weight now. Of course you may want to show how sociable you are by being in a club, playing sports, or being part of a social group, but it might not impress on the employer – because they are concerned on more relevant things like the skills and knowledge you are bringing in.

4. The menial and extra job you took while you were in college

Most times the menial or extra jobs you took when you were in college is not relative to the career you are pursuing now, neither will it be of interest to a hiring manager or recruiter who wants specifics and streamlined job experience that will be of benefit to your new employers. So whether you shoveled ice during winter or you worked as a babysitter for your neighbor’s daughter, this will not be noteworthy for your employers.

5. Your honors

Just like your degree, your honors such as being on the dean’s list or being a member of the phi beta kappa, your honors back in school should have made a lot of difference to your employers when you were fresh out of school, not now. What you should include are notable awards, achievements or accomplishments you obtained at your last job.

6. The specific dates you acquired your degrees and certifications

Your job application should not be a history lesson reminding your recruiter of what dates you were actively studying and prepping to get his job. If you have been job seeking for a while, remove the dates from any degrees, certifications or awards that are not recent. Try to include a reverse chronology of such professional certifications that you acquired recently.

7. Your references

This is simply a waste of space. Listing your references or offering a note such as “References available upon request” doesn’t count to any employer. If an employer is interested in such information he will ask for it in a face-face-interview and they know you will provide it then when it is requested.

8. Fluffy buzzwords

You may want to oversell yourself by using such buzzwords such as “hardworking” “studious” into your professional summary, many recruiters are not impressed by them. According to a survey by CareerBuilder, such words were among hiring managers’ top resume turn-offs. Rather than use such buzzwords it will be better to use action verbs to detail how you contributed to the functionality and objectives of your past employer.

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25 Killer Sites For Free Online Education

Whether you’re five or ninety five, the internet has a lot to offer. Particularly when the topic is education, the resources on the internet are endless. Best of all, many high quality sites are completely free. From history to coding, excellent free education awaits on the following 25 sites.

1. Coursera

Coursera.org is a website that partners with universities and organizations around the world. This brings a wide variety of topics and perspectives to one searchable database. Coursera is a powerful tool for free online education, and includes courses from many top universities, museums and trusts. This gives the site an extremely wide range of in-depth courses. Coursera is extremely useful if you’re looking to study many different topics, or want courses from different schools and groups.

2. Khan Academy

Partnering with many post secondary schools, Khan Academy offers a useable, well organized interface. Also curating many courses from around the web, Khan Academy offers impressive depth on many different subjects. Among the more well known educational sites, Khan Academy is also incredibly useable, which may make it easier to keep learning goals.

3. Open Culture Online Courses

If you are struggling to find exactly the material you are looking for, try Open Culture’s listing of free online education courses. The page highlights 1000 lectures, videos and podcasts from universities around the world. The site features a lot of material found only on universities private sites, all in easy to browse categories. This means you can find hundreds of university courses, without having to visit and search each university’s own site. Open Culture’s list features courses from England, Australia, Wales and many state universities around the United States. A very helpful resource for finding many courses in one area of study.

4. Udemy 

Udemy’s free courses are similar in concept to Coursera’s but additionally allows users to build custom courses from lessons. Working with many top professors and schools, the site mixes the customizable platform of other sites with a heavy emphasis on top quality content. This is another site however, that mixes free and paid content.

5. Academic Earth

Another site with courses from many different schools is Academic Earth. Much like the three sites above, Academic Earth brings together top notch courses from many different sources, and focuses on offering a wide variety of subjects. Academic Earth lists courses by subject and school, so it might be easier to find what you’re looking for.

6. edX

Another great option for free online education is edX. Also bringing together courses from many different schools, the site has impressive, quality information for everyone. edX covers a great range of topics.

7. Alison

Unlike the previous sites on this lists, Alison is a free education site offering certification in some areas. Alison offers courses mainly in business, technology, and health, but also includes language learning courses. A great option if users need certification for their learning, Alison also offers school curriculum courses.

8. iTunesU Free Courses

A very convenient place for free online education is iTunesU, because it integrates seamlessly with your iPod, or any app-ready Apple mobile device. On iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, users download the iTunesU app. Desktop users can access  iTunesU on the upper right hand corner of the iTunes Store. iTunesU is also convenient because the store is categorized much like iTunes. Users can search learning materials in many different ways, including genre and topic. However, courses are often a mix of free podcasts or videos, and paid content. ITunesU does include courses on a pretty wide scope of topics, but does not integrate with Android, Google or Windows mobile devices.

9. Stanford Online

Your hub for all the online offerings from Stanford University, Stanford Online offers self-paced and session based courses. While Coursera features some courses from Stanford, many classes are only available via other hosts. Some courses require iTunes, but most are completed in your web browser. Stanford Online is a great site for high quality courses, though the topics are somewhat limited compared to sites partnered with more than one school.

10. Harvard Extension

Like Stanford Online, Harvard Extension features free online education courses from Harvard only. This is another excellent source for top notch course material, though the course variety is less rich than multi-school sites. Additionally, Harvard Extension allows you to search for courses by professional certificate. This makes it much easier if your online education goal includes certification.

11. Open Yale Courses

Open Yale Courses echoes Harvard Extension and Stanford Online, in that it offers only courses from Yale. While the site is similarly limited to topics taught at the school, Open Yale Courses offers a lot of videos of actual campus lectures. The availability of videos makes the site a great option if you’re looking for quality courses, but learn better by watching than by reading.

12. UC Berkeley Class Central

Much like the other schools on this list, UC Berkeley has a variety of free online education options. The school has slightly fewer courses than the schools above, but includes some supplementary lectures, webcasts and RSS Feeds, making it easy to keep up with the topics you choose.

13. MIT OpenCourseWare

Similarly, MIT offers a variety of free courses. The school has a comparable number of courses to the schools above, plus includes very in-depth course materials on the subjects available. MIT also offers free RSS feeds, a convenient way to continue learning.

14. Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative

Carnegie Mellon’s free online education site is comparable with the other school’s on this list, however, Open Learning Initiative also covers a smaller range of topics. But for the topics that are covered impressive, in-depth material is available.

15. Codecademy

Codecademy is a website dedicated specifically to teaching coding. Where other coding sites follow an example/practice session workflow, Codecademy includes a live practice window. This means you can practice coding while still viewing the lesson material. The courses at Codecademy are well written and easy to follow and the website is organized very nicely. Codecademy features a centralized dashboard where you can monitor your progress, plus organizes lessons into complete modules. This lets you learn an entire language without needing to pick the next course manually.

16. Code

Code is another website focused on coding and app writing. A site with high quality courses, Code also features learning options for kids. In addition to kid friendly courses, Code offers free online education classes on a wide variety of technology topics. These classes include app writing, robotics and Javascript. Most of the courses are also geared in a such a way that they can be useful in a classroom setting. This makes Code a great resource for harder to find coding topics, as well as various learning settings.

17. University of London Podcasts

The podcast page on the University of London website is another great source for free education. While the courses are limited to podcasts, the site features podcasts from it’s own campus, as well as eleven universities in and around London. This gives learners a wide base of topics and lectures, but still ensures in-depth material.

18. University of Oxford Podcasts

Similar to the University of London, the University of Oxford features many different podcasts. Most are public lecture series or lectures from visiting professors, with several different recordings available. The advantage to this particular site is that podcasts are organized into series, making it easy to subscribe to multiple lectures on one topic. Another good site for thoroughly in-depth lectures.

19. BBC Podcasts

For the more casual learner, the BBC offers a wide variety of podcasts on many different topics. Most podcasts are updated weekly, and focus on everything from finance, to sports, to current events. Through the World Service line of podcasts, there are also many in different languages. The focus of these podcasts are less in-depth and theory based, which may be more accessible to the average person.

20. TED-Ed

Another great destination for more general learning is TED-Ed. From the same people that brought you the all encompassing, motivational web series, comes a site chocked full of educational videos. Most include impressive animation, and all are ten minutes long or less. Not only is TED-Ed an excellent site for the curious, it also includes supplemental materials and quizzes on the videos. This makes the site extremely useful in formal education settings, as well as in entertaining ways to brush up on new discoveries and topics.

21. LessonPaths

LessonPaths is another great tool for those looking for a more usable and convenient way to access learning material. On this site, users create link playlists of their favorite learning materials from other sites. Users then rank these collections, making it easy to find many different high quality, accessible sources on a given topic.

22. Memrise

Another impressive free online education site offering ease of use and convenience is Memrise. Available both on desktop and as an app, Memrise is a particularly powerful tool if you are studying a language. The site encompasses many other topics as well, though some of the course material is user generated content. Part of what makes Memrise speacial is their integration of games into the learning materials, mixing learning with entertainment.

23. National Geographic Kids

The kids site for National Geographic is another site that makes free online education applicable for younger users. For those looking for kid friendly education, a large variety of games, puzzles, videos and photos keeps kids interested on this site. National Geographic Kids doesn’t organize learning into courses, making materials available by topic and medium instead. This makes National Geographic Kids a good option for those looking for a more casual learning environment.

24. Fun Brain

Fun Brain is another good option for kids who want to learn online, but focuses on games and fun puzzles. Particularly focused on math and reading, Fun Brain’s game based approach can be valuable if the child in question struggles to pay attention. Fun Brain offers rewards and challenges as well, and is another site aimed at a casual learning experience for kids K-8.

25. Whyville

Similar to the sites for kids free online education is Whyville a destination for preteen online learning. The site includes a variety of social features, with a focus on learning materials geared for young teens. Whyville also mixes in educational games, to make the site a well rounded option for kids too old for simple games, but too young for heavy reading based material.

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