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10 Things To Do If You Lost Your Job & Need Money Now

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10 Things To Do If You Lost Your Job & Need Money Now

We all have the stress nightmare where your boss comes out of the blue and says “You’re fired”. That’s it and we spend the rest of the night in a panic. The problem is if it did actually ever happen, most of us don’t have a plan in case we do get fired.

Whether you’re thinking about losing your job due to stress, COVID-19, or any slew of reasons, it helps to have a plan. To lay out a blueprint, if this ever happened to me, here are 10 things to do if you lost your job and need money now.

Immediately Start

First, Take A Breath

It seems silly and not productive, but taking a breath is essential. People are let go or fired for a number of reasons and it’s not always a reflection of you or your work. Some things are just out of your control. Take an hour or take a day to let is sink it so it doesn’t consume you later.

1. Review Your Finances

Take a look at all the money you currently have. I personally use Mint to see all my bank accounts, credit card debt, and student loans all at once. You don’t need this, but make a list of every dollar in your possession. Look over your finances and get a feeling of how long you’ll last without a paycheck. It may not be pretty, but it’s something you absolutely need to know.

Know how much you need to spend each month, here is an example monthly breakdown:

  • Apartment & Utilities ($XX)
  • Food ($XX)
  • Car Insurance ($XX)
  • Cell Phone ($XX)
  • Internet ($XX)
  • Misc. ($XX)

PS. Also, consider health insurance as a cost. In most cases, your old employer would have provided this for you, but you need to talk to your HR to see how long this lasts. You may need to pick up supplemental health insurance until you get a new job.

Hopefully, you have some sort of Emergency Fund you can access if you lose your job. Your emergency fund will help cover rent/mortgage, food, and those expenses your paycheck normally covers. Most emergency funds should cover 4-6 months of expenses. If you don’t have an emergency fund, start saving up now but the following tips can still help.

I personally have an emergency fund I keep in a savings account, that will last me around 6-7 months. I know many people don’t have that. It took me 5 years to build. However it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done because it provides a mental safety net.

Let’s continue though as if you have $0 emergency funds.

Save All The Money You Can

2. Cancel Frivolous Monthly Subscriptions & Purchases

If you just lost your job, you shouldn’t be watching Netflix, Hulu, or listening to Spotify. If you have any kind of subscription services that cost money regularly, you should cancel these until you get a job again. It may feel like a nice break watching Netflix between job applications, but you need to save all the money you can until you’re working again. If you feel this is too hard to do, consider using your parent’s or friend’s account temporarily to save money.

Needless to say, don’t make any crazy purchases thinking you’ll get a job next week when “you really try”. Until you have a signed contract with a company, I’d suggest avoiding the mall and any kind of gift ideas. If you can, cancel any flights, trips, running races, etc. Plus always ask if you can get your money back. It may not always be possible, but every little bit helps!

For me personally, I would cancel my gym membership ($73/mo.), cancel my Spotify account ($10/mo.) since there is a free version, and I’d probably quit investing in my brokerage account ($200/mo.) until I have a steady paycheck.

10 Things To Do If You Lost Your Job and Need Money Now

3. Ask to Defer Payments

During hard economic times, many companies are willing to work with you because they prefer late payments to nothing at all. Student loan services are often willing to reconsolidate loans or defer payments. Banks are sometimes willing to defer a mortgage payment or at least help with options. It often just takes a call and asks.

For me personally, I would call my student loan companies and ask to defer my payments until I get another job. That would save me $537/mo.

Budget and Eat At Home A Lot

4. Budget and Eat At Home A Lot

One of the biggest ways people spend money is food and eating out. If you just lost your job, avoid going out to eat with friends (unless it’s a networking thing) or ordering in. It may not be sexy, but cold cut sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ramen got you through the dark years, it will again.

You know what you can cut to save money and you’ll see instant savings in your bank account. Remember one of the easiest ways of having more money, is not spending it!

One of the most popular tricks people use to limit spending is paying for food only with cash. The act of seeing the money physically leaving your wallet and the empty vacuum it creates, helps people be more selective with their purchases. I personally use credit cards because I enjoy the cash back, but I can’t argue with the success physical money has in limiting spending.

Start the Job Search

File For Unemployment

5. File For Unemployment

If you lost your job and actively seeking new work, you can file for unemployment. It varies state by state, but essentially you would file a claim with the Department for Labor and Employment and prove you’re actively looking for work every 2 weeks (depending on your state). Unemployment benefits will pay you a portion (likely small) of your previous salary. This is meant to help lessen the negative impact that unemployment has on the economy. It won’t be a glamorous option and you’ll meet some interesting people, but it will help.

Update Resume & Social Media-Profiles

6. Update Resume & Social Media Profiles

This is the time to update your resume with the latest accomplishments, promotions, volunteer efforts, jobs, references, etc. As you start the job search you want to make yourself look as good as possible. However, this isn’t limited to your resume. You should be updating your LinkedIn, Facebook, etc with the latest info so you’re casting a wider net for employers.

Don’t worry too much about how your resume looks, just that the information sounds grammatically correct and makes you look good! Many companies will force to you to copy all the exact same information into their often terrible online web forms. On the bright side, if your LinkedIn is up-to-date, you can always use their “one-click apply” to jobs posted on their site.

YouTube is also a great resource if you use it to better yourself now that you have free time. There are great exercise tutorials on YouTube, classes on coding (if you’re into high-paying jobs), and even brush up on software like Microsoft Excel. Use this opportunity to start a new job with a new skill set!

Tell Everyone You Know You’re Looking For A Great Job

7. Tell Everyone You Know You’re Looking For A Great Job

It may feel embarrassing for you to tell anyone that you’re jobless. It’s a very vulnerable situation where you feel like something is wrong with you. There isn’t! It’s a normal thing, and job searching is a $200 billion dollar industry. People are constantly moving and switching jobs, you are now just one of them.

In most cases, when you tell people that you’re looking for a job, they want to help! They’ll often share new job openings they’ve heard of, or perhaps make recommendations to people they know in your industry. The fact is your chances of finding a new job dramatically increase when more people are on your team, helping you get a job.

I personally will change my LinkedIn page to “Looking for an Awesome Opportunity” and email my friends and family that I’m actively looking. More often than not, they will understand (because we’ve all been there before) and they’ll want to help!

Some of the best job search tips I’ve ever heard: 

  • I recommend LinkedIn, Google Jobs, and Indeed for job postings. This is what most people use. I often avoid Craigslist.
  • Always use Glassdoor and read company reviews on how they treat their employees.
  • If you like a company, stalk their employees on LinkedIn to see if they went to the same schools you attended, clubs you’re in or charities you participate in. Ask them what it’s like there and ask for advice.
  • Have a salary in mind, knowing how much you need to cover all your expenses.

Make Money Fast When Your Jobless

8. Sell Your Old Stuff for Extra Money

If you just lost your job and looking for extra money, consider selling your extra stuff on Craigslist or eBay. All that extra stuff in your apartment/house like old bikes or snowboards could make a couple of hundred dollars with a new family. That’s a lot of extra ramen noodles! Plus it’s a rewarding feeling getting rid of some of the junk in your life.

Write Articles For Money

9. Write Articles For Money

I write all the time for a blog, but I discovered there are other places on the internet that pay you for writing! I’ve written a couple of articles on Seeking Alpha that pay $35 per article and $0.01 for every page view. It usually comes around $70/article in the long run.

With your new free time, this is probably one of the easiest ways to earn extra money while unemployed. You’ll have lots of extra time and most of the sites I listed pay between $50 – $100 per article.

For me personally, this is my plan. Spend my mornings looking for new jobs and my evenings writing articles. If I can write 1 article a night, at $50 per article. That’s an extra $1,500/month!

Side Gigs

10. Side Gigs

We regularly talk about creative ways to make money, but some of the quickest ways to make extra cash are side-gigs. These are tasks that you can do anytime on different established platforms:

  • Get paid for walking with StepBet (our 6-week StepBet Review and how much money we made)
  • Drive for Uber or Lyft (how much uber drivers make)
  • Deliver Uber Eats, Postmates or Door Dash (if you don’t like dealing with people)
  • Deliver Groceries with Instacart
  • Answer Online Surveys while you watch TV
  • Dog Sitting/Dog Walker (sites like Rover)
  • Babysitting (sites like Care)
  • Random tasks in your city ranging from moving furniture to assembling IKEA (sites like TaskRabbit)

Many of these could be done in your afternoons while you spending your mornings (often the most productive time of the day) job searching for new opportunities.

Conclusion

Losing your job is incredibly scary, but there are TONS of resources here and online to help you find a new job and supplement your income. Hopefully, this helps make losing your job a bit less scary and aids in setting up your own backup plan!

Are You Considering an MBA? Answer these 2 Questions First!

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At the end of last year, I was in a career funk. So I considered going back to school to get my MBA (Master’s of Business Administration). I figured with an MBA, you can practically do anything from advancing in your current field or make a complete switch to a new one. Every company values an MBA.

I was so excited! I previously considered the possibility of getting an MBA and my life was in a good position to do night classes. So I began picturing myself adding the letters “MBA” behind my name on business cards and looking up schools.

However, I quickly hit the brakes!

Ask These 2 Questions Before You Pursue an MBA

With many of my friends going back to school or are currently in school. I ALWAYS ask them these 2 simple questions that BLOW THEIR MINDS.

So I decided to ask myself these 2 simple questions to see if I can pass my own “Should You Get An MBA” test.

1. What is the EXACT dream Company and Job Title you want after graduation?

You should know this.

Most people get an MBA because they want to do something in business. They think they need an MBA for potential promotions or career growth.

However, what you should do is FIRST figure out what your dream job is.

You can’t just say “something in business”. If you are going to spend $140,000 or more on an MBA (average MBA costs according to Investatopia). Plus years of your life. You should identify the exact company and job title you want before you even start school. Come on, it’s your DREAM job.

This is a role you’ll potentially be doing for the rest of your life. You should have a clear idea of what it should be. Knowing this will guide every future decision you make within your MBA program, including the electives you take and the networking events you attend.

What’s the point of getting an MBA if you don’t know what you’ll do with it? Seriously? So take a moment and write down your dream job title and company.

2. Have you reached out to your dream company yet?

Once you can identify the exact job title and company you want, you should reach out to that organization and ask what they look for. This should ideally be less intimidating than pondering a future $140,000 MBA student tuition bill.

Usually, a company’s Human Resources department would be willing to meet with you if you tell them you’re considering going back to school to gain the skills necessary to work at their company.

When you meet with your dream company’s Human Resources Department (or any department), you should ask them some of these questions.

My dream job at your company is a Marketing Manager (or whatever it is), what is the typical salary range they get paid?

You should ABSOLUTELY know how much your future job pays because this will inform you how long it’ll take you to pay off your newly acquired student debt. Plus it’ll give you an idea of the lifestyle you can expect once you graduate with an MBA.

While it’s not all about money, you should be aware if your post-MBA salary can cover your student loans for the next 20 years. Are you ok with only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

What degrees or education do your current Marketing Managers have (or whatever your dream job is)?

This will give you an idea of the education level of their current employees. Some employees may have MBAs and some may not. You should probe deeper into what the HR team looks for in your dream position. Perhaps you don’t need an MBA and you may have the necessary experience to apply that day.

If you need to get an MBA for that position, ask if they have a preferred school or partner with any specific schools. If your dream job regularly partners with a local university and hires exclusively from there. That university may need to be on your radar for potential schools.

Does your dream company offer internships?

Yes, you’re getting an MBA but knowing if your dream company has an internship program is huge. Many companies will hire interns who are working towards their degree and help them grow into the position. There is no reason to wait till after you receive your MBA to apply to your dream company. You should use every opportunity to start making connections.

What does career growth look like at that company?

If your dream job is to be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), they won’t just hire you out of school. What entry-level roles will you need to start off with and how does one become a CEO? How did the current CEO get his role and what did they do before that? Some jobs aren’t attainable right out of school, even with an MBA. You need to understand what your career path would look like moving into your dream position. You should understand what this looks like.

When I considered an MBA, I failed this checklist

Last year when I considered getting my MBA, I went full-throttle and visited 3 different universities. This included dropping in classes and meeting with professors.

I received all the brochures, met with all their “advisors” and compared costs ($39,000 – $80,000). I did soft applications and confirmed I would be accepted to each of them.

I was so freaking close to full-out applying.

I knew I wanted to do something in finance because I LOVED writing about finance (hence why I started a blog). So I figured I’d get an MBA focused on finance.

This is how most people start the MBA journey. They love the idea of a degree, so they first get an education THEN figure out where they want to work.

I know this because that’s how I choose my bachelor’s degree. I went into Landscape Architecture without actually knowing if it was my dream job. I just thought it would be fun to draw and select plants. I didn’t learn till after internship opportunities and after graduation that it’s not what I wanted.

So I took this MBA checklist and failed.

When I looked at my dream job, there were some finance positions like Financial Planner, Mutual Fund Manager, Financial Analyst that sounded interesting. Yet when reviewing, I wasn’t drawn to them with such vigor that I could stomach another $140,000 in student loan debt.

Only one position that I was excited about, sounded fun, but it earned even less than I was making now. So I had to ask myself if I would be willing to take on $140,000 debt for a lower-paying job? It wasn’t a great option even with all the extra ways to make money out there like selling photos and earning money from walking.

Do the Math on your Future Tuition

According to Investatopia, the average MBA program costs $140,000, with higher-ranking schools costing more. They’re factoring in tuition, living arrangements, books, and peripheral expenditures. That’s more than the average night-only MBA program I was looking at.

Now factor $140,000 student debt at 6.8% interest which is the average Subsidized Federal Stafford Loan according to Federal Student Aid. Having that kind of student loan debt is similar to buying a house or literally thousands of lego technic sets for my kids.

However, the common response to seeing these numbers is that you’ll be paid more after your MBA. That is perhaps true. The average salary of MBA graduates in a full-time program was $126,919. This was taken from US News when they interviewed companies mainly on the east/west coasts which usually provide a higher salary than the Mountain States and Midwest.

Conclusion

Most people like me had to make an insane decision in high school to pick a college major before entering college. So at the same time, I was focused on rehearsing for the school musical and wondering if the homecoming queen liked me (she didn’t). I was asked to choose a degree that would affect the rest of my life. I was not ready.

Going back to school for your MBA doesn’t have to be like that. There isn’t any timetable, no matter what college recruiters try to tell you about upcoming semester deadlines. You have all the time in the world to choose if an MBA is right for you.

So if you’re considering going back to school for an MBA, you should have an idea of what your future will look like. You should identify your dream job at your dream company. This is your opportunity to do WHATEVER you want in the world, and create a plan that extends after graduation.

Get Paid To Write Articles: 20+ Websites That Pay You For Writing

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Getting paid to write articles is one of our favorite ways to earn extra money, so much so that we made a list of websites that will actually pay you to submit articles for their publications. This is a great way to earn extra money while building your writing brand. #earnextramoney #sidehustle Getting paid to write articles is one of our favorite ways to earn extra money, so much so that we made a list of websites that will actually pay you to submit articles for their publications. This is a great way to earn extra money while building your writing brand. The more prestigious websites your articles are published on, the more you can charge per submission, but everyone has to start somewhere. Here is how to get paid to write articles: 20+ Websites that pay you for writing.

20+ Websites That Pay You For Writing

Listverse

Get Paid To Write on Listverse - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Anything with a Top 10 Tagline
How Much Can You Make: $100 per 1,800 word article (via PayPal)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 8.02M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Listverse is full of (you guessed it) lists! Top 10 lists and such are a great attention grabber for readers and Listverse pays for articles with at least 10 list points. They will easily shell out $100 for good quality list articles. If you have a great idea for an attention-grabbing list, submit your list idea to Listverse for consideration. It may be a quick way to get paid to write articles, making $100 per article on our list of websites that pay you for writing. Just make sure that you do your research on your lists, avoid easy grammar issues and create a really attention-grabbing headline.

Smithsonian Magazine (online)

Get Paid To Write on Smithsonian - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: History, Science, Innovation, Arts & Culture, etc. (Smithsonian stuff)
How Much Can You Make: $1,000 per article
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 9.81M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
How ambitious are you? The Smithsonian is a big deal and one of the more prestegious websites that pay you fro writing. So you may be surprised to hear they do accept submissions from freelance writers. Although you need to provide at least 3 links to previous writing examples, and if you don’t have good ones, you should move on. If you do have all of that, you should “pitch” an idea for an article you have. Don’t worry about having crazy good photographs, they’ll provide the photography your article needs, you just need to supply the 250-300 worded idea and eventually final article if approved.

HubPages

Get Paid To Write on HubPages- Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Anything
How Much Can You Make: Pennies Per Page View (via ads)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 3.18M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
HubPages is an online community that writes about anything and everything. Once you sign up for free, you can write about whatever your passionate about. Your article will have ads on them and you’ll receive a portion of that revenue while you get paid to write articles. The more popular your articles are, the more money you’ll make. This is similar to having your own blog, but HubPages host your articles for you in return for a small portion of the ad revenue your articles produce.

iWriter

Get Paid To Write on iWriter - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Topics They Ask For
How Much Can You Make: Up to $40 for a 500 word article (depending on writing level)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 591.52K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
How iWriter works is that people pay iWriter to write articles for them. So a client will pay iWriter to write an article on “Baking Bread”, for example. Then iWriter will send the request to its army of writers (you) and you’ll take the job. The client will pay iWriter and iWriter will pay you in return. The more great articles you write, the more you’ll earn from iWriter based on their 4 tier (Standard, Premium, Elite & Elite Plus) writer levels. Once you receive Elite Plus level, you’ll be paid $40 for a 500-word article. You’ll pay will depend on the level of writer you are and the number of articles you write. What’s nice is you can accept/decline as many articles as you can write from the comfort of your own home. This is nice because the email request will come in with different topics where you can get paid to write articles.

Tuts+

Get Paid To Write on Tuts - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: How To Articles for coding, web design, Adobe Products, anything graphic
How Much Can You Make: $200 per tutorial (increases the more you submit)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 19.74M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Tuts+ is a site I used to visit all the time when learning Photoshop. They have some great tutorials by some awesome teachers, so this probably isn’t for new writers, but people who can prove they’ve written similar tutorials for well-known websites. This makes them one of the top websites that pay you for writing, paying around $200 (starting out) for How-To’s. There are opportunities to create written and video how-to-tutorials. Just make sure you have the depth of experience to back up what you’re teaching. Here is a list of tutorials they’re looking for people to teach.

Income Diary

Get Paid To Write on Income Diary - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Tips to help out bloggers (blogs, social media, making money online)
How Much Can You Make: $100 – $200 per article
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 303.49K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
The Income Diary is a website focused on helping new bloggers to set up their site, write content and monetize it for future revenue. Since this is a specific niche, there is much similar content that currently exists on the site. While you may be able to earn $200, it is a very difficult way to get paid to write articles and get your content accepted. However if you have an idea that you think fits well with their audience, submit your idea and they’ll tell you if it’s worthy. Otherwise don’t bother writing an entire article until your idea is accepted. If you do get your article idea accepted, you should jump for joy because they are one of the top paying websites that pay you for writing.

Travel + Leisure

Get Paid To Write on Travel and Leisure - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Trip Ideas, Destinations, Hotels (travel stuff)
How Much Can You Make: $1 a word (articles range from 400 – 2,000 words)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 6.03M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
With an audience of 1 million viewers per month, Travel + Leisure receives many writer submissions so they’re looking for high-quality articles from writers with previous writing experience. If you’re interested in writing for them, go over their website and understand what type of articles are published. Then go over to their contact page and email them a short email with your “pitch”, don’t bother writing your full article. If they like your idea, they’ll email you back with the guidelines they want. About 95% of the articles on their site are from freelance writers so you may have a shot. They’re one of the few proven websites that pay you for writing.

Transitions Abroad

Get Paid To Write on Transitions Abroad - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Volunteering, Work, Living and Studying Abroad
How Much Can You Make: $50 – $150 (for a 1,250-2,000 word article)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 422.94K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
While not the most aesthetically pleasing website, these guys have tons of articles submitted by people around the world relating to volunteering, working and living abroad. So much so that their “Travel Writer Guidelines for Submissions” page is heavily detailed on what they’re looking from their writers. Overall this is a great place to share that amazing study abroad adventure you had in college and share all those little secrets you learned along the way like don’t buy cheap outlet plug converts or how to use hotel key cards as knives for your PBJ sandwiches. If you have any of those wacky travel stories, consider this one of the first websites that pay you for writing that you try.

Back To College

Get Paid To Write on Back To College - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Things important to adults going back to college
How Much Can You Make: $55+ (for a 1,000-1,500 word article)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 386.82k monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is an old-school website but maintains high popularity for people interested in going back to college later in life. This site makes money by ads and selling leads to college recruiters. So articles about sharing your personal story about going back to college or how your thinking about going back to college may be ideal. This may be a great place to get paid to write articles if you’ve ever considered going back to school.

The Travel Writers Life

Get Paid To Write on Travel Writers - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Getting paid to travel whether it’s writing, photography, tours, etc.
How Much Can You Make: $50 – $200 (for a 300-600 word article)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): less than 10K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is an interesting writing topic because The Travel Writers Life showcases popular ways people are making money while traveling. So you won’t find any fluffy travel stories here. It’s more about how you paid for your study abroad apartment by working at your landlords banana stand. If you have any stories where you made a little money while traveling, this is a great place to share your story on one of the few websites that pay yforfro writing.

The Matador

Get Paid To Write on Matador - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Wide range of topics from life style, culture to family and night-life
How Much Can You Make: $20 – $60
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 3.35M monthly visitors
Since this is such a popular website they receive numerous writing solicitations and thus don’t have to offer much money for people looking to get paid to write articles. While they don’t pay much, this may be a good place to start if you’re a beginner writer. If you’re looking to try it out, you’ll have to create a profile on their contributor page and send them your article idea. It’ll take them a month or two to review it and if you don’t hear back, don’t take it personally they get a lot of ideas. Try submiting another idea. When it comes to larger websites like this, it’s a numbers game. Luckily you have the option to write about a wide range of topics on their websites that pay you for writing.

A List Apart

Get Paid To Write on A List Apart - Websites That Pay You For Writing

 

What To Write About: Web development related to code, content, design, process, business, etc.
How Much Can You Make: $50 – $200 (1,500 word articles avg.)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 543.71K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a very niche website related to website development. If this topic interests you, send their team your pitch idea (ideally in a Google Doc) for review. They review all ideas once a week and rarely accept pitches on the first draft. However they’ll likely help you develop your idea further making it worthy of their website. They’re currently looking for new writers so if you have a story to share regarding web development or user experience, shoot them an email.

Flywheel – The Layout

Get Paid To Write on Flywheel Layout - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: All things WordPress Website related
How Much Can You Make: $50 (They give you a list of topics with prices)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 712.64K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
These guys have one of the most efficient ways to get new writers. Beyond their super easy sign-up page where you submit your credentials, they give you a list of topics to write about and how much they’ll pay for each one. It looks like someone on their team realized keywords they want to rank for and added that list for potential writers to write about. Most of the articles they currently have posted only pay $50 per article, but they claim up to $150. Keep in mind, most of the articles they are looking for are related to how to code WordPress websites, so it may be a little niche for most people. If you have the WordPress knowlege though, it’s one of first websites that pay you for writing you should consider.

BootsnAll

Get Paid To Write on BootsNAll - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Trip Ideas, Destinations, Travel Adventures (travel stuff)
How Much Can You Make: $50 per article (articles range from 1,200 – 2,000 words)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 160.98K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a site I really enjoyed right after researching. It’s a very indie type travel site where it encourages really exploring your travel destinations over high-end resorts. If you have a travel story/idea that you want to pitch, send it to them after you check out their article guidelines to get paid to write articles. Most of is it pretty basic, but something to keep in mind. If you’re not sure your work is good enough to submit, try their “Guest Post” guide where your article won’t be paid for, but you can submit it in front of their audience. It’s a great way to gain travel writing exposure without much pressure on our list of websites that pay you for writing.

International Living

Get Paid To Write on International Living - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: All things related to retiring overseas (cost, living, places, etc.)
How Much Can You Make: $75 – $400
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 712.64K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
International Living has both a blog/newsletter (they call it a Postcard) and monthly magazine that they’re looking for contributing writers to get paid to write articles. If your article gets accepted to the Postcard, it’s worth around $75 while the monthly magazine is worth $250 for 840 words and $400 for 1,400 words. If you’re curious what to write about, they love inspirational stories about retiring abroad in your dream location (use SEMrush for popular keyword ideas). They want to know how your money will stretch longer in other countries and how that affects healthcare and other lifestyles. If you’ve ever been thinking about retiring in a small tropical country or somewhere cooler, maybe this is one of the websites that pay you for writing for you.

Cracked

Get Paid To Write on Cracked - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Anything Pop Culture with a funny twist
How Much Can You Make: $100 – $200
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 19.24M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
While most websites actively look for experienced writers, Cracked is all about encouraging new writers to submit ideas with lots of different ways to contribute and get paid to write articles. You can write the long lists they’re known for like “26 Sexy Halloween Costumes That Shouldn’t Exist” or creating funny graphics they can use on their social media accounts. They are heavily reliant on content writers like you can contribute to their online publication. If you think you have a sarcastic or satire writing personality, definitely register as a writer for them and jump into the hilarious world of Cracked. This is one of the most popular websites that pay you for writing on our list.

Photodoto

Get Paid To Write on Photodoto - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Articles About Great Photography
How Much Can You Make: Likely Around $50, not listed
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 151.96K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a really open category, photography. Everyone has tried photography at some point in their life. It’s pretty easy to point and click to great a great image. Either to sell via stock photography, share with your friends or hang up in a gallery. The point is, most people have a photography lesson learned or story to share and Photodoto is the perfect place for topics such as Photography Inspiration, Tips, Gear or post-production. Take a shot at this website to write a guest post, they seem to be very excited to hear about pitch ideas.

The Dollar Stretcher

Get Paid To Write on Dollar Stretcher - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Anything to help people save time and money (stretch your dollar)
How Much Can You Make: $0.10 per word (Most articles 500-700 words)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 151.96K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Now, this is a site we can get behind, another personal finance website! If you have some great ways to save money/time this is the place but keep in mind, The Dollar Stretcher has been in circulation since January 1998. They have TONS of articles on how to save money so if you’re going to pitch them you need to be creative, inventive and very specific. They ask you don’t pitch them “7 ways to save on groceries“, but rather “7 ways to save money on ground beef”. If you email them your pitch and don’t hear anything, they likely already have similar content and didn’t bother responding. Try pitching again being more creative, everyone does something cool to save money. It’s a great way to get paid to write articles if you’re able to niche down into specific money saving ideas.

Curby

Get Paid To Write on Curbly - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: DIY Home Improvement / Interior Design Projects
How Much Can You Make: Likely Around $50, you set your price.
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 271.60K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Yay I’ve been looking for a good DIY site where I can get paid to write articles. Curby started as one man’s journey doing home improvement projects and grew into a vibrate community of 271 thousand visits a month focusing on cool home improvement and interior design projects inspiring people. Now they’re one of the top websites that pay you for writing about home improvement projects. If you have a home improvement project that all your friends just rave about, consider pitching Curby to see if it’s a good idea for their site and get paid!

Blog Paws

Get Paid To Write on Blog Paws - Websites That Pay You For Writing

What To Write About: Life of a Pet Owner (tips, hacks, pet stories, etc.)
How Much Can You Make: $75 per article
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): less than 10K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Many websites that pay writers are related to web development or travel so it’s great to see sites like this that pay for articles that most people have experience with, like pets. This site focuses on connecting pet owners through their site and social media. More importantly, they help animal shelters and rescues connect with a wide range of pet owners for possible adoption. Blog Paws really tries to capture the reality of life with pets and can use writers that can help others navigate that world. If you’re a pet owner that can’t stop talking about how great it is to be a pet owner, this may be a perfect place to get paid to write articles on our list of websites that pay you for writing in 2018.

Consider Writing For Your Own Blog

How To Start Your Own Blog That Makes Money on Day 1

Writing for others is a quick way to get paid writing and build up your own portfolio. However, you’re working for other people and making THEM money. Consider using our guide to Starting Your Own Blog That Makes Money on Day 1! This is a nice alternative utilizing your writing creativity. Having your own website allows you to display a portfolio of your writing work and earn money for yourself from the awesome content you create!

Get Paid To Write Articles – Our Thoughts

Hope you like our blueprint for starting to get paid to write articles! We absolutely love websites that pay you for writing, helping fellow freelance writers and side-hustlers. While writing this and looking at the criteria these websites are looking for in contributing writers, it’s actually a really easy way to earn extra money. Most of these websites paying between $50 – $150 per article even for beginners, you could write an article every day for a month (30 days) and make $3,000.

8 Extremely Flexible Part Time Jobs For Us Grown Ups

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Whether it was in high school or in college most of us have had one or two flexible part-time jobs to earn some extra cash. For me, my first job was detasseling in the cornfields of Iowa. Then I moved onto being a lifeguard at the local water park for a couple summers.

The issue with most of these part-time jobs is they do not work out for us grownups to make some extra money to pay off debt. I wanted to pull in some easy to access part-time job that will work alongside your 9 to 5 full-time job.

My goal for this list is to tell you several flexible part-time jobs that are easy on your schedule and simple to jump right into.

Love to Interact With People? Work in Retail.

This might sound like a job for only those younger people but it is not. Sure there are a lot of teenagers and college students working in retail but there are plenty of grown adults as well. Personally, I have worked a lot of years in retail and it is a pretty good place to be for a part-time gig.

Back in college, I worked at a major department store where I actually met my wife. Later on, after college, I worked at a landscape materials company where I helped sell rock and design yards. The latest experience was because I was in transition between careers. I worked at a major sporting goods retailer here in Denver. This gave me the time to work on my master’s degree while providing for my family.

Working in retail is one of eight great flexible part time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.

Working in retail is one of eight great flexible part-time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.

Overall, I have just about seven years of retail experience. I found that the hours and time off needed were extremely flexible. The money is decent for what the job is. Working twenty hours a week might allow you to bring in an extra $800 a month.

Love Walking and Dogs? Try Dog Walking.

There are several apps out there that are basically the Uber for dog walking. You can pay someone to walk your dog OR you can get paid by some who will pay you! If you are like my wife and me, we enjoy going for a walk almost every day after work. So why not get paid for that walk? Hop on one of these apps, Wag! or Rover, to see if one of your neighbors needs help walking their dogs.

Bonus Points! Both of these apps are not just for dog walking. They allow you to pet sit as well!

Can you Write? Do Some Freelance Writing.

This is one that I do not have any personal experience with. My wife has been looking for some flexible part-time jobs for this coming summer. As an English teacher, I plan on recommending freelance writing to her. It will be great because freelance writing is easy to engage with once school is out and disengage once school is back in session. For me, I will hopefully get a good article out of her experience 🙂

Freelance writing is one of eight great flexible part time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.

Freelance writing is one of eight great flexible part-time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.

Michelle from Making Sense of Cents recommends starting out slowly with one gig at a time. A slow start will ensure that you can focus on that article to make sure it is the highest quality. The higher the quality articles you write, the more likely people will hire you for more. It helps to find a niche you enjoy writing about. If you are having fun writing then it is likely that your writing will be even better.

So how do you find these gigs? Michelle recommends checking out the ProBlogger job boards to find freelance gigs.

Have a Computer? Fill Out Some Surveys.

Look you are not going to get rich by completing surveys, take a look at Andrew’s review of surveying, No more survey apps, they just don’t pay well. You can make some decent money for your savings account every month though. Using Michelle from Making Sense of Cents as an example again, she made around an extra $100 a month from surveys. I do not think this is bad since all you have to do is sit back on the couch with your computer to fill these out.

Some of the more popular services are Swagbucks, Pinecone Research, American Consumer Opinion, InboxDollars, and Harris Poll Online.

Use Swagbucks to earn some extra money.

Use Swagbucks to earn some extra money.

Can you Drive? Drive for Uber or Lyft.

Uber and Lyft are the newish hip ways to catch a ride around your city. I really love these services as they provide a very easy and simple way to hale a ride. With a couple clicks on your phone and someone is on their way to pick you up.

These services have also become a great way to earn extra money with your own vehicle. With the extreme elasticity of setting your own hours, this is one of those flexible part-time jobs that can fit anyone’s needs. Since you set your own hours, you can make as little or as much as you would like being an Uber or Lyft driver.

Uber or Lyft are great ways to earn extra money on your own time.

Uber or Lyft are great ways to earn extra money on your own time.

I once took a ride from an Uber driver who use to drive a cab. She said that she loves working for the service. It provides her with a lot more flexibility. In turn, this allowed her to spend more time with her kids while making more money than she used to. I thought that was such an awesome statement for Uber.

Personally, I have never tried Lyft. Have you? If so, tell me about it in the comments section below. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Have a Pulse? Donate Plasma.

This was my part-time job back in college. Donating Plasma was one of my favorite flexible part-time jobs I have ever had. The hours were super flexible, the pay was great for what was entailed, and it was very easy. I donated plasma for over three years while in college. It provided just about $300 extra dollars for me a month while conforming to my crazy academic schedule as a landscape architecture student.

If you are interested in donating plasma check out my detailed write-up, How to Earn More Money – Donating Plasma.

Are you Crafty? Sell on Etsy.

Etsy is one of those flexible part-time jobs that are easy to jump into but does take some time to get established. I have sold a few photographs on Esty but never put the time into really establishing my shop (that is what they call your personal page). I have read that this can take a little while but can be totally worth the effort that you put forward.

Etsy allows you to sell your own crafts as a part time gig.

Etsy allows you to sell your own crafts as a part-time gig.

Similar to Uber or Lyft, you put time into Etsy whenever you can outside of your 9 to 5 job. The more you put into your shop, the more likely it will succeed. In the near future, I will be revisiting my Esty Shop trying to revive it and see what I can get out of it. It looks like I have some work to do as they reset my shop since I have last logged in. Stay tuned!

Good With a Camera? Sell Your Photography.

I absolutely love photography. Sadly, since moving to Colorado in 2011 my life has become WAY too busy to be able to put time into the craft. One way I have found to make a little money off of my photographs that are just sitting on an external hard drive is through stock photography.

Back in 2013, I decided to upload some random photos that I liked. Some were my favorite photographs of all time and some were just good. It turned out one of my random ‘just good’ photos that I took of the St. Louis Arch was really loved by people. This photograph has gone on to make me around $1,000! I only host this photograph on iStockPhoto and ShutterStock.

I have used stock photography to make true passive income for the past four years.

I have used stock photography to make true passive income for the past four years.

Stock photography is truly a passive income. I have not touched that photo on either service in that past four years. So fun!

Conclusion

If you are looking for some extra cash to help pay off debt then I recommend you try out any of these eight flexible part-time jobs. All in all these flexible part-time jobs are very easy to get started with. They will allow you to get started right away and earning more cash as soon as possible!

In case starting your own small business sounds like a better option you should read about these 50 Small Scale Business Ideas That You Can Start Today.

We have come up with a bigger list of Ways to Earn More Money. Most of these are not flexible part-time jobs. Rather this list has other experiences on how to make more money such as selling something on Craigslist.

How to Earn More Money – Donating Plasma

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Introduction

Hello Everyone! Before I get to today’s main way to earn more money, donating plasma, I wanted to introduce myself. As a lot of you already know from Andrew’s introduction of me from his post last week, I am Adam. If you didn’t see his introduction, go check it out now. It is a really good read! Don’t worry, I won’t go anywhere, I’ll still be here when you get back.

You back? Great! I hope you enjoyed that article as much as I did.

Anyways, back to what is important, me! As I’ve already mentioned, I am Adam, the newest and greatest (shhh don’t tell Andrew) contributor to Wallet Squirrel. I am very excited to work alongside my best buddy Andrew making great content for you while learning in the process.

My goals here are to learn more about becoming financially free and to become that. My wife and I have a lot of debt (car, student loans, and house) that we want to break free from. I want to include you in on this journey to paying off our debt!

A little about me. I am married and we have a four month old. We also have two dogs, a lab-retriever and a husky. Living in Denver, Colorado allows our little family to do what we love the most, spend time in the mountains. We love to hike, climb 14ers (Mountains above 14,000 feet in elevation), and to camp. One of my favorite hobbies is photography so you will be seeing several posts from me about it and how you can make money with your camera. Be excited!

Earn More Money With Photography

A little self promotion of one of my photographs

 

I guess I’ll stop rambling and get to what you are really here for. Way #72 to earn more money by donating plasma.

Earn More Money – Donating Plasma

A lot of people cringe at the thought of having a 12 gauge needle moving towards their arm. I don’t blame them, it can be a very nerve racking process. Especially when a trainee would come to stick you but most weeks the experience was great. I am here to walk you through the donation process to help ease those nerves.

Back in college donating plasma was my main income for a few years. Twice a week one of my roommates and I would go to Biolife Plasma in Ames, Iowa to donate plasma. Typically we would earn between $50 to $70 a week for our plasma and time.

So let’s walk through what my typical visit was like. Keep in mind, I have experience with only one facility and your local donation center might vary.

When I initially started I had to take a physical to make sure I was fit enough to donate. This is not a traditional physical that you get at the doctor, so do not worry about that. It takes about an hour to complete between all of the paper work, the million and one questions they ask you, as well as the general physical health checkup they perform. The physical needs to be repeated every year, which was my least favorite part of the experience. Not because it was hard or anything like that, it was just really annoying.

Now that the initial physical is complete and I was approved the rest of the visits were easy. I would walk through the front door and sign in at the front desk. This included answering a bunch of questions on a computer. Some examples are. Have you visited certain countries within a particular time frame? Were you sick recently? Did you donated blood recently? Then I would go sit in the waiting room for a little bit. A nurse would call my name to check my temperature, blood pressure, and verify so other items. If I had too high of temperature or blood pressure I could not donate for the day. If I passed, the nurse would take me back to the donating beds.

Once back there and settled in, a technician would come to stick my arm so the donation process could start. This is the part most people cringe about, don’t worry about it. These technician do go through a thorough training process. Out of the three years I donated, only a few sticks did not go too well.

Earn More Money - Donating Plasma

Technically this photo is of someone donating blood but looks very similar to the plasma donation process.

After getting hooked up I was able to relax during the donation process for the next thirty to forty-five minutes. This is when I would read/study or watch a movie. I really enjoyed this part of the donation process as you were literally forced to relax. When done and unhooked, I went to check out, sign up for my next donation time, and get paid! The whole visit took about an hour and a half.

Payment wise, Ames was a smaller market so we only got $50 to $70 a week for the donations. We were limited to two donations a week each time. They would pay $30 for the first time and $40 for the second visit. Some bigger cities paid a lot better. It was rumored that people in Kansas City were getting $130 a week!

Conclusion

For anyone with a few extra hours in the week and looking for more money I highly recommend checking your local plasma donation center. This is a fairly easy way to gain some extra income. It is mostly a painless process that allows you to get other work done during the process. If I missed anything about the process or you have a story about your own experience, give a comment below.

Now that you know a little more about way #72 to earn more money, donating plasma. Head over to our comprehensive list to check out other ways you could earn more money in 2017! We will continue to try out and review these ways throughout the year for you. If we are missing something on the list and you want to see us review it shoot us an email or tweet (@WalletSquirrel)!

Cheers!
-Adam