Although I am a blogger who constantly looks for ways to make and save money, whether that’s being done by getting a remote or a side job, starting a new side gig, or finding where I spend most of my income, asking other people how they manage with day to day lives is the best way to actually see what works and what’s not.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been asking some of my friends and old colleagues what are some of the best ways they’re making money (apart from their full-time jobs), and if they found a great way to save money. Their answers were perfect, although some are pretty well known by most people already, but they do work, and in the end of the day, that’s what I am looking for: Ways that actually work.
Here’s what they’ve told me, and if you’re looking at getting a few more bucks per month or finding new ways to save money, you may want to give some of them a try.
1. Getting a side job that includes free food
I have quite a few friends who are currently working in restaurants, fast food, and other places that include food, and they’re doing it for a few hours per day or week. They always looking for owners that include free food in their job descriptions, and if they don’t, they always ask them if they can add it as an extra.
Believe it or not, in most countries, food is the biggest monthly expense, and if you can get it completely for free, you can save a lot of money each month.
My monthly food expenses were between $400 to $450. I started working in a restaurant that included free food for the employees, and not only did I start eating way tastier dishes that I used to make at home, I finally had enough money to buy the things I needed but I couldn’t afford them.
Not only did my friend find a great way to save money, but she actually started making even more as this side job was also paying her each month.
Additionally, she works in a store 8 hours per day. Her boss is also kind enough to give her enough food from the restaurant to get to her home.
2. Making your own wine at home
This is another way to save money if you’re a wine lover, or earn a few bucks by making your own and giving it to your friends, colleagues, and other people that you know they’re spending way too much money buying wine. I wasn’t expecting that, but it seems that you can actually make wine pretty easily, and depending on the preferences of its person, you can sell lots of bottles each month.
I’m not an alcoholic, per se, but I do love drinking a few glasses of wine every night before going to bed – but wine can be expensive if you’re constantly broke. One night I was out of wine, and I didn’t have the money to buy a bottle, so I searched on YouTube for wine recipes. Once I got paid, I brought a few things that I needed and made my first 7 bottles of homemade wine. It was tasty, and when I told one of my colleagues that I was making my own wine, he offered to buy a bottle – and the rest is history. I sell about 40 bottles of wine each month to people I know (and some for their friends), and I make around $20 to $35 per bottle, depending on the order and I get).
Believe it or not, I actually tasted a couple of her wines, and they did taste good enough to buy from her two of my favorite flavors. Making wine is fairly easy and cheap, but as my friend says,
It’s all about giving it time because you’ll have to wait for up to a month until a bottle is ready for consumption.
So here you go, if you are a wine lover, you can save money by buying wine from a liquor store, or make your own and sell it to your friends and colleagues to make a few extra bucks per month.
3. Pet sitting in your own house every so often
It may sound like an obvious idea, and you’ve probably already seen many websites recommending this option, but you’d be amazed at how much pet-sitting is needed. As long as you don’t have any allergies to dogs or cats, and as long as you don’t have a problem pet-sitting them in your own house, it can be a very profitable way of making extra money.
I love dogs (cats not so much, but I do accept them), and pet-sitting is such an easy way to make a few extra backs as a side job. Actually, it’s going so well, that I’m currently thinking of stopping my main job and starting pet-sitting full-time, as many pet owners are looking for trusted people to look out for their little “kids”.
But how do you start with pet-sitting? Do you need to be a skilled person or have the necessary equipment? And if so, what are the cons of doing that side job? I have a dog, so I was curious to find out what exactly is the job of a pet sitter.
I never owned a dog, and I didn’t have any skills. I joined a few websites that presumably were great for finding a job as a pet sitter, but I didn’t have any offers from those. I started getting lots of clients when I posted on Facebook, and from that moment many others came. The biggest difficulty is organizing your hours, you can’t work at the same time that you’re pet sitting, and most of the time, pet owners who leave their dogs or cats with me tend to go on vacations and they’re gone for a few days. The easiest jobs are the ones where you’ll have to pet sit for a few hours because the owner’s working.
He also said that you don’t need any equipment and that each owner has their own accessories and other things needed for the pet, and that they bring them with them. He also noted that sometimes you might end up getting a dog or a cat that may have asthma or other health conditions, and that’s the hard part of the job (apart from experiencing some crazy situations where a dog was running all over his place and breaking a couple of his stuff).
4. Getting a job that includes a rent-free house
My little brother has a “master’s degree” in finding jobs that provide rent-free houses to stay, and most of the time they also offer free food. He was kind enough to answer all of my questions, although I do have lots of experience with him. He’s constantly traveling from place to place, working in seasonal jobs with rent-free and free food included, and that’s the way he makes enough money while traveling the world. The good news is that you don’t have to travel like him if you don’t feel like it.
If you’re living in a big town, chances are that there are companies offering seasonal jobs that include a free place to stay and free food for as long as you work there. When it comes to finding these types of jobs, there are hundreds upon hundreds of websites that offer seasonal positions, and the only thing that you’ll have to do is create a resume and start sending it.
When I was in college, I was spending all of my money on rent, groceries, and general bills. I found a job as a waiter in a hotel nearby, and I sent them my resume. Once they accepted me, I worked there for a couple of weeks, and when I saw that everything went smoothly, I stopped renting.
There are many companies that provide that, whether you’re looking to work as a waiter, bartender, runner, or whatever position you’re looking at getting. Most of these jobs do not require lots of past experience, and many of them want to find a trustworthy person who learns quickly and can be trusted to meet the demands of each position.
You can basically go to Canva.com, choose one of their resume templates, and create a CV within a few minutes. Then go to websites like Indeed.com, create an account, and start sending your resume to various companies that provide a home to stay and free food.
Although most of these positions require lots of hours per day, as he works around 8 to 12 hours per day depending on the job description, he also makes extra money by doing side jobs such as uploading products to e-commerce stores, transcribing audio files to written text, and even from uploading videos on YouTube from his journeys.
5. Delivering food with your bicycle
This is one of the most common ways I see people making extra money – and to be honest, depending on the hours that you’re working on delivering, you can even make it a full-time job – though most of the people I’ve spoken to they’re using it as a side-job, and mostly on summer days. Basically, all you need is a bicycle or a bike in general, and you’re good to go.
I don’t have to pay for my rent and groceries each month from my main job. I work around 3-4 hours per day as a delivery guy, mostly for food services, and I get enough money to pay for monthly expenses while having the opportunity to save money for some other side hustles that I’m looking at.
But you can look at it from a different perspective too:
I wanted to get fit and start a healthier way of living my life. Unfortunately, gyms are way too expensive in my neighborhood, so I didn’t have the luxury of paying each month. I started delivering food with my bicycle, and day by day I was becoming stronger and stronger. Nowadays is fairly easy for me to make as many deliveries as I want without getting tired, and I don’t stop during the winter – you get used to the cold when you’re biking all the time.
Even if you’re in a big city where you have no idea about the addresses, using your phone’s GPS (let’s say, Google Maps), you can easily find the way and quickly deliver all the orders. What’s even greater is that most of those apps let you choose if you want to accept or decline an order, and you can only choose to accept deliveries that are close by.
There are many ways to get a job as a delivery guy, and you can start with popular services such as Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo, Wolt, Delivery Hero, Instacart, Amazon Fresh, and even Walmart Grocery. It all depends on your current location, as some may work better than others.
