Personal Finance Advice

It appears that the first week of the minimum wage challenge will begin on the right foot. I just got word from the parents of a friend that they would like me to house sit for them for a week beginning on December 30th. This isn’t a house sitting / pet sitting gig I would [...]

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite vacation destination is Walt Disney World (WDW) in Florida. Some would say I have an unhealthy addiction to the place whereas I would simply call myself a fan. Either way, my travels to Disney World have taught me quite a bit about money. I know what you’re [...]

Many businesses are willing to pay you to refer your friends to them. It’s far cheaper for a company to pay you for a referral than it is for them to advertise and discount in order to recruit new customers. Some companies pay you in cash, while others give you a credit on your bill. [...]

Dumpster diving can be a great way to both make and save some money. You save money when you find things you can use and you make money when you find things you can sell. Many things that are thrown away are usable. In my time I’ve found a working treadmill, tons of toys, a [...]

I saw a small sign on the corner outside my neighborhood advertising “We buy junk cars” the other day. I started wondering why anyone would want to do this and I soon discovered that it can be a way to make some extra money. If you have access to a truck and trailer that can [...]

I have a friend who works at a tire shop. When possible, he takes some of the old tires and uses them to create art. His latest creation is a big, whimsical bug sitting in a lawn chair. There is another person in town who makes art from discarded yard supplies like mowers, garden hoses, [...]

There are a lot of jobs that we did as kids that we tend to think we’ve outgrown. If we don’t think we’ve outgrown them, we think that they are now beneath us. However, these kid jobs can be the beginnings of a new full time job. Sure, you’ll be competing against the neighborhood kids [...]

One of the newer businesses out there is, depending on your tolerance for such things, also one of the most disgusting: Poop scooping. You go from home to home cleaning up pet waste. This is one of those jobs that has to be done but which a lot of people prefer not to do themselves. [...]

On a message board that I routinely hang out on, there was recently a discussion of people’s finances and whether or not they could afford certain items. As with all discussions of this type, there were some people who stated that they would have huge trouble affording these things and other people said that they [...]

It seems that everyone these days wants to work at home. Every message board I frequent has almost daily posts asking, “How can I work from home?” The problem is that many work at home opportunities are scams. There are many legitimate options out there, but you have to sort through the garbage to find [...]

If you want to make a little extra money and you have a talent, you can give busking a try. Busking is performing in streets, train stations, or subways for money. You put on your show and you leave a hat, jar, or some other container out for the public to drop money in if [...]

People often want to know how they can make more money. Beyond the standard answers of sell your stuff, take a part time job, do online surveys, or other ideas, there is one way that a lot of people don’t consider: Become more versatile. While there are some professions that reward specialists with high pay [...]

It’s not news that you can make money by becoming a medical research subject. There are ads in most major papers, on TV and the Internet recruiting people with various conditions to try new drugs and therapies. These can be good ways to make money if you qualify and if you aren’t worried about the [...]

If you want to save or have a lot of money, you may have to choose your mate carefully. While love is fine and even great, there are plenty of people who enter into marriage in the full knowledge of exactly how it will help (or hurt) them financially. While it may sound cold, it’s [...]

When you think of panhandling, you probably think of the homeless and the desperate. It would never be something that a white collar professional would engage in. Would it? If you think the answer is, “No,” here’s a story for you. There is a man who panhandles near my office and I walk past him [...]

If you’ve ever wanted to be paid for the time you spend surfing the Internet for porn, I’ve got good news for you. It is possible to get paid to look at porn on the Internet. We all know that the Internet is a big place and that it is difficult to police. User generated [...]

Contests and sweepstakes can be fun to enter and the prizes can be great. You can win everything from a few bucks in cash all the way up to new cars or houses. Contests are easily found. You can find them on product packaging, advertised on TV or in magazines, and through associations to which [...]

Ah, but this isn’t strange, you say. Of course when I’m done with a book I’ll sell it on Amazon or eBay. But what if you could sell books you got for free, or that you paid only pennies for? Then you would make nothing but profit. If you want to sell used books, you [...]

If you’ve ever read a blog, magazine, or website, you’ve probably seen a stock image. These are photographs that someone has taken and sold on a royalty-free basis to the writer, publisher or designer. The photographer owns the rights to the image, so the buyer is not allowed to resell it. However, the buyer can [...]

All of our other lessons up to this point have focused on saving money and paying off debt. But this week’s lesson was about making money. It makes sense. You need to make good money to pay off debt, build wealth, and plan for a secure financial future. That doesn’t have to mean hundreds of [...]