Among other shocking revelations, financial statistics have shown that Fifty percent of Americans have less than one month’s income saved for a rainy day.
A study published by Bankrate.com indicates that 37% of Americans have credit card debt higher than or equal to their emergency savings, signifying that a sudden unanticipated expense could thrust them over a financial budgetary cliff.
Another study from The Pew Charitable Trusts shows that the financial “balance sheets” of families in American are tattered and stressed, as a result of a lack of savings, dormant wages, and rising debt levels.
Most people today are hoping to be financially free, however, only very few individuals are able to achieve their dreams of financial success. Many of us, when starting out 99.9% of the time depends on our primary job for all of our household income. Our primary income usually involves exchanging our time for money.
The money we are able to earn in exchange for our time will generally depend on the type and nature of our job. The hourly pay rate often depends on whether you are a professor, a construction worker, a doctor, janitor, nurse or a plumber – whatever your job might be.
Many people live on the income from their primary job, and because of the fact that the money is often times not enough, they more often than not live on paycheck to paycheck.
This is a risky way to live as it is actually very dangerous to depend on one source of revenue for your household income. Job security, no matter the job or the organization is an illusion and you are really never safe when you depend on one source of income, most especially, when you depend on someone else or the government for your livelihood. A small business owner is, in fact, safer than a school teacher who could be laid off anytime due to many factors.
If a school teacher loses her job, she instantly loses her source of livelihood, however, if a small business owner has a bad streak in business or loses some important customers, he will still have a little to live on while building his business and trying to create wealth.
Truth be told, regardless whether you are an employee or a business owner, you can’t afford to depend on one source of income. You need to diversify your income sources so as to create multiple streams of income.
My objective in this article is to highlight some simple ways to create additional active income and passive income to help you protect and secure your finances.
Focus on Value
The first step to creating a reliable income is by focusing on value. No matter your source of income, the most innovative thing you can do is to ensure that you provide value to your clients. Whether you sell a product or services, cutting corners will never take you far in your desire to secure your financial future. You’ll be far more likely to lose more money and possibly your reputation when you try to cut corners or create a quick-cash gimmicks system.
Pay Down all your Debts
To be able to diversify your income, you must try to free up your income by assertively paying down a loan, credit card bills and even your mortgage. It would be much easier to diversify your income when you are debt free as this will help to free up a substantial part of your earnings which you can diversify to other revenue sources.
Active Income Revenue Sources
Earning active income demands your time. However, there are a number of ways you can hustle and earn cash through active income streams. Although you may need to work your ass off to earn extra active income, it can be fun. Below are some smart ways to earn extra cash by the side.
Upsell Your Clients
Depending on your line of business, you can always look out for additional service you can render to your clients that will be relevant to them as a way of earning some extra cash. For instance, a website designer can partner with a copywriter to have contents written for his clients. A freelance writer can decide to include SEO or social media services to the list of services to offer to his clients.
Offer a Service
You can offer some services after your day job to diversify your income. The services should be something you can do in your spare time. Going through your hobbies and your skill set will help you to determine what sort of services you can easily provide without having to invest much money into it.
To get started with being a service provider, you must, first of all, decide what you are good at that people will be willing to pay for. A number of ideas you can consider include:
Freelance Services
Babysitting
Coaching/Consulting
Lessons
Resume Help
Social Media Management
Tutoring
Writing
There are also a number of other ideas you can use to make extra money from the side.
Blogging
Blogging is another way to create active income. While some people classify blogging as a passive income, don’t be deceived, blogging is an active income for the reason that it requires a lot of effort, hard work, and consistency. The day you stop updating your blog, that’s the day your traffic begins to reduce. People are always on the lookout for new contents and as such your blog always needs to be continuously updated.
While blogging can be fun and very profitable, it nevertheless requires a lot of time and efforts to begin to attract significant traffic.
Making Crafts
Have you ever considered selling your handmade items? With the popularity of Etsy website, selling handmade items is now possible and somewhat easy. If you have crafty skills, you will probably be able to find a market for your products online.
Etsy, Facebook, Craigslist, and Yard Sales are some of the places you can unload your crafts to sell.
Sell A Product
Another idea that can surely add more money to your bank account if done right is the sales of produce. There are different stuff you can sell, even from the comfort of your home.
Independent Sales
If you like to sell and desire to create an additional income stream, becoming an independent sales rep, also known as a manufacturer’s representative or just plain rep, may be ideal for you. Being an independent sales rep is the graduate level of selling, which offers potentially higher income and autonomy from company politics.
You can follow simple guidelines on how to become an effective independent sales rep.
Passive Income Revenue Sources
Having passive income sources is everybody’s dream. After all, what could be sweeter and better than having to sit back, doing nothing and have money flowing steadily into your bank account?
Below are some ideas on how to create passive income sources.
Rental Properties
Even though some might argue that rental properties are not a source of passive income, it can, in fact, be, if you know how to handle it the right way. Get a property management company to handle payment collection, repairs, and in fact, total management of the property for you and voila! You suddenly have a passive source of income.
Investing In The Stock Market
A very good passive way to diversify your income is investing in the stock market. Nonetheless, investing in stock, just like any other investments require some amount of capital to get started. You can read these articles on how to invest for a monthly income or how to build a dividend stock portfolio to learn more about investing in the stock market.
Royalty from Book
It cost absolutely nothing these days to write an ebook. With an MS Word application and an internet connection, anyone can write and publish an ebook.
Though it requires a lot of skills, hard work and dedication to create a good book, the potential benefits can be worth it. While writing can be a good source of active income, it can also become a good source of passive income through earning of royalty.
Have A Financial Back-Up Plan
Diversifying your income is such a good way to protect and secure your financial life, particularly when an event happens that cut off your ability to earn from your primary source of income. You should always look out for additional ways to diversify your income and do your best to make good use of them.
Diversifying your income will act as a financial back-up to protect you from unseen circumstances in the future. Always strive to have at least four to five streams of income going at all times and make adjustments as needed.That way, you can always be certain of being financially secure, no matter the state of your primary source of income.
Reposted from My Blog @ Kelvinomere.com
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