Looking for more ways to earn and save.
With my seasonal job at a snail’s pace, I am on the lookout for money earning and money saving opportunities. Here are a few things I have done so far this month:
- I worked 14 hours as an election inspector. Additionally, I helped setup and breakdown the polling center which earned me an extra 4 hours of pay for what amounted to very minimal work. I also agreed to take old ballots from a previous election home to burn. I guess most larger areas no longer use paper ballots, but if so, they no doubt use a service to destroy these old records. The small town I work for can’t afford such a luxury but can pay a worker a couple of hours to burn them. In this case, I happened to be the someone who willingly took them home to destroy! I still have more of the brush we’ve cleared from our lake frontage to burn anyway, so I’ll take care of at the same time.
- Contacted Purina regarding an underfilled pouch of dog food. In general, I don’t usually complain to companies for something so trivial. It was more to let them know of a potential quality control issue than anything else. Our boys (dogs) have been long-time loyal consumers of this brand, and I certainly wouldn’t change on account of something like this. A rep from the company graciously replied that they would be sending me some coupons for the inconvenience. Whether it be free items or even cents off coupons, it will no doubt save me a few dollars. I’ll let you know what they send!
- Snagged some empty boxes and packing material from one of my jobs. They had been set to the side to go out with the trash. My side business as an Amazon FBA seller means I do a lot of shipping. As a result, I’m always on the lookout for free boxes and packing material. Less spent on shipping supplies, means more profit for me!
- Signed up for Amazon’s M-Turk. I had read about it quite some time ago and had it on my short list of things I wanted to check out. What is M-Turk? In a nutshell, it is a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence. Does this mean you need to be super intelligent? Nope! It is pretty basic stuff. It is also, as I have since learned, not a way to get rich quick! I’ve earned roughly $20 in the last week, spending just a few minutes here and there on the site. Still, that is $20 I didn’t have. The jury is still out on M-Turk, but I do intend to poke around a little more at this site and the possibilities it might present. I’ve posted a video below that does a nice job summing up my opinion thus far.
- Saved money by not putting on an addition to our woodshed. I built our shed (Hubby helped with the roof) last year, and in retrospect, I should have made it twice the size. Since we didn’t budget for building supplies, I stacked the remaining five chords on the side of the shed. When the white stuff (aka, snow!) arrives, I’ll just cover the wood with a tarp.
- Combined trips to town with work related activities. Even though I was able to do a lot of my seasonal job from home, I still ended up going to the job site more often than I liked. 16 miles round trip added up in the area of fuel expenses. I’m hoping to decrease what we spend on gas by staying home more.
These are just a few things I did to save and earn more. While some weren’t huge money makers/savers, I like to remind myself to keep plugging away…A Dime at a Time!
What are some things you have done this month to save or earn more towards paying off debt or adding to your retirement?
Leave a Reply