I need some ideas for earning extra money. Our marriage has lots of stressors right now and being in debt is a huge one. I need some ideas for paying off our debt. I live in a very small town so getting a weekend job is almost impossible without a long commute which would negate any money made. Any brilliant ideas?

Can you rideshare or carpool to a bigger place with another woman, also needing to do the same?

Can you look into answering customer service calls from your home? Or talk to a temp or contract agency about doing same?

Can you get paid to do errands or shopping for shut-ins? Deliver Pennysaver type newspapers to people's mailboxes or doors? Do computer work or proofreading for somebody local, from home?

Are there any families which need help with small animal care/pet sitting/walking, child care before or after school, or might the school system be looking for bus monitors to ride into school with area kids going to a consolidated hs?

Are there farms or ranches anywhere near you live where manual labor is covered, but they're looking for some sort of office, errand or basic computer help?

Any doctors or lawyers who need off-hours, answering service operators or someone to take the calls and divert to them only if an emergency?

What kind of training do you have, or education? What do you want to do?

ETA: If you are paying tithing---STOP.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 05:00PM by bookratt.

1. Stop buying on credit. This is painful but a must.
2. Adjust your lifestyle to your income.
3. Seek cheaper housing.
Ego is less important than success in this endeavor.
4. But everything that you can from thrift stores.
5. No matter what take 10% of your income and put it in a sack and forget you have it.
6. Devide your income into labeled envelopes and never take money from one envelope to another.
We did this and seven painful years later we were DEBT FREE. We had paid off $75,000 and had money in the bank. The only plastic we use is a debit card.
If you want more specific information on how we did this email thedesertrat1@hotmail.com

Get a job doing tech support from home for ISPs. Two of my sons do that. No commute, all you need is an internet connection. The money's not great, but it's better than nothing. Good luck. Being debt free is a great goal.

You know your financial situation better than anyone. Brainstorm how you can cut your expenses to the bare essentials. Set a budget and stick to it.

My baby sister is horrible with money, she always spends more than she intends to and wonders why she can never get her bills paid off. Yesterday, she shopped at the health food store and came back with a bunch of stuff that was (a) expensive, and (b) she didn't really need. She can't seem to say "no" to herself.

My sister used to do bookings for Jet Blue from her home. They suppied the computer. She did some training at a central location, and then worked from home.

• Check out The Motley Fools website (www.fool.com). I got out of $20K in debt and came up with another $10K for a downpayment on a house based on those tips.

• Write down all your "have to/needs" budget items. Make a budget. Stick to it.

• Reduce expenses wherever and however you can.

• If you haven't already, track every penny that goes in and comes out for a month. At the end of the month, classify your expenses into "wants" and "needs." See if you can reduce the needs and eliminate the wants.

• Pay yourself first. Chuck a small amount into a savings account each paycheck and do not touch it, even to pay off the debt.

• Pull out all your bills. Prioritize them by largest with the highest interest to smallest and lowest interest. Pay off the small niggling bills first. Then apply those amounts to the highest interest bill you have. Every time you pay something off, take that amount of money you were spending and apply it to another bill.

• Apply for a low-interest credit card and then use the balance transfer option to get no interest for a year. Transfer all your high-interest balances to that card. At ELEVEN months (before the interest kicks in), transfer back to the other card, using one of their no-interest offers. Keep using the special offers to at least stop paying interest on your credit card debt.

• Go through your house. Look for anything you aren't using/don't need/don't want anymore, clean it up, make sure it works, and sell it on eBay. Or Craigslist.

• Look at your skills and talents for areas that you can turn into an additional revenue stream. Do you make awesome cookies? Start selling cookies by the dozen at work. I had a bunch of extra hot peppers from the garden one year and started making pepper jam. This has turned into a sideline business for me. It's not a bunch of money as the costs of ingredients eats into the profits, but it is extra money.

• Look at how you made money when you were a kid. Can you take on a second job: mowing lawns, babysitting, shoveling snow, running errands for the infirm, getting a paper route? Yes, many paper routes are driving routes and the work happens very early in the morning, so you still have time to go to work.

• Look into medical transcriptions and other work-at-home opportunities.

I stumbled into my second job (which is making my car payment) because I'd been to the dance studio so often for so long, I found myself helping the instructor spot and teach other students. One day, one of the other instructors quit, so she asked me for help and I'd pitch in and sub for the instructors sometimes. Finally, another one quit and they just put me on the schedule so now I'm teaching fitness classes. I get paid to work out!

Brainstorm with your family. Maybe the kids can go around picking up aluminum cans and selling them to recycling centers. Or something. Be creative!

With us, it wasn't the credit cards and such, we were just getting cash from the ATM without keeping track of where it went.

In Quicken (which I was already using to keep track of bank accts and credit cards), I created an account called "cash" and every ATM withdrawal shows as a transfer to that account. I then force myself to enter the cash expenditures and try to keep it balanced. Just forcing that discipline cut the caah outlay in about half by making me think about where it was going.