Are you sick of never having enough money? Wouldn’t it be nice to have extra cash in your bank? Even if you’re living paycheck to paycheck right now, I’m going to teach you how to save up a fair amount of extra cash in just a few short weeks. If you’re reading this post and you want to see your account jump several hundred dollars ahead or more, then keep reading…
How to Save Up a Few Hundred Dollars or More in Just a Few Weeks
This is step one in Dave Ramsey’s 7 Step Plan to becoming wealthy. For many, it can be the most difficult step since there’s never any money left at the end of the month.
I’ve heard many people give the advice, “Get a second job and put that money in the bank.” Well you know what? Sometimes life just isn’t that easy. Maybe you’re a single mom that can’t pay for sitters all day every day. Maybe you’re not healthy enough to work 70 hours a week. Maybe you have eight other responsibilities that you’re juggling and working another job just isn’t going to happen!
You need extra cash NOW, but you just can’t possibly work a second job.
So, what do you do?
Here’s your 4-step plan to create some extra cash in just a few short weeks:
1) Sell Your Stuff
No matter how broke you are, you still have things that you can sell. EVERYTHING has a value (seriously – remember the guy that was selling all of his personal possessions to basically be a nomad? He was able to sell EVERYTHING – even his half-used bottle of mustard!!). Your stuff is typically WAY more valuable than you think.
When I look around my house, I could easily come up with $200 worth of stuff that I could sell on any number of social media sites:
· Old smartphone – $50
· Under-the-cupboard mount for knives – $25
· Entertainment center – $40
· Old movies we never watch – $20
· Clothing/Accessories – $50
· Jewelry – $100
· Total = $285
Here’s the trick. Get an empty cardboard box. Then walk through every single room in the house and pick out a few items from each room that you really don’t need, and that someone else would pay money for. Put them in the box. You can even go through your closets for a few items. At the end of your scavenger hunt, you should have a pretty full box of stuff!
List all the items on a social media Marketplace, and let the selling begin! I figure you can earn at least $250 or more this way.
2) Sell Stuff for Your Friends
In step one, you sold your own stuff. You thought it was going to be hard, but it was actually kind of fun wasn’t it? You don’t really miss your junk, and now you have some much-needed extra cash in your pocket!
Well, think about this, your friends are probably just as unenthused as you were about selling your stuff. If they’re like most people, they just don’t want to go through the time, the hassle of listing items, meeting up with people, and collecting the money. What I learned is that many people will GLADLY pay you 25% of the money if you do the legwork for them.
Have them gather up their old baseball cards, gently used shoes, hardly used baby toys and clothes, old picture frames and other items. Anything that you think has value, encourage them to box them up and send it your way. Sell $250 of stuff for each of four friends and you’ll earn $250 for yourself!
3) Cut Your Budget
Alright, so you thought going through and selling your old stuff was dreaded! Now I’m going to mention the “B” word?! How ugly is that?
The truth is, setting up a budget and understanding your spending can be an incredibly freeing feeling.
When you lay out all your spending and really start looking at it, you’ll be amazed where your money is really going. You’ll start to question purchases you made, and you’ll also be surprised with how much you spend each month on items that you barely think about! Once you put on the lenses of the “saver” instead of the “let’s have some fun with this money in the moment,” you’ll quickly find monies that you can cut out of your budget without hardly noticing.
4) Learn to Buy and Sell
You may not realize it, but there are people out there that earn a living by simply buying and selling stuff.
I mean like a GOOD living!
Here’s what they do. First of all, they make a commitment to taking some extra time to do what needs to be done. They take a look at the garage sales in the area, target the ones with products they’re interested in, buy them for pennies (because the sellers really just want to get rid of their stuff – and they CERTAINLY don’t want to haul anything back inside at the end of the day!), then freshen up those items and list them on a social media Marketplace for 5X what they bought them for just hours before.
There are people who do this hundreds of times a year – earning an extra $5-$50 on each item (depending on what it is and on how good of a bargain they got it for).
If there are people earning $20,000 a year, I know that you could earn a measly $250!
You Just Created Some Extra Cash. Now What?
There you go, you did it! You just created extra cash! But now what? What are the next steps?
First of all, DON’T SPEND IT!
Time and time again I’ve seen people that typically don’t have money and suddenly found some, end up wasting it on “stuff” and quickly find themselves without money again.
You’re smarter than this.
You worked hard for this extra cash, so now use it to get ultra-wealthy!
The next step to riches (and seriously, you’re closer than you might think right now, so don’t give up) is getting out of debt.
Are you on your way to saving up that extra cash? Tell me about your success below!