3 Ways to Make Extra Money This Month

Here's a preface, it is possible to make thousand of dollars extra a month if you want that, but it's going to be a much easier thing to accomplish if you live near a big city than if you live near a small town. That's not to say it's impossible, it's just going to be a little bit more difficult because when you live near a big city or a metropolitan area, even if you're in the suburbs of a metropolitan area, it's going to be easier because more opportunities are available in big cities.

With all that being said, let's move right in to number one. This first thing is something I figured out right after college and that was how to become a freelance brand ambassador. I say the word "brand ambassador" but we called it freelance marketer, it made it look really good on our resumes. We glorified what it was, no doubt. A friend of mine introduced me to this while he was still in school and he'd done a ton of these gigs.

Essentially what happens is this... have you even been to a concert or a festival or anything like that in a park where there are tons of brands set up with like a tent, or they're handing out a free product, or there are people just standing around giving out free samples of whatever? When you see those people and you interact with them, at least I used to think that those people were directly employees for the company, I just never gave it any thought.

The truth of the matter is is that those people rarely worked for the big brands. Because of that I've worked for brands like Coca-Cola, Google, TBS and plenty others, because what happens is that a company will say, "Hey, we wanna have this marketing activation at Music Midtown" which is an example of something at Atlanta that I've worked before. This brand will then go to this middle man company because, surprise, it's a business world and middle men are everywhere.

The big brand will say, "Hey, we wanna do this thing, here's what we're thinking about", and this middle man company will help them figure out the logistics of everything. The brand pays the middle man a crap ton of money, and then the middle man goes, and they have like one or two project leads maybe that work for them, and then they outsource the entire rest of that work which is good or bad, they lose some quality control on ... The brand loses some quality control there. For the middle man it's great because they get to pay people minimal amounts of money in their eyes and they get to pocket a big chunk of the change without having to do a ton of the work or staff full-time a ton of that work.

For me, that means I got to make anywhere from $15 to $30 an hour working for these big brands at all of these events. What it actually meant was that like I went to work for Coke at a concert for three days, and I handed out free Coke for 10 hours a day. When you're getting paid $20 an hour for 10 or 12 hours a day, it adds up pretty quick. 

How it works is that you sign up with these middle men companies and you say, "Hey, I'd like to be included on your distribution list", and so when they get a gig then they'll send out a blast email that says, "Hey, we're looking for this type of person in this age, these dates, these times and this is how much it pays." You respond, they call and they screen you, if you get chosen then they'll you and you go and you work. Three to four weeks after the event is over ... actually two to four weeks after the event is over you get a check in the mail for however much you worked.

I was very picky about the gigs that I worked because I knew that the low end was $15 an hour, and the high end was like $20 to $30 an hour. I also only picked gigs that would net me more than $500 at the end of the gig. If it was like, "Come work for four hours this afternoon and we'll pay you $17 an hour", I never did those because it never really matched the payoff that I was looking for. 

However, because I was so picky I could work for a week for Google or whoever and make a thousand dollars which to me, being fresh out of school, not having any loans or anything mercifully, I know that's not the case for everyone. Being able to come fresh out of school and not have a full-time job because the job market sucked, I just dove headfirst into this kind of work and quickly made thousands and thousands of dollars in just a few months. In fact, I made so much money doing this that within two months of graduating from college and having hardly any money in my bank account, I was able to buy an engagement ring for my now wife in cash.

If you want to do this you can make good money. In fact, I knew people, I met people while I was doing these gigs that do this full-time, they might still be doing it full-time because you can take every single gig that they send you, and you can probably make ... Now, this is a pure guesstimate, I didn't ever do it full-time so I don't know, but these people were really intense about it and they were well-known by the middle men companies and so they get gigs more often. 

I would bet that they make anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a month potentially working all of these gigs. Some of them you have to travel a few hours away and they'll reimburse you for gas or whatever it is. You can make some good money doing these gigs. If you're dedicated to it and if it's your only thing, or if you work at a movie theater or wherever else, I mean you can save up some good money working these gigs.

The last thing I want to say about number one in this freelance brand ambassador jobs is that I saw this as an opportunity. Sure, it was great to make money and get to work for these big brands because now I can say I worked for Coke and Google even though I never actually have. The biggest thing is that I knew going into this without a full-time job that this was an opportunity to network and to work my butt off. I would often be the first person there by like an hour or maybe more, and I would find whoever the person in-charge was and see how I could help beforehand, and then I could see if they needed help after my hours are up. 

Sometimes that meant that I worked without getting paid, and that's okay because I was hustling trying to find a full-time job, trying to network and meet people because I knew that if I doubled down on my effort that something would open up for me, something good would happen because I was seeking it out. That's all I'm going to say is that if you're going to do this, work really hard. I mean you don't have to, you could totally just go in and do the work and whatever, if you just want the money that's fine, but if you want something more, if you want doors to open, then bust your butt.

Next, number two. Let me say this first, this is not my idea, this has been around for a long time and it's recently been made popular again by people like Gary Vaynerchuk. If you don't know who he is you should just go look him up because he'll make you want to run through a brick wall. Go on Craigslist wherever you are, find the free section, there's a little free section everywhere on every Craigslist city or whatever, and people just post free stuff that they're trying to get rid of.

In fact here in Georgia where I live, I regularly see free pianos on Craigslist. Now, they're not always in the best shape, but occasionally you'll see like a church that had to shut their doors and they just need to get rid of it and nobody else wants it. You can go pick up a piano and then go online, there are like Facebook marketplace, or Ebay and just sell it for 100% profit margins. 

People will buy anything. Go on Craigslist, you can get clothing, decorations, furniture, anything else that shows up. If it looks good go see it, and if it is good pick it up, bring it home, clean it up, make it look good, spiff it up a little bit, and then post it up on Facebook marketplace or Ebay. I've never tried to do this full-time, I've never had the desire to do this full-time, but I feel pretty confident that if I spent the same amount of time on doing something like this as I do on my full-time job.

If I spent 40 to 50, maybe even 60 hours a week looking for free stuff, cleaning it up and trying to resell it, I feel pretty confident I can make at least a thousand dollars a month. In fact, I feel pretty confident I can make like $2,000 a month just doing that. If I made that my life's work, heck, I could start like a business out of this. Go get free stuff and just sell it. 

You can do the same thing with yard sales. So go to a yard sale, drive around Saturday morning at 7AM. Yes, 7, because people start putting out their signs and opening their doors around that time. Look for listings online about garage sales coming up this weekend and go out to those garage sages. You can get things like a stuffed animal for ¢50 or a a dollar, and that same stuffed animal can sell for $25 on Ebay.

I realize this sound tedious, but if you're looking for extra ways to make money, and you have time to burn and you need that cash, why not do something like this? There's no risk to you, there's literally no risk. You take free stuff, you clean it up, you take a picture because everyone has a camera in their phone at this point in life, and then you take it and you post it online, because if you have a phone you can post online. If your phone doesn't have internet access for some reason go to your local library and post the pictures there on one of the local library computer, sign in to your Facebook and post them there. Have people meet you in a parking lot of a police department or something like that. That's it for number two.

Number three, look for a skill that you can leverage for money. Everyone has a skill that they can leverage for money. I was watching American Idol the other night which, well, to be fair, I was watching a clip on YouTube of a guy not actually on TV because I don't have cable, but that's besides the point. I was watching this guy who is auditioning on American Idol and they asked him what he does and says, "Well, I didn't have a job for a long time but I realize I could sing, so I started a singing telegram business." That's it, in New York, which to be fair I don't know that that would work in every city because it's super easy to get around Manhattan and there's all sorts of people that wants all sorts of stuff, at all sorts of day and night.

This guy will do singing telegrams for marriage proposals, breakups, divorces, all sorts of stuff, and all he does is get orders from people and then he goes and sings to other people. That's how he made his livelihood, he took a skill that he had and he leveraged it for money. A lot of this comes down to your network, who do you know, who do you know that needs stuff, and who do you know that needs stuff that you can provide value to. You have a skill that you can leverage for money. Like I said, people will pay for anything.

Are you good with a camera? Are you good at talking? Are you good at writing? Are you good at drawing? All of those can be used to sell, all of those can be used to make money. Have you heard of upwork.com? If not, it's a great resource. It's not like I'm getting sponsored for this video, I have like 20 subscribers at this point. Upwork.com is one of my favorite resources for finding freelancers. I've used to be a freelancer, and I've used it to find freelancers. It is immensely helpful. You can state your rate. You can say, "Here's what I've done, here's what I do, here's what I offer." 

Honestly, if you have no experience and you've got no portfolio, then start low, start your hourly wages at like $10 an hour or something and move up from there. As you get better and better and you do more and more work, and people see that you're doing really good work, then you can raise your prices to $20, and $30, and $40 and $50 an hour, but it takes time and effort.

I've had a lawn care business, I've had a pet sitting business, I've had a dog-walking business, I've had a video production business, I've had a marketing consulting business. All it takes is recognizing that you have a skill and leveraging it for money because people are willing to pay for what you have, you just have to show them how you're going to provide them with value. All of this boils down to is your mindset. Are you in a stuck mindset, are you in a growth mindset?

One of my friends, actually the one who introduced me to being a freelance brand ambassador, one of the things that he says fairly often now is all it takes is whatever it takes. All it takes is whatever it takes. I know it's simple, and it's slightly pedantic, but that's not the point. The point is that it really does come down to if you're willing to do the work then just do the work. If all it takes is whatever it takes, then just do whatever it takes to succeed within legal limits obviously.

Most people just aren't willing to do what it takes. That's what it comes down to, most people are so comfortable with the way things are that they'd rather just complain because complaining is easy, complaining is easy. They'd rather just spend their time as they've always spent their time, and go out with friends, and rack up hundreds of dollars a month in bar tabs, or they'd rather sit at home tonight and watch another series on Netflix or reruns of a series in Netflix that they've watched a hundred times like me and the Office, and they're finishing their third or fourth beer of the night. Nothing will ever change unless they decide that they're going to do whatever it takes.

If you're serious, no one is stopping you. The only person sitting in your way of making more money per month and helping you get your budget aligned and paying down debt, is you. There's an infinite number of ways to make money, it's a renewable resource, but are you going to do whatever it takes to bring that money back in so you can send it back out and get on top of your life? 

That's all. But I'd love to know, is there anything that I missed? What other ways are there to make money? I know that you can drive Lyft, or Uber or whatever, but I'd love to hear from you in the comments about other ways that you can pick up a few extra dollars here and there every month. Let me know in the comments, I'd obviously love to hear from, you if you can like this video I'd be honored so that more people can see this video and I can help encourage someone else to do hopefully what you're going to do after watching this video. I'd love to have you subscribed if you're not already so you can get updates when I post a new video which will hopefully be at least once a week moving forward.

All I have to say now is that you can do this and you're amazing!