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Student Loans Stressing You Out? Here’s What to do

Student loans stressing you out? Here's what to do.Student loan debt is now over $1.4 trillion. Yep, let that sink in. The Class of 2016 (latest data) graduated with an average of $37,000 in student loans.

Student loans stressing you out? You’re not alone.

Student loans are a big problem for many people. They contribute to the delay of many life events like travel, marriage, kids, saving for retirement, buying a house. Aside from big life events, they can also affect your day to day, robbing you of the ability to have a greater quality of life that being debt-free would entail.

There was a strong sense of relief I had when I finished paying off my student loans and became debt-free. No, it wasn’t some mega event where rockets shot out and confetti rained down on me. However, it did feel good.

After seeing the final payment go through, I finally felt like I had a little bit more control of my life. More options.

Student loans stress out a lot of people. Destroying them is a long battle filled with ups and downs. If you’re feeling like student loans are stressing you out, there are some things you can do.

Assess the Situation

You probably have a general idea of what your student loan debt is. It’s the number you see when you log in to your loan provider account.

Seeing the number is a good start, but it’s best to lay out your student loans. Lay them out to get a clear picture of where each payment is going and what the current state of them is.

  • Remaining balance
  • Interest rate
  • Monthly payment
  • When they will be gone if you keep paying the minimum monthly payment.

A great free tool I found for managing this is Undebt.it. You sign up for an account, input your various debt amounts and interest rates, and it will tell you the projected payoff date depending on how much you put towards your debt every month.

Undebt.it lets you follow the debt payoff plan you choose. This can either be the debt snowball (lowest balance first), debt avalanche (debt with highest interest rate first) or your own custom plan.

The tool is free to use. It can be a great way to visually see your progress as you pay off your debt. I used and loved Undebt.it during my own student loan payoff journey. Seeing the progress I was making is what helped me stay on track and keep from getting discouraged.

Understand Your Federal Benefits

I graduated college with $21,000 in student loans. All of that debt was in the form of subsidized and unsubsidized federal student loans. For an increasing number of college students, this isn’t the case.

The gap between federal loan limits and college costs continues to grow wider. As a result, more people are taking out private student loans in addition to federal student loans.

If most or all of your student loans consist of federal loans, then you have many repayment options on your side.

Standard 10-year repayment: The most common type of repayment plan. You pay a set monthly amount for 10 years.

Graduated repayment: lower amount at the start, increase in monthly payment every two years. 10-year overall repayment term. Benefits of this can be lower payments when you’re making a low entry-level salary. As your salary increases, the monthly payment does, making it manageable for some.

Extended repayment plan: extends your repayment term to 25 years. The monthly payment is a fixed or graduated amount.

Income-driven repayment plan: monthly payment is a percentage of the total income you make.

The extended, graduated, and income-driven plans can be great if you’re struggling to make the minimum payments while on the standard plan. The downside is you pay more in interest over time.

Go through each of the plans and weight the pros and cons to find the one to best fit your situation. It’s all about what works for you and helps make the debt manageable.

See if You Can Refinance Your Student Loans

The higher the interest rate, the more you pay.

The journey to paying off student loans is often a years long process. If you have student loans with high-interest rates, consider refinancing them. Doing so could save you thousands of dollars over the course of your repayment journey.

One of the things I have wondered about my own student loan payoff journey is how much I would have saved if I had refinanced them. I didn’t have any private loans. They were all federal loans with interest rates of 4-5%. I did, however, have a big unsubsidized student loan with a 6.8% interest rate that dragged me down a lot.

I’ve stories of people being able to save up to $20,000 on their student loans by refinancing them to get a lower interest rate. This usually happens to people with a lot of private (i.e. high interest) student loans.

LendEDU is a great tool to use if you’re considering refinancing your student loans. 10 questions and three minutes is all it takes to find and compare the best interest rates from several different student loan refinancing companies.

Explore ways to pay off your student loans faster

Usually, this involves making more money. Finding ways to grow your income can be tricky at first. Start by identifying some low-hanging fruit. This can be taking surveys, using cash back credit cards, and cashback sites.

Taking surveys can be a good way to make a little bit of money in your downtime, like when you’re watching TV. You’re not going to get big bucks from them. In my personal experience and from what I’ve seen, you can probably make about $50-100 a month taking surveys.

Cashback credit cards can be really good. You probably have several regular, recurring expenses like groceries, cell phone bill, gas, rent, and auto insurance. Why not put those expenses on a cashback credit card and get rewards?

I have a Discover It Card that earns me 1% cash back and 5% in rotating categories. I also have the Ebates cash back browser extension installed so I can earn cash back on my online purchases. I’m able to redeem my cashback by sending it to my bank account or getting things like an Amazon gift card, which allows me to buy books (I love books!).

After you’ve implemented some simple ways to make a little extra cash, it’s time to step up the game. Look into how you can start and grow a side hustle that can yield you a nice little stash of side income.

Arm yourself with some knowledge to get going. Read books on side hustling to get in the growth mindset. Become a frequent visitor to freelance/side hustle focused websites. My favorites are Side Hustle Nation, The Write Life, and the And.Co blog.

Starting a blog can a great way to build your skillset and a side hustle. When I first started this blog, I had no idea what I was doing (sometimes I feel like I still don’t….haha). Along the way, I started to improve.

A blog allows you to gain experience in digital marketing topics and parlay it into different side hustles like freelance writing, social media management, virtual assistant, and digital marketing consultant. 

My first freelance writing client came about because the person read my blog, liked it, and decided to hire me to write content for their website.

Pick a Debt Payoff Plan

Debt snowball or debt avalanche? It’s a constantly debated topic about which one is better.

The debt snowball method involves paying down the debts with the lowest balances first. This allows for quicker gratification since you’re able to pay the debt off faster.

The debt avalanche involves paying off the debt with the highest interest rate off first. Mathematically, the debt avalanche saves you more in interest since you’re saving money on interest by paying off the highest interest debt first.

The answer? Whatever the heck works for you. The important thing is to get on a debt payoff plan. So many people don’t and just get by on paying the minimum. Be strategic!

Bottom line

Student loans stress a lot of people out. They suck. I’m pretty sure that’s something most people can agree on.

If your student loans are stressing you out, start mending the situation by taking some small steps. Understand your student loans, figure out their interest rates, see how they fit into your monthly budget. Take action and find different ways to destroy them.

Are student loans stressing you out? How do you manage them?

Dear Millennials, Learn How to Cook!

dear millennials, learn how to cook!Millennials and cooking. It doesn’t feel like a natural pairing.

Can you cook? Maybe some of the older millennials can, but a lot of us seem to have a serious lack of cooking ability. The best we can do is throw some stir-fry in a pan and call it a day.

To even get some cooking guidance, us millennials usually head straight to YouTube to watch the latest recipe tutorial. Cooking by heart has become a dying art. I also love a good rhyme…

This general lack of cooking knowledge usual makes us end up either eating some unhealthy processed slog or racing to the nearest fast-casual eatery. Chipotle, anyone? 

A 2015 Morgan Stanley study found that 53% of millennials say they eat at restaurants at least once a week, compared to 43% of Gen X-er’s or Baby Boomers.

Maybe it’s because it feels more convenient, maybe it’s because Chipotle is the ultimate love, or maybe it’s just to get that perfect flat lay Instagram photo. Whatever it is, a lot of millennials need to learn how to cook.

A lot of people think cooking and is a time-consuming process that involves a lot of tedious hard work. They think eating healthy on a budget is impossible. As with many things, learning to cook takes time and experimentation. While it can take some time to learn, it pays off in the long run. 

The benefits: you feel less sluggish, better mood, better energy, and you don’t have to agonize over constantly figuring out what to eat for lunch or dinner.

“But, I don’t have time!” 

“It’s too much work!”

I hear you, learning to cook isn’t some quick thing that magically happens within a few days. You probably won’t achieve Rachel Ray level skill right off the bat. Doing a few small things to start can help greatly.

Let’s go through some things to do to learn how to cook. So you can take your cooking skill level from kitchen clueless to organized prep pro.

Get Savvy With Grocery Shopping

Get a cash back app. Download a cash back app such as Ibotta, which gives you cash back for in-store and mobile purchases. Ibotta allows you to easily save money on groceries every week, without the need to clip coupons. 

How it works is you browse the app and find offers before you shop. Once you go shopping, you buy the products you selected and redeem your offers by taking a photo of your receipt. Ibotta matches the items you bought to the offers you selected and gives you cash back.

Once you reach $20 in your Ibotta account, you withdraw your cash and either send it to your Paypal or purchase a gift card through the app.

Make a list. Always be armed with a list when grocery shopping. It allows you to stay focused on what you need and limit temptations to buy extras. 

Shop at a low-cost grocery store. If you have an Aldi in your area, try shopping there for some or all of your groceries. Lots of people have mentioned the lower cost products Aldi has compared to other stores.

If you’re shopping at Target, sign up for the Target Red Card, which allows you to get 5% off purchases.

Buy more whole, unprocessed foods.

This includes proteins (ground beef, frozen chicken breast, tuna cans, cottage cheese, eggs, milk, whey)

carbs (pasta, rice, oats, potatoes, beans, apples, raisins, broccoli, spinach)

& fats (olive oil, real butter, mixed nuts).

Healthy eating on a budget. Greatist has a list of 44 healthy foods you can buy for under $1 each.

Start Meal Planning

You don’t have to be a meal planning ninja who spends all day Sunday in the kitchen whipping up 21 meals for the week. Talk about going 0 to 60 mph.

Start out by arming yourself with some knowledge about the ways to meal plan and foods to eat. This could include accounts to follow on social media, meal planning YouTube videos, and meal planning websites. Some of my favorite websites right now are Budget Bytes and The Minimalist Baker.

Budget Bytes offers tons of budget-friendly recipes and simple meal plans.

The Minimalist Baker offers a lot of meat-free recipes, which let’s be honest, is great since buying a lot of meat can end up being really expensive. Do some of the recipes even if you aren’t a vegetarian.

Great resources to meal plan:

MealPrepPro (paid, $5.99/month): This app lets you input the number of calories you need per day and gives you a big visual list of different meals you can prepare. Each meal includes the ingredients you need and how to prepare it. You can mix and match the different meals to create a full week long meal plan for you. Once you’ve done that, you can click to add all the required ingredients to be imported into your shopping list, which you can use when you go to the grocery store.

The app includes a color-coded graph that shows you what days you are preparing food and when you are reheating and eating. The prep days differ depending on how you arrange and choose which meals go into your weekly meal plan.

$5 Meal Plan (paid, $5/month): $5 Meal Plan is a weekly meal plan service focusing on meals that can be made for around $2 per serving or less. The meal plans are sent out weekly and you pay $5 per month (after a 14-day free trial). Each menu includes a shopping list of things you’ll need.

There are different symbols on each meal on the menu. The symbols indicate which items take 20 minutes to prep, which are freezer friendly, which can be made in a slow cooker, or in a pan. You can also prep and cook many of the meals on the weekend so you can reheat and eat for when you’re busy and tired on weeknights. For an additional $8 a month, you can get specialty menus for those on a vegetarian diet.

Invest in a Cookbook

Cookbooks can be a good go-to source to have when it comes to meal planning and learning to cook. You don’t always want to tap and touching your phone to look at the recipe instructions while you cook.

It may seem weird to get one nowadays since you can just easily Google a recipe. However, there is something to said for having a printed book that gives more than just the recipe. More work, effort, and description usually go into a cookbook. They usually go more into the food culture and way of life of different recipes, which can be great to read.

Some popular ones to consider:

Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4 a Day

Budget Bytes: 100 Easy, Delicious Recipes

Have Go-To Meals

These are the meals you can make whenever you come home exhausted, without anything prepared, and with a strong urge for getting pricey take out.

Have a list of about five simple go-to meals you can whip up for when you think of what to eat. Meal planning takes time to get into a rhythm with. These meals can be lifesavers to your budget and help you combat excessively eating out.

Think about healthy budget-friendly things like stuff with chicken breast, rice, beans, tortillas, and pasta.

Compile Your Resources

Some nice notepads and books can go a long way in helping make the process less dull and more fun. Stock up on some notepads, ebooks, and food containers so you so your cooking adventures can run consistent and organized.

 

Are you a millennial? How would you rank your cooking skills? 

A Step by Step Guide to Get Started Budgeting

step by step guide to get started budgetingThe idea of budgeting can be a polarizing thing.

A lot of people are put off by it because of preconceived notions and confusion about how to best go about it.

If you had mentioned the word ‘budget’ to me a few years back, I probably would have looked at you strangely and dismissed it. Because, hello, who really wants to sit down and do the tedious task of looking over your spending.

Thankfully, budgeting doesn’t have to be some tedious mind destroyer if you don’t want it to. It can actually be pretty fun to do. It’s all about picking the right system and tools that work best for you.

My first foray into budgeting came when I was 18 and in my first year of college. I was working a lowly food prep position at McDonald’s and trying to figure how my money kept vanishing into thin air.

So, I downloaded the free budgeting tool Mint and got to work tracking my spending within the service. Suddenly for the first time, I was able to monitor my transactions while making goals and assigning set amounts to different spending categories.

It was kind of like a game of sorts. Being able to see how savvy I could get by staying within my set amounts for spending categories. The most prominent one being the food and groceries category, because let’s be honest, that one was a chaotic mess of late night drive-throughs, takeaway coffee, and one too many pizza deliveries.

Mint was cool but over the years, I started to want something more. To see what else was out there. Through some trial and error, I started to find my groove with budgeting.

So far, its led to hitting some pretty sweet financial goals. I was able to ditch a blue collar job I hated, move abroad for a year and a half, pay off $21,000 in student loans within 18 months, and build up a good-sized emergency fund.

If you’re ready to get organized with your money and better work toward your goals then keep reading. Here’s a step by step guide to budgeting.

Start Tracking Your Spending

Do you know where you’re money is going every month? Not in the vague “oh well I think I spent around this much on entertainment…” but in the “I spent this exact amount on entertainment last month”.

It’s easier for your money to feel like it just disappears when you’re not actively tracking it. $11 here, $18 there. It doesn’t feel like much until you add it all up.

Tracking your spending combats that. It makes you more conscious of spending decisions so you can prioritize better on what matters most to you. And hey, maybe that priority involves buying concert tickets or getting a dog. It’s all up to you!

Everyone has different priorities but tracking one’s spending is helpful to everyone.

There are a few ways to do it. You could use an Excel or Google Sheets spreadsheet and input it manually. For online options, a free tool like Personal Capital lets you track your spending as well as monitor your overall financial picture.

Figure Out What Motivates You

You can’t start budgeting if you’re not sure what your motivations are. A lot of people falter with budgeting because they don’t have a clear reason why they’re doing it.

Think back to some big achievements you’ve done (maybe it was getting a dream job, hitting a fitness goal, or saving up for something) You probably had a strong reason why. Channel that same inner grit into your financial goals. You’ll have a much better shot at sticking to your budget this way.

Figuring this out can take some time (i.e. it’s not something you can sit down and do within a half hour). Think about your ‘why’ during moments when you’re getting ready for bed, taking a shower, or other idle moments.

To help you stay motivated, employ some of the tips below:

  • Figure out a plan for what to do when temptation arises
  • Enlist friends help by telling them your motivations
  • Use visual reminders (whiteboards are good for this!)
  • Surround Yourself with disciplined people (personal finance facebook groups can be great for this!)

Create Financial Goals

The main purposes of a budget are to help you become mindful of your spending as well as helping you reach your financial goals in a more organized and strategic manner.

No more wingin’ it and hoping for the best. The stuff that gets measured gets improved.

Think about what financial goals you want to accomplish. These could include:

These are typical goals that people often have in common. Don’t forget to think about other goals you may have. These could include saving up for a new computer, education expenses, a new phone you want, books, or any number of things.

Think of both short-term and long-term goals you would like to hit. Make sure to look at what you value as you commit to your financial goals.

If you’re a movie buff who loves going to the cinema every week to see the latest, then cutting out going to the movies isn’t going to go over well. Cut back in other areas and brainstorm ways to do things cheaper. If you like to eat out a lot then download an app like MealPrepPro. Use something like MoviePass if you see a lot of movies.

Get small and specific with the goal. For example, saving for retirement is boring. Saving for retirement so you won’t have to live on $1,200 a month and eat beans and rice for every meal is better. You feel me? Good.

Studies show that setting small goals and checking them off motivates us to accomplish those big hairy audacious goals (BHAG) like paying off student loans or saving for something big.

Ask yourself:

  • Why exactly do I want to achieve this goal?
  • How will my life look differently by achieving this goal?

Select a budget system

Envelope method: Revolves around using cash only. You withdraw the amount of money you need for the month, put it in envelopes, and then once the money inside the envelope is gone, that’s it. You have to wait until the next month starts before spending in that category again.

Zero Sum budget: You give every dollar a job. Your budget should be zero at the end of the month. This budgeting style can help if you have a habit of mindlessly spending money on things once you pay all of your expenses.  

The awesome book, Zero Down Your Debt goes more into this. The authors used this budgeting method to help them get out of $50,000 of debt and go on to work for themselves.

50-20-30 budget: A percentage based system where 50% goes to your needs, 20% goes to your savings and debt repayments, and 30% goes to your wants.

Category budget: You assign amounts to different categories and aim to keep spending under that amount.

Choose your tools

I’ve used a selection of different tools in my budgeting journey. As I mentioned at the start of this post, I started using Mint when I was 18 and in my first year of college. For simplicity, pen and paper have also been used.

The pen and paper method didn’t work for me too well since it was completely manual. Sometimes life would get busy and I would totally forget to write down my spending. Using an online service like Mint really helped keep me on track. Currently, I’m on a free trial of You Need a Budget (YNAB) and seeing how I like it. Testing things out for the win! 🙂

Below are some different tools you can use to budget.

Pen and paper: Simplicity sometimes beats the rest. If you like writing out your expenses by hand and keeping track of spending and receipts, then you could just use a simple pen and paper or write in a notebook to budget.

Excel spreadsheet: Spreadsheets really make some people jump for joy. They can be pretty great since you’re able to input your spending and have it push it to the appropriate category and total everything for you.

You need to have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Alternatively, some budget spreadsheets also work in Google Sheets (the free excel alternative).

Mint: Mint is that popular budgeting tool you’ve probably heard about countless times, but never really learned more about. Lots of people use it because it’s a free cloud-based service (rather than remember where you put your excel spreadsheet on your computer.) that is simple to use and categorizes your spending. 

You connect your bank account and set goals for your finances. Sign up for a free account. 

YNAB: You Need a Budget is similar to Mint, but it employs the specific approach of building a zero-sum budget and giving every dollar a job. It allows you to set goals, track your progress, see your spending trends over the long term and teaches you to live on your income from the last month. You budget based on what you have already earned.

It’s a paid tool that costs $6.99/month. A free 34-day trial is offered. Judging by some Reddit threads and online comments, a lot of people swear by YNAB and its many benefits compared to Mint. Sign up here. 

Personal Capital: This free financial planning tool allows you to budget and also monitor your net worth. You can get a full picture of your financial life by syncing your bank accounts along with your investment accounts and any assets or liabilities you have.

Sign up for a free account and get started with monitoring your spending, savings rate, and being able to monitor your overall net worth.

Whew! A lot to go through to build a budget. It’s all worth it though. Going through the steps listed and you’ll be well on your way to building a budget that works for you.

Budgeting isn’t about restricting yourself. It’s about giving your money a plan. As with a lot of things in life, budgeting doesn’t come without making a few mistakes here and there. Use this step by step budgeting guide and experiment based what works for you.

Forgive yourself, break down your goals, and create some daily actions. It’s how you get successful with budgeting. Let me know how it goes!

How did you get started budgeting? What tactics and tools worked best for you? 

How to Build a Mini Emergency Fund While on a Small Income

how to build a mini emergency fund on a small income

Being financially prepared for when an emergency strikes is important. Life happens. Things break. The last thing you want to be doing is having to put an unexpected expense on a credit card with 20% interest.

Emergency funds are essential. They give you peace of mind when something pops up. They keep you from that crippling situation of feeling stuck and without options.

Now, there are two big things to know when it comes to emergency funds. They’re really hard to build and people often underestimate how much they need in one.

For the longest time, I couldn’t really master the concept of emergency funds. I understood the essential nature of them but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to properly build one.

It seems pretty self-explanatory at first sight. You save money out of each paycheck, put it in your savings account and BOOM! A nice little cash fund you can use as your for rainy days (or more like raging storms).

Although I never felt successful in my efforts towards building and maintaining one. Back in college, I would routinely skim a little off the top whenever I was feeling a late night supermarket run. As I worked first post-grad job, I would use the account as a catch-all for vacations, emergencies, and any other savings goals. Whenever an actual emergency happened and I used the money from the fund, I would get unmotivated since my savings were set back.

It was a beautiful mess. Beautiful in the sense that my emergency fund account had an assortment of ~wonderful~ nicknames I changed whenever the mood struck (cash by senseless, dollars in vogue, etc). Mess in the sense that I didn’t have a consistent savings habit that helped my emergency fund stay strong, no matter how much I was making.

Let’s face it. When you’re in your twenties, building an emergency fund can be especially hard. You have to deal with several savings goals like student loan repayment, car payment, house downpayment, weddings (yours or attending friends) and the generally high cost of living that comes with living in a major city.

Saving the recommended 3-6 months of expenses is freaking hard. However, I’ve learned that having a small and growing emergency fund is better than no emergency fund. Given that I’ve had an emergency fund throughout several periods of my life (broke college student making minimum wage, recent grad making entry level, and working professional making $1200 a month) I’ve learned some things about how to build an emergency fund while on a small income.

Negotiate Your Bills

Auto insurance is such a pain. When I would look at my statement every six months, it would give me aches with how much I was paying. If I had paid attention to the latest television infomercial, I would have immediately canceled my plan and gone for one of those seemingly sketchy places that advertise for “low low low” auto insurance costs.

I like my auto insurance (USAA), so instead of choosing between a sketchy place or continuing to pay what I was paying, I called them up. I chatted with the customer service team about how I was thinking about leaving. After not too much time, I was able to get a lower rate! My record of not having any recent accidents or traffic violations probably helped, but it never hurts to call and ask.

There are four bills off the top of my head that you could negotiate: auto insurance, internet/cable bill, cell phone bill, and student loans.

Internet providers are infamous for raising your rates after a one-year period. Call up and ask about promotional offers. Check out lower cost cell phone providers like Cricket Wireless or Republic Wireless.

I pay $40 a month for my Cricket Wireless service, which uses AT&T’s network, for unlimited talk/text and 5GB of data.

If you have a lot of private student loans, consider the option of refinancing. Check out LendEDU for refinancing options.

Track Your Spending

You may think you’re “good with money” because you don’t do common money trappings like subscribing to cable or eating out a lot. Bar hopping isn’t your kind of thing and you’re loyal to your Keurig coffee maker, so buying lattes all the time isn’t even a thought.

Status level: responsible. Right?

Well, not completely. If you’re not tracking your spending, you can never get a full picture of your financial situation. Tracking your spending helps you uncover money leaks, unnecessary fees you may be paying, and areas to trim.

There are a few ways to do this.

Notebook

Mint

Personal Capital

A notebook is pretty self-explanatory. You write down your purchases and at the end of the month, tally it up. Mint is a free money management platform that lets you track your cash flow and expenses.

Personal Capital is a free money management platform, similar to Mint, but with a lot more features. Some describe it as “Mint on steroids”. With it, you’re able to not only track your income and spending but also your investment accounts and net worth. There is a financial planning tool within the service as well.

You can sign up for a free Personal Capital account. Seeing the visualizations of your cash flow and investments can really help you stay motivated towards your goals.

Once you start tracking your spending, you could see areas where $5 here or $10 there goes. It may seem small, but small progress is better than no progress.

Create a Separate Savings Account

Having your savings account parked right alongside your checking account at the same bank isn’t the option when building a mini emergency fund on a small income.

Several months ago I opened an online savings account with Ally Bank. My savings account earns an interest rate of 1.25% APY. This is 125x the interest rate that my old savings account was at a traditional brick and mortar big bank.

Ally Bank even has a calculator where you can see how much more money your savings account earns in interest being at Ally versus other traditional banks. You won’t get rich off of a 1.25% APY but it’s sure as heck a lot better than the 0.01% your savings account is probably earning right now.

Aside from the interest rate, having your savings account at a different bank keeps you from being tempted to dip into your savings during non-emergencies. When you can’t see the money constantly, you’re less tempted to spend it.

Look for Additional Income Streams

When you’re building an emergency fund while on a small income, there comes a point when you can’t cut back anymore. You have to grow the gap between your income and expenses by looking for ways to make extra money.

You could look into different side hustles and part-time jobs. Part-time jobs could include things like waiting tables, working at a grocery store, Amazon Flex, and other jobs where you have to be at a place at a set time and for a set number of hours.

A side hustle is different than a part-time job. Usually, it has some flexibility to it. There are short-tail side hustles and long-tail side hustles. Short-tail ones allow you to get up and running and start earning relatively quickly, these could include driving for a rideshare service like Lyft, babysitting, or doing deliveries.

Babysitting (Use Care.com and ask around in your area)

Dog walking/pet sitting (Rover, DogVacay)

Delivery (Postmates, DoorDash)

Rideshare driving (Lyft)

Waiting tables

Taking Surveys

Short tail side hustles are great for being able to help you build up an emergency fund quickly while on a small income. However, if you’re truly looking to expand your income streams, it’s worth looking into long-tail side hustles.

Blogging

Freelance Writing

Graphic Design

Web Design/Development

Virtual Assistant

 

Think beyond just what’s in front of you when you’re looking for ways to make extra money or grow your side hustle. The best book I found for getting into a problem-solving income potential mindset was Chris Guillebeau’s side hustle book about going from a side hustle idea to making money in 27 days.

What if instead of just driving for Lyft, you created a website centered around educating rideshare drivers on things and providing them with helpful information. Harry from The Rideshare Guy did just that.

Let’s say you do dog walking via Rover for a side hustle. What if you studied the best practices, learned what dog owners are seeking most, and improve your client list by implementing the things you learn. You could consider developing your own dog walking business.

Meal Plan

Meal planning is one of the best things you can do to cut down your food spending. A lot of people spend more than they need to when it comes to their monthly food budget.

Meal planning is often thought of as tedious and time-consuming. While it isn’t the simplest thing to do, it is far less complicated than people make it out to be. Sites like The Minimalist Baker and Budget Bytes provide a lot of healthy, simple, and budget-friendly meals you can try.

$5 Meal Plan is a meal planning service you can look into If you’re looking for simple, weekly meal plans. If you’re into writing stuff down, get a meal planning notepad to keep track of recipes.

Building up an emergency fund isn’t easy. It takes some creativity beyond just cutting your expenses. Getting to the recommended e-fund of 3-6 months expenses can take a while. Don’t focus too much on that set amount.

Focus on building a mini emergency fund of about one month’s expenses. It will give you peace of mind and keep you from going into panic mode whenever some unexpected expense comes up.

Additional Things to Try

Ebates: Use the cashback site Ebates for when you shop online. Ebates allows you to earn cash back when you shop through their portal at more than 1200 stores. When you sign up for Ebates, you’ll get $10 bonus after making your first purchase.

Ibotta: Use Ibotta to earn cash back on purchases you make in store. Get a $10 bonus when you sign up and make a purchase.

Utilize water more often: Pre-made and single-serve drinks can add up to so much money after a while. Not only that, but they’re usually loaded with a lot of sugar. Use the water from your sink and buy some low-cost drinker flavorings, ice tea mix, Crystal Light, or Kool Aid. 

How To Develop a Money Mindset

how to develop a money mindset

Note: This is a guest post written by Jacob of Dollar Diligence. 

Having a financial background is always beneficial when it comes to managing your money, but you do not have to have a financial background to be able to handle your expenses.

In fact, I did not have a solid financial background or any type of economics training when I finally decided to tackle and pay off my student loan debt.

I just did it.

In this post, I want to share some tips about becoming financially savvy. I want you to be able to benefit from the advice and I want you to feel confident in your ability to manage your finances and break up with your debt, if you have it.

Don’t Give in to Your Wants

It can be easy to want, want, want, especially when the newest TV hits the shelves or when the latest phone is ready for purchase. Yes, we all want these items, but we do not need them. In fact, that TV you have in your home probably works just fine and your phone does exactly what it is supposed to.

While it is okay to indulge a bit, you do not want to overspend or overindulge. You need to learn how to be frugal. If you do, you will quickly find that you run out of money and you do not have the funds you need to pay off your obligations.

Don’t Dwell on Your Past Financial Problems

While your financial problems from the past will still exist, there is no reason to dwell on them and doing this will only cause you more financial stress. It is important to stop the habits that caused your financial decline in the first place, but they do not have to rule your life. You should take a step back and look at the whole picture. This way, you can determine what you need to do differently and how to do it.

You want to learn from the mistakes you made and avoid doing it again.

For example, maybe you used a credit card incorrectly and racked up a ton of debt. Once you have the opportunity to get a new card and a second chance, don’t spend your plastic money wildly. Or, maybe you have missed student loan payments in the past, but are now finally set on paying them off.

Don’t fall into old habits. Come up with a goal, create a plan for achieving it, and don’t settle for anything less.

Have an Emergency Savings Account

It is scary to see that most Americans do NOT have a savings account and those that do often carry a balance of less than $1,000. What happens if you were to lose your job or you were to experience a serious disaster. Most people would have nowhere to turn and they would be left in a serious bind.

It is important for you to make sure you plan for your future and that you start an emergency savings fund. Most experts recommend that you have three to six months worth of bills and expenses saved up in case something was to happen.

If you decide to follow the six-month plan, how much would you need to have in your savings account? For example, if your monthly expenses are $2,300, then you would need to have $13,800 in your emergency savings fund to cover you for six months.

Invest

Do not take a backseat approach to investments or a retirement account. It is important that you have these because you will need them, especially if you plan to retire in your life. IRAs and 401Ks will allow you to start a nice retirement fund and you can even double your savings should your employer offer a plan that matches the amount you contribute.

Experts say that if you wait to invest in your retirement account then you will need to save a minimum of half of your paycheck by the time you are 40. Most people will NOT be able to this and I definitely know I would not be able to.

Be Careful with Your Credit

You credit score is not just a score and it tells potential lenders and creditors how well they can trust you to pay your obligations. If you have a poor credit score, you will find it is difficult to take out an auto loan or mortgage, be approved for student loan refinancing, or even rent an apartment.

Credit cards, late payments, and loans all affect your credit score, so if you plan to take out any loans or borrow any money, then you need to be responsible with it. Too many late payments can affect your score as well and it is HARD to recover once your score takes a nosedive.

Don’t Give Up – You’ll Get There

The most important thing to keep in mind is to keep going and not to give up. I was able to pay off $25,000 in just 15 months. I never thought it possible, but it was and I know that you can develop the mindset to pay down your debt as well. You do not have to be a financial wizard to free yourself from the chains of debt.

What has your journey been towards becoming financially savvy? How did you develop a money mindset?

Jacob is a high school math teacher by day and personal finance blogger by night. Follow his journey at @DollarDiligence!

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