Boost Personal Finances with Multiple Streams of Income

Whether you have debt you wish to pay down or simply are looking for new ways to save for your future, diversifying your income is a good way to get started. Financial advisers often speak about the importance of diversifying investments to safeguard them. However, it’s just as important to diversify income, particularly in an unsteady job market. Starting a home business or even taking online surveys can leave you with some spare cash at the end of each month. Even as little as an extra £100 per month can add up to a neat £6000 plus interest over 5 years. And the more streams of income you have, the more this will grow.

Identifying Income Possibilities

To get started with identifying and implementing new streams of income, it’s best to look at your time, resources, and personal skills. The ideal extra sources of income will give you freedom, flexibility, and be something you enjoy. They shouldn’t require a large initial investment or high level or risk, and they should be viable enough to produce a substantial amount of money. Finally, the ideal situation is to find multiple streams of income that generate cash passively. After the initial work that you put in, it’s best to build a system that will be able to function without your constant input.

Side Income Ideas

–       Affiliate Income

If you already have a blog, an easy way to start making money is to recommend products you like or place advertising on your website. You can do this through Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, or other programs from major companies. When visitors to your site click on ads or purchase products you have recommended, you earn a percentage of the sales in return.

–       Ecommerce Business

Although it takes a bit of time and effort to set up, creating an online store can be a satisfying way to earn money at home. Today’s ecommerce services allow you to set up a working online boutique in very little time, and without any web design expertise. The best programs will walk you through how to start driving traffic to your site and making money. You can choose to either sell products of your own creation; or existing products from a separate manufacturer. With programs like the Shopify ecommerce platform, you can easily enable payments and start promoting your new shop online.

–       Real Estate

If you can afford to rent out a spare room in your house or purchase a separate investment property, income from rental property is one of the best forms of passive income. You could also think about obtaining your real estate licence and selling real estate as a side business.

–       Freelance Services

If you have specialised skills but don’t want to sell products, you could sell your services instead. Graphic artists, web designers, and freelance writers are all in high demand online for business owners. Contact bloggers or sign up for sites like elance.com to start promoting your services and make money on the side.

This list is by no means exhaustive, so it’s best to think about where your own talents lie in order to find the best fit. Creating multiple streams of income is a good long-term strategy to help protect your finances against job loss in the future. Although they can take some time to implement, in 6 to 12 months down the road you could have a full portfolio of income streams to help you pay off debts and save for the future.