Realistic Ways To Make An Extra $500 a Month

Extra money is always welcomed in this economy. Finding realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month can help tackle the rising inflation costs you are feeling.

If you want to learn realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month, keep reading.

In this economy learning realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month can really help with the growing costs of daily living. Seriously, it feels like it costs money just to breathe these days.

While you are learning realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month, you’ll want to make sure to keep the reason you need the extra cash at the top of your list. It can be discouraging to have to work a full-time job and still not have enough to live the life you want

1. Comb Through Your Bank Account Statements

The first step of finding realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month is to know where your money is going. You’ll want to physically print out your bank and credit card statements for the past 90 days. Seeing, feeling, and notating on a piece of paper really puts things in perspective and makes it real.

Combing through your bank account statements will help you identify your expenses and remove any unwanted subscriptions you have. Ultimately, this is the first step to creating a budget.

Identify Expenses

First, you’ll want to go through your statements and make sure that you know what each purchase actually is. If you are unsure of one of the items, you can usually just plop it on Google and see where the expense stemmed from.

Once you know what each expense actually is, it will be much easier to identify where your money is going and help you understand why you need to make an extra $500 a month.

Unwanted Subscriptions

These days it is so easy to accidentally sign up for a subscription if you’re not paying attention. If you ask me, it’s criminal.

Since I don’t rule the world, you’ll want to slowly go through your bank account statements and make sure that you aren’t being charged a recurring fee for anything that you don’t actually want every month.

Subscriptions can include physical products, like Amazon products, makeup, or clothes subscriptions to digital subscriptions like Microsoft 365, phone apps, or editing software. Sometimes you’ll even notice duplicate expenses if you used another email address to sign up for a digital product.

Take the time to cancel each subscription that you don’t need in your bank statements.

2. Create a Budget From Your Bank Account Statements

In the past when I created budgets I only thought of larger expenses and reserved a very conservative $100 for miscellaneous expenses, which covered my smaller bills >$20.

The truth is that those small bills add up so make sure you add each bill one by one to your budget no matter how small they are. This will give you a more accurate budget and a better idea of where your money is going.

One of the key elements of finding realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month is to stick to your budget. Only include necessary expenses in your budget and give yourself a smaller budget for entertainment/miscellaneous items.

Your budget is fundamental when it comes to finding realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month because it will help you understand how to manage your money better.

3. Increase your income

Now let’s get to the good part.

Once you’ve identified your expenses, gotten rid of unwanted subscriptions, and re-evaluated your budget, you may find that you don’t need as much extra income as you thought.

If you’re still short each month then you’ll need to find a way to increase your income.

Get a Part-time Job

To be honest, this is my least favorite option of them all, but simply getting another job is an easy way to increase your cash flow.

You can search for jobs on indeed.com and LinkedIn for part-time positions that work around your current work schedule.

If you are having problems finding a part-time job in your career field, you can opt to start a gig job like DoorDash, Uber, or Lyft instead. Depending on your area, these gig jobs are available to work around the clock, so you won’t be limited by your current work schedule.

This is my least favorite option because you are still working for someone and you’re putting a temporary band-aid on an issue that will only get worse if you don’t treat it correctly.

The cost of living is more likely to continue to increase, so unless you’re totally fine with working two jobs until you retire, I’d consider creating a more passing way of making extra cash.

Start a Side Hustle/Business

Starting a side hustle can be a great way to make an extra $500 a month depending on what you choose to do. Now is the time to start thinking about your skills and hobbies.

If you have a hobby like photography, knitting, or art, then now may be the time to test your luck on selling your photos, knits, and artwork.

You can use popular online marketplaces like Etsy or Facebook Marketplace to sell your handmade knits, artwork, prints, or crafts.

If you have a skill, like coding, editing, or writing, then you can advertise your services on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. You can charge according to your skill level, so don’t be afraid to start marketing your skill if you are a beginner.

Here is just a small list of side hustle ideas:

There are so many more great hobbies, services and skills that can help bring in an extra $500 a month. Brainstorm by writing a list down of all of your skills, hobbies and services you can/are willing to learn to provide.

Become an Influencer

Five years ago, being an online Influencer wasn’t talked about nearly as much as it is now. These days everyone is trying to leverage social media as an extra stream of income.

Influencers get paid by doing brand deals, affiliate marketing, and through social media funds. For instance, TikTok has a Creativity Program that pays influencers based on their number of followers and qualified post views.

If you want to learn more about how to join the TikTok Creativity Program, take a look at my blog post on it.

Being an influencer is a great option if you already have a large social media following. Even if you have a small following, you can grow your followers by posting content daily and building your brand. TikTok has millions of active users daily so your content will be sure to reach the people in your niche.

You can become an influencer on many social media platforms (not just TikTok) like, Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram etc. Once you create the content, it can be a pretty passive and realistic way to earn an extra $500 a month.

Invest in yourself

One of the most realistic ways to make an extra $500 a month is investing in yourself. If you are strapped for cash, now is the time to really start asking yourself:

1. Are you happy in the career field you’re in?
2. Do you feel fulfilled every day when you go to work?
3. Do you feel fairly compensated for the work you do?

If the answer to these questions is a resounding “no” then consider investing in yourself to either get a higher-paying position in your field or change it completely. While obtaining a degree or certificate through a college program would be ideal, you can also take hundreds of free courses online.

You can even put a badge on your LinkedIn profile to show employers that you’ve taken the time to take courses in your free time. This will show that you are dedicated to learning new skills and can work in place of traditional classes.

Investing in yourself doesn’t mean that you have to still work for someone else. You can take classes to build new skills to start your side hustle or business as well.

For instance, you can take a free course on web design or photo editing and then market those skills on Upwork or Fiverr. Once you build a steady clientele, it should be pretty easy to make an extra $500 a month.

Bottom Line

Learning realistic ways to make an extra $500 a day can seem like a lot, but try to leverage the skills and knowledge you already have.

There is something for everyone and with a little dedication, you can easily reach your goal.