The following is a guest post by Jonathan at Master Your Card from the PF Bloggers Personal Finance Blog Network. If you like this post, be sure to check out his blog for other great reads!

Five Ways to Make Some Extra Income on the Side

Who couldn’t use a little extra money? Plenty of people are feeling a little strained with their finances, and if you feel as though you are on the verge of just barely squeaking by, then it might be time to bring in a little extra income.

Of course, if you can manage to rein your spending in a little you might be able to avoid going after some extra income, but if that’s not an option then give some of these suggestions a try.

• Get a Part-Time Job
  Part-time jobs can be a lot of fun. Find something in a field that you enjoy. If you love reading, get a job at a bookstore. If you adore being outside, take a weekend job assisting a landscaper. If you have to get a part-time job you should at least make sure that you’re doing something you enjoy while also making decent money. You may be surprised to discover that your current employer has regulations against full-time employees taking part-time jobs, so make sure you aren’t breaking any rules when you get your part-time job. Either that or keep quiet about it!
• Become a Freelancer
  You don’t have to go work on-site at a part-time job if you have a skill that you can make money with from home. Plenty of freelance contractors make a decent extra income doing something they love – writing, designing websites, or whatever – all while wearing their pajamas and bunny slippers. A couple of sites worth investigating are Elance and FreelanceSwitch.
• Get Popular Online
  If you can create a website that people want to visit regularly then you can potentially make some extra income by placing ads on your site. This is definitely something you can do in your spare time, but you shouldn’t expect to make a fortune from ad revenues if you can’t commit a great deal of time in developing and maintaining the site. Building up a passive income online takes time and dedication, so don’t expect to get rich overnight.
• Do Some Overtime
  If your current employer offers you the opportunity to do some overtime at a higher hourly rate then this can be a great way to bring in some extra income. This can be an especially good idea if you really do enjoy your job, and you don’t mind putting in a few extra hours.
• Invest
  This suggestion is a little tricky because not everyone has a knack for investing, nor do they have the capital to really put up a sizeable enough investment in order to get an impressive return. There are some people, however, who do indeed make a nice amount of income on the side playing the markets part time. If your need for extra income isn’t immediate then this may be something you should consider giving a try. Just be sure that you don’t invest any money that you can’t afford to lose, and don’t go in cold - educate yourself first.

Unless you need extra money each month just to cover your basic necessities, you have the opportunity to make some money on the side while actually having fun and learning a new skill. Don’t go for something you’ll be miserable with if you can instead choose to just spend less each month by cutting back on a few ‘luxury’ items. Working a job you hate is miserable enough, but when you’re working it in addition to a full-time job you’re bound to get really grumpy, really fast!

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We were first introduced to open source software in 2005 by a cousin who works in the computer industry. He told us there was a group of people who believed that computer software should be available to anyone who wanted or needed it to freely use, develop and share, and that people had developed completely free alternatives to programs like Photoshop and Microsoft Office. At first it seemed too good to be true, but we soon saw for ourselves and have now been able to save hundreds of dollars on our home office computer. Below are some of the popular programs that we use or have used in the past.

Software

• Open Office
  The Open Office Suite is similar to the Microsoft Office Suite. There is a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), drawing (Draw), database (Base), presentation (Impress). There’s even a math program for doing math calculations, but I don’t really understand or have much need for it. You have a choice of installing all the programs or just the ones that you need - i.e. we just use Writer, Calc and Draw. While Open Office is not quite as fancy and aesthetically pleasing as the Microsoft programs, they are more than capable of most everyday and business tasks. We use the Calc program for accounting and taxes, Draw for drafting patterns for our dog clothing designs, and Writer for letters, invoices, coupons, etc.
• Thunderbird
  For email, I recommend Thunderbird, which is a great alternative to the Microsoft Outlook email program. Like Outlook, it has filtering, junk mail control, etc. You can install the calendar add-on Lightning if you need/want it. The Sunbird calendar program is also available as a separate program if you don’t use Thunderbird or prefer not to use add-ons.
• Foxit
  Foxit is a pdf reader similar to Adobe Acrobat Reader with annotation features such as highlighting, drawing graphics and typing text, and conversion to plain text.
• Filezilla
  Filezilla is a nice and easy to use FTP program. I use it for working on my Zen Cart and Wordpress sites, which is much easier than uploading through my webhosting browser ftp.
• The GIMP
  The GIMP is a graphics program and a Photoshop alternative of sorts. This program isn’t as advanced as Photoshop, but is probably competent enough for the average casual user for basic photo touch-ups or graphics. (We use Adobe Photshop Elements for our business graphics and photos.)

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