7 Simple Ways to Give Yourself a Raise

Give Yourself a Raise - picture of back of couple sitting at beach

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Would you like more money in your pocket? Of course you would! Whether you’re planning a vacation or saving for the future, everybody loves extra money.

What if I told you that you don’t need to depend on your boss for a raise? It’s true! There are plenty of ways to make more money without begging. Just give yourself a raise by creating new streams of income or making better use of the money you already have. Here are 7 great ways to pad your stash of cash right away!

1) Make $100/Month (or More) with Online Surveys

Yep, you can actually get paid for taking surveys and surfing the internet. Spend a few minutes a day taking surveys, and you could easily make an extra $100 a month (or more)… from your couch!!! This list of survey sites outlines the best survey companies that pay you in cash and gift cards. Here are 4 of my favorites:

Survey Junkie – Over 5 million members use Survey Junkie to share their opinion and get paid. It only takes a minute to get started. Just create an account and begin earning cash right away.

Panda Research – Get paid up to $50 every time you complete an offer, take a survey, or read emails through Panda Research. They’ll even give you a $3 bonus for signing up!

Survey Voices – Earn up to $800 a week completing surveys from the comfort of your couch. Create a free Survey Voices account, get instantly approved, and start earning immediately!

SwagbucksGet a $5 bonus when you open your free Swagbucks account. Then, get paid in cash or gift cards for taking surveys, watching videos, and surfing the internet. It’s that easy!

2) How a Balance Transfer Card Could Save You $6,900

Carrying high-interest balances on credit cards is bleeding you dry. Fix it faster with a balance transfer card.

Let’s assume you have $5,000 in credit card debt at 18% APR. You’re minimum payment is about $125/month. If you make only minimum payments, you’ll be paying on that balance for almost 23 years, losing an extra $6,920 in interest! By moving your credit card debt to a balance transfer card with 0% interest, you can make the same $125 payment, reduce your principal balance by $1,875 over 15 months (or $2,625 over 21 months), and save about $1,050 in interest ($1,430 for a 21-month card). Better yet, double that $125 payment and wipe out the whole $5,000 balance in about 20 months! That’s less than 2 years and about $6,900 in savings!!! Find our list of the best balance transfer cards here.

Free Tools to Pay Off Debt – Got debt? Try using the free money tools at Personal Capital to help pay it off. Track your account balances, net worth, and spending habits all in one spot. You can also use their free retirement calculator or find out how much your paying in 401(k) fees. These tools are simple to use and completely free. Read our complete review or get started here.

3) Save Thousands on Your Student Loans

Do you have student loan debt? Refinancing your student loans could help lower your monthly payment and save thousands on your loan. Better yet, take that savings and put it toward other debt and save even more! With excellent customer service and great rates to boot, SoFi is our favorite place for refinancing student loans.

4) Side Hustle Your Way to $3,600

Making more at your job is great, but if you really want to get ahead, try creating your own stream of income. There are hundreds of ways to make money on the side. You can even do it online. Start a blog, become a virtual assistant, or sell stuff on Etsy. Heck, we started freelance writing in our spare time for extra cash; now we make well over 6 figures writing alone! If the internet isn’t your thing, do some landscaping or try painting houses. Find something – anything – and do it. If you can make just $300 a month, you’ve given yourself an annual raise of $3,600!

Make Money With Your Car! – Need another idea? Use your own car. In just a few hours a week, you could easily make an extra $400 a month driving for Uber! Switch on the app, pick up some riders, and make money – it’s that simple. Learn how to get started driving for Uber here!

5) Get a $2,500+ Raise Using a Monthly Money Plan

The easiest way to give yourself a raise is by making better use of the money you already have. A monthly money plan helps you do just that by encouraging you to become more deliberate with your saving and spending. Think of it this way: If you can save (or stop spending) just $7 a day, that’s an extra $210 a month – or about $2,520 a year!!! On a $50,000 salary, you’ve just given yourself a 5% raise!!! You can surely find $7 a day, right?

To help you get started, I love this program called Tiller. Just set your monthly money goals, connect your accounts, and Tiller updates your progress automatically. You can even try Tiller free for a month by clicking here. After that, it’s less than $7 a month – which is well worth the cost when you start saving!

6) Save $1,200 a Year on TV

How much is your cable bill? Ours used to be around $150 a month – which is roughly $1,800 a year. After cutting the cord to cable, we now pay about $50 a month for internet (which we need anyway) and a couple streaming services. That’s a savings of about $1,200 a year  – which we use to pay for things like travel, retirement, and college!

Of course, the biggest problem with cutting cable used to be watching live sports. No more. Sling TV has solved that. With a free 7-day trial from Sling TV, you can watch live ESPN, HGTV, CNN, TNT, and more. So, now you can get your sports fix and save money too!

7) Save $200/Month and $65,000 on Your Mortgage

We’ve already talked about using a balance transfer card for high-interest debt, but you may also be able to save thousands through refinancing your mortgage. Let’s look at a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage of $150,000. When you refinance from a rate of 6% to 4%, your payment drops by almost $200/month. That’s about $2,400 a year back in your pocket! But, that’s not all. You’ll also save over $65,000 in interest over the life of your loan. Seriously though, don’t mess around. As expected, rates are on the rise so this option won’t be that attractive for much longer. Start shopping now by comparing up to 5 offers at LendingTree here!

Just Do It

Managing your money isn’t super complex. It’s all about spending less than you make and saving the rest. Try using just one of these tips, and you’ll see an immediate improvement in your bankroll. Better yet, use them all to supercharge your savings right away!

*SoFi Disclaimers

 

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12 Comments

  1. We just gave ourselves a nice-sized raise by transferring some of our debts to zero interest cc’s as we work to pay them off. Woohoo!

    1. Nice! Good work on that one. I should maybe add that to the piece 😉

  2. Refinancing definitely helped us. Our payment didn’t go down a huge amount — maybe $60 a month — and it temporarily added some money onto the mortgage. But we’re no longer paying PMI so $120ish a month is now going directly to the principal. Yay!

  3. Leona Werezak says:

    Finding ways to cut our expenses is my favorite way to give us a raise. I think of it as passive income–I work once to figure out how/where to reduce an expense & then we keep pocketing that amount every month!

  4. I’m a fan of reducing foolish spending and increasing your income at the same time. The best of both worlds.

  5. Starting a side hustle is such a great way to give yourself a raise. Highly recommend it to anyone and everyone!

  6. Greg, these are good tips. I save as much as possible and I do it first before spending. One that help me get a raise is really by getting more side hustles, which means that I can save more than what I do when I just have a single-source income.

  7. I enjoyed reading those tips on giving yourself a raise. One that I liked the most aside from having side hustles is keeping a budget because without it I doubt that anyone can be successful at it. Nice tips Greg.

  8. I love the idea that you can make more money accessible by taking side work or cutting costs. We refinanced our mortgage to a better rate a few years ago and I’m glad we did. The amount due didn’t drop because we also shortened the term, but now we are almost done paying it off, and that is going to feel like a huge raise! I know that’s not a quick fix for giving yourself a raise, but a lot of these ideas and similar steps is what allowed us to do it.

  9. We are definitely on the quest to cut more bills. We said goodbye to quite a few cable channels, and I’m hoping to cut the cord completely by the end of the year. We’ve already slashed several other budget categories. Once our cell phone contracts are up (what is this, 2010?), then we have to come up with a plan for that.

  10. I am currently doing two of these. I am starting a side hustle. I started a blog a few months ago and I am looking forward to monetize it by creating my own products.
    I also started using a budget. Rather than looking at it as a limit on my spending, I am creating buckets for my priorities. It helps me focus on my long term goals.
    Thanks for the great ideas.

  11. An easy (and shhh tax free) way to give yourself a nice raise is using credit card sign up bonus, specifically the cash back variety. Every 3 months or so you and your spouse can sign up for a cash back card and hit the bonus. Some cards, like the Capital One Spark business ($500 bonus!!) give some really good bonuses. Other cards, like the Bank of America cash back card ($100 bonus), have lower bonuses but also have low spend requirements and are easy to get approved for. Mix and match and you can probably squeeze a few hundred bucks every few months out of the credit card companies.

    Just make sure to pay your balances in full! Great post.

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