What is disposable income? It’s the money left in your account after you’ve deducted all the necessary expenses, tax payments, etc. As an example, let’s say you make £6,000 in a month. Your total bills and expenses come to £2,000, so you’ve got £4,000 left as disposable income.
Why is disposable income important? Because it gives you more financial freedom! You have more money to spend on fun things like holidays, a new car or home improvements. A larger amount of disposable income also makes it easier to save money – and you have more cash to put away every week/month.
Speaking of which, there are two main ways of increasing disposable income:
- Reducing your monthly spending or;
- Making more money every month
Trying the first option makes sense – everyone should try to save as much as possible – but focusing on the second is the best choice. Find ways to make more money on the side and your disposable income goes up by quite some margin. It reduces a lot of financial pressure on your life, so how can you do it? We’ve picked out a handful of money-making strategies anyone can try in their spare time:
Do some freelance work
Freelance platforms like Upwork serve as marketplaces for people trying to make money online. Doing some freelance work alongside your main job is perfect if you’ve got free time on your hands. You can join loads of platforms and offer different kinds of services. Most people think of freelancers as writers, but you can sell services like:
- Graphic design
- Digital marketing
- Social media production
- Music production
- And so much more
The benefit of freelance work is that it’s fully flexible and you can manage it around your schedule. It’s also probably the best method of earning a decent amount of money online. Finally – and this is the best benefit – freelancing lets you use all the same skills you use in your daily job.
Maybe you work for a company but run their social media platforms. That’s great; you can use these skills to provide the same service for other businesses, influencers or individuals. You’re having your cake (getting paid via your full-time job) and eating it too (getting money on the side as a freelancer).
Earn money through gambling bonuses
Did you know you can earn money through online gambling bonuses? It’s not the sort of strategy you’ll earn thousands of pounds with, but it can come in handy to give you a jolt of disposable income every month.
Start things off by finding good bonuses. Plenty are advertised around the web and loads of these bingo sites not on GamStop listed by CasinoGam will have great deals to try. Realistically, you want either of these bonuses:
- No-deposit bonuses
- Free bet bonuses
A no-deposit bonus gives you something entirely for free. This could be free funds to use in an online bingo hall or free spins to try on a game. You can turn this freebie into cash if you win – it’s not guaranteed, but you’ll either end up without spending money or earning a profit, so there’s no way of technically “losing”.
Free bet bonuses are provided exclusively by sports betting websites. You must deposit money and place a qualifying bet before getting money to use as a free bet. This creates a great money-making strategy that works every time. It’s called match betting and looks like this:
- Claim your free bet from a betting website
- Sign up to a betting exchange website (like Betfair or Smarkets)
- Place a bet at the betting website “backing” a team to win
- Place a lay bet at the betting exchange – this effectively means you bet on them not to win
- Use a matched betting calculator to see how much money you should stake on each bet
- Place the bets and you’re guaranteed to win money
The reason this works is all down to the betting calculator so you know the exact amount to place on either bet, ensuring a win is guaranteed no matter the result. Free bets are generally provided by most betting sites and you’re never going to win a fortune. However, you can comfortably get £5-£20 here and there – do this five times and you’re getting £100 in a day with minimal effort. Remember to bet responsibly and do your research if you opt for this money-making method.
Create a dropshipping business
Dropshipping is a popular mode of making money online. It’s where you set up a website – or use existing websites like Etsy or Amazon – to sell products. The catch is that you’re selling products made by other brands/companies and ordering them from said companies. When you put the order in, you get the products delivered straight to whoever ordered the product from your platform.
This cuts out loads of shipping costs and the cost of holding stock, saving money and creating a very good business plan. There’s a stellar guide by Shopify showing you how to start a dropshipping business if you like the sound of this strategy.
Sell photos to stock photo websites
Most people don’t know you can sell photos to stock photo websites. Companies and bloggers always need photos to accompany their content or web pages. Some content creators on YouTube also use stock images from time to time. They pay for these photos and you can earn commission from different websites.
Many exist, though Shutterstock is widely seen as the most popular. According to a FAQ on the Shutterstock support forum, you’ll earn between 15% and 40% every time someone downloads your photo. The more downloads you get, the closer you edge to the 40%. Other users report you can earn up to a few hundred pounds on each photo – which is fairly decent!
So, if you like taking photos of things, upload them to sites like this and see if you can make money.
Take paid surveys
Finally, you can attempt to make money on the side by taking paid surveys. You’ll find these everywhere as companies use surveys to help them understand consumer behaviours. They don’t pay amazingly well – you might get a couple of quid for doing one – but it all adds up over time.
Think of all the hours you spend doomscrolling on your phone after work. What if you spent some of that time answering a few simple surveys? They take minutes to do, so you could even earn a bit of cash while sitting on the toilet.
All of these ideas represent money-making strategies to help you boost your disposable income. Try one – or try them all – and you can start earning more cash to ease any financial burdens. This gives you more money to spend on fun things or save for big occasions.