During the year of maximization, I have researched and tried a lot of different ways to make money from traditional blog collaborations, to writing e-books and other small incomes. As such, these haven’t created any main income streams for me like my salaried work, but they have brought additional small income streams that help me reach my gross income goal of 100,000 euros.
In today’s article, I will go through 10 strange – and maybe a little less strange habits that I have discovered and considered myself during the year of maximization. I’ve implemented some things, some I haven’t. The biggest reason for not implementing things has often been my own time and the fact that I simply haven’t had the time or energy to implement every additional income stream that the Internet makes possible in this world to a large extent.
Above all, however, the idea of this article is to offer ideas and tips as well as inspiration, because all last year I have been talking and writing about how each of us could achieve an annual income of even 100,000 euros, as long as we are creative and hardworking enough. It is good to remember that in addition to creativity, the limits of one’s own comfort and morality determine a lot of how money can be made, as is evident from this article and e.g. last week’s Iltalehden article or as Pohatta put it well in his last article.
As I’ve written before, the opportunities to earn money alongside work have grown at an almost exponential rate, and a surprising number of Finns earn side income in a variety of ways thanks to the Internet. There are plenty of stories about getting rich suddenly, casino bonuses attract players to try their luck, cryptos rise and fall tens of percents a day and there would always be new ways to get rich. Today, however, I’m focusing on those ways of making money, not all of which are necessarily so mainstream, but which each of us can take advantage of – as long as we put in the effort.
1. Sell stuff
As I wrote last year, most of the stuff we own is useless. If you don’t believe me, believe Maria Kondō – the inventor of Konmari. During my minimalist year, I noticed that even I have ridiculous amounts of unnecessary stuff, even though I’ve always lived frugally and most of my life on a student budget.
The easiest way to use this useless stuff is to sell it. When you spend a little time polishing the sales announcements, it usually goes relatively smoothly. I myself have tried to sell electronics and old Nintendo video games in the past year. I myself use Huuto.net for this and so far my experiences with all the shops have been smooth – at the same time I have increased my income for this year by several hundred euros.
2. Dropshipping
Dropshipping refers to e-commerce operations where goods are sold without keeping your own warehouse. In practice, it works, for example, so that the seller puts goods up for sale and when the customer orders a product, it is sent through another retailer or wholesaler without the seller having to keep his own stock.
Dropshipping is one thing that I should have learned more about this year, because in practice the limit is what is ready to sell. Aliexpress is often used for dropshipping, so it’s good to remember that the quality of these Chinese products can sometimes be quite rubbish.
There are many success stories about dropshipping in Finland as well, and I recommend googling it if you have ever been interested in starting your own online store. The world of dropshipping is relatively deep and, as always, most of them will never get access to the big money, but when you find the right e-commerce niche, things can surprise you.
3. Sell your own expertise online
There are numerous different services on the Internet through which people can sell their own expertise or services to customers. By far the most popular of these is Fiver, through which it is possible to sell graphic design, programming or, for example, content production services to customers. Actually, you can sell just about any skill in Fiver.
Side income can consist of several smaller commissions, but through the platforms it is possible to earn a living in the best case, if you have managed to become a respected enough expert in your field. I have often considered joining Fiver (if I offered writing services in English and Finnish), but I realized that then writing would probably turn into a job – and an even worse paid one. So I would much rather write on my own blog than on someone else’s blog.
4. Surveys
As I wrote a few months ago, it is possible to get a little pocket money through various survey sites. This is surprisingly popular even among Finns, which can also be seen from the popularity of my blog post.
Hourly wages remain very low when answering surveys, but on the other hand, you don’t need any skills or knowledge of any kind. So anyone can do these without any investment other than time. The salary here is significantly lower than in other ways, but it requires such a small investment from yourself that this is logical in itself. Free lunches are less often available – except, as I’ll tell you, sometimes there are.
5. Stumping
By running a blog, YouTube channel or social media account, it is possible to earn side income through advertisements or commercial collaborations. At best, various influencers can earn large sums of money by promoting products or services along with their content. You need an audience for advertising revenue, but in practice one of two things is needed to create it.
1) Time and effort
2) Good luck and interesting content
When I started the Self-reliance challenge in 2016, my blog was read by 2000 people per month and I made 0 euros with the blog during the year. Because I have spent time and effort on this and, according to the comments, also created good content, my monthly readership has increased fifteenfold in four years, which also helps in monetizing the blog. However, none of this has come easily and has required hundreds of hours of work every year for the blog.
6. Arbitrage betting and market arbitrages
As an old card player (not poker) and a lover of statistics, arbitrages in both the stock market and betting have always been extremely interesting phenomena in my opinion.
Arbitrage betting refers to betting in which such odds are found for two opposite objects that, regardless of the result, there is sure to be a win. In other words, if a match can only end with either team winning, and each is offered, for example, more than 2x odds, betting on either target can result in a sure win. You should always be careful with arbitrage betting. Sometimes, for example, it is possible that an object is clearly marked with the wrong coefficient, in which case the betting site has the right to correct the coefficient and return the player’s bet.
Arbitrages are also sometimes seen in the stock market, both in leveraged products and in ordinary stocks. Often, arbitrageurs are just a few cents per share in benefits. Such situations often occur, e.g., when a listed company is being bought off the stock exchange. All the shares may have been promised 12 euros per share, but the share is still traded at 11.5 euros, even though in practice there are no legal issues that could prevent the acquisition.
It is difficult to distinguish between such situations, because not all business deals are like this. For example, currently Mehiläinen has offered 16 euros per Pihlajalinna share. Despite this, Pihlajalinna shares are still traded at 14.5 euros – 9.5% cheaper than what Mehiläinen has been offered for the shares. Is it arbitrage, i.e. a sure win? No, because the deal between Mehiläinen and Pihlajalinna is under inspection by the competition authority and it may be that the deal is not approved by the authorities. This would probably lead to a clear decline and loss of the Pihlajalinna share if you have invested in the Pihlajalinna share at that price of 14.5 euros.
Arbitrages should not be possible according to economic theories in efficient markets, but since people make up the market, they are never fully efficient. Arbitrages are often small in percentages, but if you start doing this and researching it, you can even make arbitrage exploitation your full-time job with big money.
7. Write a book or e-book
Writing a book is always a time-consuming endeavor and it is difficult to make money with it – especially nowadays, when people consume much more audiovisual entertainment than books.
Despite this, I myself have a book / e-book in the works, because I love writing. I don’t think that writing a book is something you should do purely for money, but if you like to write, writing an e-book or a traditional book can certainly increase your income. However, I personally feel that writing is a vocation – if you do it only for the money, you soon learn to hate it. This happened to me at the time with my old blog when I was 20 years old. As a result, I didn’t write for a couple of years!
8. Invest
This is of course a bit of a boring answer, but investing is one of the easiest ways for anyone to make money online.
If the investment is handled smartly, the return expectation is positive and investing is one of the easiest forms of passive income. As I said when changing my investment plan, it’s good to note the difference between a company that pays big dividends and a company that pays sustainable dividends. A growing dividend is always better in the long term than a high dividend yield.
9. Creating a Niche Site
Setting up a niche site in English is one of my favorite things that I haven’t had the time to do yet. So the idea is to set up a page that deals with a very precisely chosen one topic. The topic must have been searched on Google, but in such a way that not much information can be found on Google. Thus, the Niche page can become number one in Google searches, which usually turns into euros in one way or another.
My favorite example of this is the page “Security Guard Training HQ” founded by the American Pat Flynn, which, as the name suggests, contains information on how to train as a security guard in the Yankees. The profession is very common in the United States, but Pat’s website didn’t have a page focusing on it, and the information was scattered from state to state. Pat did a lot of legwork (i.e. phone calls) to the state offices and found out the necessary information. He founded the page, put the information in one place and at its best the page made 3000 euros per month – without Pat doing anything to his page. All the necessary information was sitting on the page and people came there the natural way from Google.
The key to creating a niche page is to find exactly the right topic. In practice, the subject only needs to meet two criteria at the same time. The matter must have been frequently searched on the Internet, but at the same time, not much information can be found. When these two criteria are met, all that remains is to set up a page and think about how you can make passive income with the topic (advertisements, affiliate income, etc.).
10. Buy and sell
This requires butt muscles, but it works more than well – especially in electronics. One way to make money selling used goods is to buy products with, for example, various package offers from one seller, and then sell them individually at a higher price to another customer.
A good example of this was a friend of mine who had a lot of old PlayStation games. He sold the console and all the games for 400 euros. However, he had calculated that, sold separately, the goods were worth approx. 650 euros. However, he stated that it was easier to get rid of things all at once than one by one – saving time and nerves. He – like so many others – prioritizes time above money, but this also enables buying and selling at a higher price for those who can afford to participate.