Surviving the Government Furlough: Finding Additional Income

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Previous articles in the series:  Intro, Slashing the Budget, and God's Provisions


Now that we have slashed the budget, it's time to look for ways to bring in extra money to supplement what is lost during the furlough.  There are so many ways to bring in extra cash, it just requires a little creativity and willingness!  Some of these suggestions are obvious, but others may spark an idea.  I hope this serves as a valuable resource for you.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you try to find additional income

Pray

As I mentioned in my previous post, begin with prayer.  Ask God to open up opportunities to earn extra money and be ready for Him to answer.  Ask Him to provide during this time, and trust that He will.  Never underestimate the power of prayer!

Family meeting

I know I mentioned this before as well, but come together as a family and brainstorm ways everyone can help out.  Perhaps the kids can pull weeds for the neighbors, or sell ice cream or lemonade to the community.  Older kids can bake and sell their creations.  Again, including the whole family gets everyone on board and makes it a team effort.

Spread the word

If you're looking for work, let people know.  Tell your church family, your community, your family that you're looking to earn extra money to make ends meet.  You'll be amazed by what comes up simply by spreading the word. 

Our neighborhood has a wonderful email loop, so I let our neighbors know that we were looking for work.  God provided, and continues to provide for us right here in our neighborhood.  My husband and oldest son have been providing lawn care services and staining fences.  My daughter and I have been baking and selling bread.  The convenience of staying in the neighborhood has been a blessing! 

Be humble.  No job is too small

My husband is a well respected Fire Inspector.  He has a great job.  He could easily have an arrogant attitude about what jobs he will and will not do.  But thankfully, my husband is more concerned about providing for his family than he is about pride.  All these small jobs have added up to making ends meet.  If we had just sat around waiting for "something better" to come around, we would have missed out on the blessings that have come from the work God has provided, not to mention the income. 

Here are some practical ways to bring in more income

Get a second job

This is a no-brainer, but sometimes people just aren't willing to work longer hours and relax less.  But in hard financial times, it's just necessary!  If your schedule allows, look for a part-time job to supplement your income.  Here are some possibilities...

Freelance writing - writergal.com and textbroker.com are good places to start
Proofreading - freelancer.com offers proofreading jobs
Pizza delivery
Newspaper delivery
Tutoring
Cleaning houses

Become a consultant

If there is a salesperson in you, try your hand at these jobs.  These are feasible jobs for stay-at-home-moms who want to host fun parties while bringing in additional income.

Pampered Chef
Mary Kay
Silpada - sell artisan-made fine sterling silver 
Young Living Essential Oils

Reduce bill payments

If you've got credit card bills, loans, or medial bills, ask to temporarily reduce your payments just until furlough (or your situation) is over.  If you have the money, then make the full payment.  But reducing outgoing money gives you some leeway, and allows for extra income when it's really needed.

Blogging

I'm so amazed at what bloggers can make these days.  If you have a love for writing, or have a special skill or talent, blogging may be a fun way to bring in extra cash.  When we were planning my daughter's wedding, I blogged full force to bring in extra wedding money.  Since then, I've cut way back due to time and other priorities, but I still manage to bring in a little extra money from the blogging I'm able to do.

Here are some resources to help you get started:
Escalate Network-Product or company advertising....earn money per conversions.
Amazon Affiliate-Earn commission on products people buy through your Amazon links or widgets.
Google AdSense-Monetize your blog with ads
Social Spark-Write blog posts for a particular company or product and earn money

Refinance your home

Depending on your current rate, this could add income by lowering your mortgage payment.  We were able to refinance when the rates dropped, helping to reduce our payments by a couple hundred bucks. 

Sell stuff

Anything.  School curriculum, book, clothes, furniture, toys, baby items, extra vehicles, etc.  Look around and find what you don't need or want.  Sell items on Craigslist, Ebay, yard sales, FB yard sale community pages, homeschool co-ops, classifieds, anywhere!  We love to take our gently used clothing to resale shops for store credit or cash.  Try places like Kid to Kid, Uptown Cheapskate, Clothes Mentor, or Plato's Closet.  Check your local area to find out if these, or places similar, exist in your area. 

I recently learned that you can sell scrap metal.  Seriously!  You can take your old appliances and a whole host of other metal items and sell them to recycling centers.  Check your local listings for recycling centers near you.

Sell homemade breads or other goodies

If you enjoy baking bread or other goodies, ask to sell them at church, work, or a co-op group.  When we were raising money for my daughter's mission trip to Africa, our church and homeschool co-op group allowed us to sell bread.  We made a few hundred dollars.  Currently, my daughter and I are selling bread to our neighborhood.  We may offer freezer meals soon. Maybe.

One of my friends, who is also in the midst of furlough, is selling breakfast tacos and freezer meals to her husband's co-workers.  They have brought in quit a bit of money, thus surviving the furlough.  Get creative and don't be shy!

Offer a class

Whether you sew, bake incredible bread, or you're a talented artist, offer classes in your home.  Choose a day of the week and come up with a price (which includes supplies) and spread the word via the Web or flyers.  If you have a special skill, there are others out there willing to pay to learn it!

Mow lawns

Amazingly, this has been our biggest source of additional income during the furlough.  I simply advertised to our neighborhood, and another close by, that my husband was available for lawn care services.  We received multiple calls, three with ongoing weekly service.  My husband and son have enjoyed working together, building their relationship while helping to provide for our family. 

Child care

This is always a good source of additional income.  If you want to provide childcare long term, you may need to check into licensing laws in your state.  But if you want to offer temporary services, give a shout out to your friends and neighbors!

Trade for services

My good friend, Kim, reminded me that trading for services has helped them while her husband is looking for work.  When I was preparing for my second home birth, my wonderful midwife allowed me to do some office work for her to reduce the out-of-pocket expense of a home birth.  This is an area where you can really be creative.  If there is something you want or need, offer a service in return.  You can offer a piano teacher with small children childcare in exchange for lessons, if you have a friend who works on cars, trade house cleaning for car repairs.  Really, sky's the limit on this one.  If you have a talent or skill, offer it in exchange for something you need.

Clinical Trials

Each person will need to decide for themselves whether or not this is an option.  But I do know that you can make a lot of money by participating in clinical trials.  Just be sure they are second round trials or beyond.  Meaning, they have already done at least one round of testing so that you're not a first round guinea pig.  Just Google "clinical trials in (name of city)" to find out if there are any studies in your area.  Here is a sample of studies and money to be made in our area.

Final thoughts to keep in mind

Accept help

Sometimes it's hard to let others know about our struggles.  Trust your friends, family, and church family to help in your time of need.  Graciously accept help when it's offered.  Don't be stubborn or embarrassed.  A true community is one that reaches out and helps one another.  It's the way it's supposed to be.  Sometimes we lose sight of that in our pride and desire to do things in our own strength.

Don't incur new debt 

This bears repeating.  Opening up new credit accounts or maxing out the credit card does not count as additional income.  It's just more debt!  Sometimes it's easier to just charge for your needs rather than working a little harder to earn the money.  I understand that sometimes life just doesn't allow one to go out and earn extra money, but exhaust every other resource before resorting to adding new debt.


Has this been helpful?  If so, please consider sharing on FB, Twitter, or Google+.  What ways have you made additional income?  Please share!

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Surviving the Government Furlough: God's Provisions Already

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We're a couple of weeks into the furlough, and I am bursting at the seams to tell you how God has already been providing for our family.  My next furlough article will talk about some of these things below individually, but as I was thinking about all the ways God has provided already, it needed to be its own post!

Earnings from odd jobs we've completed (no job is too small):

• Fence staining - $200
• Yard work for neighbors - $100, plus two ongoing contracts.
• Baking and selling homemade bread - $10 (so far...more to come)

Savings:

• Grocery savings - $100 - I was able to shave off $100 this shopping trip (I shop twice a month).  If I do it again, I will meet my monthly savings goal of $200.

• Airplane ticket - $100 - I will need to fly back home after dropping my daughter off in TN for school.  A one-way ticket was pretty pricey, so I watched it for several weeks, hoping it would drop.  It did drop finally about $40.  Later that evening, I decided to go ahead and purchase the ticket at the $40 less price.  To my astonishment, it had dropped again.....by $100 from the original price.  I bought that ticket faster than a hummingbird's wings can flap!

Unexpected money:

• Additional scholarship money - $500 - I received an email letting me know that Celeste's school was able to secure $500 more in scholarship money for her.

That's a grand total of $1010 in savings, earnings, and unexpected provision in two weeks! 

Praise God, from Whom ALL blessings Flow!

How has God been providing for your family (whether furloughed or not)?  Please share!

Surviving the Government Furlough: Slashing the Budget

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Read Part 1 here.

The first step in surviving the furlough is to take a look at your budget and see where you can reduce spending.  Our budget is already fairly tight, so this will require even more sacrifice on our part.

Thankfully, the Lord prepared us a bit in advance.  We knew the furlough would eventually catch up to us, so we worked hard to pay off debt.  Currently, we have no car payments and no credit card debt.  Other than our mortgage and typical expenses (food, utilities, gas, insurance, etc.) we only have two fairly large medical bills that we are slowly paying off (portion insurance didn't cover). 

Compared to the average family, we're in pretty good shape I think.  But we're a large family living on one income, so this monthly loss will hit us hard.  In addition, our daughter is leaving for college, so we will have ongoing tuition payments to make.  I realize this will hit other families harder than ours.  Some have lost jobs completely, and some may lose their homes.  My heart aches for them, and we are continually praying for all those affected. 

Every family will face different challenges and have different priorities during the furlough.  Our priority is keeping up with our mortgage, feeding our family, keeping the lights on, and getting Celeste off to school.  Everything else is negotiable. 

Here are the things we have already implemented:

Pray

Pray for God to show you areas in which to cut back.  Some things that we think are necessities really are not.  Depending on your financial position, you may need to dig deep to cut back.  Ask God to show you what is truly needed and what is not.  Ask Him to provide extra work if that is what it will take to stay afloat.

Have a family meeting

Our kids love family meetings.  It's a great way to get all family members on the same page.  Discuss ways that everyone can pitch in to reduce spending.  Perhaps a little one can be in charge of making sure lights have not been left on.  A family meeting also lets the children know that life may look different for a while.  Less activities, less eating out, and whatever else you will need to cut back on.  Including your children will make them feel like they can make a difference, and prepare them for changes.

Get rid of cable

Contrary to what most of the world thinks, cable is not a necessity.  You may think that getting rid of it won't help, but every little bit helps.  We only have basic cable for $19 a month.  However, by the time you add the taxes and fees, and the second box rental fee, $19 has turned into $40.  We will keep Internet, but cable is going bye bye!  We do have Netflix, and plan to keep that for the time being.

If you have one of those deluxe cable plans, you could save big in this area!

Cell phones

Making changes here will depend on whether or not you have a contract.  We have a TracFone, so we only spend about $30 every 2-3 months.  We only turn on our cell phone when we're out of the house, and we don't carry on long conversations on the cell phones.  If you have an expensive plan, try to reduce the plan if possible.  Usually, companies are willing to work with you if you explain your situation.  It's worth a try...you may be able to save here.

Turn up the thermostat two or three degrees

We are already pretty conservative when it comes to the air conditioner.  We are a 78 degree family in the summer.  But due to the furlough, we've cranked it up two more degrees.  Sometimes we feel a little warm, but that's okay.  We can feel a little uncomfortable to reduce our energy bill.  But when you think about it, if it's 95-100 degrees outside (we live in south Texas), 80 degrees inside is not bad.  We're good! 

If you need to conserve energy in the winter, obviously you would want to turn down your thermostat.

Trim the grocery budget

You can really save in this area if you tend to buy a lot of convenience foods or name brand items.  Even though it takes more time, making meals from scratch will save hundreds of dollars.  Create a menu plan and grocery list and stick to it.  Seriously, the amount of pre-made, pre-packaged food I see in people's carts makes me want to take them by the hand and tell them there's a better, less expensive way.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging at all!  I buy my kids corn dogs and potato chips.  If you can afford it, have at it.  But so often, folks can't afford it, but just aren't willing to do the leg work required to save money.  If you struggle to get meals on the table, and resort to convenience foods, maybe these tips can help.

If you're a bulk food buyer, be sure you're comparing unit prices.  Sometimes, buying name brand bulk items can be more expensive than buying the generic non-bulk items.  Just because an item is sold in bulk, doesn't mean it will be cheaper.  Check unit prices always!

We spend about $1000 a month on groceries for the 11 of us.  This includes paper products, toiletries, and diapers.  I think I can reduce this by $200 a month.  We have a small emergency stockpile of food that we can pull from, and I can easily cut out some things we don't need.  In fact, I just did our shopping for this two week pay period, and I shaved $100 off the bill.  I shopped from the stockpile first and came up with some of our least expensive meals, and created a new menu.  And then I just passed on some frivolous grocery items that I usually get but don't need. 

Here are some additional grocery saving tips:
Feeding a Large Family on A Budget

Potty train the toddler

This of course will not apply to everyone, but I added it because I had been putting off potty training Amelia.  She's been ready for a while now, but I pretty much just didn't feel like doing it.  Nothing like a furlough to light a fire under me.  And voila!  She's potty trained.  That's 30 bucks a month back in our pockets.  Okay, so maybe our mortgage lender's pocket, but having a roof over our head is sort of important.  Who knew potty training could be so life-changing! ; )

Make less trips in the car

This is another area in which we can really save considering we drive two large, gas-guzzling vehicles.  We try not make frivolous trips as a rule, but now we're more cautious about where we choose to go.  Aside from my husband going to work, piano lessons, and or bi-monthly shopping trips, we're pretty much sticking around the house.  There's plenty to do around here, plus we have a neighborhood pool, so it's all good. 

The best thing you can do is figure out what you're spending on any given trip.  You may be surprised to find you're spending more than the trip is worth.  You can calculate the cost of your drive here.

Reduce payments if possible

As I mentioned above, we have two fairly large medical bills on which we make monthly payments.  My husband contacted the billing departments, told them of our situation, and they reduced our payments by half until furlough is over.  If we are able to make our regular payments, we will.  But this gives us some flexibility if we fall short.

Whatever your bills are, call the companies and tell them your situation.  In most cases they will work with you as long as you are sending something.  Just be aware of your credit card interest rates, making sure they don't increase with that smaller payment.

Don't incur new debt

It's tempting to open up new credit accounts or take on new loans as a means to survive.  Don't do it!  It may save you now, but could put you in a worse position later down the road.  Years ago, we took on a Deed for Contract home.  It sounded like a good thing at first, but we quickly learned it was nothing more than glorified renting with all the responsibilities of home ownership.  So when our house payment skyrocketed and the air conditioning until went out in the brutal heat of August while I was 7 months pregnant, we turned to accepting credit card offers to survive.  It took us YEARS to pay off all that debt.  The blessing was, however, that we have never taken on credit card debt since!

Here are more ways to reduce the budget.  Come on back soon for the next post in the series: Finding Extra Income.

How have you reduced your budget?  Please share any additional tips you may have!

Surviving the Government Furlough and How To Do It

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Last month, my husband was given his official furlough notice at work.  As you may know, approximately 800,000 government employees have been or will be affected by a 20% reduction in pay or job loss due to budget failures issues.  For the average forty-hours-a-week person, this means a four-day work week.  (Which would be really nice if one could afford that.)

 

Since my husband works a sixty hour work week, we were nervous about losing 20% of pay.  That's quite a chunk of change!  Thankfully, it was decided that even the sixty hour employees would  also be cut 8 hours a week instead of 12.  It was still a blow, but not quite as big as we had anticipated. 

 

Eight hours of pay loss is still pretty steep for our large family already living frugally on ONE income.  And the timing of this is quite interesting.  Our daughter is due to leave for college in August.  She will be attending a classical Christian school that does not mingle with the government.  No government scholarships, no grants.  Celeste was granted a small scholarship, but the majority of tuition will be our responsibility.  And early on, we made a commitment NOT to take on student loan debt.  

 

Our mission?

 

To do whatever we can to make up the $800+ per month loss AND get our daughter off to college!

 

Follow along with us as we purpose to reduce the overall (already tight) budget, find ways to bring in additional income, and faithfully trust God to provide over the next three (or so) months in my Surviving the Government Furlough series. 

 

Stay tuned for my next post in the series:  Slashing the Budget

 

Will you please consider sharing this series on Facebook (or other social media)?  Not only could it encourage others struggling to make ends meet, but more traffic around here is potential income for our family.  Also consider shopping Amazon through my Amazon widget on the right.  I make a small commission on each sale.  Thank you so much!

 

Have you or someone you know been affected by the Government Furlough?