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Finding extra money in your budget without picking up another shift at work

Written by: Sarah | Original published date: Feb 25, 2022

In the beginning of 2021, I decided to set a goal to save $20,000 so I can say that I fully fund my emergency fund. I'm here to report that even though we didn't save $20,000 in 2021, we did save $11,650! I don't know about you but that's still a lot of money. I used to owe the credit card companies about that much.I can write another blog post about emergency fund and how I came up with $20,000. But in today's post, I want to share six ways you can make extra money in your budget without having to pick up another shift at work.If you're itching to find some space in your budget to get that new shoes or go on that cruise or maybe you're saving for emergency, I hope these tips helps!

Work bonuses.

I used to work for a big, nationwide company for a couple years. And every year, we would get what they called profit sharing, or yearly bonus. I don't remember how much I was able to take home but I remember one year it reached $1,000. Granted that I still had to pay for taxes but it was a nice chunk of money in the bank.At the end of 2019, I was working for yet another big company in the U.S. I was able to get another profit sharing. And because I was helping out with this work project, they gave me another $500 as a bonus.Instead of spending the money I got from these bonuses, I was able to save some of them to boost my goal to save $20,000 in 2021.

Commission.

I've always said that I can never work in sales. Because I suck at persuading people to buy something from me. And the pressure of meeting a sales quota would stress me out!But if you're good at it, I'm officially jealous of you.If you got paid commission on top of your regular salary, you can always only budget with your main salary and put your commission aside to savings.

Stimulus checks.

This might not be applicable today :(When we received our stimulus check in 2020 (and in 2021?), we decided to put the money away into our emergency fund instead of spending it. We were so fortunate that we're able to keep our full-time job at the time and able to save this check toward our emergency fund.

Tax return.

Doing taxes might not be everyone's favorite but it's kinda nice to get some return in the spring time.In 2021, we definitely saved most of the money we got from our tax return toward our emergency fund.

Selling stuff around the house.

Facebook Marketplace is one of my favorite places to sell the stuff I have around the house. I was able to sell two of my cameras in 2020 and instantly made some cash around holiday time.If you just go around your house and look for things you don't use anymore to sell online, imagine how much extra cash you can make! Not only you get to make extra cash, you also would get more space in your home.

Work from home bonus.

The pandemic kinda forced me to work from home and I'm so grateful that I'm able to keep a full-time job throughout. I started a new position in June 2021 and my current role is permanently remote.With a lot of jobs being offered remotely, a lot of companies offer work from home stipend. This was also something new to me as now I'm eligible to receive monthly reimbursement for my cell phone and internet bills.I've been redirecting this extra money toward my emergency fund.

There are probably plenty more ways you can find extra income on the side without picking up an extra shift or an extra job. These are just a few of my extra income I was able to "make" in 2021 when I was trying to save more money toward my emergency fund.

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