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| We make money the old fashioned way: we work as little as possible. |
But the good news here is that you don't have to be rich in order to make money. You can start out small and if you have the patience build up your savings over time. And I am glad to say I know of three ways you can do this without putting in a lot of effort. But like Mom always said, "If you don't work hard to make money it will be hard to make money at all." These ideas are for extra income.
First, let's talk about investing your savings in the stock market. If you're going to do this, the smartest thing you can do is to invest that money in a Standard and Poor 500 index fund. Oh, you have heard this before? Sure, we all have. But even though you may think you are the best stock picker on the planet, if you don't want to put any effort into making money in the stock market you really do not have to.
The index fund will make all the decisions for you and if you just leave the money alone for a few years the statistics say that you will walk away with more than you put in, even allowing for inflation. That is because you don't burn up your profits on trading fees and losing stocks. The index fund option is one of the easiest ways to make money, but you do need at least a thousand dollars to get into most index funds.
Second, you can blog about food. I am not kidding. I know a huckleberry Website where the blogger just tells people about stores and festivals where you can buy huckleberries. How much time and effort should that take? He is providing a service that doesn't take much of his time.
Writing a blog does take time but if you are sure of what you're going to say it doesn't really take that much time to write something. When I got the idea for 3 easy ways to make money I knew it would not take me long to write this article. And think about it. This article will be here for years. Just like that huckleberry blog.
People are always interested in food. Foodie blogs are all the rage these days. They can sell books, run ads, and also sell kitchenware, vacation trips, and more. There is almost nothing you cannot do with a food blog. If I knew more about food I would probably be writing about that. Unfortunately all I know about food is how to eat it.
Third, you can try investing in microfinance. For small investors this means you risk very little money and you can just check on your investments every month. That is about all that you have to do. You may be repaid with interest or you may lose your loan. The Kiva Website, one of the best known microfinancing sites, explains how it works.
Microfinance is not a miracle cure for poverty. In fact, research shows that microlending can hurt the very poor people it is trying to help. And it has also been shown that even when microloans do work the people most likely to benefit from them are larger businesses around the borrowers.
But that is not an argument against microlending. It's more a reason to set your expectations low. You can try to help other people with small amounts of money. And now some microlending services are working with small business owners in western countries, where they are more likely to be repaid without causing all the social and emotional harm that has befallen some of the poorest people in countries like Pakistan and India.
When you don't have much money or much time to invest in making money, you don't have to give up on the idea of putting your time and money to work. You just need to scale back your expectations and plan accordingly. You can still make money but grow your wealth at a pace that befits your ambition and your lifestyle.
