If you’re a self employed person or are looking at taking the plunge and becoming an entrepreneur, one thing you have to consider is how you will save for retirement.  Since you won’t have the option of a 401k, there are several other retirement account type options that you will want to think about using.  Among them are:

• SEP IRA
• SIMPLE Plan
• Solo 401(k)
• Keogh Plan

Today I want to look at what many consider one of the better options for tax deferred investing for self employed individuals, the SEP IRA

What Is A SEP IRA?

First of all, let’s get the definitions out the the way.  What does SEP IRA stand for?  When I first started researching the topic I was reading lots of articles talking about how self employed individuals were taking advantage of the accounts, so I assumed it meant “Self Employed IRA”.    After reading up on it a bit more I realized that my assumption was wrong.  SEP IRA actually stands for Simplified Employee Pension Individual Retirement Arrangement.  It is basically an easy way for small businesses to set up a retirement account option for their employees with minimal administrative costs or paperwork.

The SEP IRA is pretty much like a traditional IRA account, although it does have some differences, especially as it relates to the contribution limits.  The contribution limits for a SEP IRA are higher.

SEP IRA Rules

As an employer there are rules and regulations you need to follow when you open a SEP IRA.  Most of the rules that apply to Traditional IRAs also apply to SEP IRAs.  Among the SEP provisions:

• All eligible employees must be provided with plan benefits, and a separate IRA account.   If you are self employed with no employees besides yourself, it isn’t an issue. If you have employees, it is something to consider.
• Part time employees who are 21 years of age who have worked 3 out of the preceding 5 years, earning $500 or more annually will be eligible.
• Only the employer can contribute to the SEP IRA.  If you work for a company that provides one, only your employer can contribute to the account.
• You have until the tax filing deadline of April 15th to establish and fund your SEP IRA.
• Withdrawals from a SEP IRA are treated the same as withdrawals from an IRA account – with a 10% early withdrawal penalty, and taxes charged at your current rate.
• Only income from the business can be contributed – you can’t contribute money from your day job if you have one.

SEP IRA Contribution Limits

Contributions to the SEP IRA are subject to yearly limits, however, they are higher than many other similar account types.  For example, for tax years 2009 and 2010 you can contribute up to 25% of an eligible employee’s compensation, up to a limit of $49,000.  Extrapolated from the 25% rule the income threshold for a SEP IRA is then $196,000.

Example: Let’s say you make $100,000 a year and you’re self employed.  Under a SEP IRA you would be able to contribute 25%, or $25,000 to your plan.

No catch-up contributions are permitted for older employees.

Benefits Of The SEP IRA

There are several benefits to having a SEP IRA account.  Among them:

• If you are an employee at a small business that has a SEP IRA plan, you are 100% vested in the contributions your employer makes, right away.  The money is yours!
• Tax deferred investing!
• High contribution limits for self employed individuals.
• Easy to setup.  Usually can be done simply by filling out IRS Model Form 5305-SEP
• Less paperwork and administrative costs after the plan is setup.
• Flexible annual contribution obligations – a good plan if cash flow is an issue.  You can contribute 10% one year, and then 5% the next if you want.

Do you contribute to a SEP IRA as a self employed individual, or do you have one through an employer? How has it worked out for you? Have we missed any important details about the SEP IRA? Tell us about it in the comments.

This article was written by Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and loves reading and writing about personal finance. You can find out more about him on the about page or check out his other sites at http://www.quicktofit.com and http://www.logosforwebsites.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @moneymatters.

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Since I found out that I’m soon going to be a father, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to provide for my family in the event that I were to die, or to become disabled. A week or so ago I wrote about how I’m currently looking for the best term life insurance for my situation. I’m also looking into buying some good long term disability insurance as well because if I become disabled, I won’t receive life insurance, but I’ll still need to provide for my family.

Today I thought I’d talk a bit about long term disability insurance, how it works, what to look for, and what kind you should buy.

Before we get started, I thought I would share this audio clip from the Dave Ramsey Show. In the clip Dave Ramsey talks with a caller about why long term disability insurance is so important.

[See post to listen to audio]

Long Term Disability Insurance – Do I Need It?

In my opinion everyone should probably consider buying long term disability insurance.   If you were to become disabled during your working career, you will still have expenses to pay for.  If, however, you no longer have an income to rely on, you’ll be left high and dry.  That’s where long term disability insurance comes in.

While I was doing some reading up on long term disability insurance I found an article on GoodFinancialCents.com that quoted the following stats:

From the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, November 2005:

• If you are between the ages of 25 and 55, you are more likely to become disabled that die
• 60-percent chance at ages 30, 40 and 50 that one in a group of five people will suffer a long-term disability before age 65 .
• There is a 1 in 3 shot that before they age of 35, that will be disabled for more than 3 months during the rest of your working days.

Another study sponsored by the Social Security Administration found that:

• A 20-year-old worker has a 3-in-10 chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age.

The numbers should be a sobering wake-up call that disability insurance really is an important part of a financial plan.  So, where should you look for coverage?

Where Do I Get It Disability Insurance?

There are a variety of places that you can go to get disability insurance, and depending on who you buy it through your rates can vary drastically.  Some of the options:

• Employer:  Many employers offer a company sponsored group plan that you can take advantage of.  Because the insurance is offered at group rates you can save quite a bit.  The options can be limited, however. For example, at my place of employment they only offer short term disability insurance, and it is tied to employment.
• Professional Associations:   If you’re a part of a professional group or association, often they offer a discounted group rate on insurance of different kinds, sometimes including disability insurance.
• Independent Insurance Broker Or Agency:  If you don’t have an option to buy through your work or other group, you can get insurance through an independent agency or broker.  AccuQuote.com, Insureme.com and others have options that you can look into online.

Do your homework and you can find a policy that fits your needs, and that doesn’t break the bank.

How Much Disability Insurance Coverage Should I Get?

One thing you’ll need to figure out when buying long term disability insurance is how much money you’ll need to cover your expenses if you do become disabled.  If you’re already doing a zero based budget, you probably know what your fixed monthly expenses are.  Based on the figure you come up with you’ll need to find a policy that covers that amount.

Long term disability insurance plans are usually limited to 75% of your income, but different policies will have different payment amounts. Be sure to find out what your policy pays out, and if it isn’t enough to cover your expenses, you may want to keep looking, or buy additional coverage.

If your policy pays out at 75% of your income and you made $4000/month before your disabling event, you would then receive $3000/month from your insurance policy.

You will pay a premium on your policy that is based on your age, occupation, health and other factors. You may need to undergo a physical exam before a policy is written.

Many policies are also capped at a certain payout amount, so be sure to ask about that when shopping around.

Disability Insurance Elimination Period

The cost of your insurance policy will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is the elimination period.  The elimination period is how long you choose to wait before receiving benefits.  For example, if you choose a policy that has a 3 month elimination period, you’ll probably pay more than if you have a 6 month elimination period.  If you’ve planned ahead and have an emergency fund of 3-6 months as suggested by Dave Ramsey and others, you should be OK in choosing a longer elimination period for your disability insurance, and in return have lower rates.  Choose the highest elimination period you feel comfortable with.

How Is Disability Defined By Your Policy?

When you buy your insurance policy you need to be sure what type of a policy you’re buying, and how disability is defined b your policy.  Depending upon the policy you may or may not be covered for certain disabling situations.  Here are the different definitions of disability:

• Own occupation. The most comprehensive definition of disability, this type of policy pays benefits if you aren’t able to perform the material and substantial duties of your own occupation due to sickness or injury, even if you are able to do some other kind of work.  It’s a common misconception that this type of insurance always costs more, which isn’t necessarily the case (although it may be)
• Income replacement. Policies with income replacement coverage define disability as sickness or injury that doesn’t allow you to perform the duties of your occupation and typically stipulates that you are not currently engaged in any other occupation.
• Gainful occupation. These policies define disability as the inability to perform the material and substantial duties or your occupation, or any occupation for which you are deemed reasonably qualified by education, training, or experience.

Be sure you know which type of insurance you’re buying when you look around. Personally I’ll be looking only for a policy with “own-occupation” coverage.

When Should I Buy Coverage?

Realistically you can have a disabling event at any time in your working career.  Looking at the stats we quoted earlier in this article should really be an eye opener, I know it was for me!  In my opinion it’s a good idea to have long term disability coverage as soon as you start working, and especially if you have others who are depending upon your income.

What do you think about long term disability insurance?  Do you currently have coverage? If so, what kind do you have?  If you don’t have coverage, why not?  Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

This article was written by Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and loves reading and writing about personal finance. You can find out more about him on the about page or check out his other sites at http://www.quicktofit.com and http://www.logosforwebsites.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @moneymatters.

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Over the past year I’ve watched as Baker over at ManVsDebt.com has had a meteoric launch to become one of the premier voices in the blogosphere in several different niches. He is a recognized personal finance writer, landing a staff writer position at one of the premier personal finance sites, GetRichSlowly.org. He writes about his family’s travels as they globe trot – from New Zealand to Australia to Thailand – in the past year. His writing has been inspired, and lots of people (myself included) have come to enjoy his writing immensely.

One thing I know about Baker is that he is a genuine person, and his personality and real life experience really speaks through his writing. He has been open about his family’s own financial struggles, and how they rose above them.

New E-book Called Unautomate Your Finances

Today Baker is launching a new venture, an e-book called Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach To Money. The e-book has an interesting title, and one that I really didn’t agree with at first because I didn’t really understand what it it was all about.   I mean, I’m a big proponent of automating parts of your finances, making it easy and automatic.  Why would you want to “Unautomate” it?

When I actually started reading the e-book, however, I realized it wasn’t so much about not automating your finances as it was about becoming more involved and more intentional with your money.  It’s about making conscious decisions that you can sustain over the long term – focusing on your goals and keeping things simple.

Baker argues in his e-book that we have become almost too automated in our approach to our money.  Technology has made it easy to put little thought into why we’re making the decisions that we are, and because of it we often don’t think carefully about the choices that we’re making. The e-book explores why it’s important to simplify, focus and be intentional about our money, and then goes through step by step explaining how to do it – while giving examples of how Baker did it in his own life.

Baker’s writing is entertaining, engaging and and well reasoned.   It’s also sprinkled with bits of wisdom from the likes of Albert Einstein, Billy Joel and Tyler Durden. That’s quite a diverse group, how could you not love that?

What’s Included in The E-book Package?

Having launched my own e-book a couple of weeks ago I know how much work goes into creating one, and Baker really has outdone himself with all of the materials included in this package.  From his site – these things are included:

• A comprehensive 83-page eBook, featuring “The Unautomation Theory”, “The Science of Unautomation”, and “Applying Unautomation”. Over 25,000 words dedicated to providing everything you need to adopt a simple, passionate approach to money.
• A 27-minute video interview with Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. Baker interviews Leo on how he applied the principles of simplicity and minimalism to dramatically turn around his financial life.  Powerful insights from a leader in simplicity, blogging, and productivity.
• A 29-minute audio interview with J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.org, one of the top personal finance blogs on the web. J.D. joins Baker on a call to discuss his own financial recovery story and what it’s like now that he’s in the “third phase of personal finance”.
• A 2-page, custom-designed PDF version (printable) of the minimalist budgeting system discussed in main guide.
• A bare bones Excel template for those who want to take the minimalist budgeting system digital.
• Free Extended Updates! Over the next 6 months, I’ll be releasing sample case studies, FAQ’s, and exclusive interviews… for free!

In my opinion, even without all the extras the e-book is well worth the small price.  Add in all the extras and it really is a great deal!

I highly recommend this e-book from ManVsDebt, and suggest you check it out on his e-book page.    I do have affiliate links on this page, and will get a commission if you choose to buy through my links, but I only recommend the e-book because I’ve actually read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Find out more details by clicking on the banner below:

If you end up buying the e-book, please let us know what you think of it in the comments!

This article was written by Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and loves reading and writing about personal finance. You can find out more about him on the about page or check out his other sites at http://www.quicktofit.com and http://www.logosforwebsites.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @moneymatters.

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If you’ve missed credit card payments, or other loan payments consistently, your account may have been sent to a collection agency.  Collection agencies contact debtors all the time and try to get payment, or to pay off on the loan.

Some of them are fair in their practices and others are not.  Many of them try to get you emotional and scare you into paying.  However, fair debt collection practices establish that a debtor cannot be harassed by a debt collector.  If you’re being harassed take action by reporting them to the Fair Debt Collection Agency before doing anything else!

So, how do you handle a situation in which you owe, but cannot pay and your account is in the hands of the collection agency?  Let’s look at some tips to use to help you through such a situation.  But don’t use these tips in place of working with a qualified financial counselor or from discussing your situation with a legal expert.  Especially, if you think you’re about to be sued.

Take Responsibility

The first thing to remember is that it’s your responsibility to pay.  You accepted the loan, or purchased on credit.  It’s not ethical, moral, or Biblical to ignore this important obligation and responsibility.  Most people, who have the motivation to pay, even though they are challenged to do so, will come out with a positive result.

Organize Your Finances

Make sure your financial situation is in order.  This includes a well written budget, financial statement and debt repayment plan.  If you can’t build these tools yourself, it’s time to reach out to a trained financial counselor who can help you do so.

Don’t Run Away From The Problem

Keep in mind it’s never a good idea to run away from your problem.  If you ignore the situation, you’ll most likely end up getting sued for the debt.  So, the advice here is to be motivated to do the right thing and run at the problem to get it resolved.

Write A Letter

Even if you plan to pick up the phone and call the creditor, you should write a letter explaining your situation.  The letter can be used as a script for the phone call as well as for follow up after the call.

Make sure you always follow phone calls with a letter in the mail that states exactly what was discussed and agreements reached (as you understand them).  Always keep a copy of the letter and after you sent it.

Credit cards.com provides some great tips on how to write a problem and solution script.

Call Or Write?

Should you call or write?  Some will tell you to never talk on the phone with creditors.  I think it’s a judgment call based on the situation.  If the discussions can be productive, it’s probably okay to talk on the phone.  But if they become unproductive, harassing or emotional, it’s best to use mail correspondence.  Dave Ramsey often mentions you should refuse to talk to creditors that can’t have adult conversations.

Have Regular Conversations With Creditors

Talk often, but not too often.  Dave Ramsey says to don’t talk to creditors more than once every two weeks because your situation won’t change enough in that time period to provide updates.

Agreements with creditors

Get an agreement or a settlement in writing.  Never give electronic access to your bank account or provide post dated checks.  Make sure you receive the payment arrangement in the mail before taking action to pay.  You might consider having a lawyer review it.

Honor Your Commitment To Pay Off Debt

Stay committed to the plan. If you agree to the payment plan make sure you stay committed.  Again, it’s your responsibility to manage money wisely and if you’ve made the payment agreement, stick to it!

Final thoughts

What if you can’t pay?  You’ll have to make some tough decisions.  Most likely, you will need to get an extra job to generate more income, sell stuff, or even downsize your house to get back on track.

Money management boils down to addition and subtraction.  You need more coming in than going out.  If you have a lot of debt and owe creditors, you’ll definitely need to look for ways to make extra money.  It may result in less free time and more hard work, but it’s your responsibility to pay off the debt and get back on track.

Still, there are some situations which are broken beyond immediate repair.  Good organizations to contact in this case are Crown Financial Ministries or Financial Hope.

What do you think about dealing with or talking to creditors?

This article was written by Jason Price. Jason Price is a personal finance writer at One Money Design and a Money Map Coach. His mission is helping people achieve true financial freedom. He provides practical tips for managing money wisely and shares Biblical financial principles. Beyond personal finance, Jason enjoys spending time with his family and playing soccer. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Over this past week we’ve looked at a variety of ways that you can create extra income for your family. Here’s a link recap of the posts in the series thus far:

• Ways To Make Extra Money Series: Guide To Diversifying Your Sources Of Income
• Ways To Make Extra Money Series: 5 More Great Ideas For Creating Extra Income
• Ways To Make Extra Money Series: 5 Simple Ways to Create Income
• Ways To Make Extra Money Series: 5 More Ideas To Create Extra Income

Today I thought I would wrap things up with a few more ideas brought to us by our readers in the comments,  as well as suggestions given on Twitter.

If you want to add your own – as always – add your suggestions to the comments!

Reader Ideas for Creating More Income

Money Making Ideas from Twitter:

• Make Money by starting a local community website and selling advertising locally.  @mattjabs
• Sell old movies, CDs, books on Amazon. Everyone has at least 10 items they’ll never use again that they can sell.   @foreignersfinan
• If you have a skill like another language, you can try tutoring for local schools or universities (I’m fluent in German).    @lafoxey86
• Mechanical Turk will pay at least a few bucks an hour.  Was just playing around with it last night, it’s interesting! @ericabiz
• Think about stuff you don’t like to do and would pay somebody for, then offer that as a side hustle.  Dog Poop anyone?  @fiscalgeek
• Depending on how much soda your family drinks, there’s always recycling. Money’s low but it’s a good lesson for the kids. @ipickuppennies
• Tutor students in courses you did well in. People want to get high grades/pass and they are willing to pay for it.  @studenomics
• Sell homemade food. I used to sell homemade bread. @domesticcents
• Start a business.   A blog, a cake business, something u are passionate about & will pour time/patience in to develop.  @nodebtplan
• Submit to a site that pays for articles. @budgetpulse
• Can you guess my favorite way to make extra money?  @deliverawaydebt (as in delivering pizzas!)

Money Making Ideas from the comments:

• English as second language is huge right now with the migrations from various parts of the world. There are certificate programs you can take or you can do it informally. That’s a niche you can enter for no other reason than being able to speak the native tongue!   Kevin at Out Of Your Rut
• My wife has begun keeping kids in our home. I am starting part-time census work this month.  Ken at moneymakingsense.com
• If you happened to have a plow for your truck in the southeast this year you could have made a killing as much snow as we have gotten. Supply and demand was in effect and the demand for snow clearing far outweighed the supply of plows.  Kyle at SuburbanDollar.com
• I am commissioned as a notary here in WA, and when I was laid off in 2008 I took a gamble and started a full-time mobile notary service. It keeps me busy and is great income. I got additional training on how to close real estate transactions (I wouldn’t advise anyone to try to do it without that training) but if you’re already a commissioned notary or can become commissioned easily in your state, the “odd job” general notary work is great extra income.  Jessica at thepennywisefamily.com
• Last summer garbage collectors in Toronto went on a very long strike, my brother (a entrepreneur by nature) took quick advantage of the situation by setting up his own private temporary garbage collection services. Start up cost was about $700 and they made over $25,000 in about 3 months. Paid tuition for 3 years.  Ray at Financial Highway.
• A friend of my was able to make some extra money writing short scripts for a production agency. They ranged from 10-30 pages, and it was basically creative story telling. They gave him the premise, he made up the rest. Easy money considering all you have to do is come up with some stories!  myfinancialobjectives.com
• I used to have a thing for designer shoes (in my carefree days of high living off of credit cards). There were many pairs that I sold on eBay for about $800, but they were mostly unworn Jimmy Choos. I had a few other pairs that were equally lovely but I couldn’t get any interest on eBay, so I took them to a local consignment shop that only deals in high end merchandise. Out of the 8 items I’ve taken in, so far, I’ve made $250.  Danielle at thefrugallawyer.com
• My husband and I have turned my hobby of making hair bows for girls into a business.  bowsoprecious.com
• Amazon’s great for selling books, movies, etc. The amount of people on Amazon is ridiculous and when I sold textbooks in college I was shocked by how many books old and new I could sell.   Austin at foreignersfinances.com

Conclusion

One of my main reasons for doing this series this week, was not necessarily to give specific ideas and methods for making money, but rather to get the creative juices flowing and to  help you to find your own best method(s) for making money.

So often on personal finance blogs we focus only on the frugality aspect of personal finance.  But in reality, you can only cut back so much and you can only be so frugal.  My opinion is that you ignore the other side of the coin – generating income – at your own peril.

There are a million and one ways that you can find to generate income, you just have to find where your skill sets lie, what you’re passionate about, and where there is a need.  So go out there and start earning!

Have more ideas for generating income?  Have a sure fire way to make money?  Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

This article was written by Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and loves reading and writing about personal finance. You can find out more about him on the about page or check out his other sites at http://www.quicktofit.com and http://www.logosforwebsites.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @moneymatters.

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First, I need to say thanks to Pete for bringing me aboard Bible Money Matters! It’s a thrill to be writing for one of the very first PF Blogs that inspired me to start my own!

The ironic part of this is that I’m writing about a post to create extra income and that is exactly what I’m doing while I’m writing! As Craig mentioned previously, I too am stumbling into freelance writing – it’s a lot of fun, and a cool way to make a little side money.

So let’s take a look at a few other ways to create a little side hustle!

Make Money Doing Something You Love

This is something my wife and I both have experience in! My wife Jen has a passion for photography, and she’s got a good eye for it! She took her hobby and gave making some money from it a shot. She started putting herself out there by taking pictures of friends and their kids. The next thing we knew, she started getting some referrals and business started to grow!

She invested money back into the business by purchasing good equipment and we ended up building a studio for her in our basement! She loves it! She figured out a way to make money at it – and that’s the best of both worlds.

I am also trying my hand at the very same thing. I’ve always enjoyed writing. I was the geek in high school and college that secretly enjoyed writing projects and research papers! The problem was, I never knew there was a way to make a little cash from writing until I discovered blogging! Now I’m beginning to make a little extra income doing something I really love to do!

Sell Stuff On Ebay – For Others

Craig wrote about making money from Ebay in his recent post. I want to expand on that idea and talk about making a little extra cash by selling stuff on ebay for others.

I started selling stuff on Ebay a few years ago and was mildly successful at it. I had a pretty good gig going for myself until I ran out of my own junk to sell and didn’t really want to shop garage sales and thrift shops to find some deals.

What’s funny though is that as I began to tell people about my Ebay success, I had friends and family asking me to sell some of their own stuff for them!

I sold a few items for them, but didn’t charge anything for it. Looking back, I could’ve charged a certain percentage of the sale and been compensated for my time.

I had a good system down and a great rating to help. All I needed was the foresight to realize that there was some cash to be had!

Start Cleaning!

Ok, so this isn’t the most appealing idea on this list, but hey – it works! My wife and I had plenty of experience doing this as well.

When we first got married and we weren’t making very much money we used cleaning as a way to help pay off debt and get ahead.

We used to clean office buildings and doctor’s offices. If you know any business owners or commercial real estate owners, approach them about who they use to clean their places. They may be looking for someone new or they might be willing to give you a shot.

It’s nothing fun, but it’s a great way to get a little cash coming in!

Sell A Multi-Level-Marketing Product

My wife has done a good job of this a few different times while we’ve been married. At one point she was selling scrapbook supplies, make-up and jewelry and making some decent money!

The problem with selling these products is that you really need to either recruit some people underneath you or get some really great referrals to keep the pipeline moving because it’s hard to keep trying to sell to the same friends and family.

But, if you have a good product and you believe in it, you’ve got a serious chance of making some great side income by selling these items.

Use Your Expertise To Make Some Side Money

Have you become a guru in a particular subject that people are interested in? Are folks willing to listen to you on a certain topic because you’re successful at it?

Use that as an opportunity to sell your expertise. You can do this by holding yourself out there as a consultant, trainer or even a part-time teacher at a local college.

As I type this, my wife is down in Florida paying a photographer some decent money to teach her everything she knows about digital photography! I told Jen that as she progresses in her field this would be a great way to make some side money – by offering herself as an expert to train and consult with other photographers who are just starting out!

So what do you think? Have you made any side income doing some of these things?  Have more of your own ideas? Tell us about it in the comments below!

This article was written by Jason Topp. Jason is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) by day and a personal finance blogger by early morning. He writes at Redeeming Riches where he helps others Restore Their Money and Renew Their Minds.

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As I’ve stated elsewhere on this site, one of my goals for Bible Money Matters has been to make it one of the go-to places on the internet for personal finance information from a Christian viewpoint. I want to provide great commentary on money topics, and make this site useful, entertaining and engaging.

One of the ways I’ve been trying to improve the site in the past year is by hosting some of the best Christian personal finance writers from all over web on this site. In the past year we’ve hired several talented staff writers to write for our site every week.

• Craig Ford:  Craig is a Christian missionary based out of Papua New Guinea, so he has a unique viewpoint to offer on finances and faith.  His personal site is Money Help For Christians.
• Jason Price:  Jason is a personal finance writer and a volunteer Money Map Coach.  His site is  One Money Design.
• Jason Mitchener:  Jason wrote Sunday devotionals for the site up until the end of the  year last year, when we got the sad news of his passing.  His archive of devotionals are extremely poignant, and I know you’ll enjoy reading them.

New Staff Writer – Jason Topp

Today I am pleased to announce the addition of another staff writer to the site, Jason Topp of Redeeming Riches.  I’ve been reading Jason’s writing over the past year and he is an extremely talented writer, and he knows what he’s talking about since he’s also a Certified Financial Planner.  I knew it would be a coup if we could get him to write for Bible Money Matters as well.

Here’s a quick bio that Jason sent over for me to share:

My name is Jason Topp and I’m a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) by day and a personal finance blogger by early morning.  I’ve always enjoyed writing and when I discovered blogging, I knew it was a perfect opportunity to throw some thoughts down about two things important to me – finances and faith.

I started my site, Redeeming Riches,  because I wanted to help others (and myself) redeem back the misguided views that money is the ultimate source of lasting joy and redirect us back to what is, or who is – namely God Himself.

My hope is to provide practical personal finance tips from a Christian perspective to help others excel in stewardship, acts of mercy and generosity.

Stay tuned, Jason’s first post will go live in the morning, continuing our “Ways To Make Extra Money” series!

Jason, welcome to the site, and we look forward to more of your great writing! (Please – feel free to welcome Jason to the site in the comments!)

This article was written by Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and loves reading and writing about personal finance. You can find out more about him on the about page or check out his other sites at http://www.quicktofit.com and http://www.logosforwebsites.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @moneymatters.

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We’ve had two days full of income creating ideas.  Are you looking for even more ways to make extra money? Good, let’s get started!

Budgeting – Income Vs. Cutting Back

Budgeting your money each month boils down to making sure that there is more coming in than going out.  If you have more money going out each month than you have coming in, you really have just two options:

1) cut back on your spending, or what’s going out; or

2) generate extra income.

If you’ve already cut back spending, here are 5 simple ways you can make a little extra money to balance your budget.

Sell On eBay Or Craigs List

Two well known options today are selling items on eBay and Craigslist.  Both work a little bit differently, but essentially you’re doing the same thing.  The easiest way to get started is to search around the house for unused items.  As you would with a garage sale, just price the item at a fair price and list it for sale.  If you want to get a little more advanced, you can shop around for good deals and resell lower priced items you’ve purchased for closer to their retail price.

Buy Groceries Low And Sell High

Many of you have heard about playing the Grocery Game.  Basically it’s a way to buy groceries at cheap prices using the Grocery Game lists in addition to manufacturer coupons.  Surprisingly, I recently heard of someone turning the game into a business model.  Rather than focus on the cost cutting aspect for their own budget, they focused on the resale of the products at cheaper than retail prices.  The idea was to use the lists to buy low and sell higher with hosting their own grocery garage sales.

Become An Expert At Something

Most people have a talent or skill they have a lot of passion about.  If you’re interested in taking the skill to the next level, you can perhaps market it as a service to people.  For example, let’s say you’re interested in personal finance and you’re good with managing money.  Or perhaps you just have a strong passion for it.  You could initially volunteer your time as a financial coach to help others get their finances in order.  You might then choose to turn your volunteer efforts into a business by offering fee based coaching, speaking engagements and run your own website.  The possibilities are endless here.

Become A Computer Wizard

With it becoming practically impossible to survive in business (and now home) without knowing computer basics, there is a real need for people who can train the essential skills.  There are some companies around who have built their entire business model on providing basic computer services for people at home.  But if you’re good in this area, there isn’t any reason you couldn’t market yourself as a consultant or technologist who helps people with their computers.  With the right skills and motivation you can get started at a relatively low cost.

Sell Clothes On Consignment

My wife has become quite the expert in buying and selling clothes on consignment.  On the cost savings side, she dresses our children in extremely nice clothes of which most of them have been purchased from consignment.  She finds many designer brands that have hardly been worn and buys them at extremely large discounts.  On the money making side, she often drops off clothes for sale that our kids have outgrown.  Sometimes we just give things away, but she has made some extra money on nicer items she’s chosen to resell.

Well, I hope these 5 ideas have stimulated your thinking and creativity.  Making extra money is mostly about the effort you’re willing to put forth into something.  If you’re serious about it, or have enough motivation behind it (like making money to pay off debt); you can definitely find ways to increase your income!

What do you think about these 5 money making possibilities?  Which one do you like the best?  Do you have your own ideas for creating income? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

This article was written by Jason Price. Jason Price is a personal finance writer at One Money Design and a Money Map Coach. His mission is helping people achieve true financial freedom. He provides practical tips for managing money wisely and shares Biblical financial principles. Beyond personal finance, Jason enjoys spending time with his family and playing soccer. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.

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The absolute best way to create extra income is to pursue something you love.  For this reason, I’m a fan of turning a hobby into a business.

Here are some proven ideas or things I’ve come across that people do to make money.  Notice – none of these are theoretical options.  I’ve either done them, or someone close to me has done them.

Organize Travel Tours

A friend from my hometown loves to travel.

He decided to open a small business that does travel arrangements for groups.  He charters a bus, makes accommodation bookings, purchases group tickets, and goes along as a guide.  After taking a few months to get into the market, he found that he was easily able to cut his full-time job back to part time.  He now loves the variety of doing both jobs half time.

As the Baby Boomers continue to age, retire, and travel, there are some great opportunities in this field.

If you live close to a popular tourist destination, you could easily start a blog and offer some type of personalized tours and travel services to the mass of visitors.

Services For The Elderly

I spent about three years working in an apartment for seniors.  Many of the residents there paid top dollar for someone to do a service they were not interested in doing.  Because of their age, they had a unique mindset regarding money.  Why, they asked, should I do something I don’t like when I have the money to pay someone else to do it?  The money isn’t going to be any good for me in a few years.

Here are some possible service options to help get you thinking creatively.

• Companionship
• Oil changes and car wash
• Taking car for safety inspection
• Basic computer tutoring
• Hobby related assistance and instruction – teach an instrument, scrapbooking lessons, arts and crafts.

If you are interested in something in this field, I would visit a local seniors residence and ask some of the staff about the residents’ greatest needs.

Sell Items On Ebay

I went through a stage in my life where I would go to a store and see a great deal.  It could be Brita Water filters for $1.00 each, life jackets for $5.00, or backpacks for $4.00.  I would say to myself, “That is an awesome deal, but I don’t have any need for that product.”

After a few years of passing up these amazing deals I started purchasing highly discounted items and selling them on Ebay.  Just because I didn’t need the product didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t buy the product.

From there, I started expanding things by searching second hand stores and garage sales for good items to sell online.  If you have an iPhone, you can just search for an item online to see what it is selling for.  Buy items that have a good chance of selling.

Minimize the Risk: In our case, my wife and I agreed on a set amount that we would use to initially fund the purchases.  Say you agree on $500.  Until the business starts pulling its own weight, you can never have more than $500 in inventory, thus limiting your risk exposure to $500.

Here’s some money making (and legitimate) ebay strategies.

Snow And Lawn Care Services

OK.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  This doesn’t sound flashy or exciting.  In fact, it is quite a common way of making extra income (second only to the lemonade stand).  However, I think that these two jobs still present some great ways to make a little extra income.

The beauty of these jobs is they require almost nothing to start – you probably already have all the equipment at home.  To start a business doing lawn care, just start telling people you know about your service.  Contact some neighbors and always stop and give someone a business card when they are shoveling snow or cutting grass.

Freelance Writing

Last year I become an accidental freelance writer.

I come from a math family.  I have terrible grammars (I did that on purpose – grammars).  And so, I never had any intention to become a freelance writer.  However, I’m now making a decent side income by writing articles and selling them to other bloggers.

I’ve done paid writing for five different websites, and in each of those cases the work came to me.  Who would have thought that someone would pay me to write an article?  If you like writing, there is a good chance you could be earning a side income as a freelance writer.

How do you get started as a freelance writer?

Here’s what I did.  I started writing on my blog, and then the requests came to me.  If you look around online, there are blogs that advertise their willingness to pay for articles.  On average, you can expect anywhere from $10-$50 per article.

All of these jobs are geared more to the entrepreneur.  If, however, you are looking for a traditional part time job, here is a list of 50 part time jobs.

Do any of these ideas sound like something you might want to try?  Have your own money making idea?  Tell us about it in the comments!

This article was written by Craig Ford. Craig is a fulltime missionary in Papua New Guinea who writes Money Help For Christians and Help Me Travel Cheap, a frugal family travel blog. He is the author of Money Wisdom From Proverbs, has a Masters of Divinity degree, and (most importantly) eats homemade pizza with his family every Friday night.

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Over the past couple of years I’ve become a big proponent of creating secondary sources of income for your family – finding things that you can do in your spare time to make money to pad your bottom line. If you’re trying to get out of debt, or trying to fully fund your retirement, it makes it a lot easier if you have more than just your day job income.

Since I think that making extra money is such a great idea, I decided to take a whole week to talk about ways to create extra income. I’ve asked the staff writers on the site to write posts this week talking about ways that they would suggest to make extra money. Some of the ideas may overlap, but by the end of the week I hope that we’ll have given you an extra 25-30 ideas of ways to make a bit extra for your family every month.

So, without further ado, here are 11 ways that I have used, or plan on using to make extra money for my family.

11 Ways To Make Extra Money

1.  Start A Money Making Blog:  Of course this first idea is the one that I’ve used most successfully, creating almost $40,000 in extra income for my family last year through this blog.  I was able to find a high paying niche (personal finance), write about topics that convert well into paying Adsense ad clicks, and over two years I was able to produce enough content to consistently bring in decent traffic.  You can do the same thing, I’ve detailed how I did it in my e-book that I launched last week called “Blueprint For How To Make Money With A Blog“.

2. Turn A Hobby Into Extra Income: My logo design website was another large source of income for our family last year.  I started doing design work through my day job, enjoyed it, and started doing it as a hobby at home as well.  Then I started doing a few logos here and there for friends.  Only then did I realize that I could charge others to create the graphics for their sites.   It snowballed from there to where it is now – creating almost enough money to pay my mortgage every month. Take a hobby that you’re good at, and turn it into an income producing asset!

3. Buy Things Cheap, Resell Online:   A lot of times you can find items at your local thrift store, or at garage sales at a bargain price.  Things like vintage dishware, brand name clothing,  antiques and more can be found for a steal and resold via ebay, craigslist or other online classifieds.  While you’re at it you can also sell things around your house that you no longer need!

4. Tutoring:  If you’re a born teacher you can make some money on the side by teaching at a local tutoring center, or tutoring kids for families that you know.

5. Do Stock Photography:  This isn’t for everyone, but for the artistic minded who already have a nice camera, you can make extra money by selling stock photography.  Making money this way isn’t easy, and you’ll need to be taking some pictures specifically to be used as stock photos.  Once you’ve built up a large enough portfolio it can be turned into a nice income stream.  Check out sites like “Microstock Diaries” to read stories of others who are doing the same.

6. Participate On “Get Paid To” Sites: Use offers sites like Cash Crate, Ebates and Swag Bucks to make a little bit extra in your free time. Purchase things you were going to buy anyway through GPT sites, and refer other users to the services.  I make about $100 extra every month through these services.

7. Write An E-book On A Topic You’re Familiar With:  If you’re extremely versed on a certain topic try writing an e-book for others who want to learn about that topic.  Last week I launched my first e-book talking about how I make money with my blog.  My good friend Craig Ford over at Moneyhelpforchristians.com just released an e-book today that gives all the nitty gritty details you need to know for people who hope to go on a short term missions trip.  Find a topic you know a lot about, and write an e-book about it!

8. Get A Part Time Job: If you’re trying to pay of your debts or fund a particular savings goal, you might think about getting a part time job for a while.   Work at a local coffee shop, at your local retail store or delivering pizza!  You don’t have to do it forever, but do it for a while!

9. Start A Side Business To Fill A Need:  I’ve had several friends who have seen a need in their area, and started side businesses to fill that need and make a bit of extra cash.   One friend is a teacher and he started a lawn mowing business in the summer since he had the summers off.   Another friend realized that a lot of homes in his neighborhood had dog waste in their yards, so he started a business picking up dog doo and charging a fee.   You’re only limited by your creativity!

10. Sell Your Blood Or Other Specimens:  Selling your body fluids can result in a bit of extra cash every month. Depending on what you’re selling it can result in $20-30 to hundreds of dollars.

11. Be A Freelance Writer:  You can write for your own blog, but often people will pay you to write for their blogs as well.  Get freelance writing gigs and make some extra cash.  How much you earn will depend on your experience, how well you write, and how much you write.  In addition to writing for other sites, write content for sites like Associated Content, Squidoo or Hubpages.

The Extra Money Series Continues

Stay tuned – for the rest of the week we’ll be posting on ways to make extra income for your family.  Tomorrow we continue the “Ways To Make Extra Money” series with a post from Craig Ford.

Do you have ways that you make extra money for your family?  Tell us about it in the comments!

This article was written by Peter Anderson. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and loves reading and writing about personal finance. You can find out more about him on the about page or check out his other sites at http://www.quicktofit.com and http://www.logosforwebsites.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at @moneymatters.

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