I’ve read hundreds of stories about people who have made money while seeing all that the world has to offer while still making enough money to pay their bills. These people do not have to rely on a steady diet of ramen noodles, and they are able to take advantage of all that the world has to offer. As an avid traveler, I’ve often dreamt of quitting my day job and setting sail on an epic journey around the world.

But how does one pay for such an adventure? How can you travel the world and still remain financially stable? Of course there will inevitably be trade-offs (no more McMansions to live in or fancy shopping sprees for new clothes/gadgets are a few), but there are ways you can throw caution to the wind in lieu of fulfilling your travel dreams in a fiscally responsible manner. Here are just a few ways to do so:

1. Travel writing. Perhaps the Holy Grail of all travel-related jobs, travel writing is exactly what it sounds like: you get paid to document your travel experiences and share them with the world. While it can be difficult to distinguish yourself enough to become the next National Geographic or Conde Nast phenomenon, you can start small by joining sites such as Matador. In particular, Matador is a gigantic network of like-minded, traveling writers who strive to produce excellent content. The resources on the site include hundreds of online magazines, networks, and even blogs that all want to pay people to write about their personal travel experiences.

2. Write reviews. If you’re not interested in travel writing but want to share your opinions, consider signing up for a hotel, hostel, or guest house review service. Not only will you get paid to write about your experience staying in various places, but you could feasibly turn your review experience into future sponsorship opportunities from the hotels and hostels themselves!

3. Farm work. Yes, it’s going to be hard work. But considering the benefits (that you can’t put a price tag on) of meeting new people, helping the environment and being able to curate truly unique experiences, this is one of the best ways to earn money around the world if you don’t mind getting your hands a bit dirty.

4. Teach English. There are thousands of jobs for people who are interested in teaching English abroad. The best part of this type of work is that it doesn’t require a teaching license. However, if you do manage to pick up your TEFL certification along the way, you’ll nearly be guaranteed your pick of positions that pay more for longer periods of time. And while there are many international schools that hire English teachers, another option is to become a private tutor. You can earn anywhere from $20-$40/hour in the private market and your expenses are relatively low. Try to find college textbooks for cheap online and use those as your instruction manuals.

5. Utilize your skills. Construction, photography, even cutting hair. Everyone has skills that can help others, so consider putting yours to work for you. Not only will you enjoy what you’re doing because it will be based on a talent, interest, and/or hobby of yours, but you’ll be helping others and earning money at the same time!

**Photo by Kevin Dooley/Flickr**

If you are on a budget and want to have a Memorial Day weekend party with family and friends, don’t worry. It’s easy to have a party on the cheap! So skip the payday loan and try some of these money-saving tips…

1. Have a potluck party.  Offer to provide the main course such as hamburgers, hot dogs or chicken on the grill and then ask people to bring a dish to pass.  If you want to ensure that you don’t end up with all desserts and no side dishes, perhaps assign people something to bring.  Ask one friend to bring the salad and another to bring the dessert.  Maybe two others could bring sides.  Dividing it up like this ensures a balanced meal, and if you or any of your friends or family have food intolerances, they can bring the foods that they will be able to safely eat.
2. Stock up in preparation for the party.  In the two weeks before Memorial Day, typical party fare such as chips, pop, hot dogs and sometimes even beer go on sale.  Scour the ads and buy those items that are on sale to save money.
3. Serve ethnic favorites.  Many ethnic foods have become mainstream American foods and can save you money.  Try serving hummus and chips for an appetizer.  You can really save money by making hummus yourself.  (Look on a site like food.com for some recipe ideas.)  Mexican food can also help stretch your budget.  You could serve nacho chips and salsa or have a side of Mexican rice and refried beans.
4. Shop the big box stores.  If you have a membership to Costco or Sam’s Club, you can buy food that will feed a crowd for a less than half the price of your local grocery store.  For instance, at Costco, I often buy a 3 pound bag of tortilla strips for $3.99.  Likewise, a party size platter of sushi is less than $20.  While this sushi doesn’t rival the quality of your local sushi restaurant, it is decent quality.
5. Look for alternative food sources.  If you are planning to serve sub sandwiches, did you know that you can buy Jimmy John’s day old bread for .50 a loaf?  That is the case in our area, but some people have told me their Jimmy John’s gives away the day old bread for free.  We buy this bread for sub sandwiches, and there isn’t a noticeable quality difference, especially if you toast your subs before serving them.

If you are on a budget (or even if you are not and just want to be money-conscious), there is no reason to cancel your summer party plans.  Instead, just be smart about what food you serve and where you buy it.  In addition, consider having a potluck party so you are not responsible for buying all of the food to feed your guests.  By making smart choices, you can continue to host parties this summer.

We live a fashion conscious society.  From name brand, designer clothes for babies to moms who are willing to pay $100 or more for jeans or have a pair of boots for every day of the week, we often have more clothes than we need (or can afford sometimes).

Recently, I read that, “Only about 5 percent of old clothes are thrown away in the U.S. is discarded because it’s truly ‘worn out,’ in the sense that it’s threadbare, has holes in it, or is horribly stained. The rest is simply thrown away because it’s out of fashion, or we’ve out grown it, or we just don’t like it any more” (AARP Blog).

What should be done with all of those old clothes?

Children’s Outgrown Clothing

If you have outgrown clothes from your children, consider these ways to dispose of them and make extra money:

1. Sell them online -  You can make a tidy profit from selling your kids’ old clothes on the web.  I recently sold my children’s outgrown summer clothes and earned about $200.  That was enough to buy them clothes for this year! Then, next year I will sell their clothes and make money to buy the next year’s.  Plus, selling products online is a lot more environmentally friendly because they get reused and stay out of the landfill.

Ebay is a great place for the casual seller, but if you’re going to sell clothes on a continuous basis, you might think about starting your own website so that you keep all of the profit. It’s easier than you think too! Just register a domain name and then find a couple of ecommerce website templates that are inexpensive. Finally, pass out your website’s address to friends and family so that can help spread the word.

2. Donate them to a local charity.

There are plenty of places that are looking for nicely used kids clothes. Think about donating to Goodwill, a thrift store, or a battered women’s shelter.  Remember, you can use the donation as a tax credit next tax season.

3. Hand them down to a family member or friend.

I was the youngest of 4 girl cousins, so every year I got a few bags worth of my cousin’s outgrown clothing.  I enjoyed receiving these clothes because they were often in styles and designs that my mom would not buy for me.

Your Clothing

When it comes to buying your own clothes, do a little experiment.  Place all your clothes in the closet with the hangers facing in the same direction.  Then, as you wear your clothes throughout the month and wash them, put those clothes you wore back on hangers and hang them the other direction.  At the end of the month, you will be able to see just how many of your clothes you have worn and how many have just sat in the closet.

If you are wearing less than 50% of your clothing, there are two things you can take from this experiment—first, you may want to clean out your closet and get rid of those clothes you don’t actually wear.  Second, you may want to buy fewer clothes so you don’t end up wasting your hard earned money and the clothes as they sit in the closet.

Women are taught to love to buy clothes, but perhaps we should reduce the number of clothes we buy.  In addition, when it is time to get rid of those clothes that no longer fit or that we no longer wear, it is better for the environment and our wallet to sell or donate those clothes rather than just throw them away.

**Photo by dansays on Flickr**

So many gifts to give, and so little time to go and shop for them!  Doesn’t that seem like the mantra these days? 

I know that I sometimes feel overwhelmed when having to shop for gifts for friends and family, and I (while not sounding like a jerk) wished there was another way to go about doing it.

Giftcards Do Make Great Gifts

That is why I love giftcards.  Many old fashioned individuals view them as a bit of a cop out, but I actually think that giftcards do make great gifts.

The biggest reason: the individual can go and buy what they would like.  Like I mentioned – the traditional cop out is that “you should shop for a gift to make it personal”.  However, my giftcard gift is personal.  I know that my best friend loves shopping at Nordstrom.  So, I get them a giftcard there.  Yes, I could have bought them a shirt and they could return it, but now the gift receiver has an additional hassle of having to return the item to get what they want.  With a giftcard, they can just buy what they want on the first go-round.

Second, I know that  I personally like receiving giftcards, and many other people do too.  So, that old rules don’t necessarily apply any more – giftcards do make great gifts.

Alternatives for Those Receiving Giftcards

However, just because giftcards make great gifts doesn’t mean that the actual card you receive is a great gift.  Maybe you got a giftcard to a place you never shop, or maybe your aunt from another part of the country sent you a giftcard for a store that doesn’t have shops in your area.

If this happens to you, you can do what I do, and just use a service to sell giftcards.  There are many places online where you can sell back your giftcards and get cash for them.  That way, you still get the value of the gift, but you can actually use it for something worthwhile to you.

Depending on the site, the process is pretty simply: enter your card number, confirm you method of payment, and you’re done.  A quick and painless alternative for a giftcard you wouldn’t use!

Saving for retirement can be difficult.  With the recent increases in the cost of gas and groceries and other basics combined with a loss of income because of the economy (or a lack of raises over the last few years), saving for retirement can seem like a goal that is out of reach.  Retirement can end up on your list of things to do when you have more money.  The problem is that day often never comes because there is always something else vying for your money.

If you have trouble saving for your retirement that may be 30 or 40 years away, you are not alone.  CNN Money recently reported, “About 49% of Americans say they aren’t contributing to any retirement plan, according to a new survey conducted by LIMRA, a trade association for the financial services industry.”

If you are having trouble finding money to save for your retirement, try these tactics:

1. Have the money automatically withdrawn from your paycheck.  Dedicate a portion of your salary to fund your retirement.  If money is very tight, you may only want to put 1% aside, but if you are making $3,000 a month, one percent is $30 a month.  True, you won’t be putting aside enough to fund your full retirement, but in a year, you will have $360 saved, which is more than you may have had previously.  You will find that you don’t even miss the money, and your retirement savings can grow with little effort on your part.
2. Save your change.  Make an attempt to pay cash for your purchases and save your change.  You will likely end up with at least $1 to $2 a day.  Save this every day, and you now have an additional $30 to $60 to put in your retirement each month.
3. Curb your lifestyle and save the difference.  If you spend $100 for groceries every week, or approximately $400 a month, designate one week to eat from the pantry and eat all of the extra food you have in your freezer and cupboard.  While you may still have to buy staples such as fruits and vegetables, you could save $50 a month by eating from the pantry.
4. Create an alternative income stream.  Find something you enjoy and find a way to make money from it.  For instance, let’s say you love taking photographs.  Upload some of your photos to some of the photo sharing sites and make a small residual income each month from bloggers and others who have websites and use your photos.  Without much effort, you should be able to make at least $25 a month (and much more than that if you have uploaded several hundred of your photos).

Saving for retirement is difficult.  You must motivate yourself to save for an event that is decades away, while money is very tight now.  However, if you just make the simple steps outlined above, you will have a minimum of $135 a month to save.  That is $1,620 a year for retirement.  This won’t fully fund your retirement, but it will give you a start until your financial situation improves.

**Photo by 401K**

Energy costs seem to rise almost every day, and it can be hard to keep pace with them, especially if you find yourself on a tight budget. While it might be something that some people can just about cope with, for others, simply meeting the cost of their basic energy needs can be awfully difficult.

Everyone needs heat and light to go about their daily lives, but not being able to afford them for whatever reason can leave you distressed. Fortunately, there are ways in which you can make savings on your energy bill.

One way is to go is through a website such as makeitcheaper.com for any help you need with getting a better deal on your energy bill. Make it cheaper are a company who specialise in helping to save businesses hundreds or even thousands every year in saving money on energy costs. Combined, all the businesses that came to them for help saved an average of £88m in 2011 on gas and electricity bills over the course of the past year.

Visiting a website like makeitcheaper.com to get help with driving down the cost of your energy bills is just one way in which you can reduce your electricity and gas costs. Through those companies, you could find that either by switching supplier or negotiating a better deal with your current supplier might see your bills come down, but there are other ways in which you can help to make your energy costs look a little more reasonable.

Perhaps one of the best things you could do to save energy is unplug equipment when it’s not being used. Leaving computers, machinery and other apparatus plugged in overnight our outside of office hours can be costly and by encouraging employees to turn things off and unplug them, doing this on a daily basis will surely see your energy bills look a little less frightening.
 
Other things you could do include using energy-efficient equipment, remind everyone else on your premises that it pays to only use the amount of energy needed and even using renewable energy. By doing one or more of the above, the end result could be significant savings, and that will look good on any balance sheet.

Mother’s Day is right around the corner, which means it is time to start thinking about Mother’s Day gifts.  While moms frequently get a meal in bed, dinner out and flowers for Mother’s Day, maybe this year you could give her something different that she will remember for years to come.

Experience gifts are a perfect way to show your mother both how much you love her and how much you know her and her tastes and interests.  (If you don’t know your mother’s tastes and interests, you might want to stick with giving her flowers.)  If you give her the gift of experience, she is likely to remember it for years to come.

For instance, my grandmother always wanted to ride a hot air balloon.  Finally, in her seventies, one of her children arranged for her to go on a hot air balloon ride, and it was an experience she never forgot.  Would she remember the flowers she was given one particular year or the dinner out?  Probably not.  But she never forgot that hot air balloon ride.

An experience gift is the gift that keeps giving.

Make a list of things that your mother has always wanted to do.  Perhaps it is flying a small plane, skydiving, getting a massage or taking a gourmet cooking class.  Come up with the top three experiences you know she would enjoy.

If her experience is something mainstream such as the three listed above, you probably don’t have to pay full price for the experience.  Sign up for all of the social deal sites such as Groupon, Living Social, Mamasource, and Daily Deals, to name a few.  You will be sent an e-mail every day giving the deals for the day.  Chances are good that one of the three you have chosen for your mother will be offered in the next few weeks on one of the sites.

If you can’t find what you need from the daily deal sites, you can look on several other sites including Lifesta, Deals Go Round, CoupRecoup, Dealigee, and City Pockets.  These sites sell deals that others bought but decided that they didn’t want to use.  (By the way, on the off chance that your mother doesn’t want the experience that you bought her, she can change in that skydiving deal voucher for something more tame, like a day at the spa.)  Wealth Informatics wrote a complete post on reselling vouchers that explains the process in more detail.

If your mom is content with flowers and a meal out, you can give her that.  However, she may just want something more.  An experience gift is a gift that she is likely to remember for years to come.  You can take advantage of daily deal sites to make her experience a bit easier on your wallet, and she can always trade in the deal if it turns out to be something she doesn’t want.  Moms do a lot for their kids throughout their life; take the time to thank her this year by doing something to treat her in a unique way.

In this troubled economic slump we find ourselves in, it’s not uncommon to feel ambivalent or confused about how to best handle a savings, no matter how big or small.  Fear of losing what we’ve worked so hard to save is often a sure cause for static immobility, and a failure to take beneficial and rewarding action with our money; I know, because I’ve been there personally.  Until recently I was one of those unfortunate souls immobilized by the fear of losing my family’s savings.

Yes, leaving your money in a risk-free, yet relatively yield-free account or other financial position ensures that you won’t lose any money; but it also ensures that you won’t gain any substantial interest with that hard-earned savings either.  But there really are a few great options out there that are more risk free than most people realize, making it a shame to leave your savings sitting idly by collecting dust and pennies.

Utilizing the option of money market accounts in particular can be a great ticket to gaining you and your family much-needed money and simultaneously affording you the freedom to use that money when and how you please.  In my case, it’s done just that, and be a true God-send toward our future financial freedom.  Before considering a money market account, it’s important to understand exactly what they are.

Unlike CDs, or, certificates of deposit, money market accounts are essentially checking accounts that operate like mutual funds.

What that means is that the money you place in these accounts will be invested in short term instruments that offer higher annual percentage yields than standard savings accounts or CDs, while also maintaining safer investment options than most long-term mutual funds do. Money market accounts attempt to keep share prices of these options above or equal to at least a dollar a share.

The big kicker is that they also operate as a checking account, allowing you to take money out as you see fit, unlike most CD options, which specify that you must leave the sum alone until it has reached maturation to receive the set interest percentage.

What I’ve found so personally great about these accounts is that almost every financial institution or bank offers some type of money market account, with usually great interest rates.  My personal Discover Bank money market rates were too good to pass up, although there are plenty of similarly great options out there as well.  Having banked over an extra $3,000 dollars with my account by doing virtually nothing over the past year, I can’t stress how worthwhile looking into these accounts can be if you’ve got a current savings sitting idly by.  Do your research, check out the options, and watch the savings pile up: your family, and your bank account, will thank you soon enough.

**Photo by Tax Credits on Flickr**

Are you in debt (besides the mortgage)?  Do you have thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt and/or credit card debt?  If you are struggling to make your payments, one of the best things you can do is to stop using credit and begin to use cash.

I know, I know, in today’s world, who uses cash?  If you use cash, you have to actually walk into the gas station to pay for your gas rather than just swiping your card at the pump.  More importantly, you have to remember to actually carry cash.  After years of using credit cards to pay for all of your purchases, it may be difficult to remember to bring cash when you leave the house.

While there are certainly inconveniences to using cash for all of your purchases, the rewards will be great.

Let’s be honest; many people who have credit card debt will have it for the majority of their lives.  They will continue to use their cards each month, paying off only what they charged that month, or worse, only the minimum payment they have to make.  There is no end in sight.

However, if you quit using the cards, get back in touch with your spending patterns by using cash and only buying what you can afford, you will be in a better position to pay off your debts more quickly.

Let’s say you currently owe $12,000 on a credit card at 11.99% interest.  If you only make the minimum balance on the credit card (2% of the balance), you will be debt free in 25 years, 11 months!  If, instead, you take this month’s minimum payment of $240 and pay that same amount every month, you will be credit card debt free in 5 years and 9 months.  If you can ramp up your payment and pay $60 more a month, making a payment of $300 each month, you will be credit card debt free in 4 years 3 months.

Yes, extra payments help you pay off the credit card faster, but even if you do nothing more than make the same payment your are making now and quit adding any new credit card charges, you will be credit card debt free in less than six years.

You will be off the endless credit cycle.

If you find using cash to be too difficult in some situations, consider using a debit card when you need to reserve a hotel room or pay for a purchase online.  However, learning to not spend more than you make is vital.  Not incurring new debt as well as making the same payment you are making now for the life of the loan will get you out of debt.  Even if you do nothing more than that, you will be debt free in a few years.  Isn’t it worth it to revert to cash for awhile until you no longer owe?  Think of the financial freedom you will have.

I will be inconvenienced by using cash any day if it means I will one day no longer be inconvenienced by debt and limited cash flow.

When you see your friends buying nice things such as a new car or a second home, do you automatically think that they have gone deep into debt for the purchase or do you secretly envy them and think they must have come into some money?  Do you think, some people have all the luck or some people have it so easy?  Maybe rather than feeling sorry for yourself or resentful of others, you should take a hard look at your own spending habits.

Recently, I was watching a rerun of the King of Queens.  In this episode, “Home Cheapo”, Carrie and Doug are envious of their friends, Deacon and Kelly, who have just bought a beautiful vacation home.  Carrie and Doug run through all of the ways Deacon and Kelly must have been able to afford the home including that they suddenly came into money.  Finally, they decide that Deacon and Kelly can afford the home because Carrie and Doug have been paying for Deacon and Kelly’s share whenever they go out together, which isn’t exactly true.

After much feuding between the couples, Deacon and Kelly finally share that they were able to buy the home because they cut their expenses, stopped going out to eat and saved their money for quite awhile.  This leads Carrie and Doug to look at their own spending such as Carrie’s trips to get her nails done and Doug’s beer drinking and food eating habits.  They suddenly begin to see that all of the money they have used to pamper and treat themselves could have been used in a better way, such as Deacon and Kelly have done by buying a vacation home.

In our society where many, many people overspend, it is easy to see someone buy something nice that we would like and just say that they must be deeply in debt.  This might be true.  But it also might be true that they are sacrificing and saving.

There is nothing wrong with buying little treats for yourself throughout the week such as coffee out, lunches out, trips to restaurants, and concert tickets, to name a few.  But, keep in mind, when you make these choices, you may be unconsciously making another choice.  These little treats that you don’t even remember spending the money on a week later may be why you can’t buy a second home (or even a first home) or why you can’t take that trip to Europe that you have always dreamed of or why you can’t reach whatever other big dream you have.

Saving for important, memorable things such as a house or a trip is hard.  You have to constantly delay gratification, and let’s face it, humans aren’t good at that.  It is much easier to treat yourself with little purchases throughout the day and week.  Just know that you are then sacrificing bigger dreams.  You are living like Carrie and Doug, who were jealous and bitter in this episode, rather than Deacon and Kelly who were willing to sacrifice short-term to get something they wanted long-term.