The Three Ways To Make More Money

I’ve organized the ways I put more money in my bank account into three categories.

Using the ideas in this article you can increase your monthly cash flow TODAY and start creating a future with more wealth.

Let’s get started:

1. Decrease Recurring Expenses

Look at your bank account, and look at it often. Awareness of what comes in and out of your bank account is essential for a wealth builder.

Perhaps the most important step a person or business can take to improve their financial standing is to track earnings and expenses. And the lowest hanging fruit for any bank account is the expenses.

Looking back through bank statements can reveal dozens of opportunities to reduce your expenses. Let’s look at an example bank statement:

Sample Bank Statement

Identify Targets

First, identify your recurring expenses:

  1. Mortgage
  2. Amazon Prime
  3. Internet Bill
  4. City Utilities

Eliminate or Modify Usage

Sometimes you can simply eliminate a recurring expense. That’s an option with the Amazon Prime membership.

If this were me, I’d think about how often I use the membership, what value the membership has to me, and just generally whether or not I think there’s a way for me to save money on it by doing something different.

Maybe I can eliminate the membership and just pay for shipping on the 3-4 items I buy from Amazon each year. Maybe I can pay for the membership only during November and December to use while shopping around the holidays.

Sometimes you can’t eliminate an expense. The mortgage, internet and utility bills are examples of this.

But is it possible to decrease them? Some ideas:

  • Energy Audit – many cities offer a free energy audit that will give home owners a list of things they can do to lower their utility bills
  • Buy Modem/Router – Many internet service providers charge a monthly fee to rent their modem and router. This fee can often be eliminated if you buy your own.
  • Shop for Better Deals – Why not take a look at the prices of other internet service providers, or look at other packages your current one offers?
  • Mortgage Insurance – Depending on the terms of your loan, you may have a monthly payment on mortgage insurance. This will disappear after you’ve paid off a certain amount of the loan, but you can often get it waived early.

A Few More Ideas

I’ve looked at my bank account dozens of times looking for opportunities to get rid of unneeded expenses and have always come out with some ideas. And I’m not talking about depriving myself of anything, I’m talking about eliminating wasteful spending.

Here are some more ways I’ve saved on recurring expenses over the years:

  • Cancel online membership fees – look for things you don’t use or rarely use like streaming services, website subscriptions, bank fees, and anything else you might find
  • Insurance Premiums – Revisit your insurance premiums for your car, home or business and look for better rates
  • Budget – tracking income and expenses can help improve your normal spending habits
  • Home Gym – Eliminate your gym membership fee by purchasing a few hundred dollars of home gym equipment and doing workouts at home.
  • Cell Phone Bills – Shop around for better cell phone plans, just like you did for insurance and internet.

2. Increase Existing Revenue

Another way to put more money in your bank account every month is increasing the amount or frequency of your deposits.

Think about all the ways you make money. You probably have a job. You might get cash rewards from your credit card. Sometimes you get a tax refund. Maybe you have a business in the form of a website, real estate investment, YouTube channel or something else. Maybe you have some form of an investment in stocks or real assets. Just try to think of literally every possible way money finds its way to you.

Again, looking at your bank account can help you here. Look back several months and find every single way you made money.

Now try to figure out if you can increase those numbers in any way:

  • Ask for a raise
  • Cash Rewards – Shop and apply for a better cash rewards credit card
  • Tax Preparation – Keep better track of your tax deductible expenses to claim at tax time (and do research on what qualifies as a deductible expense)
  • Change Business Prices – Increase prices, rent, or look for better paying advertising platforms for your business. Experiment with changes to your advertising and measure the results

3. New Income Generation

The last, and most exciting way to put more money in your bank account is to create a new form of income.

There are thousands of ways to do this!

Keep in mind that attempts to create new income can have a wide range of results. Sometimes your attempt can end up losing you money, but when you make something that gives you cash consistently, there’s nothing better.

I’ve made dozens of attempts to create new income and only a handful end up actually making me money.

Here are handful of ways you could create new income:

  • Buy a single family home and rent it long term or put it up on Airbnb/HomeAway/VRBO/etc.
  • Create or purchase a website and monetize it through affiliate links, advertising, e-commerce, dropshipping, or selling something.
  • Buy any investment that pays dividends
  • Create and monetize a YouTube channel
  • Rent any asset you own including a car, home or lawn mower
  • Lend money to someone
  • Start a business

Conclusion

When it comes to improving the cash flow of my bank account, I look at three areas.

  1. Reduce recurring expenses
  2. Increase existing revenue
  3. Create new income

Reducing expenses allows me to keep more of the money I already make.

Increasing revenue makes me more money from the ways I already make money.

Creating new income diversifies you current income streams and often allows for more growth in the long term.