What to do when you just do not have enough income?

The following is a guest post from Kylie Ofiu who shares real ways to make and save money on her blog. She also discusses her journey and goal to become a millionaire by 30 (which is 2015), while being an at home mom in Australia. She is the author of 365 Ways To Make Money, a freelance writer, owner of various blogs and an international public speaker.

We went through almost a year of no permanent work. My husband was signed up with a couple of agencies who got him work here and there and he was looking for a job. We had a little bit of savings and some money in our mortgage we were able to redraw but it took 12 months for him to get a full time, permanent job which is not something we expected.

We had 2 daughters to provide for and needed to cover all our expenses such as the mortgage, food, petrol, water, electricity, insurance, land rates and so on. Sometimes, even with an emergency fund, you do not have enough money.

So what do you do?

There were a few things we did. Firstly we looked at ways we could cut back.

FOOD: I sourced as much food as possible for free by learning where wild foods grew in my area that were safe to eat, joining a food co-op, letting friends and family know about our situation (we had a few friends who had friends who got large amounts of free food to share out to people who needed it, and we needed it.) I already menu planned, but I did it more carefully and truly watched what we bought and ate.

I made lots of our food from scratch and stretched things as far as I could. We don’t have coupons where I live, so instead I looked for reduced items when I had to buy food.

MORTGAGE: Once we were close to exhausting our funds I contacted our bank and discussed out situation with them. They gave us 5 months of no payments. Of course the interest would still accrue, but we didn’t have to worry about paying. If we happened to have extra cash we could pay to reduce the interest, which we did, but the pressure was off for a while. This is obviously a short term solution, but the bank was happy to help us since we spoke to them before we missed a payment.

BILLS: I called our electricity, gas and water providers to negotiate. We were now classed as low income which meant we would be entitled to a discount so I made sure we were getting it. I also researched everything on ways to save money on these bills such as uplugging things not in use, shorter showers etc.

We also dropped all unnecessary expenses, I entered a lot of competitions and giveaways so we cold use any winnings for gifts and we kept our eyes peeled for free entertainment in our area. We learned to barter a lot and do many things ourselves.

Reducing expenses will only take you so far though. We needed to find ways to increase our income. We were both looking for work, but nothing was forthcoming, so we had to think outside the box and find ways to make money.

Ways to make money

I needed ways to make money from home that were flexible because a couple of the casual jobs my husband had (and I mean very casual, as in no work some weeks) had the potential to go permanent so we didn’t want to say no when they called him for work.

• Garage sale: This was one of our first moves. We went through everything we owned and looked at what we could sell. I listed things online and we had a garage sale at our house. It took a bit of work but was worth it.
• Resell things: I looked for items to buy and resell. At second hand shops and garage sales I kept my eye out for books I know sell well here, Tupperware, brand name clothing and other things which were small, easy to post and I could purchase cheaply.
• Writing: I was already blogging, which during this time saw me go from a small blogger to the owner of a couple of sites, an author, freelance writer and public speaker. Most of this happened about 8 months after my husband ceased permanent work and none of it was reliable, but it was something I could do which brought in a little extra money. The more I did, the more confident I became which lead to me seeking out more work.
• Haircuts: I am a hairdresser and beautician by trade so was able to fall back on this a little and do friends and family. It is not something I enjoy, but it is a skill I have. Look at the skills you have and how you can make money with them.
• Mending, ironing, lawn mowing, cleaning, baby sitting, paper deliveries, pizza delivery and other services were all things we considered doing as well. Actually the more we looked the more opportunities like that we found which were flexible and many able to be done from home.

It is not easy when your expenses outweigh your income but by being positive, keeping your mind and eyes open to possibilities and letting people know you are looking for work, happy to barter and so on you can relieve some of the pressure and get back on your feet.