This is part two of a two-part series on making productive use of your free time. If you missed part one, check it out here.
Welcome to part two of our two-part series on making productive use of your time. Today I will share some more ideas of how to make productive use of your “extra” time each day.
Start a small business or work a side/second job
Photo by Kathy Ponce
Even if you work a full-time job, there are opportunities for making money on top of your full-time income. Whether it’s working a second job at a retail store or restaurant, or starting your own small business, there are plenty of options that you can make work even if you are already working a 9-5. As I mentioned in part-one of this series, I worked on improving my Excel skills to help me at my full-time job. This actually resulted in getting some side work doing various spreadsheet-related tasks for a small business. It works out great as I am able to fulfill their requests on weekends and weeknights, fitting perfectly with my full-time schedule. Finding something where you can use your skills and continue to improve them can be one of the best ways to make money in your spare time.
Starting a blog can be one of the best decisions you can make if your goal is to make more money in addition to your full-time job. It’s entirely done on your schedule, it allows you to work from your laptop wherever you want, and it can result in freelance writing or other side jobs. While making money blogging isn’t easy, if you stick with it and are committed to making your site profitable you will eventually start bringing in some income.
Coupon
Photo by krossbow
Couponing can potentially save you thousands of dollars every single year. Last year we saved over $1,200 on groceries alone, not counting taking advantage of coupons when we go out to eat or buy clothes or other products. While the number of people who get a physical newspaper delivered to them is dwindling, the Sunday newspaper usually come with $100-$250 worth of coupons each week. Another source of coupons is coupons.com, which is constantly updated with new coupons that you can print out.
If you want to get serious about coupons, you need to organize your coupons efficiently. Once you have more than 50 or so coupons, it can become time-consuming sorting through them trying to find a specific coupon. Considering using a coupon database or some other organization system to save time and in turn save more money.
Enter Giveaways
Screenshot from our weekly Giveaway Roundup
My wife and I enter giveaways pretty much every single day. Every Friday on this site we have a giveaway roundup usually listing at least 100 giveaways ending the coming week.
You may be skeptical as to whether giveaways are worth your time, or how this could be a “productive” use of your time. In reality, winning these prizes can make you money over time. I haven’t written a post about it yet, but we have won quite a few giveaways and sell some of the winning items for money. They also provide great gifts (think baby products for friends that are having baby showers). There are some fairly big giveaways, such as $500 cash, $1,000 televisions, $700 kitchen ranges, etc. that will definitely make it worth your while if you end up winning. On this blog alone we’ve co-hosted giveaways that have totaled approximately $4,000 in prizes (and that was made up of only 5 giveaways).
Organize
Photo by Kate Ter Haar
Whenever you are bored or can’t decide what to do in your free time, consider getting organized. The more organized you are, the less frustrating it will be when it comes time to find that document that is buried deep within a pile of papers on your desk. If you’re anything like me you simply never get around to organizing the files on your computer, your social media accounts, or the ever-rising stack of documents on your desk. Pauline from Reach Financial Independence wrote a post about organizing your digital life. I think I commented on that post saying I needed to do this with my files, but I still have yet to get to it.
If you have the free time, consider making a list of things you need to organize or “go through.” This could include: your kitchen, the stuff you have in storage that you haven’t looked at in years, your social media profiles, your desk and physical files, or your digital files (including backing everything up!). Of course, making the list is the easy part, actually following through and organizing everything can take a ton of time.
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Do you have anything you would add to this list or suggestions for people trying to make better use of their free time?
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I don’t think I realized just how much effort a blog would be when I started, but it can be a lot of fun if you are blogging about a topic you enjoy.
MonsterPiggyBank I agree, it can be a really great activity and hobby that has potential to provide side income (or full-time income).
Great tips. In these days of social media overload it is too tempting to spend all free time checking/updating facebook/twitter/pinterest/photoshare+1/obsessaboutyourself.com. Unless the purpose relates to one of the tips above, such as positing a new blog entry, that time could be better spend performing any of the activities you have mentioned.
http://snarkfinance.com/2013/05/12/setting-up-a-new-life-as-a-young-mother/
snarkfinance If I had a dollar for every minute I’ve wasted on social media…. ;)
Great ideas! I am pretty good with my free time, mostly because I don’t have much of it. Now that I’m working from home I may start couponing again. I haven’t had time to mess with it for a while.
Holly at ClubThrifty Haha that’s one solution! I also don’t have much free time so it’s hard to “mismanage” it. I try to prioritize as much as I can, because the last thing I want is to be busy for busyness’ sake. I can understand why you haven’t couponed in a while; if both my wife and I were working on a site (AFTER working at our full-time jobs) and had kids it would be very hard to find time.
I use my free time to build a business. I am also using it to enjoy my car hobby and am thinking about getting educated in computer science to increase my earning potential. I will have to work hard, but will get there.
DebtRoundUp I would also like to spend some more time learning about computer science. I wish high schools and colleges focused on it more, but thankfully there are a lot of resources out there to teach yourself.
I find that for us being organized is the best way to maximize any little free time we do have. It helps us keep things streamlined and focused on what takes priority. When you throw the blog on top of it then we’d get nowhere without being organized.
FrugalRules Organization can be the key to success, whether it’s living a balanced life, being healthier, succeeding career-wise, etc. Such an important thing to spend time on.
Man, couldnt we all use a little more organization! I’m always needing a new to do list to keep my head on straight. Good post DC.
CashCowCouple To-do lists run my life ;)
I need to be more productive with my free time as well. And I am SO unorganized!
SenseofCents It’s seems like you make pretty good use of your free time considering how much side income you have been making ;)
These are great ways to stay productive. I like the ideas of starting a side business and organizing. Organizing is no fun while doing it, but the benefits can be well worth your time after it’s all done. I still can’t get into the whole giveaway thing. Everytime I see it on social media I shudder because it’s so annoying.
CommonCentsWealth You shudder?! Sounds extreme!
First of all, that is way awesome that y’all have won giveaways! I feel like I never win them, haha, but I suppose that you have to really enter a lot of them to up your odds. Also, I’m loving these “free time” posts. I feel like I need to concentrate more on creating free time or at least maximizing the time that I do spend working!
BudgetBlonde It’s a numbers game. I really don’t spend a ton of time on them, but I spend enough where I get one or two entries in each. It probably would be easier if you lived in the US, since it is usually limited to US or US & Canada ;)
With everything we have going on I don’t even know what free time is anymore. Congrats on winning so many giveaways :-)
TacklingOurDebt Haha I don’t have much free time either. Thanks for the congratulations, we haven’t won anything extreme like a vacation or $1,000 cash, but the prizes are thankfully starting to add up. We need to start converting them into $ tho.
Thanks again for the tips DC. I really need to take better advantage of the giveaway resource you provide!
ayoungpro You should! It’s nice to get some stuff for free, and doesn’t take that much time to get entered either. I spend very little time on it and still win at least once a week ;)
How many would you say you enter to win once a week? I probably don’t spend enough time entering. I have won a couple of $25 or $50 cash awards. Pretty sweet!
There are so many giveaways it’s incredible! Thank you for always rounding them up. I’m not good about setting time aside to do it, but it’s something to think about!