This is a training article, which consists of 2 parts - theoretical and practical. The first part will give you an understanding of what aspects to work on yourself. The exercises in the second part will help answer the question “How to increase income in 2018?”
Therefore, dear readers, stock up on a piece of paper and a pen before reading the article.
Part 1. Theoretical part
First, you need to understand what types of income there are and why you need to increase them. Our mind is designed in such a way that no matter how much money we receive, we quickly get used to the amounts that come to us and spend money based on how much we earn.
What does it mean? Imagine that your salary is $1000. After some time, you began to earn more, and your salary was already $3,000. How does this change in your life? First of all, its quality changes. You start spending money on things you couldn't afford before.
You go to other stores, buy branded clothes and eat at more expensive restaurants. Perhaps you will take out a car or an apartment on credit. If you rent an apartment, you will want to move to a better apartment, or exchange your old car for a new one.
Your travels and your vacation will also change qualitatively. You will travel to other countries, buy different clothes, eat different foods, go to different restaurants, and so on.
Then you will realize that the amount of money you receive is just enough for your expenses. Sometimes you even have to borrow money from friends. What happens in this situation? As your salary increases, your needs will increase, and one way or another your expenses will catch up with your income.
The reverse scheme also works
Imagine that after the crisis you began to receive much less money, for example, you received $3000, but began to receive $1500. Your income has decreased by 2 times. Then your expenses will adapt to your income, and you will start saving.
What is savings? Saving is a loss of quality of life. When saving, a person buys goods and services of lower quality, reassuring himself that at the moment he needs to be patient, he needs to wait, and “he’s happy with everything anyway.” In this case, your expenses will also be adjusted to your income. Once again, you will be short of money and will have to take on extra work or think of other ways to increase your income.
Therefore, the first step to increasing income is to determine the goal of generating excess profits. To do this, answer the following questions:
- Why do you need to increase your income?
- What are you unhappy with right now?
- What quality of life would you like to achieve?
If you are satisfied with the state of affairs that exists, then you have no need to receive excess profits, and accordingly, you have no motivation to create additional money. If you understand that your financial situation requires improvement, then this article will help you work on them.
Having goals for 2018 is also important. If additional money is needed to implement them, then you will have additional motivation to take up this issue.
How not to lose the income received in 2018?
First of all, you need to change the way you manage your personal finances. Without this, any increase in income will only lead to a slight improvement in your quality of life, but will not lead you to Financial Independence in the long run.
It is also worth determining what level you are at now and conducting an audit of your personal finances. To do this, let's define the basic terms:
- Active income (YES) - you work for money, that is, you exchange your skills, experience, knowledge, competencies, time for the equivalent in money.
- Passive income (PI) - your money works for you, for example, a deposit, apartments rented out, copyrights, franchising and so on.
- CASH FLOW is the amount of money that remains after you have received all your income (active and passive) and taken away all expenses (see article “”).
So, our task now is to focus on helping you learn how to earn more. To do this, we work with active income (YES).
Step 1. We start calculating our personal finances
Understanding how much money you receive and how much money you spend will already give you an objective assessment of what is happening with your money. Therefore, Step 1 is an audit of your financial condition.
Step 2. You need to record the expenses that you have and determine how you will continue to spend the money
To achieve a positive CashFlow, there are two ways - increasing income or reducing expenses. Which of these paths is correct? Someone chooses the first path, someone the second, and the truth, as always, is in the middle.
Our goal is to increase revenues, but at the same time reduce costs. Some of you have heard that you need to save money, since now is a difficult time. However, any savings leads to a decrease in the quality of life, and our task is to only improve the quality of life, as this gives a feeling of joy and fullness of life.
And here it is worth introducing such a term as cost optimization.
What can be done in terms of cost optimization?
- Avoid unnecessary spending. If you analyze where you spent money in the previous month and think about whether you really needed to spend it, you will realize that some of your expenses were completely unnecessary and you could refuse them without losing your quality of life.
- Direct your financial flows more intelligently so that you spend less money without losing quality. For example, you can buy groceries not in large markets near your home, but go to hypermarkets, where prices are 10-30% lower than in a regular store, especially if you take not one package, but several. If you come to a large store once every 2 weeks or once a month and buy for future use, you can save some money without losing the quality of the products. It is also better to come to the store with a list of products so as not to buy unnecessary products.
For those who drive a car, cost optimization suggests that you can refuel your car at good gas stations that have a loyalty program. It makes it possible to save 10-15% of the cost of fuel.
As for travel, you can plan your trips in advance and save 30-50% of your budget on this alone. Because both air tickets and accommodation will cost you much less if purchased in advance.
The same goes for other costs, such as training. If you buy a training program or training course in advance, you can save about 50%.
You can reduce your mobile phone costs by analyzing your costs and choosing a better plan. Or use the second number of another operator. When choosing a mobile phone, please note that many flagships from Chinese manufacturers are 2-3 times cheaper than Apple or Samsung products, performing the same tasks at a fairly high level.
These are just a few examples of how to optimize your expenses. On average, you can reduce your costs by 10-20% thanks to optimization.
The second way to get extra money is to increase your income
And again there are 2 paths - linear and non-linear. The linear path is an increase in income due to more working time, for example, part-time work, overtime, and so on. But this path has its limit. You cannot work more than a certain number of days per month or hours per day, because otherwise you will be physically and mentally exhausted. And this work will no longer be a joy for you.
The nonlinear path suggests that with the same amount of time you can work more efficiently. Those who work in hired jobs need to increase their competencies and the cost of their hours. For those running their own business or entrepreneurship, it is necessary to look for new opportunities to increase income, for example, searching for new lines of business. This way you can increase your income without investing additional time.
As a result, if you have learned to count your money, if you know that a certain amount of money comes to you regularly, if your costs have become fixed, then in the next month you will see how your CashFlow increases significantly.
What to do with this money?
Here again there are two ways.
- The first way is the way of Scrooge McDuck: all the money is saved, and you live in the spending mode that you had before, without increasing your standard of living.
- The second way is to spend all the money earned from above on pleasure, on shopping, on trips, and so on.
Here, too, the best option would be the golden mean. The ideal option would be one in which you increase the quality of your life, and at the same time learn to save and save money. Because you may need them in almost a year.
Here's what the ideal option looks like: save half of the extra money you earn and spend the other half.
For what? If you are a man, spend this money on your wife, children and your family, and only then on yourself. If you are a woman, spend it first on yourself, then on your children and husband. Spend this money on improving your quality of life, on purchases, hobbies, vacations, travel and things that bring you pleasure.
And also, be sure to set aside 10% of the money you receive for charity and to help loved ones who need it.
First of all, these are your parents. Now the pension that our parents receive puts them at the level of survival and without your help it will be very difficult for them. Therefore, send 10% of your income to help loved ones and charity.
Another 10% is money that is worth spending on training or improving your competencies so that you can increase the value of your hour and earn even more money.
Each enterprise must provide for planned measures to increase profits.
In general terms, these activities can be of the following nature:
- increase in production output;
- improvement ;
- selling or leasing excess equipment and other property;
- reducing production costs through more rational use of material resources, production capacity and space, labor and working time;
- diversification of production;
- expansion of the sales market, etc.;
- rational use of economic resources;
- reduction in production costs;
- promotion ;
- elimination of non-production expenses and losses;
- increasing the technical level of production.
In a market economy, the importance of profit is enormous. The desire to obtain it directs commodity producers to increase the volume of production of products needed by the consumer and reduce production costs. With developed competition, this achieves not only the goal of entrepreneurship, but also the satisfaction of social needs. However, economic instability and the monopoly position of commodity producers distort the formation of profit as net income and lead to the desire to obtain income, mainly as a result of rising prices.
Despite the fact that profit is the most important economic indicator of an enterprise’s activity, it does not characterize the efficiency of its work. To determine the efficiency of an enterprise, it is necessary to compare the results (in this case, profit) with the costs or resources that provided these results.
Main factors for increasing enterprise profits
As you know, profit from sales is the difference between sales revenue and the full cost of products, works, and services. Thus, there are two ways to influence (increase, decrease) the profit of an enterprise:
- the first way is to reduce costs;
- the second way is to increase revenue, i.e. sales volume.
Let's consider an example of the interaction of these paths (Fig. 13.1). To increase profit by 100 thousand rubles, it is necessary to either reduce costs by 100 thousand rubles, or increase sales by 594 thousand rubles. (2994 - 2400).
Obviously, the most profitable option is to reduce costs, since:
Rice. 13.1. Ways to increase profits:
1 - initial version; 2 - first way, cost reduction; 3 - second way, increasing sales volume
reducing costs by 4.1% is much easier than increasing sales by almost 25%;
an increase in production volume requires additional costs, including working capital;
increasing sales volume requires conquering certain market segments.
It should be noted that reducing costs for an enterprise is an objective process. Moreover, not only due to increased profits, but also due to competition and the need to reduce prices for manufactured products in certain situations. In these cases, in order to reduce or increase profits, it is necessary to promptly switch to the production of new products.
The main factors influencing the reduction of enterprise costs:
- Achieving an appropriate level of labor productivity.
- Ensuring appropriate turnover of enterprise funds and, above all, working capital and their sources.
- Optimization of enterprise variable costs.
- Optimization of fixed costs, i.e. general production, general business and commercial expenses.
- Optimization of the enterprise's capital structure, equity and borrowed funds.
- Introduction of management accounting, improvement of budgeting.
- Optimization of supply costs.
- Cost management.
- Other factors.
- Reduced inventory levels.
- Elimination of all kinds of losses and unproductive expenses.
The main factors for increasing sales volume and revenue:
I. Factors - management requirements.
- Flexible production, allowing a constant increase in its volume, timely updating of products, and expansion of the range.
- Compliance with concluded contracts.
- Optimization of prices and pricing.
- Ensuring the highest quality of products, works and services.
- Periodic review of commercial lending policies.
- Other factors.
II. Factors associated with possible reserves.
- Conquest and development of new markets.
- Expansion of the dealer network.
- Effective activity of the enterprise in selling products.
- Other factors.
The purpose of enterprise profit management: optimization of profit planning; obtaining at least the planned profit; optimization of profit distribution from the point of view of business efficiency.
It should be noted that all activities of the enterprise are aimed at realizing the goal of profit management. Part of this activity is focused on the implementation of another, no less important goal - ensuring the liquidity and solvency of the enterprise.
The profitable policy is as follows.
Analysis of actual financial results:
- the relationship between the income and expenses of an enterprise and its profit,
- financial analysis of revenue, profit and profitability of types
- profit - from sales, balance sheet, taxable, net;
- analysis and optimization of enterprise costs in the process of developing cost prices, including cost of goods sold, commercial and administrative expenses;
- marginal analysis and assessment of marginal indicators;
- analysis of the capital structure and associated financial leverage, its impact on return on equity using the DuPont formula;
- analysis of the enterprise's capital turnover indicators and its impact on the profitability of the enterprise's own funds using the DuPont formula;
- estimation of profit per share in joint stock companies.
Analysis and assessment of the role and place of profit in internal financial relations, in centers of financial responsibility.
Development and justification of a business plan (financial plan), financial budgets of the enterprise, including a forecast profit and loss statement based on the results of analysis and other economic calculations. The types of documents and their content are determined by the enterprise.
Development of a profitable enterprise policy related to the distribution of net profit, including:
- dividend policy;
- investment policy;
- attitude towards the consumption fund;
- attitude towards the reserve fund at the expense of net profit;
- assessment of other payments from net profit.
Development of an organizational plan for the enterprise, a kind of profit management regulation, including principles of operational activities to realize the planned profit.
In addition to the main provisions of the profitable policy outlined above, other provisions may be reflected in the relevant documents.
Index funds allow you to earn income from investing in the stock market completely passively. For example, if you invest in a fund based on the S&P 500 index, your money will be invested in the overall market, and you won't have to worry about how to manage your money or whether to sell or buy shares of certain companies. All these points will be managed by the fund, which forms its investment portfolio depending on the state of a particular index.
You can also choose a fund that covers any index. There are funds involved in various business sectors - energy, precious metals, banking, emerging markets and others. All you have to do is decide for yourself that this is what you want to do, then invest the money and relax. From now on, your stock portfolio will run on autopilot.
Make videos for YouTube
This area is developing very quickly. You can make videos of absolutely any category - music, educational, comedy, movie reviews - anything... and then post it on YouTube. Then you can connect Google AdSense to these videos, and automatic advertising will appear in them. When viewers click on these ads, you will earn money from Google AdSense.
Your main task is to create decent videos, promote them on social networks and maintain a sufficient number of them to provide yourself with income from several clips. Shooting and editing a video is not that easy, but once done, you will have a source of completely passive income that can last for a very long time.
Not sure you'll succeed on YouTube? Michelle Phan combined her love of makeup and drawing with video production, gained more than 8 million subscribers, and now launched her own company with a capitalization of $800 million.
Try Affiliate Marketing and Start Selling
This is a passive income technique that is more suitable for owners of blogs and active Internet sites. You can start promoting any products on your website and receive a fixed fee or a percentage of sales.
Making money this way is not as difficult as you might think because many companies are interested in selling their products in as many places as possible.
You can find partnership offers either by contacting manufacturers directly or on specialized websites. It is best if the advertised product or service is interesting to you or matches the theme of the site.
Make your photos profitable online
Do you like photography? If so, you may be able to turn this into a source of passive income. Photo banks, such as and, can provide you with a platform for selling photos. You will receive a percentage or flat rate for each photo sold to a website client.
In this case, each photo represents a separate source of income that can work over and over again. All you need to do is create a portfolio, upload it to one or more platforms, and that's where your active work will end. All technical issues of photo sales are resolved using the web platform.
Buy high-yielding stocks
By creating a portfolio of high-yield stocks, you will receive a source of regular passive income with an annual interest rate that is much higher than the interest on bank deposits.
Don't forget that high-yielding stocks are still stocks, so there's always the possibility of capital overvaluation. In this case, you will receive profit from two sources - from dividends and return on invested capital. To purchase these shares and complete the appropriate forms, you will need to create a brokerage account.
Write an e-book
Of course, this can be quite a labor-intensive process, but once you write a book and publish it on marketplaces, it can provide you with income for years. You can sell the book on your own website or enter into a partnership agreement with other websites that are similar in theme to the book.
Write a real book and get royalties
Just like writing an e-book, there's a lot of work involved at first. But when the work is completed and the book goes on sale, it will become a completely passive source of income.
This is especially true if you manage to sell your book to a publisher who will pay you a royalty on the sales. You will receive a percentage of each copy sold, and if the book is popular, these percentages can add up to significant amounts. Moreover, these payments can last for years.
Mike Piper of ObviousInvestor.com recently did just that. He wrote a book, Investing Plain, which was sold only on Amazon. The first book became so profitable that he created a whole series. These books total .
Get cashback on credit card transactions
Many credit cards offer cash back ranging from 1% to 5% of the purchase price. You still go shopping and spend money, right?
Such bonuses allow you to provide yourself with a kind of passive “income” (in the form of reduced spending) from actions that you perform anyway.
Sell your own products online
The possibilities in this area are endless: you can sell almost any product or service. It could be something you created and made yourself, or it could be a digital product (software, DVDs, or instructional videos)
For trading, you can use a specialized resource, if suddenly you do not have your own website or blog. In addition, you can enter into a partnership agreement by offering goods to sites on relevant topics or using platforms like (American marketplace for selling digital information products - editor's note).
You can learn how to sell products online and earn quite a lot from it. This may not be completely passive income, but it is certainly more passive than a regular job that you have to go to every morning.
Invest in real estate
This method falls more into the category of semi-passive income, since investing in real estate involves at least a small level of activity. However, if you have a property that you're already renting out, it's mostly just a matter of maintaining it.
Additionally, there are professional property managers who can manage your property for a commission of approximately 10% of the rent. Such professional managers help make the process of receiving profits from such investments more passive, but they will take part of it.
Another way to invest in real estate is to pay off a loan. If you take out a loan to buy a property that you will rent out, your tenants will pay off that debt a little each month. When the full amount is paid, your profits will increase dramatically, and your relatively small investment will turn into a full-fledged program for quitting your day job.
Buy a blog
Thousands of blogs are created every year, and many of them end up abandoned after some time. If you can acquire a blog with enough visitors—and therefore enough cash flow—it can be a great source of passive income.
Most blogs use Google AdSense, which pays once a month for advertising placed on the site. To provide additional income, you can also enter into partnership agreements. Both of these income streams will be yours if you own a blog.
From a financial perspective, blogs typically sell for 24 times the monthly income the blog can generate. That is, if a site can earn $250 per month, most likely you can buy it for $3,000. This means that by investing $3,000, you can receive $1,500 annually.
You may be able to buy the site for less money if the owner really wants to get rid of this asset. Some sites contain “eternal” materials that will not lose relevance and will generate income years after publication.
Bonus tip: If you buy such a site and then fill it with fresh content, you will be able to increase your monthly income, and you will be able to sell the site again after some time for a significantly higher price than you paid when buying it.
Finally, instead of purchasing a blog, you can create your own. This is also a good way to earn money.
Create a website that sells
If there is a product that you know a lot about, you can start selling it on a specialized website. The technique is the same as when selling a product of your own making, except that you do not have to deal with the production itself.
After some time, you may find that you can add similar products. If this happens, the site will begin to generate significant profits.
If you can find a way to ship products directly from the manufacturer to the buyer, you won't even have to get your hands dirty. This may not be 100% passive income, but it’s very close to it.
Invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs)
Let's say you decide to invest in real estate, but you don't want to devote any attention or time to it. Investment trusts can help you with this. They are something like a fund that owns various real estate projects. The funds are managed by professionals, so you don't have to interfere with their work at all.
One of the main advantages of investing in REITs is that they typically pay higher dividends than stocks, bonds and bank deposits. You can also sell your interest in the trust at any time, making such assets more liquid than owning real estate on your own.
Become a passive business partner
Do you know a successful company that needs capital to expand its business? If so, you can become something of a short-term angel and provide that capital. But instead of giving a loan to the owner of the company, ask for a share of the shares. In this case, the owner of the company will manage the work of the company, while you will be a passive partner, also taking part in the business.
Every small business needs a source of referrals to support sales. Make a list of entrepreneurs whose services you use regularly and whom you can recommend for cooperation. Contact them and find out if they have a system for paying for referrals.
The list could include acquaintances: accountants, landscape designers, electricians, plumbers, carpet cleaners—anyone. Be prepared to recommend the services of these people to your friends, relatives and colleagues. You can earn a commission on every referral just by talking to people.
Don’t underestimate referral programs in the professional sphere either. If the company you work for offers bonuses for referring new employees or new clients, take advantage of it. This is very easy money.
Rent out your unused property on Airbnb
The concept appeared only a few years ago, but very quickly spread throughout the world. Airbnb allows people to travel the world and pay much less to stay than in regular hotels. By participating in Airbnb, you can use your home to host guests and earn extra money just from renting.
The amount of income will depend on the size and condition of your home and its location. Naturally, if your home is located in an expensive city or near a popular resort, the income will be much higher. This is a way to make money from free spaces in your home that would otherwise be empty.
Write an application
Apps can be an incredibly lucrative source of income. Think about how many people have smartphones today. Yes, almost everything! People are downloading apps like crazy—and for good reason.
Apps make people's lives easier. Whether it's helping you post pretty pictures or keeping track of tasks, there's always an app that's useful to someone.
You might ask: If there are so many apps out there, why would you try to create another one? Is there too much competition? This is all true, but fresh, creative ideas can benefit. If you can come up with something unique, you can make money from it.
Don't know how to program? No problem, you can learn. There are a lot of different courses on the Internet, including free ones. Alternatively, you can hire a developer to create an app based on your idea.
The end result is an application that will potentially generate relatively passive income.
Create online courses
Every person is an expert in something. Why not create an online course about your passion?
There are several ways to create and deliver your own online courses. One of the easiest ways is to use sites like
To achieve a balanced personal or family budget, it is important not only to reduce unnecessary expenses, but also increase the amount of income in the treasury of the family - the unit of society.
How to increase family income? There is no need to think that this is only possible by moving to a better paid job or by increasing the workload. There are methods that allow you to receive additional money more efficiently.
General approach
First, let's look at standard options increase in cash receipts:
- salary increase;
- change of job to a more profitable one;
- second part-time job;
- all kinds of part-time jobs.
Of course, taking on a colossal amount of work is very difficult, so You must initially try to choose a profession with a decent income. Your future career, and therefore your earnings, will largely depend on which educational institution you graduate from.
The best option is to decide on your desired profession during your school years, so as not to waste extra time searching for yourself in life.
While at school, it is quite possible to plan your path in the future, think through options for getting an education, getting a job and the amount of money you will receive in the future.
Minimum work - maximum pay
It is believed that the main income depends on the main job, but this is not entirely true if you approach the matter correctly.
It is possible and necessary to make assets generate money and at the same time work quite a bit on your own.
Experts often refer to obtaining funds from assets financial independence. Such earnings will indeed replenish the budget, regardless of the influence of many factors. This type of income is not affected by the employer or the physical condition of the asset owner.
By choosing the right types of assets and using them with the least risk, you can significantly increase their efficiency and your well-being.
It is also possible to earn a little extra money from social benefits and tax benefits if you take this type of income seriously. For example, many people forget about the return of personal income tax from the budget based on expenses for purchasing housing, paying for treatment or education.
The share of state money entering the personal budget will directly depend on the success of the person himself. The better a student studies, the greater the scholarship he will receive.
To earn a decent income, it is not at all necessary to spend day and night at work.
