This may seem like a weird topic to talk about, because we all know we need money. Let’s face it, it is essential for modern living and quite a leading factor affecting our happiness as well. But earning money in the wrong means could be the worst possible ways to lose your happiness. So why don’t we explore ways and means of earning money and how to do it?

Earning money or an income is not really that tough when you put your mind and body to it. But it should always be in the correct avenues of income streams. Otherwise you will end up with many stresses that you are not ready for.

“Working hard on something you love is called passion. Working hard on something you don’t love is called stress.”

So it is always good to be on the ‘passion’ and ‘love’ side of this dilemma.

But we see a lot of youth and elderly alike stuck in jobs that they don’t like and suffer throughout their lives. However, this is rather unnecessary.

Ways of Earning Money or an Income

Let’s face it. If we try to list down all the ways we could earn money, it would possibly take days to finish off this article. Time is money! So, we will categorize several and important and practical sources of money for your convenience.

1. Getting a job (full time / part time)
2. Entrepreneurship or putting up your own business
3. Returns on savings
4. Investing in stock market
5. Earning money online (YouTube / blogging / affiliate marketing)
6. Freelancing

You could potentially invest all your time into one of these or divest your time into several of these. If you feel like you are good at something and you love it, you should stick to it. Chances are your love will drive you towards higher success in the specific area.

But that may not be the case, since you are already here…

Coming back to these different sources of incomes, they each have their own merits and demerits. For an example; a full time job at a corporate would give you financial security in a sense that even if the company makes losses, your monthly salary is guaranteed. Your job or employment offer might include health and insurance benefits too. Sounds good enough right? Yes and No.

Despite having some guaranteed benefits, the same thing is a traditional job’s disadvantage. The income is fixed until such time you are promoted, which happens every 5 years or so on average. Also, whatever additional effort you put in, will benefit the organization directly. You will, sometimes, have a spill over benefit.

So this is where owning your own business comes in handy. Any and every extra effort you put in, will directly benefit you in terms of additional revenue, profits or a customer base growth. Any additional amount left over from revenue after expenses will be yours to enjoy. Sounds good, right? Yes and No. It is not without its downfalls as well. You will need substantial capital to start up a business. And you are guaranteed to have some extreme strenuous times when it seems like everything is falling apart.

The below graphic shows what it is like to be an entrepreneur.

So if you can handle the constant feelings of self-doubts, this is a sure fire way to success.

Savings are another great and stress-free source of income that you can consider. But you might already be aware that having money in a savings account is barely going to earn a substantial income for your survival. Let’s assume that your bank gives you an interest rate of 10% on your fixed deposits. And let’s assume you need $30,000 per annum for a comfortable living. You need to have a minimum of $300,000 saved on your account to earn that, pre-taxes. So unless you inherit a large sum of money, you will still have to earn and build up your initial investment first.

Investing in the stock market is an investment option preferred by many today. There are two forms of earning money from the stock or share market. One is dividends and the other is through trading. Dividends are paid by companies to their shareholders based on the profit they generate for a specific year. So the company will pay you some dollars based on the number of shares you own of that company. This is a great source of income with one major downturn. The amount and if to pay dividends at all depends on the sole discretion of the company. Even if they make profits in one year, they are not bound to pay dividends. But you can be on alert for companies as such and avoid investing in them.

Trading or day trading on the stock market is when you buy and sell shares to make a quick gain. You buy low and sell high, after monitoring the fluctuations of stock prices. The stock prices go up and down based on demand and supply for the said stock within the market. This is one way to earn some quick cash if you are intuitive enough. The downside is that your stock price could go down and end up making you a loss if you chose to sell. So you will need some good skills to pick stocks at the right time and sell at the right time as well.

Online money is becoming a popular means of earning a passive and even a full-time income among many today. There are countless ways to earn money online. You can put up a blog and publish articles on it and monetize it. You can put up a YouTube channel and post videos and monetize it. There are even social networks that pay you to generate content on their platforms. The downside of this is that there are 1,744,517,326 many websites on the Internet as of January 2020, and this number is growing exponentially. So your website will be fighting for even the slightest breathing space in this vast sea of websites. According to Tubics.com, there are around 31 million YouTube CHANNELS on the platform. There could be billions of videos. So it is not necessarily “easy” to earn money online starting from scratch. But not impossible either.

If none of these appeal to you, you could focus on freelancing work. It’s not free work. The concept stems from the fact that you are a free person to do what you wish without obligations or contracts. As a freelancer you could pick what you prefer to do and when to do. However, getting off as a freelancer requires some tough times to build up a reputation, be it in real world or online. Your marketing skills will be really put to test here.