4 Ways to Get the Money You Need Without Using Credit Cards
By Space Coast Daily // August 11, 2021
If you pay the balance off each month, credit cards are good for a few things. They can help you build up your credit score. They can also offer valuable rewards, including cash back and discounts on travel.
However, if you find yourself reaching for your credit card for anything that you can’t pay off within the same billing cycle, you should look elsewhere for a source of cash. Once you start to carry a balance on your card, you’re paying high interest rates, and it can be easy to get in over your head. It’s best to look elsewhere if you need money.
Borrow Against Home Equity
If you own a home, you might be able to borrow against it using a home equity line of credit. You can review a guide that includes everything that you need to know about this and that will help you decide if it is the right solution for you. One of its main advantages over using your credit card is lower interest rates.
Savings
It’s a little old-fashioned, but there’s always the option to wait a while and save up for the thing that you want or need. Of course, if it is an emergency or even time sensitive, this might not be the right approach.
But if the big thing you want a lump sum of money for is a vacation, a home renovation or something else that is optional and that doesn’t have to be right now, you could make a savings plan to put away a certain amount of money each month until you have enough.
Sell Your Belongings
What do you have that you really don’t need? It might be something big, like a car, but even if all you own is some old DVDs, some books, some clothing, or some kitchen items, you might be surprised to find that other people are willing to pay you for them.
You can always have a yard sale or take clothes to a consignment shop and books to a used bookstore, but you may be able to sell things online as well. Editing down your belongings is also a great hack to making moving easier if that is in your long-term plan ever. For example, there are apps that make it easy to sell your books or other items. Some even include a courier pick up.
Gig Work
Once upon a time, if you needed money for something, you might pick up a second job. That’s still an option, but adding another 12 or 15 hours each week to your usual 40 can be exhausting after a while. If only there were a part-time job you could go to only when you some energy and spare time.
It turns out there actually is, and that’s gig work, which is the name for any kind of casual work that you do as an independent contractor instead of an employee. Don’t assume that if you don’t have any skills that this is not an option.
While there is lots of work out there for writers, tutors, programmers and app developers, there are also plenty of people who simply need their lawns mowed or their dogs walked. If you can drive, you can drive other people around or deliver for restaurants.
