Tips on making more Money from your home

Many people are now making money from their homes. This is not working from home but actually using the house that we live in as a way of earning money. If we are renting our home we are not able to do this unfortunately, but any home owner may have a selection of ways to make money. If the home is being bought on a mortgage then you may need to ask your lenders permission to make money from the home so do check with them first. Below are some different ideas on how you can make money from your home.

Bed and breakfast

If you have a spare room then you could set up as a bed and breakfast and it would be even better if you have a few spare rooms and a spare bathroom as well as a dining area. You will be able to rent the rooms out one night at a time and then you will need to be available to cook breakfast in the morning for your guests. You could also provide them with an evening meal if you want to offer this and charge extra for it. There are plenty of places online where you can advertise that you do this so it should be easy enough to find potential guests although you may have to pay to advertise in these places.

Get a lodger

If you want a more permanent arrangement then you could get a lodger. This will not pay as much as bed and breakfast but it will be longer term and so you will have guaranteed income for longer. It will mean that you will always have someone around which may or may not suit you. You will not have to provide meals for them but you will need to give them access to your kitchen and cooking facilities as well as your fridge and freezer. It may be that you feel you would like to have an extra person living in your home or that you feel that you would rather not. It is a very personal thing.

Rent your loft space

If you have empty attic space then you can rent it out to people to store things in. People who only have small amounts of things to store prefer this to a storage locker as it is cheaper for them. You will have to check your insurance policy to make sure that these items would be covered or you may have to get a different insurance policy for them or let the person know that they would have to insure them themselves.

Rent your garage

Some people have a whole garage that they can rent out. This can be useful for people who have a car that they only use occasionally that they want to store or if they want to use the space for storage or as a workshop or whatever. It might be most useful for people that live really near to you if they do not have a garage of their own or they need extra space.

Rent your driveway

Some people will rent out their driveway as a parking space for people who work nearby. This is particularly good if you do not use your driveway or have a large driveway and live near to a large business without sufficient parking. You can arrange to rent out to the same person every day so that they can walk to work form your house and park all day safely. If there are car parks nearby you will have to offer a competitive price but if there are not any car parks then you can charge a fair bit.

Holiday Home

If you have more than one property then you could rent out your home as a holiday rental. This will bring in more money than renting out full time, as long as you can get guests in a lot of the time. This is because holiday rentals are charged out at a higher rate due to the fact that they are cleaned, provide bedding and towels and are furnished. Some people even do this, just for a while, perhaps over the summer while they are on holiday or if there are local events on where people need places to stay and they can make some extra money from their home.

How to manage on a Tight Food Budget

Many of us are trying to spend less money on food these days. It used to be the case that families spent most of their money of food after they have paid rent, but these days we spend money on many more things and therefore often will try to get our food bill down to a small proportion of our spending. If we do have a tight food budget, there are ways that we can manage and still have enough food without going over the budget.

Avoid food waste

Sometimes it can be easy to waste food. We might buy food and then not have time to cook it or even forget that we have it. It is a good idea to look through your food cupboard, fridge and freezer and make sure that you are not likely to waste foods. Use things up before their use by dates and near to their best before dates so that no food is wasted. Try to use up the food that you have so that you can spend less on buying new food. Think about ways that you can put together food that you already have to make meals so that you can use it up before there is a risk that it might go off. If you do not like the food that you have, then see if you can swap it with friends, neighbours or relatives.

Find cheapest supermarkets

It is a good idea to find out which the cheapest supermarket will be for you to shop at. You might think that it is obviously who the budget supermarkets but the cheapest one for you will depend on the type of foods that you buy. If someone tells you that theirs is the cheapest, that might be true for them, but may not be for you. Therefore it can be worth using a comparison website to check which might be the cheapest. If you end up buying form a different supermarket, not enjoying their food and throwing it away, this is a false economy so it may be worth trying a few things first to see how happy you are with switching supermarkets. Make sure that you consider the travel costs to get the different supermarkets as well, as if you have to go further away or make several journeys to different places in order to get what you want, then it may not be worth the savings that you make on the groceries.

Buy non-branded goods

It is normally the case that branded goods will be more expensive than non-branded goods. This means that if you swap your brands for supermarket own brands, you are likely to save money. You may decide that you do not like the supermarket brands as much, but it is worth trying them to see what you think. There are some supermarkets where there will be some branded products that are cheaper than their own, so do be wary of what you are buyng in order to make sure that you really are saving money.

Avoid unnecessary snack foods

We seem to all snack a lot these days between meals, Years ago this was just not something that was done or if it was done it was very occasional. Now it seems that it is really acceptable to do this. It is worth looking at your own snacking habits as well as those of your family. Think about whether the snacks that you are eating are really necessary or whether you can go without them. It might be that you are in the habit of eating snack foods, when you could just miss them out or that you are having more than you really need. If you still want o snack, think about what you are snacking on and whether you can find a cheaper alternative.

Be wary of special offers

Special offers can often really tempt us when we are shopping. We think that we are getting a great deal and so we buy these items. It might be that they are things we normally buy and so we definitely save money. However, often they are things that we would not buy and so we need to be careful that we do not these in addition to our normal shopping and then end up spending more money than we would have. If we buy them instead of something more expensive, then this makes sense. However, it is still important to be careful about 2 for 1 and other bulk buy offers as it could tempt us just to eat more, because it was cheaper and then we will not end up saving any money.

Cook from Scratch

It can often be cheaper to cook form scratch than to buy ready-made meals and processed foods. It is worth comparing the prices of the ingredients and the meals to see whether you could save by making them yourself. Sometime sit is certain elements to meals that make them expensive such as meat, fish or nuts. Therefore you may be able adapt a recipe to make it cheaper by using a cheaper cut of meat, frozen rather than fresh fish, beans or lentils rather than nuts. You can replace out all sorts of ingredients and come up with a similar thing which costs a lot less. Having expensive ingredients less often can make a big difference and so having some days when you do not have meat or fish could help to reduce your food bill. Perhaps just having smaller portions of the expensive things and having more of the cheaper ones, can also be a way around it.

Avoid Trendy Food

When you buy trendy or superfood you will pay a lot more money for it compared with other foods. This means that it is wise to avoid these if you can. For example, goji berries are expensive because of their antioxidant properties, but any other red fruit would have similar ones, in fact all fruit and vegetables have antioxidants. Vegan food is very trendy and so dairy alternatives, vegan ready meals and things like this are easy to find but they are dear. You can make these yourself or find cheaper alternatives which are much cheaper.