5 Fun Ways to Save Up $1000

Read time: 6 minutes

It was a late Minnesota summer. The grasshoppers were buzzing, the sun was hot, I was 11 years old - and I was about to be rich.

And that was a very good thing, because as an 11 year old, I had an unquenchable need for corner store freeze pops.

If left to myself, those icy treats would make up 90% of my diet.

But my tiny allowance was in the way.

Today, however, that no longer mattered. I had a plan to make so much money I could buy the corner store itself.

Every evening as I biked around my local park, I’d see people catching fish at the pier for dinner.

They’d stand there for hours, filling Walmart shopping bags to the brim before they would finally head home at sunset.

Clearly they wanted these fish bad. Bad enough I’d bet they’d pay for them.

And lucky for me, I was a pro at catching fish.

I could get them so much fish they’d never want to look at a lake again.

I raced home to tell all my friends.

We gathered the supplies - fishing lines, butterfly nets, buckets, worms.

Soon we were out on the docks, lines cast and arms dangling in the water with our nets, waiting for curious fish to get close so we could snatch them from the lake.

The fish stood no chance. My army of tiny humans was cunning and motivated.

We plucked them out one by one, sorting them by size into buckets.

By the end of the afternoon, we had hundreds.

We grabbed the 30 largest to sell, strung them up on a line, and headed to the main dock.

Our hearts were soaring as we ran along.

“What flavor freeze pop are you going to get?”

“Cherry. It’s my favorite.”

“I’m going to get blue raspber- where is everyone?”

The pier was empty.

There was no one to sell fish to. No one to give us money. No way for us to buy freeze pops.

We headed home, defeated.

If you needed to make $1,000 FAST, what would you do?

Drive Uber, do DoorDash, mow lawns…

Sure those will make you money, but they all sound, well… boring.

Does making money have to be so miserable?

I say no, and I’ve put together 5 fun ways for you to save up a stack of Bennys as quickly as you can.

And no, none of them involves fish.

In today’s issue:

• 5 unique ways to make big bucks fast, including

  • A hustle for animal lovers

  • A hustle for hagglers

  • A hustle for shopaholics

  • A hustle for party people

  • A hustle for athletes

• Plus, a BONUS tool to make saving more fun than ever

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Walk Dogs on Rover

You can make $25 just for going on a walk and hanging out with a dog.

Sound like paradise? Yeah it does.

Websites like Rover and Wag connect dog owners with dog walkers.

Not only do you get paid to work out, but you get to hang out with a cute ball of fur while you do so.

And best of all, as you prove yourself trustworthy, you’re likely to get repeat customers, giving you semi-stable side income without having to hustle to make sales every week.

Yard Sale Flipping

Do you love thrifting or driving a hard bargain? You’d love yard sale flipping.

And with summer just around the corner, it’s about to be prime time for this side hustle.

Every day people sell popular items for WAY below their market value either because they don’t realize how much they’re worth, or they don’t want to put in the work to sell it online.

If you’re willing to do that work, you can make $1,000 in a single week.

Sports memorabilia, pop culture items, Pokémon cards, sneakers, vintage clothing, hot wheels, bikes, appliances, and more all sell well on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.

Go hit up some yard sales, cell phone in hand, and just start Googling the items you see. 

You’d be surprised, you can often find items that sell on eBay for $100+ for less than 5 bucks at garage sales.

You can do a similar thing on Facebook Marketplace. 

Go search the free section, find something that you can clean up, fix up, or just take better pictures of, pick it up and sell it.

It takes $0 out of pocket and gets you cash in your pocket quickly.

If you know a lot about any particular category of item, you can really turn this into solid income.

I know people who make their whole living buying broken appliances on Craigslist, fixing them up, and reselling them.

This is a low risk, high reward side hustle that you can do at any age.

Retail Arbitrage

If you’re like my wife at all, you can spot quality brands in an instant.

We can walk around Marshall’s, and she somehow always knows which jeans are high end. To me, they all look like blue pants.

If that’s your gifting, this side hustle is for you.

Similar to yard sale flipping, there are lots of items you can find in clearance sections or in discount stores that sell for much more online.

All you need to do is head to your store of choice, start scanning barcodes, and look for items with a big enough price spread to cover shipping and fees and still make it worth your while.

Buy the items on discount, list them on eBay and Facebook, and collect the difference.

A bonus advantage for this strategy - any item that’s not selling you can always return back to the original store.

Referee/Coach

Did you play a sport growing up?

Believe it or not, you probably have enough knowledge to be paid to help kids do that sport now.

If you can handle angry parents yelling at you, refereeing can be a great way to make some side income with a decent amount of flexibility in your schedule.

There also are fairly low age limits, so teenagers can usually get in on the action. I was refereeing soccer games when I was 14.

If you’d rather be the one doing the yelling, then you could try out coaching.

You have less flexibility with your schedule, but you get the chance to impact kids and help them develop into strong men and women for tomorrow.

Plus, if the kids are young, it’s pretty hilarious watching them try to be coordinated. And if you coach older kids, it’s like getting courtside tickets to a Bulls game if you squint hard enough. Win-win. 

Sell Glow Necklaces at the State Fair

What do you think is the #1 secret to making tons of money in sales?

Is it having the best product? Surprisingly, no.

Is it having the cheapest supplier? Also not it.

Maybe having the best ad campaign? Helpful, but not going to do it.

The #1 most powerful thing you can have to make money in sales is….a starving audience.

If you have a hot dog stand outside a college football stadium, you are going to make a killing whether the hot dogs are great or just average.

Meanwhile, you can have the best ice cream in the world, but if you’re selling it on the beach in February in Chicago, you’re going to go broke.

Find a crowd, find what they’re desperate for, and go get it for them.

Water, Gatorade, ice cream, glow necklaces, sparklers, you name it. These things sell fast and they sell for a lot when the conditions are right.

A couple of weekends at the beach selling $2 water bottles and you could pay off your credit card.

Don’t have the time? Some people leave a cash box and cooler full of drinks out unattended all day, relying on the honor system, and make money without ever being present.

BONUS: Bingo Sheet Savings Challenge

One thing to know about me - I love a good challenge.

You could take almost anything, add the word challenge onto the end of it, and sucker me into participating.

“Hey Zach, want to go run up a ski hill 17 times?” 

What are you crazy? Of course not.

“Hey Zach, want to do the 29029 Challenge?” 

I must do this.

Thankfully for both of us, this savings challenge is actually fun.

The Savings Bingo Card is simple (shoutout to Jamie at MediumSizedFamily.com for the plan)

Each week, you’ll choose a bingo square and save the amount of money it tells you.

Once you’ve completed a square, cross it off and choose a new one.

Repeat this process until you’ve crossed off every square on the chart, and winner winner chicken dinner, you have $1,000!

Not only is this fun to do, it gives you some flexibility to have some really good weeks and some not so good weeks, meaning you’re more likely to stick to it for the full year.

A couple of tips:

• Always push yourself to put as much aside each week as you can. You never know what’s coming around the corner, so knock out those larger numbers whenever you are able to so you have the small numbers left if you ever need to have a low savings week.

• You can use cash or a savings account, but keep this money separate from the rest of your funds. Otherwise it’s likely to get used up before the year’s end.

• This idea scales! Want to get your kids in on the action? Divide every cell by ten so they can save up $100 over the year. Want to save up $2,000? Multiply them by two.

Keep growing,

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