How to make money

How can I make money fast? That’s the question we’re all asking ourselves, isn’t it? How do I get rich quick? Many of us want to make money without having a boss. Some of us want to find out, “what do I need to become an entrepreneur?” Some of us even want to know, “how can I retire at 40?” Whichever way you’re thinking, you’re probably just asking yourself, “how do I making a living doing something I love?”

Is there a way to make money fast?

The truth is, no matter how many self-help guides you read telling you how to make millions, there is no single approach to making cash fast. It takes a combination of luck, location, commercial knowledge, an enterprising nature and hard work to get to where you want to be in life. Get rich quick schemes are just that – schemes. The only people they’re making any money for, generally, are the people selling them to you. So, if you’re asking yourself, “how do I make money without working?” then you’re in for a bit of a shock – it’s virtually impossible.

Fastest ways to make money

You’ll find all kinds of websites telling you the quickest ways to make cash. They’ll talk about no-risk matched betting, completing online surveys, paid-for web searching, online market trading, starting your own website, reviewing websites and apps for cash, being a delivery driver or rider, writing and publishing an eBook, affiliate marketing, mobile phone recycling, claiming back tax, doing one-off gigs on Fiverr and other small job apps, and doing competitions.

Ask yourself this though: who are the world’s richest people? How did the richest people in the world make their money? They didn’t do it by reviewing websites and apps for cash, put it that way.

Who are the richest people on earth?

The world’s richest people are well-known to the most enthusiastic entrepreneurs out there. The rich list inspires entrepreneurs to see what’s possible if you really set your mind to it. Of course, getting onto the list of the world’s wealthiest people isn’t easy. For starters, you need a few billion pounds in the bank. Here’s the list of the richest people on the planet:

Bill Gates, $120 billion
Jeff Bezos, $190 billion
Mark Zuckerberg, $100 billion
Bernard Arnault and family, $81.4 billion
Mukesh Ambani, $80.3 billion
Steve Ballmer, $77.7 billion
Warren Buffet, $77.5 billion
Larry Page, $71.6 billion
Elon Musk, $70.2 billion
Sergey Brin, $69.4 billion

How did the richest man in the world become rich?

The richest person on earth is Jeff Bezos, the founder, CEO and president of the international technology company, Amazon. With a personal fortune of $190 billion, Bezos is even wealthier than Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp and Warren Buffet, the legendary investor.

His platform, Amazon, accounts for at least 44% of all digital spending, which is a huge, huge amount. His concept was, quite simply, an ‘everything store’. And, because he was the first to achieve it in the public eye (Alibaba and others have come since but haven’t been able to eclipse Amazon), he cornered the market. So, if you want to know how to become a multi-billionaire, there’s no point trying to start your own version of Amazon. But you might take some inspiration from one factor in Jeff Bezos’ masterplan: having an original idea.

Selling my invention idea

The first thing you have to do before selling your big idea is, of course, having one. It’s very rare that people have such an amazing invention or innovation concept that they can make £billions by selling it or turning it into a business. That’s why there are so few billionaires on earth. Do you have to be a genius to become a billionaire? No, but you do probably have to have a single genius idea.

Once you’ve had your genius big idea, the first thing you have to do is apply for a patent. How long does it take to patent something? Well, about 25 months in general, though you can expedite the process if you’re willing to spend money.

Then it’s a case of taking it to market. And that means knowing your market – seeing where your big idea fits into the wider world and where the desire for it lies. How will you position it? Who will your target audience be? How will you make them aware of your idea and decide they can’t live without it?

What about production? Do you have the resources to produce it yourself? If not, do you know a company that might give you the capital investment to be able to turn your idea into a reality? If so, do you have the sales skills to be able to stand in front of their board of directors, Dragons’ Den style, and convince them to part with the tens of thousands of pounds it will take to turn your concept into a profitable, marketable solution?

Are there easier ways to make money?

Of course, having an original, genius idea, patenting it and selling it to an investor for a share of the profits isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s a huge amount of effort up-front for a massive pay-off. That’s not exactly what you’d call getting rich quick. Where do people who have a full-time job even find the time to work on their inventions?

Making money in this life is, much more often, a case of knuckling down to some good old-fashioned hard work, sticking with a single career choice, climbing the career ladder and working your way up through the company or industry.

Cosmopolitan magazine suggests things like:

Watching TV and playing video games for money from the likes of Inboxdollars and Cashcrate
Browsing the web for money from the likes of Swagbucks
Testing beauty products for companies like L’Oreal
Renting out clothes via Rent My Wardrobe
Selling your clothes and accessories

But these money-making schemes are purely for those of us who don’t want to work but don’t really care about making a good living, because they don’t exactly enable us to put our feet up and stop worrying about paying the bills.

As we said at the beginning, the truth is that there is no easy way to make money – at least there’s no money-making formula you can follow to get rich quick. The most reliable money-making formula is actually to build a great career for yourself – that’s why it’s the one most people choose to take. You might say that working hard is the easiest way to make money.

What are the best careers for making money?

If you’re already part way through a career and are asking yourself, “what jobs make the most money?”, it probably means you’re not already doing one of the best paying careers. The top five highest paid jobs in the UK in 2020, according to CNBC, are:

Chief Financial Officer – £112,666
Vice President of Sales – £109,278
Vice President of Engineering – £108,623
Orthodontist – £99,010
Dermatologist – £93,282

If you’re working in one of those roles, good for you! You’ve found a great way to make money and you probably worked very hard to get to where you are. If you’re not working in one of those roles, then you might be asking yourself, “how do I make money without education?”

Well, as you well know, it’s much easier for people with an education to get a foot on the career ladder. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make money if you don’t have a university degree.

Entrepreneur.com lists the top 8 ways of making money without a university degree as:

Start a service business
Invest in property
Offer consulting services
Create a product
Become a subject matter expert
Rent your stuff
Get adventurous
Look at non-degree jobs

Of course, these money-making career ideas do take some skills, namely: communication skills, commercial skills, common sense, creativity, attention to detail, marketing knowledge, fearlessness and persistence. You don’t need a degree to gain them, but you do need to be very focused. You might also need something of an investment. But how do you go about saving up the money you need to invest in your new career choice? Is there an easy way to save money fast?

How do I save money fast?

One of the best ways to increase the contents of your bank account is to start saving. It might not be the sexiest way to make money, but it’s certainly one of the most sensible. And we’re all guilty of throwing our money away on things we don’t really need, so saving is something most of us are able to do to some degree, even if we live right down to the wire most of the time.

Whether it’s a way of getting out of debt, saving up for the deposit on a house or getting some money together to invest in a business idea, saving money fast can feel incredibly fulfilling because there’s little that gives people greater satisfaction in life than the feeling of being solvent.

Here’s what you need to do to save money quickly:

Start budgeting
Give a name to every last penny you earn. Make a list of everything you buy from month to month and then set the cost at the side of each item. You’ll be able to see exactly what you have leftover. That remainder, right there, forms the base of your savings. Putting that budget together is the best thing you can do to start saving for your business or house deposit.

Cut down on your spending
Look at the budget above. If you’ve been honest (which you should have!) it will cover off every last penny you spend, including all the frivolous things you don’t necessarily need. Entertainment like cinema trips, eating out at restaurants, shopping for fun… these can all temporarily go so that you can put your money aside. If you’re strict, you’ll soon see the difference in your bank balance.

Make radical changes
If you really want to make a massive dent in your spending, you can make some really massive changes that you wouldn’t normally have dreamed of making if you weren’t saving money. Things like cutting your own hair instead of going to the hairdressers, selling your car or going vegetarian. It’s all about looking at your budget and asking yourself, ‘what would life be like if I didn’t have this?’ and then working out what you can live without.

How do I invest money?

Investing money in the stock market is a risky business, but it’s still one of the easiest ways that people are able to build wealth in the UK and save for their retirement. For most people, running their own business (link ‘running their own business’ to self-employment pillar page) feels much more like palatable, because they’re able to maintain control of their own success. Investing, on the other hand, can be daunting because you’re basically handing over your money and hoping that the company you invest in performs as well as you want it to.

If you’re contemplating investing money in the stock market, these are the things you’ll need to consider:

Do you want to do the investing yourself or do you want it to be managed by a Financial advisor
What are your financial goals and how long will you need to get the investment capital together?
Have you thought about an investment ISA?
What types of investment best match your risk tolerance?

Investing money in my own business

Millions of entrepreneurial people all over the world have found that one of the best ways to make money is to invest in their own business. Most people will start out with a base investment from their own savings, but some will find capital from other sources with which to fund their new business idea. This includes:

Remortgages or house sales – negotiating better repayment terms or even selling your home (perhaps your investment business will include a space for you to live)
Private borrowing – friends, family and close business acquaintances are often sources of capital for investment
Credit card borrowing – this high-interest means of getting large amounts of money together quickly is only advisable if you’re confident you’ll be able to pay it back quicky
Selling other assets – do you have commercial properties and equipment from an old business you can sell off to help start your new venture?

Of course, self-financing your own business is probably the safer way to go, just because the return on your investment will not be going on repaying creditors – it will be going in your pocket. Also, if you don’t make as much money as you’d hoped in the first instance, you won’t need to worry about paying off loans.

It all depends on how confident you are that your business is going to give you back the money you invest in it. Sometimes, the biggest returns on investment come when people take a risk. But borrowing money is just that – a risk, which is not something everyone wants to – or indeed should – take.

However you choose to make money, we hope this has given you some insight into the possibilities and has also helped to manage your expectations to some degree. There’s a great living out there to be made if you’re prepared to go work for it. All that’s left to say is good luck on your quest!