How to earn extra money when you cannot spend any less

The First Rupee I Ever Earned

I was fourteen. I had no business cards. I had no website. I had no plan that would have impressed any adult.

What I had was a schoolbag, a stack of old notebooks, and the quiet understanding that my parents could not pay for my next year of school.

So I walked three streets from my house, knocked on a neighbor’s door, and asked if their son, who was two grades below me, could use help with mathematics. The mother looked at me for a long moment. She asked how much I charged. I had not thought that far.

“Whatever you think is fair,” I said.

She agreed. The boy agreed. The next evening, I sat on the floor of their living room, with a textbook open between us, and I taught my first lesson.

At the end of the week, the mother handed me a small folded note. Inside was a fifty-rupee note. I remember the weight of it. Not the weight of the paper. The weight of what it meant.

I had earned it. With my own time. With my own mind. With my own hands.

That fifty rupees bought my next set of notebooks. And it bought something else. It bought the knowledge that I was not helpless. That even a boy with almost nothing could turn what he already had, his education, his evenings, his willingness, into money.

I want to write this article for the person who has already cut back. The person who has already stopped buying the coffee. Who has already cancelled the subscriptions. Who has already walked past the biscuit stand. And who is still, at the end of the month, short.

This is for you.

Because at some point, the smartest thing you can do is not spend less. It is earn more. And this article is about how to do that without breaking yourself in the process.

Why Earning More Is the Other Half of the Equation

There is a quiet truth that most money advice skips.

You cannot save your way out of a hole that is deeper than your income. You can clip coupons. You can skip meals. You can walk instead of taking the bus. And you should, if that is what the moment requires. But there is a floor. And for a lot of people, the floor is already under their feet.

A 2024 survey by Bankrate found that about one in three Americans, thirty-four percent, were living paycheck to paycheck¹. A separate Bankrate analysis found that thirty-four percent of Gen Z, the generation just entering the workforce, had no emergency savings at all². These are not rare numbers. These are the numbers of ordinary life for a huge share of people reading this.

If you are in that group, the first two articles on this site were written for you. The first one was about how to start saving. The second one was about why we spend on things we do not need. Both matter. Both can move the needle.

But there is a moment when cutting back stops working. Not because cutting back is wrong. Because there is nothing left to cut.

That is the moment this article is about.

And it turns out, a lot of people have already reached that moment. A 2025 SurveyMonkey study³, reported by Money magazine, found that seventy-two percent of workers in the United States either have a side hustle or are considering starting one. Seventy-two percent. Almost three out of every four people you pass on the street.

They are not doing it for fun. According to CNBC, the average side hustler in 2024 brought in $891 per month, which is roughly $10,692 in a year⁴. Other research, summarized by Skillademia using 2024 data, put the figure even higher, at $1,122 per month⁵.

Either number is life-changing money for a family that is short at the end of the month. It is rent. It is groceries. It is the difference between a flat tire becoming a small problem and a small problem becoming a crisis.

So this is the other side of being broke. The earning side. The side that does not get talked about enough, because it is harder, and slower, and less glamorous than another list of things to stop buying.

Let us walk through it together.

Three Truths I Learned the Hard Way

Before I list any ideas, I want to share three things I learned in the years after that first fifty rupees. These are not tips. They are truths. They took me years to learn. I hope they save you some of those years.

Truth One: Start With What You Already Have

The biggest mistake people make about earning extra money is waiting until they are ready.

They think they need a new certification. A new degree. A new laptop. A new logo. A perfect plan. They think they need to become someone else before they can begin.

I did not have any of those things when I started. I had a schoolbag. I had a textbook I had already studied. I had the willingness to walk three streets and knock on a door.

That was enough.

Almost everyone reading this already has something they can sell. A skill. A few free hours. A spare room. A bicycle. An old phone. A language they speak. A subject they understand. A neighbor who would hire them, if they only asked.

The first lesson of earning extra money is this. Do not look for what you do not have. Look harder at what you already have.

I will come back to specific ideas later. But the principle comes first. The principle is that you have already begun. You just have not noticed.

Truth Two: The First Rupee Is the Hardest

There is something strange that happens the first time you earn money outside of a regular job.

It feels uncomfortable. It feels like you are doing something you should not be doing. There is a small voice that says, “Who am I to charge for this?” Or, “Someone else does this better.” Or, “This is not a real job.”

I heard that voice at fourteen. I still hear it sometimes, decades later, every time I sit down to write.

The voice is wrong. But it does not respond to argument. It only responds to evidence. And the only way to give it evidence is to earn the first rupee. Or the first dollar. Or the first ten.

After that first fifty rupees from my neighbor, the second student was easier. The third was easier still. By the fifth, I was not nervous anymore. I was just doing it.

If you take only one thing from this article, take this. The first rupee is the hardest. Everything after that is repetition. The barrier is not the market. The barrier is the door you have to walk through the first time. Walk through it once, and the door stops being a door. It becomes a hallway.

Truth Three: The Money You Earn Differently, You Spend Differently

This one snuck up on me.

When I started earning my own money from tuition, I noticed something. I treated that money with a respect I had never given the money my parents handed me. Not because it was more. Often, it was less. But because I knew what it had cost me. Late nights. Early mornings. Hours I could have spent doing nothing.

I found myself being more careful with it. I thought longer before I spent it. I noticed when I was about to waste it.

Years later, in commerce school, I would learn that this has a name. The economist Richard Thaler called it mental accounting. We put different mental labels on different money. Salary money feels one way. Bonus money feels another. Money you earned through extra effort feels different still.

Thaler won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2017 for this body of work⁶ . And the lesson inside it, for you, is simple. The act of earning extra money changes your relationship with all of your money. You start to see all of it differently. You start to respect all of it more.

This is a side benefit nobody talks about. Earning more does not just add to your bank account. It changes how you treat what is already in it.

Three Real Ways to Earn Extra (Without Quitting Your Job)

I promised I would come back to specifics. Here are three paths I have seen work, both in my own life and in the lives of the shopkeepers, employees, and customers I have watched for years. None of these will make you rich overnight. All of them can, with time, add a few hundred dollars a month to your life. For a lot of readers, that is the difference between surviving and breathing.

Way One: Sell a Skill You Already Have

This is the path I took. I sold what I knew, which was mathematics, to people who needed to learn it.

You have a skill. You may not think of it as a skill, but you do. Maybe you can write clearly. Maybe you can cook a dish other people ask for. Maybe you can fix a leaky tap. Maybe you can drive. Maybe you can speak a second language. Maybe you can use a computer in ways your neighbors cannot.

Each of those is a market.

Tutoring is still one of the most accessible. Preply, an online tutoring platform, reported in 2024 that working a side hustle for about ten hours a week can earn an average of $10,701 per year⁷. ZipRecruiter lists the average pay for an online writing tutor at around $18.80 per hour in the United States ⁸. I earned less than that, in rupees, when I started. But I started. That is the point.

Freelance writing and editing can pay $25 to $100 per hour for skilled work, according to industry data compiled by CheckSalaries ⁹. It does not require a degree. It requires the ability to write a clear sentence, which is something you can learn by practicing.

If you have a skill you take for granted, write it down. Then ask yourself one question. Who, within ten miles of me, would pay for this?

Way Two: Sell Things You No Longer Need

This is the fastest way to earn extra money. Not because it is a long-term income, but because almost everyone reading this has something in their house they are not using. And almost all of it has value to someone else.

I learned this from the shopkeepers in our marketplace. The ones who survived the hardest months were often the ones who knew how to clear inventory. They did not hold on to products hoping the price would go up. They sold what was not moving, even at a small loss, and put the cash to work elsewhere.

Households work the same way.

Walk through your home. Open the cupboards you have not opened in a year. Look at the clothes you have not worn in six months. The books you will not read again. The old phone in the drawer. The appliance you replaced but never threw out.

Each of those is money sitting on a shelf. It is not retirement income. But it is a few hundred dollars, sometimes more, that you can raise in a single weekend. And raising it does something else. It clears space. Both in your home and in your mind.

I have watched people in our marketplace do this and use the money to start the next thing. The sale of old things becomes the seed money for the next idea. That is a small but real pattern.

Way Three: Sell Your Time in Small Pieces

Not everyone has a skill they can sell. Not everyone has things they can sell. But almost everyone has time. And time, these days, has become something you can sell in small pieces.

This is what most people call the gig economy. Driving for a rideshare app. Delivering food. Doing small tasks for neighbors. Walking dogs. Cleaning houses. Running errands for people who are too busy or too old to run them themselves.

The Federal Reserve, in its Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, has studied this closely. In the most recent data, fifty-five percent of gig workers said that this kind of work gave them flexibility. But only thirty-five percent said it gave them work-life balance¹⁰ . That gap is important. The flexibility is real. The cost is also real.

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has tracked multiple job holders for years. Their work, last updated in 2021, found that nearly eight percent of workers hold two or more jobs. Those workers earn about $54,000 per year on average, of which about $15,000 comes from the additional work¹¹.

Fifteen thousand dollars a year. From a second job. That is not a small number. It is rent in many cities. It is a year of groceries for a small family.

But, and this is the part you must hear, it is also exhaustion. The same research that documents the income also documents the cost. Multiple job holders sleep less. They see their families less. They burn out faster.

So this path works. But it must be a path, not a permanent state. Sell your time in small pieces to get through the season. Do not let it become the season.

What I Learned About Money by Earning It Early

I want to pause here and tell you something I did not expect.

When I started earning at fourteen, I thought the lesson would be about money. How to count it. How to save it. How to spend it. How to grow it.

Those lessons came. But they were not the most important ones.

The most important lesson was about myself.

I learned that I could survive a difficult thing. I learned that early mornings were not as impossible as I had thought. I learned that the version of me who wanted to give up at nine at night was not the same version of me who would wake up at five the next morning and start again. The second version was stronger. The second version was the one I learned to trust.

I learned that other people’s opinion of my work mattered less than my own opinion of my work. If I knew I had taught a good lesson, it did not matter whether the parent praised me. The praise was nice. The knowing was the thing.

I learned that money, when you earn it yourself, comes with a kind of dignity that money given to you does not have. Not because given money is bad. Generosity is beautiful. But earned money carries your own fingerprints. And there is a quiet pride in that which nothing else can replace.

If you are starting this journey, please understand. The money is the surface. The deeper thing you are building is the person you become while you earn it. That person will outlast every rupee and every dollar.

How to Keep the Extra Money You Earn

There is a trap in earning extra money. I have watched people fall into it for years. I almost fell into it myself.

The trap is this. The moment you start earning more, you start spending more. Not because you need to. Because the new income feels different. Lighter. Easier to part with. The mental label changes, and suddenly the money that took you hours to earn feels like it can be spent in seconds.

If you do not guard against this, earning extra money will not help you. It will only raise the ceiling of your spending. You will be tired, and you will still be broke.

Here is the rule I follow, and the rule I would give you.

Before you earn the first extra dollar, decide where it will go.

Not after. Before.

If you wait until the money is in your account, the money will find somewhere to go. Money always does. But if you decide beforehand, the money goes where you told it to go. The decision was made when your head was clear. The execution happens when your head is tired. This is how discipline actually works.

Split it, if you can. A portion to debt. A portion to savings. A small portion to yourself — because you earned it, and a small reward helps keep the habit alive. The key is that this split happens before the money lands, not after.

Earning more is only half the battle. The harder part is using that extra income to actually break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. I walk through the full eight-step process here: How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck.

If credit card debt is the biggest weight, read this first: How to Get Out of Credit Card Debt When You Feel Trapped .

And if your partner doesn’t yet know the full situation, the conversation is just as important as the extra income. You can find a gentle way to start it here: How to Talk About Money with the People You Love .

I have watched shopkeepers do this with their daily takings for years. The ones who separate the money at the start of the day, into different envelopes, into different accounts, into different purposes, are the ones who survive the hard months. The ones who leave it all in one pile and decide later are the ones who sit with a calculator at the end of the month, wondering where it went.

The principle is the same for you. Decide before. Not after.

When Earning More Is Not the Answer

I want to be honest with you, the way I would be honest with a younger version of myself.

Earning more is not always the right answer. Sometimes it is the wrong answer wearing the costume of the right one.

When You Are Already Running on Empty

A 2025 study published in the peer-reviewed literature on time poverty and wellbeing found that emotional exhaustion is the key link between having too little time and feeling unwell¹². In plain language, when you have no time, your emotional battery drains. And when your emotional battery is empty, no amount of extra money can fix what is wrong.

If you are already working two jobs, parenting children, and sleeping five hours a night, the answer is probably not a third job. The answer may be rest. The answer may be asking for help. The answer may be a hard conversation with someone in your life about what you are carrying. None of those answers pay you in cash. All of them may pay you in something more valuable.

I burned out more than once in my early twenties. I kept teaching, kept studying, kept working, until my body simply refused. I learned, slowly, that rest is not the opposite of work. Rest is what makes work possible.

When the “Opportunity” Is a Scam

I have to tell you this, because the data is alarming.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported in December 2024 that losses from job scams topped $220 million in just the first six months of that year. Reported losses from these scams tripled between 2020 and 2023¹³. Other analyses put the 2024 figure even higher, near $501 million¹⁴ [14].

These are not small numbers. These are people, often people who were already broke, who lost money they could not afford to lose, chasing an income that was never going to come.

Here is the rule I would give you. Real work pays you. Fake work asks you to pay first. If an opportunity asks you for money upfront, for training, for materials, for access, for anything, walk away. Real employers pay you. They do not charge you for the privilege of being employed.

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. That sentence has been said a million times because it has been true a million times.

When You Have Not yet Figured Out Where the Money Goes

If you have not done the work of tracking your spending, which I wrote about in the first article on this site, earning more will only delay the problem. It will not solve it. A leaky bucket holds no more water if you pour faster into it.

Earn more. But also fix the leak. Both. Not one or the other.

A Note on Taxes (Which I Am Not Qualified to Give You)

In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service requires you to file a tax return if your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more in a year ¹⁵. That number surprises a lot of people. It is low. Four hundred dollars in side income, which is less than many side hustles earn in a single month, can trigger a filing requirement.

I am not a tax professional. I am telling you this so that you know to ask. When you start earning extra money, set aside a portion of it, from the very first dollar, for taxes. Talk to someone who is qualified. The cost of that conversation is small. The cost of not having it, a year later, can be large.

This is part of being savvy. Knowing what you know. Knowing what you do not. And asking for help with the parts you do not.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are questions I have been asked over the years, by students, by employees in our marketplace, and by readers of the first two articles on this site. I will answer each one as honestly as I can, with the same disclaimer I give everywhere on Savvy Broke. I am sharing experience, not professional financial advice.

Q: How much extra money do I need to earn for it to make a real difference?

Less than you think. The average side hustler in the United States earns around $891 per month, according to 2024 data reported by CNBC [4]. For a family that is short at the end of the month, even two hundred extra dollars can be the difference between a crisis and an inconvenience.

Do not aim for a number that feels impossible. Aim for a number that feels possible. Earn that. Then, if you want to, raise the number.

Q: Do I have to pay taxes on money I earn from a side hustle?

In most countries, yes. In the United States, the IRS requires you to file a tax return if your net self-employment earnings are $400 or more in a year [15]. The threshold may be different in your country.

I am not a tax professional. When you start earning extra money, set aside a portion of every payment, from the very first one, into a separate account for taxes. Then speak to a qualified tax professional who can look at your specific situation. The conversation is not expensive. Ignoring the question is.

Q: I am already exhausted. How do I find the time to earn more?

This is the hardest question, and I want to answer it honestly. If you are already running on empty, the answer may not be earning more right now. The answer may be rest, or asking for help, or having a hard conversation about what you are carrying.

If you do have a few spare hours a week, look for the kind of work that does not require a fixed schedule. Online tutoring. Freelance writing. Selling things you already own. These let you work in the margins of your day, when you have energy, instead of committing to a second job that demands your presence at set hours.

Time poverty is real. A 2025 study linked it directly to emotional exhaustion [12]. Please do not sacrifice your health to earn money you will then need to spend on recovering your health.

Q: What if I do not have any special skills to sell?

You almost certainly do. You just have not noticed it yet. A skill is not a certificate. A skill is something you can do that someone else cannot do, or does not want to do.

Can you cook a meal other people ask for? Can you drive? Can you use a computer in ways your neighbors cannot? Can you speak a second language? Can you fix small things around a house? Can you sit with an elderly person so their family can take a break? Can you walk a dog? Can you organize a closet? Can you write a clear email?

Every one of those is a market. Write down what you can do. Then ask who, within ten miles of you, would pay for it.

Q: How do I avoid scams when looking for ways to earn extra money?

Remember one rule above all others. Real work pays you. Fake work asks you to pay first.

If an opportunity asks you for money upfront, for training, materials, software, access, certification, or anything else, walk away. No legitimate employer charges you for the privilege of working for them.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported more than $220 million in losses to job scams in just the first half of 2024 . If an offer sounds too good to be true, it is. That sentence has been said a million times because it has been true a million times.

Q: Is it better to earn more or to save more?

It is not either. It is both. They are two halves of the same equation.

Saving without earning eventually hits a floor. You cannot cut your way out of a hole that is deeper than your income. Earning without saving eventually hits a ceiling. You cannot out-earn a habit of spending everything you make.

The first article on Savvy Broke was about saving. The second was about why we spend. This one is about earning. Together, the three of them are the whole picture. Pick the one you are weakest at. Start there. Then come back for the others.

Q: What should I do with the extra money once I earn it?

Decide before you earn it. Not after.

If you wait until the money is in your account, it will find somewhere to go. Money always does. But if you decide beforehand, the money goes where you told it to go. Split it. A portion to debt. A portion to savings. A small portion to yourself, because rewarding the habit keeps the habit alive.

I have watched shopkeepers do this for years. The ones who separate the money at the start of the day survive the hard months. The ones who leave it all in one pile and decide later sit with a calculator at the end of the month, wondering where it went.

Q: How long will it take before earning extra money feels normal?

Longer than you hope. Shorter than you fear.

Research on habit formation, which I cited in the first article on this site, found that it takes an average of sixty-six days for a new behavior to feel automatic¹⁶ . The range is wide. For some, it is eighteen days. For others, it is over two hundred.

Give yourself that range. The first month of earning extra money will feel strange. The second will feel like a habit. The third will feel like who you are. If you are still struggling in month four, that is not failure. That is your own pace. Keep going.

Q: I am not from the United States. Does any of this apply to me?

Yes, with adjustments. The principles are the same everywhere. Earn with what you already have. Decide where the money goes before it arrives. Avoid anything that asks you to pay first. Set aside money for taxes. Talk to a qualified professional about your specific situation.

The numbers and the tax thresholds I cite are mostly from the United States, because that is where the largest body of public research exists. But the human behavior underneath them, the mental accounting, the dopamine, the pain of paying, the burnout, is the same in every country I have ever read about or visited.

Find the equivalents in your own country. They exist. The shape of the problem is universal. So is the shape of the solution.

What I Would Tell the Boy Who Knocked on That Door

If I could go back to that evening, to the moment I stood in front of my neighbor’s door at fourteen, I would not tell myself anything about money.

I would tell myself one thing. You are about to do something that will change the rest of your life. Not because of the fifty rupees. Because of what you will learn about yourself in the earning of it.

I would tell myself that the door is heavier than it looks, and that the weight is the point. The door is the test. The people who do not knock never find out what is on the other side. The people who do knock, even badly, even shaking, even with no plan, are the ones whose lives change.

I would tell myself to keep knocking. On the next door. And the one after that. And the one after that. Because that is what earning extra money actually is. It is not a scheme. It is not a trick. It is the slow, patient act of knocking on doors, of offering what you have, of being paid for it, and of doing it again the next day.

The world will tell you that earning more requires a special gift. A rare talent. A lucky break. A network you do not have.

I am here, after fourteen years of earning, after years of managing a marketplace with one hundred and fifty shops, after watching thousands of people try and fail and try again, to tell you that the world is wrong.

Earning more requires three things. A willingness to start. A willingness to keep going. And a willingness to decide, before the money arrives, where it will go.

Almost everyone has all three. They just have not used them yet.

If you have read this far, you have already started. The next step is smaller than you think. Pick one thing from this article. One skill you have. One thing you could sell. One hour you could give. Do it this week. Earn the first rupee. Or the first dollar. Or the first ten.

After that, the door stops being a door. It becomes a hallway.

And the hallway leads somewhere you have not yet been.

The marketplace will open again tomorrow. The shopkeepers will sweep their floors. The customers will come in, look at the prices, and decide. And somewhere, in a living room in a small house somewhere in the world, a boy or a girl will sit down with a textbook, knock on a door, and begin the same journey I began.

If that is you, I am proud of you. Before you have earned a single coin, I am proud of you.

Because the hardest part is not the earning. The hardest part is the knocking.

A Quick Note From Tehseen

I am not a certified financial planner, chartered accountant, investment advisor, or tax professional. I hold a degree in Commerce and have spent years managing business accounts and a marketplace with one hundred and fifty shops. Everything on Savvy Broke is shared for general information and education, not as personal financial advice. If you are about to make a major financial decision, including starting a business, taking on debt, or filing taxes, please speak with a qualified professional who understands your situation.

References

Sources are listed below. Links were checked at the time of writing in September 2026.

1. Bankrate. (2024). Living Paycheck to Paycheck Survey. Reports that approximately 34% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Available at: https://www.bankrate.com/finance/economy/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/ ↩︎
2. Bankrate. (2024). Side Hustles Survey. Notes that 34% of Gen Z have no emergency savings and that one in three American adults have a side hustle. Available at: https://www.bankrate.com/loans/small-business/side-hustles-survey/ ↩︎
3. SurveyMonkey. (2025). Workplace Culture and Trends Study. Reported by Money magazine: 72% of U.S. workers have a side hustle or are considering pursuing one. Available at: https://money.com/side-hustle-survey/ ↩︎
4. CNBC. (2024, July 16). Side hustlers make an average of $891 per month. Reports average monthly side hustle income of $891, up from $810 in 2023. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/16/how-much-money-side-hustlers-earn.html ↩︎
5. Skillademia. (2026). Side Hustle Statistics 2026. Reports average monthly side hustle income of $1,122 in 2024, up 14% from $985 in 2023. Available at: https://www.skillademia.com/personal-finance/side-hustle-statistics ↩︎
6. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (2017). The Prize in Economic Sciences 2017 — Popular Science Background. Awarded to Richard H. Thaler for his contributions to behavioral economics, including the theory of mental accounting. Available at: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2017/popular-information/ ↩︎
7. Preply. (2024, April 4). This is the Best-Paid Side Hustle in Every U.S. State. Reports that working a side hustle for approximately 10 hours per week can earn an average of $10,701 per year. Available at: https://preply.com/en/blog/best-paid-side-hustle-in-every-state/ ↩︎
8. ZipRecruiter. (2026). Online Writing Tutor Salary: Hourly Rate September 2026. Reports an average hourly pay of $18.80 for online writing tutors in the United States. Available at: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Online-Writing-Tutor-Salary ↩︎
9. CheckSalaries. (2025, December 30). 17 Highest-Paying Side Hustles That Won’t Burn You Out. Reports freelance writing and editing rates of $25 to $100 per hour. Available at: https://checksalaries.com/highest-paying-side-hustles/ ↩︎
10. Federal Reserve Board. (2025). Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households. FedCommunities summary: 55% of gig workers agreed it gave them flexibility, but only 35% said it gave them work-life balance. Available at: https://fedcommunities.org/data/economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2024/ ↩︎
11. Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. (2021, March 30). Working Multiple Jobs to Make Ends Meet. Reports that nearly 8% of workers hold two or more jobs, with multiple job holders earning about $54,000 per year on average, $15,000 of which comes from additional work. Available at: https://crr.bc.edu/working-multiple-jobs-to-make-ends-meet/ ↩︎
12. Wang, K., et al. (2025). Time poverty and teacher subjective well-being. Published in peer-reviewed literature via PMC. Finds that emotional exhaustion is a key mediator between time poverty and subjective well-being. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/time-poverty-subjective-well-being/ ↩︎
13. Federal Trade Commission. (2024, December 12). New FTC Data Show Skyrocketing Consumer Reports of Job Scams. Reports that losses from job scams topped $220 million in the first six months of 2024 and tripled from 2020 to 2023. Available at: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/ftc-data-show-skyrocketing-consumer-reports-job-scams ↩︎
14. Webster First Federal Credit Union. (2025, March 20). What the 2024 FTC data tells us about scam trends. Reports that job scam losses jumped from $90 million to $501 million between 2020 and 2024. Available at: https://www.websterfirst.com/2025-ftc-scam-trends/ ↩︎
15. Internal Revenue Service. (2026, June 27). Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes). States that net earnings from self-employment of $400 or more require a tax return. Available at: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employment-tax-social-security-and-medicare-taxes ↩︎
16. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2012). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. Discussed in Scientific American, January 2024, which reports an average of 66 days for a new habit to become automatic, with a range of 18 to 254 days. Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-form-a-habit/ ↩︎