Maximizing all your avenues of revenue

One thing I’m beginning to understand is that even if you work hard, you sometimes need to expand what you already know and maximize all avenues of revenue. For instance, I consider myself a hard worker, but am realizing that I’m at a point in my life where I really can’t waste anytime. To build some background, I’ve been working since the tender age of 6 months, if I count my parents shuffling me from agent to agent posing for baby ads. This was only due to the fact that my parents, in their youth, were actors. They of course thought that maybe their children would follow in their footsteps. Only one of us is still a “struggling” actor/dancer, and it’s not me. The rest of us (all half- and step-siblings) continued on towards other, more stable, career goals.

I’ve always held at least one job, if not more, to maintain my lifestyle – I would define it more as a minimal middle-class lifestyle. My husband, early in our relationship, had numerous entrepreneurial ideas and eventually one of them panned out. I encouraged him to pursue the one idea I thought would prosper, and helped him build a graphic and web design business. All through this time, I worked a full-time job. First, as a sales coordinator, then as an administrative assistant. Finally, I landed a job at an internet start-up company as a Trade Show Events Manager. However, in 2001 the company flopped due to not having a product.

Later that year (2001), I began substitute teaching. I originally thought I’d only teach for a year or two, or until the economy improved. However, here I am 8 years after initially becoming employed with our local school district. Last year I began to realize that I might be teaching for a few more years. Heck, 8 years have flown by and I have to admit that I like teaching. So, this year I applied for a teaching credential through my state university.

The credential program is usually a 1-year program. However, because I already work full-time and need to continue making a salary, I am spreading it out to over 2-years. One of the drawbacks of this credential program is that there are 2 semesters where I have to student-teach. This means I have to teach a total of 18 weeks without pay. This is where I realized I needed to be creative and figure out a way that I could sustain my current lifestyle with this daunting task upon me.

I began exploring all of the ways I could make money. My husband also helped come up with some of the ideas so that the 18 weeks of unpaid teaching wouldn’t be too painful. A few ideas we brainstormed included:

• Maximizing affiliate links – my husband has affiliate links with a few vendors, but we’ve never really utilized them. This year our mission is to promote some of these affiliates.
• Write articles through Hubpages to maximize adsense income – I recently read an article about how one writer was making a small amount of money through her adsense links by writing articles on Hubpages. I signed up for an account, and currently have 9 articles posted. It’s a small start, but every little bit helps.
• Continue networking with other schools – this year will be tough for all substitute teachers, our local district is short on funds and many subs won’t be working as much this year as in the past. However, if I continue networking with schools I should be able to remain employed until it’s my time to student-teach.

Of course these ideas aren’t likely to bring in a windfall of money, but even small amounts could help towards those unpaid 18 weeks. Fortunately, my student teaching is a year away, this gives these avenues of revenue some time to mature.

Do you have alternative ideas for making small amounts of money that could add up over time? Have you tried maximizing all of your avenues? What things have you tried? I’d love additional comments or ideas.