How To Prepare For Inflation and Make Extra Money From Home

We may not be living in the nicest world right now. But if you’re worried about the hardship that you may be suffering in the future, think again this way. There's only a little more you can do to save money when you're already trying. But there’s so much more you can do to increase your monthly income. 

All our lives and our previous lives and probably hundreds of years, civilisation has experienced many bad economic times and sprung back each time. Prices have almost always gone up as far as you can remember, and the only time you ever feel more comfortable managing your home finance is when you got a pay rise, isn’t that right? Prices don’t go down to help your finance. Inflation is continual, and it helps strengthen the world economy.

Anyway, this guide is not about understanding the term inflation. We use the term just like our mums do. Inflation = price rise. It’s getting harder. But there’s no point worrying about things we cannot control. Let’s stay focused on things we can do. So here are some ways to prepare for inflation and make extra money from home. 

Prepare Yourself For Inflation

The first thing to do to prepare yourself to avoid home economic crises is how much ‘free cash’ you have in your hand right now. Free cash is money that you’re willing to invest in order to make a bigger return. If you have $1,700 savings in your bank account but you really want to keep the minimum of $1,000 for a rainy day, then $700 is your free cash.

We all have different financial circumstances, you may not have any free cash, and that’s ok. So today, I’ve listed several freelancing options according to your current budget. You can start small and grow your business as you go with a long-term goal in mind. Alternatively, secure capital to invest first and start paying off as your business starts to generate good profits. 

Budget of $0 - $100

If you have very little or no money to invest, what you can do using your free time is sell your skills based on your experience. There are quite a few online job marketplaces for freelancers such as;

• Fiverr
• Upwork
• Freelancer.com
• Guru.com

These sites all let you post your skills on the list for free. The first thing you want to decide is whether you want to be hired on a contractual basis or you want to sell a gig as and when. 

Contractual

Contractual work is as you can imagine, once you’re hired, you’ll be working for a medium-term period (more than just a few days, the job can last for months or longer). So there are pros and cons.

• It’s like going for a job interview on a worldwide scale. A lot of jobs are available, but equally competitive. 
• You’ll be expected to prove the skills that you already have, to convince people/companies that you are a great candidate - just like going for a job interview!
• You will need to stay trustworthy and faithful to the person who’s hiring you during the contractual period. 
• Once you get the job and maintain your quality work, your payment will be secure, and that’s a good thing.
• Flexibility varies depending on the job requirement, so it may not be suitable for juggling it with your current job.
• Also, I must add that you need to clarify your working hours according to the time difference in advance.

I have employed a contractor in the past, I was lucky to have someone who was so efficient. The only problem was that they lived on the other side of the world, so we could hardly communicate with each other in real-time (live chat), and I often ended up doing their job myself.

Selling Gigs

I personally think selling gigs is simpler and easier than searching for a contractual work;

• You do one gig (job) within a set timescale. For example, “Edit a 30-second video for you for $20 within 2 days.”
• In the beginning, you’ll have nothing to prove. So charge a cheap rate (e.g. $5 instead of $20). The price will attract orders.
• Every time you sell a gig, your customer will leave feedback. You can then increase your charge because now the good feedback will start attracting more customers.
• The good thing is that you do what you advertise and get paid, that’s all. You don’t have to discuss what you can and cannot do with people who hire your gig.

“But I Don’t Have Any Skills”

If you don’t think you have no valuable experience whatsoever, think again. Go through the list of skills that people sell below. There may be something that you can do to help others and earn money from it.

But if you really don’t think that’s the kind of path you want to take, there’s a better way. You’ll be investing a little more money (eventually), but you’ll be earning a lot more income actively as well as passively, by running a proper online business from home. Read on.

What Do I Need The Budget For?

It may or may not be necessary to spend a little (no more than $100) on training. 

As I said earlier, you can advertise your freelance work on Fiverr and all the other sites for free. The way you write your ad needs to make people want to hire you, and this can be achieved by checking how the others are displaying their ads.

But you may be obliged to learn how to get your ad to stand out from the crowd, i.e. copywriting and image-display techniques, or negotiation techniques (if necessary). Here is a training program for freelancing that I can recommend.

Budget of $100 - $1,000

I don’t need to tell you that more people choose to shop online, right? And you probably already know about affiliate marketing, where you recommend products to others and get a percentage of sales as a commission. If you think, everyone’s doing it now, it’s too competitive, then look at this stat.

According to the recent study result released by Statista, retail e-commerce revenue in the United States is expected to be over $875 billion, but by 2025, it's expected to be close to $1.33 trillion. That'll be a 52% increase in the next 3 years. The stat was released in January 2022, therefore the recent significant rise in inflation is accounted for.

So if you think this way - if you become a tiny part of the online shopping industry, just a fraction of your commission revenue as an affiliate can be huge. All you need to do is establish your platform to promote products. 

Although when I say “establish”, I do mean it. It doesn’t happen overnight, or even in weeks. It’s the marketing skills that you’ll need to learn, but the good news is that you don’t have to have any previous experience.

What Do I Need The Budget For?

Inevitably, most of your budget will be spent on a good training program. I have seen a lot of hybrid online business training courses that include affiliate marketing as well as e-commerce, network marketing, and offline event marketing that charge thousands of dollars (if not tens of thousands). None of those is ideal, in my opinion. As a starter, you should be sticking to one business model, i.e. affiliate marketing, and you shouldn’t be paying more than $1k at a time.

Apart from training, you’ll need;

• Your website fees (domain + hosting): from $5-10 per month
• A good SEO analysis tool: Free - $50 per month
• Advertising fees (advance option)

Step 1: Choose a niche

First and foremost, determine what class of products you can confidently promote over the long term. If you choose a niche half-heartedly now and change your mind at a later date, it’ll be just a waste of time. So check this list and plan ahead: 180 Best Affiliate Marketing Niches

Step 2: Build and set up your own niche website

You can do this all for free and run a test drive first. Pay for the domain name and web hosting when you’re confident later.

• Create your initial website content
• Create custom menus on your website
• Create keyword-rich content

Step 3: Get your site visible on search engines

• Create a Google Analytics account and add it to your website
• Set up Google Search Console and create a sitemap (a free plugin will do it for you)
• Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account

Step 4: Understand SEO keywords

Searching for “low-hanging fruit” (low competition keywords) is probably the most important SEO (search engine optimisation) technique, but the actual task is pretty straightforward. You just need to learn how to use an SEO keyword tool.

When you become advanced, you can start using reputable SEO analysis tools such as Ahref and SEMrush, which are both pricey. As a beginner, you can use one of the following;

• SEOquake (free up to 10 searches per day)
• Jaaxy (free as part of an affiliate marketing membership)
• Long Tail Pro (from around $25 per month)
• Mangools (from $29.90 per month)

Step 5: Choose a domain name as your brand

When you’re comfortable with your niche affiliate marketing website, you’ll be ready to transfer your website to your own domain. For example, if your site is about vegetarian dog food, http://vegetariandogfood.com that you’ll need to purchase. Usually around $12-15 per year. 

Search engines will recognize your site as an authority when you use your own domain, so this is a milestone you'll reach sooner or later.

Your domain will allow you to set up a domain-specific email account. As a professional business owner, you cannot use a free email address such as Gmail or Hotmail. So this is an important step to take.

But even more importantly, your domain is going to be your brand. It's not just big, recognisable retail brands, but even an affiliate marketing website that becomes a brand that people start to remember, trust, and purchase from.

Step 6: Understand Affiliate Programs & Networks

Many affiliate networks and marketplaces are available for you to join - you may want to check these out. Also retail-based, niche-relevant affiliate programs allow you to promote almost all the general products that you can think of to earn commissions, such as;

• Amazon Associates Program 
• Walmart.com Affiliate Program
• Etsy Affiliate Program
• Wayfair Affiliate Program

Joining an affiliate network/program is free, and you’ll be given your own affiliate links which you can place on your website. Placing a link on your site is easy - I think it’s easy because it’s just copying & pasting. You’ll be doing this over and over again as you create more content, so it will soon become second nature to you.

Step 7: Understand traffic

When marketers talk about traffic, they all talk about how to drive a number of visitors to your site, which is the basic essential to learn. But there’s more. You’ll also need to understand the users’ purchasing lifecycle.

• People rarely buy products in the first instance. So sending the same people to your site (typically by email marketing) is one of the crucial techniques.
• People weigh up their options. They make a purchase when they decide the money can solve their problem and make their life easier.
• People will know - consciously or subconsciously - whether you are recommending a product or simply trying to sell it. They don’t buy from people they don’t trust.

Sending traffic to your site is an easy part. To monetise your effort so far, you’ll now learn what you can do to let users have a good thought about the product you recommend and spend money on it.

Other Steps To Learn

Other basic steps include;

• Social media engagement
• Leveraging YouTube videos
• Email marketing
• Creating product reviews
• Making user of visuals (free stock images)
• Getting paid for ads on your website (e.g. Google Adsense)
• Getting feedback from the affiliate community
• Getting site comments on your site by the community members

Can Affiliate Marketing Beat The Inflation?

Can you make enough money with affiliate marketing? Is this the way to prepare for inflation?

Yes, it is definitely one of the ways to supplement your income, and if you carry on, you can earn enough to quit your current job and have more spare time to learn new ventures. 

The good thing is that you’ll naturally learn about other online business models through affiliate marketing. What I mean is that more opportunities will open up for you. For example, online coaches, digital product creators, and investors often started with affiliate marketing when they first chose to work from home but didn’t know what they could do.

We don’t know where the world is going and we know no job is secure forever. But for now, I would recommend you to get it started and learn some essential techniques. Even if you change your mind at a later date, your knowledge will never be wasted. Here’s your chance to build a website at zero cost;

Maintain a Positive Mindset

So we never know how the price rise will hit us in the near future. But worrying about it will never help you, will it? Not at all. Whatever you do, your psychological impact cannot be underestimated. Wealth and fortune will not be donated to you by someone. You believe them and bring them to you. You need to believe in your creative abilities.

A lot of people say, “I’m not a creative person, I’m more practical.” But being creative is not about being a designer or a poet. We all have the ability to change our perspectives, either positively or negatively, and that’s our creativity.

If you believe in yourself, you can create your own wealthy mindset, and the mindset will bring in more money. So here are some ways to stay focused on your positive mindset during difficult times.

#1 Be Passionate About What You Do

I’d better rephrase it. Find out what you are most passionate about, and turn it into your work. 

I was a qualified accountant for many years, but the job was just a means of earning a living. I wasn’t loving it every day. So when I quit and started my online business, an accountancy-related niche (e.g. teaching) wasn’t an option. And I believe I made the right decision not to.

It’s your passion that finds all the potential. Your passion keeps you continuously looking forward to what’s next in line. So choose what you love to do - if you can’t find what you love or you have something in mind but don’t know how you can monetise it, leave a comment below. I can take you through it.

#2 Eliminate Negativities

You don’t have to believe the Law of Attraction, but you cannot bring positive energy into your life while you keep hearing about sad, angry, or tragic events. You could try turning a blind eye to negativities deliberately for a while. Stop watching the news. Stay away from people who complain. 

Yes, it is important to voice your opinion sometimes. You might want to join a protest march where full of an angry crowd is. Wherever you are, whatever bad you see, don’t dwell on it but always look for a positive solution to it instead.

Try this exercise - take your mind in this direction - every day, over and over again, and you’ll find yourself changing. Does this sound stupid? You don't believe that kind of thing? Then you may be just a naysayer, you know. So believe me. Eliminate negativities from your life.

#3 Be Productive

If you’re working from home alone, it’s important to make sure that you’re in the right work environment, i.e. 

• Time,
• Space, and
• Your state of mind. 

Make a to-do list to schedule your day. Stay away from social media and any other distractions while working. Declutter your workspace. Get some exercise and eat healthily… Check the 10 ways to be more productive when working for yourself to make sure you stay motivated whatever happens to your day.

#4 Embrace Failures

Talking about motivation, you know that profits are not the only measure of success? If you’re running a business, you will miss some good opportunities, make the wrong decisions, and make losses at times for all sorts of reasons. Don’t let any of that get you down, because every mistake is a lesson to learn, and a stepping stone to success. You know you need to experience failures, and each experience will make you closer to success.

How To Prepare For Inflation and Make Extra Money From Home - Final Words

History tells us that inflation rises every decade or two. So we know we’ll bounce back from this one eventually, and then we’ll suffer another high inflation after that. We all talk about how we can save money, stock up on household goods, and how our government can help us. But none of them is a long-term solution. Spending less money won't help the economy as a whole, anyway. I hope these methods should help you generate additional income before inflation reaches a high point.