Finance for Beginners: 1 Easy Way to Bring in a Little Extra Money

Investing isn't just money-to-money transactions like buying stocks or leaving a chunk of a paycheck in a savings account.

In this clip, Alison Southwick, Robert Brokamp, and Johnnie Weathersby talk about how and when to invest in yourself -- that is, to put a little money into "diversifying" your "portfolio" of skills and interests, which can lead to career growth and opportunities down the line. Also, they offer some advice on how to pick an account to save for retirement.

Part 1: Itemize Your Lover 

Part 2: Establish a Line of Credit! Do it! Now! 

Part 3: One Easy Way to Bring in a Little Extra Money (this article)

A transcript follows the video.

This podcast was recorded on Jan. 26, 2016. 

Alison Southwick: Step no. 6: Open 1-3 beyond-basic accounts focused on your retirement.

Johnnie Weathersby: Yes. This one is specifically time back to the savings account mentioned earlier. Some people hold the false belief that, "If I put things in my savings account, I'll be fine for retirement." And really, you can do a lot better than a savings account in terms of returns for retirement. Namely, the three that I'm thinking of would be IRA, whether that's a traditional or a Roth, you're talking about a money market, and of course, a brokerage account, just so you can play around in the market. Buy some stocks, try that out.

Robert Brokamp: Right.

Southwick: Step no. 7, the final step: Try to make a few more bucks with your money. Johnnie? Tell us what your major was in college.

Weathersby: I was an entrepreneurial studies major at University of Missouri, Kansas City. Boom, UMKC. 

Brokamp: Which I think is a great idea for degree, by the way. They should have more of those.

Weathersby: Yeah. That whole class, it was just, use your talent, use your resources, let those be productive for you. You always hear people say "Let your money make money for you," and I'm a very strong advocate of "If you enjoy writing, or, like I do, blogging, then do that on the side for a company, or do that and figure out advertising, or teach workshops on it, things like that." There's just a lot of little things you can do with your excess time and your excess money to generate a little bit of revenue for you on the side.

Southwick: By the way, I would say, go ahead and do that, millennials, before you start having kids, because then you have zero money, zero time, zero everything. The only thing you have more of is videos on your iPhone.

Brokamp: I think one thing that people don't think a lot about in terms of their personal finance is developing their human capital in their career. Just like you want to diversify your investments, you want to diversify your skills. And that's what I like a lot about what you just said. You can have your job at work, and depending on what you do, you might be kind of confined in terms of what you do and the skills you're developing. Doing something outside builds up a whole other portfolio of skills that you can use later on, either building your own business or to get a different job, or move within the company. 

Weathersby: Yep. And important thing to note: sink or swim, you learned something, and you learned something valuable from the experience.

Brokamp: There's a fellow whose name I can't pronounce who can't stand the price of college these days, like me. And instead of paying for his daughter's college education, he's going to give her the money to start a business, knowing it'll probably fail, but she'll learn more than if she went to college. Just saying.

Southwick: What if their kids don't want to do that? What if they want to go to college

Brokamp: I don't know, they'll probably go to college. He'll cave.

Southwick: That's not very fair, to be like --

Weathersby: "Hey Dad, I want to go to college!"

Southwick: "No! No! This cash!"

Weathersby: "Forget your college!"

Southwick: "Go start a business!"

Weathersby: "Take the money and run!"