Expert reveals ways to make money while keeping your New Year's resolutions

Penny Hoarder writer discusses top resolutions, how to make money achieving them

ORLANDO, Fla. – It's just a few days into 2018, and if you're already starting to fall off of those New Year's resolutions, it's time to rethink your strategy.

Even though 80 percent of people will have given up on those resolutions by the second week of February, according to US News, there may be some extra incentives you haven't considered.

That's where Lisa Rowan from The Penny Hoarder comes in.

"We have three of the major New Year's resolutions that people make and some tips for doing it and making money at the same time," Rowan said.

No. 1 is to start the year with a clean slate and get organized by getting rid of stuff you don't need.

"An app that we love for that is called 'Let Go,'" Rowan said. "It allows you to list the items you want to sell within about 30 seconds. It's just a matter of snapping a picture and adding some information. And it's a peer-to-peer marketplace that's totally local and free to use. So, it takes away a lot of the hassle of listing your items online to sell and allows you to do it quickly and easily before you lose motivation to list those things for sale." 

Next up is to travel more.

It's commonly known that you can get frequent flyer miles to save up for traveling with credit cards, but not everyone wants to have a credit card. So, Rowan said, there's another way to get miles.

"You can download an app that's called 'Frequent Flyer,' and it's an app that runs in the background while you just use your phone and go about your daily life," Rowan said. "It tracks your location information and then anonymizes it and puts it in a pool of people in your area, and by allowing that app to have some information about your whereabouts in your town, you can accumulate miles that then you can exchange for a travel just like you would with credit card points. It's a free app to sign up for. You get 100 points just for signing up. You can even do some special check-ins to get more points. So, that's a really fun way to build up some travel miles without having to have a credit card balance at the same time."

The third most popular resolution is to quit smoking. Rowan said you can get paid to do it by participating in studies with the National Institute of Health.

"You can earn between $20 for something that's not a lot of effort to up to $900," Rowan said. "That's about sharing your information about your experience quitting smoking. You may have to do some medical testing throughout the process. But I mean, nothing's going to give you more accountability than going through this process of trying to quit smoking with the National Institute of Health on your side."

Rowan even has a bonus tip for anyone who is trying to eat more healthy foods.

"It can be really expensive to try and eat healthier and add more fresh foods into your diet," she said. "But we love an app called 'iBotta' and you unlock cashback rebates on foods that you might already buy. And the reason we love it for this resolution is because it's not just for prepared foods or packaged foods like non-perishables. It's also good for produce, maybe frozen vegetables and other things that are great to just add to a healthy diet. So, if you're trying to eat healthier, you might as well do what you can to reduce those prices on the things you're going to eat by giving a little bit of cash back."


About the Author:

Tara Evans is an executive producer and has been with News 6 since January 2013. She currently spearheads News 6 at Nine and specializes in stories with messages of inspiration, hope and that make a difference for people -- with a few hard-hitting investigations thrown in from time to time.

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