I’ve been watching the Student Platinum $500 Savings Challenge bloggers for a few days now, and something interesting has struck me.

Everyone is talking about how they’ll save money, about how they’ve committed to putting money aside. Except for a few folks doing the soda can recycling thing, no one is talking about how to bring more money in the door. Saving is easier when you have more money to work with – which seems like a blatantly obvious, trite thing to say, except that it’s not on anyone’s radar.

Don’t get me wrong. I encourage frugality. I encourage cutting back on discretionary expenses. However, at some point, you can’t cut any more. You can’t staunch expenses any further without a serious, really unpleasant reduction in your quality of life – which in turn makes you less likely to stick with a savings program.

So let’s talk in this blog post today about how to get more money coming in the door.

Obviously, as many have mentioned, working a job is a way to bring in some income, and the more you work, the more money you bring in. Downside – the more you work, the less time you have for academic study, which is the point of college.

Incremental income can indeed come from recycling, especially if you’re smart about it and gather recycling at the right times & places, like after frat parties when there’s literally cases of empties just sitting on the sidewalk. A guy in my town cruises up and down the streets on garbage day and simply loads boxes of recycling into his station wagon before the town claims them.

The recycling idea is a starter for a much bigger idea, the idea of arbitrage, unequal pricing for equal things. Take a look at the free section of your local Craigslist. How many of those items could you obtain? If you live in a major city, chances are there’s a ton of free stuff that someone is just too lazy to get rid of, so they list it for free, even if it’s still usable or an easy fix if you know the right people.

Then take the free stuff, assuming it’s in good condition, and resell it. List it on Craigslist in the appropriate for sale section at cut-rate prices, or on eBay if it’s sufficiently valuable enough. List it on your campus bulletin boards and other places buyers congregate. Got a TON of stuff? Find a local flea market and rent a table once you’ve gotten a resale business going – the local flea market here charges $60 per week for a large booth, so if you can swing that with previous sale profits, you can gain access to a lot of buyers and foot traffic.

Think that’s fast money? Try services like PhoneRaiser to recycle old phones and stuff.

Not up for the challenge of a physical goods auction house? Look online. See what affiliate programs like Shareasale (disclosure: paid link, hereafter [PL”>MP3 file) you can sign up for, and then see what merchants whose stuff you like you can resell. I’m serious when I say that the Financial Aid Podcast sold over $700 in random stuff like Halloween costumes and personalized checks. For a major corporation, that’s barely a soda budget, but for a college student, that’s rent in some parts of the country – not to mention an easy win for the $500 savings challenge. You can sign up for programs like Shock Coffee [PL”>MP3 file, and resell on your personal web site highly caffeinated beverages [PL”>MP3 file as well as many, many other products.

Saving doesn’t just mean reducing what you spend – it also means earning more. Try some of these approaches and see if you can bring some more cash in the door to help you achieve your savings goals.

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