How I Made An Extra 20K In Three Years

I bet that got your attention. No there is no quick fix to making an extra 20K in three years, just plain old hard work. When I started this blog I wanted to have a focus on career advice in addition to travel. After all, the blog is called the Restless Worker. Building a career is something that’s very important to me. I have spent the better part of a decade working towards achieving my goals. I’m happy to say that this year I landed my dream job title. It wasn’t easy, and I took a bit of a roundabout way to get there but I did it.

With all of that hard work I also managed to increase my salary by 20K in three years. As I sit here writing this I’m quite surprised (and obviously impressed) with myself. If you had have told me 7 years ago, fresh out of university, that I would be doing what I was doing and making what I was making I would never have believed you. I think the most important lesson I have learned is that nothing just comes to you. It takes hard work, long hours and determination. There are so many get rich quick schemes out there it makes me sick. There’s really no such thing. The people writing those posts are probably sitting at home eating cup’o soup for dinner because they can’t afford anything else. Seriously don’t fall for it.

This post instead is meant to teach you that hard work, determination and drive really can help you make more money, an extra 20K if you want to be exact (*disclaimer: this post will not make you an extra 20K but hopefully it will give you an idea of some of the tools I used to do it).

Build a portfolio

I think just about anyone can take advantage of doing this when it comes to career advancement. To be honest 80% of the reason why I started this blog was to build my own portfolio. I wanted to prove that I had the digital marketing and social media skills to be able to start something from scratch and build an audience. The other 20% was obviously because I love to travel and write.

I can’t stress harder enough how easy it is to build your own portfolio. Even if it’s as simple as you creating a Pinterest board and pulling in your works from around the web.

If you work in the creative or digital space and lack experience, start freelancing. There are so many great websites out there that can help you get started. In the past year along I’ve built up my portfolio a considerable amount. The extra money certainly helps as well!

You can build a website for literally as little as $50. All you need is to buy a domain name and find a hosting provider. I use BlueHost because I found them the easiest to deal with for a first-timer. They were also the cheapest. I can’t stress enough, if I can start and maintain a website, quite literally anyone can.

Educate yourself

One of the best things I ever did (besides the point below) was to go back to school. I didn’t go back full-time but I enrolled myself in night courses. I’m lucky enough that my field of work has a wide range of post-graduate certificates that I could choose from. I’m sure that getting my Social Media Marketing certificate helped me in getting my current role.

Of course, not every profession has a conventional method for additional education. If your field requires a professional degree there are lots of schools that offer full-time courses at night and on the weekends. Alternatively there are many different types of ‘schools’ popping up all over the place. Traditional schools are lagging behind when it comes to digital education so places like BrainStation or CampTech can easily fill that gap.

At the end of the day, additional education never hurts. Even if you’ve gotten all of the degrees you possibly can in your field, taking extra courses proves that you have initiative. A willingness to learn is an incredibly valuable asset for many hiring managers.

Negotiate

I’ve been told by friends I have in human resources that women are the worst when it comes to negotiation. For whatever reason we just don’t do it. Stupid. I was very lucky to have been raised by my father who is a stickler for negotiations (can you tell he’s been in sales his whole life?) and women in business. He has been my business guru from day one and I always rely on him to help me through negotiations. I strongly suggest you find someone (if you haven’t already), who you trust to help you make the right decisions and figure out what to say when negotiating contracts.

There’s one rule I live by in my personal and professional life; you’re not going to get what you want unless you ask for it. The worst that happens is that you get a no and even then, you are likely getting a raise in salary so you’re making more regardless.

When it comes to negotiation I think it’s important to note that you can negotiate pretty much anything under the sun if you wanted to. Of course it’s likely you’ll be turned down if you ask for ‘sleep in Wednesdays’ or your own personal fridge but hey, doesn’t hurt to ask right?

One thing I always ask for is more vacation (obviously). Many times I’m turned down because I’ve been lucky enough to work for companies with generous policies but I have been lucky before. In my previous role I negotiated an extra whole week! Although to be fair, anyone who offers two weeks of vacation is cruel. One trick I’ve been told is to ask for additional ‘personal days’ if your company won’t agree to more vacation. For whatever reason ‘personal days’ are considered in a different bracket than vacation so that could work in your favour as well.

Above and beyond vacation and salary negotiations there are practical elements to your job that you can work into your deal as well. You can also try asking for remote working days, transportation allowance if your commute is far, new equipment, or even a signing bonus.

Jumping around

Now I’m not going to outwardly endorse people jumping jobs. It may not work for everyone and I do have a fear that one day it’ll come back and bite me in the butt, however it worked for me in my upward climb. It seems to be a somewhat new phenomenon this whole jumping jobs thing. When it comes to looking for a new job I would strongly suggest you do this when you have a job. Statistically it’s proven that it’s easier to find a job when you have one. I do believe in loyalty but at the same time you have to look out for yourself.

I’ve learned this the hard way but when it comes to looking for jobs you want to make sure you’re looking for jobs you actually want. There’s no point in applying to jobs for the sake of applying, that’s not going to make you money.

More importantly, you want to make sure you’re making upward climbs. It’s a lot harder to ask for more money (as per the next point) when you’re making a lateral move than it is when you are moving into a higher position. You shouldn’t be jumping around for the sake of it, there should always be a reason and that reason should be that it’s advancing your career one way or another.

So there you have it, four ways that helped me make an extra 20k in three years. Did I miss anything? What advice would you give?