One of the best ways to spend money to make money is on buying equipment that adds value to your business and life. A good phone or a computer to make more cash flow is well worth the cost. A $1,000 investment can bring in an extra $10,000 per year in income.
In 2022, I was working from my old MacBook Pro that I bought in 2013. It was working just fine but it was so inefficient and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. Then in 2022 during a Thanksgiving Black Friday sale, Costco was selling 2022 MacBook Pros for just $899.99.
I jumped on the opportunity because I can’t believe MacBooks were going for that cheap. It was the best decision I ever made. The speed with which the computer process information is out of this world and much better than my prior old MacBook Pro.
We could grow our wealth by saving and investing as much money as we can. However, we could also figure out a way to spend money to make money. I realized this lesson too late and only focused on investing my money in assets.
While investing in assets is a good choice, it’s slow at times. Asset owners try to increase their wealth by 8 – 12% per year when there’s possibilities to double your wealth in one year. By taking on manageable risk, too. There’s no need to bet the farm on a double or nothing bet.
Below are the 10 best ways to spend money to make money.
10 Ways to Spend Money to Make Money
The ways to spend money to make money are things I actually experienced myself! I can personally recommend the below steps.
1) Equipment
I used to have an old iPhone 5s in 2021. That’s not a typo. It was 2021 and I had a phone that I’ve been using since 2014 or so. Then in 2021 I bought a used iPhone 10 and the processing speed was at another level from before. Then the phone broke and so in 2022 I bought an iPhone 14.
The upgrade has been well worth the cost. The best ways to spend money to make money is on equipment that improves your life and makes it more efficient. Although time is not money, time is still valuable.
There’s no point in working with old equipment if the new equipment adds more value to your life than the cost.
There are many money bloggers who hoard and save as much money as they can to grow their money. That’s level one. The next level is knowing how to spend your money the most value adding way to grow your wealth and net worth with.
There’s no point in hoarding all the money in the world. It won’t make you richer.
2) Ways to Spend Money to Make Money? Education
Education doesn’t have to be formal education like in university. It can be through anything, like an online course or learning through a mentor while you work for them for free. That’s one of the best ways to spend money to make money.
We are in a knowledge economy where the most knowledgable wins in the end. One of my friends’ dad charges hundreds of dollars just to show up to fix the AC unit. Just to show up. People are willing to pay top dollar for knowledge that solves problems and headaches.
The best ways to spend money to make money is on education that solves a majority of the people’s problems. I can charge people for financial advice just because I put in the legwork it takes to learn everything about money.
Knowledge is powerful and consumers pay top dollar for knowledge that solves problems.
3) Investing
Investing should be seen as an expense. We shouldn’t invest what’s leftover after spending but spend what’s leftover after investing. Every paycheck, money flows through to my 401k to the S&P 500. It’s great because I don’t have to do anything related to my stock investing.
It’s how I got to a net worth of $500k+ at just 28. Because I consistently invested money into the S&P 500 and I have no plans to slow down anytime soon. The best ways to spend money to make money is through investments.
Few people de-prioritize investing. However, ever since Nixon took us off the gold standard, inflation skyrocketed because the supply of money increased over the years. Assets had no choice but to appreciate because the money supply kept increasing every year.
This is why investing is so necessary. The game is designed so investors win.
4) Starting a Blog
A blog is one of the best businesses to start. Even with AI threatening to take writers’ jobs. A well written article by a human is worth more than an article written by AI. People don’t want to read generic advice, they want to read personalized advice that’s tailored specific to them.
Ways to spend money to make money include writing a blog because it just costs ~$200 for the first 3 years for the domain name and hosting. Three years is a good amount of time to see if you can make your writing efforts work.
Starting a blog was one of the best decisions I ever made. Even though I can’t focus a lot of my attention on my blog to grow it to the giant I know it can be, I still appreciate it. It’s not only turned a profit but it gave me valuable skills to sell later down the road.
As a bonus, I love writing personal finance content. I’ll never stop doing so.
5) Starting a YouTube Channel
Even though everyone wants to start a YouTube channel to get rich and it’s become much more saturated, YouTube channels are still one of the great ways to spend money to make money. The best part is that Google doesn’t charge to start the channel.
All you need is an iPhone and then you can start recording your content thereafter. I personally started a YouTube channel in 2023 and I can’t wait to see how far I can take it. With the YouTube channel, my blog, and Twitter, the possibilities are endless.
I personally love starting businesses and it’s a great fun hobby of mine. The alternative would be that I would’ve goofed off on the weekends, which doesn’t provide me with as much joy as working on businesses.
The best part of a YouTube channel is that the more you work on it, the better your results become.
6) Cash Back Credit Cards
This is the literal definition of the ways to spend money to make money. When you spend money and charge it to your credit card, you get cash back rewards. Credit card rewards got so lucrative that I believe credit card companies lose money on them now if you’re a responsible borrower.
Some credit cards offer a 5% cash back category, which I only spend money on the specific category for the quarter. I average close to 4% cash back on my spending. That’s insane! 10 years ago, we would be lucky to get 1% cash back on our spending.
At my spending of $25,000 per year, that’s $1k that goes straight into my pocket. To me, that’s a lot of money. Obviously, credit cards are not good if you do not know how to responsibly use them. However, if you are one of those who knows how to use them responsibly, then everything works out.
I personally love cash back credit cards and wouldn’t trade them for anything else in the world.
7) Home Improvement
Outright purchasing real estate is not the only way to add value. Another way to add value to your property value is to spend money on home improvement projects. Such as remodeling, adding a half bathroom, and the like.
A $25,000 home renovation project can yield hundreds of thousands of dollars in added value. This is one of the overlooked ways to spend money to make money because no one thinks to look at their own house as the starting point to make more money.
There are remodeling projects that are just a money pit. Therefore, doing the legwork and the research is a necessity to going through with a home renovation project. However, if you know what you’re doing, this is one of the great ways to build wealth.
A remodeled kitchen or bathroom can add $10,000+ in value to your house. I can’t wait until I get into the real estate investing game some day.
8) Ways to Spend Money to Make Money: Bank Accounts
In 2023, banks were offering insane sign-up bonuses just to get their hands on deposits! I signed up for Citi Accelerate Savings account that earns a 4.00% APY that came with a nice $450 signing bonus. As long as I put in $50k into the bank for 60 days.
This is a form of “spending” because the opportunity cost of the money is still there. However, I wasn’t going to use the money for any other purpose any way during that time so I was happy to sign up and tie up my money. This is one of the ways to spend money to make money that people don’t take seriously.
All of the bank accounts that I signed up came with some sort of bonus. You should never sign up for a bank account when it doesn’t come with any sign up bonus. One of my mistakes was to sign up for a Roth IRA without knowing Fidelity offers a $100 sign up bonus.
Even when I could’ve taken 2 seconds to Google the promo code. Banks and financial institutions are hungry for deposits and are willing to pay top dollar for them.
9) Starting a Business
It wouldn’t be a proper list of the ways to spend money to make money without mentioning starting businesses. There are an infinite number of possibilities. The best businesses to start are those that require little upfront startup capital that requires sweat equity to make successful.
With the availability of the internet, it’s made everything possible. No longer do we need to lease an office space to service our customers do business. The majority of business is done through our fingertips with our phones and computer.
I personally will be starting a business in the next 3 – 5 years. Businesses are just a fun hobby for me to spend my time with. Hanging out with friends doesn’t give me as much excitement as working on businesses. It’s figuring out how to solve a problem that excites me the most.
Relying solely on your 9-5 income is the riskiest decision you can ever make in your life. Business income can diversify your income source and cement your family’s financial security.
10) Improving Your Health
Without health, everything is meaningless. More importantly, without good health, you cannot compete against someone else who takes immaculate care of their health. Health is one of the greatest ways to spend money to make money because without it, we are nothing.
I personally have a nasty digestion problem where I cannot digest foods as easily as I should. Therefore, it took me about 2 years to figure out the solution to my problem, which is to eat and drink very intentionally and meticulously.
I measure my food and drinks to get the perfect amount every day. I can also eat a certain kind of food and drink.
After improving my digestion issues, my life improved dramatically, in ways that I could never imagine it could. I have no brain fog, I’m more alert, and I am more productive in more hours of the day. Not only that, I get a full 6+ hours of sleep every day.
I’m excited to see how much further I can go with this newfound health. Health should never be neglected and frugality should never apply to health.
Ways to Spend Money to Make Money are Possible
Too many people want to make money solely by investing with no other alternatives. There’s ways to make more money and build wealth faster by spending money in smart ways that add value to your life. Ways to spend money to make money is not something that’s taught in school.
We’re taught to save as much money as we possibly can and invest it for the future. While that can work, there are other alternatives. I learned it too late. I wish I learned this lesson in my early 20s instead of my late 20s. However, I still have time.
We don’t want to go through life thinking we made all the life choices when there was a better way to make more money without taking on additional risk. I personally now focus on the value of my purchases instead of looking solely at the cost.
When something adds value to my life in any of the ways above, I don’t hesitate to spend money. Especially when it comes to health. Health is what gives me the sharp focus every day to tackle the goals and solve problems.
I personally use the ways to spend money to make money guide above so you know exactly what worked and what didn’t. The world is at our fingertips and our lives are only as good as we make them. Our choices are what makes us more money and wealthier.
Nothing else. That’s what’s great about the wealth building journey.
10 Ways to Spend Money to Make Money Shortlist
- Equipment
- Ways to spend money to make money? Education
- Investing
- Starting a blog
- Starting a YouTube channel
- Cashback credit cards
- Home improvement
- Ways to spend money to make money: savings accounts
- Starting a business
- Improving your health
