Three Ways To Make Money
by Gary Keesee
There are many often-overlooked areas you can find money. Some can provide a windfall of funds, and others can offer up just a few extra dollars. But it all adds up, right?
Here are three simple ways you can find overlooked money…
- Pay your bills online.
If you’re not already doing this, this is one of the easiest areas to save money and time. If you pay 10 bills online per month, the postage alone would save you $4.90, or almost $60 a year. If you figure in trips to the post office, the time and savings really increase.
- Check for unclaimed money.
Did you know that there is $400 billion in unclaimed funds in the United States? There is money sitting idle from abandoned savings accounts, stock dividends, forgotten paychecks, and more. When unclaimed, businesses are required to turn this money over to the state for safekeeping.One place you can start looking is missingmoney.com, a searchable database sponsored by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. After I checked this site, I found that both of my grandparents had unclaimed funds sitting there waiting to be claimed. Not every state is included on this site, so be sure to check websites for your own state’s unclaimed funds.
- Sell something.
I’ve learned from watching my father-in-law that what some people consider junk, others are willing to pay a good price for. You just have to know how to find those people! My father-in-law got his start selling items on Ebay. He simply cleaned out his old shed and posted the items. Before long, he had some buyers. Ebay is still a great option for selling your stuff. You can drop your stuff off at one of the stores that will sell your items for you for a fee, or you can do it yourself.
Besides garage sales and yard sales, Craigslist is another option for selling items, although I’ve found that people looking to buy items on Craigslist tend to negotiate lower prices.
Another newer, popular option is Facebook Selling Walls. Like Ebay or Craigslist, you post photos and a description of an item you’d like to sell, but to a Facebook page for your town, city, or Wall for a specific category of items. Look for Facebook sale groups in your area by searching for your state or region and the word “sell” or “buy” to find local buy/sell/trade groups and join them. If there are none, you can always start one.
Once you join, you can shop from people in your area, list your own items for sale, and set your own prices. You can even note whether you’re willing to ship something, or whether you’d rather the buyer come pick it up. Keep in mind that many of the groups are closed, so you’ll have to ask permission to join, and others only accept certain types of listings; so make sure you read up on the rules for the group you want to join. Many have strict listing requirements and limits on how many items you can try to sell per day in order to try to protect everyone from spammers and scam artists.
There are many more overlooked places you can find money.
-Gary (Drenda Keesee’s Husband)
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage and family. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesees have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
Gary and Drenda pastor Faith Life Church at The Now Center in New Albany, Ohio and also are the CEOs of Forward Financial Group.
