How I Made Extra Cash in College

As a full-time college student, I understand the time consuming assignments we are constantly bombarded with, yet still needing extra cash to spend on food, clothes, books, and all that good stuff. But the dilemma here is, how am I going to be able to stay focused on school while slaving away several hours of my day at work, only to take home very little? Knowing this dilemma heading into my freshman year, I decided to become resourceful and made sure I allocated my work hours wisely, while also being paid at a much higher rate than normal college jobs were paying. Here are a few of my tips...Some people may truly enjoy working 10-15 hours a week while being in school full time. If that's the case, then these tips maaaay not be exactly for you, just to preface. But for me, I wanted to physically work as minimal hours as possible, while maximizing my profit. With that in mind, I set a minimum hourly rate for myself, which was $15/hr at the time (my freshman year). *For those not in CA, minimum wage over here is $11/hrOne of my first jobs I had after moving to California and starting college was a tutoring job. I found this opportunity on care.com and to be fair, I was initially looking for nannying type jobs, but ended up with an even better opportunity to tutor (which has now turned into a combination of mentoring and tutoring). But also just to preface, I went through a few different care.com jobs at first before landing the tutoring opportunity, which I still have today. This specific tutor job required me to assist a 2nd grader with her homework and push her with extra work from the additional work books her mom provided. Since the start about three years ago, I have been tutoring this young girl (who is now in 4th grade) for 3 hours a week and initially at $15/hour, but since over a year ago, it became $20/hr. While this job seems so simple and not your classic college side job, I have learned how to work with the mind and thinking of young children (she also has siblings around the same age) and developed strategies over the past three years on how to coach and mentor young kids in learning, as well as personal development. I have also cultivated a long-term relationship with the family, whom are extremely kindhearted and well-rounded and to be quite honest, I realized I wanted to raise my family very similarly to them. What started as a simple tutoring job, became an opportunity for me to learn how to serve the next generation of intellects and teach them how to think with the right mindset to become the strong, bright individuals that they are.Another job that I apply similar skills in is figure skating coaching. For the past three years, I have worked with skaters of all ages and levels, even some around the age of 3, which was surely a learning experience for me, as I am still learning how to work with kids of such a young age. Likewise to my tutoring job, I don't need to work a significant amount of hours in order to have a substantial amount of extra spending money. Typically I will coach on the weekends for learn-to-skate, about 3-4 hours a week including private lessons, which also is a substantial amount in comparison to group lessons and a regular hourly wage job, but it does involve a lot of energy on ice when demonstrating skills to young students.Other simple and easy ways to make extra cash in college is selling your gently worn clothes. It helps if they are some sort of "well-known" brand name, because those are often featured on the app I use to sell my clothes, Poshmark. Over the past three years of college, I have gone through several different styles and over time, I recognized which pieces I didn't wear or need anymore. Rather than throwing them out or leaving them in my closet, I would sell them on Poshmark for a decent price and this has been easy cash. I think of this like having cash laying around in your closet--if you have an Urban Outfitters sweater that you haven't worn for the past year but it's just hanging up, that could be easy $20-$30 right there. Occasionally, I would do the same at Plato's Closet, but it can be a hit or miss there.Making extra cash in college can be quite simple if you learn how to be resourceful with your current skills and things you already have/know. So next time you are looking for a part-time job in college, consider options similar to these--and know your worth ;)xx