How You Can Invest in Yourself – Free Methods

Can you invest in yourself for free?

Interesting question, right?

If you’re a pessimist, you’ll say there is nothing for free in this life. If you’re an optimist, then you’ll say the best things in life are free. If you’re a philosopher, this story will never end.

I’m an optimist…so you know my take on this already.

Free in this context defines things that you will not spend actual money on. Of course you’ll spend a lot of time and energy, but you won’t have to spend a single cent.

Note that these free methods can have powerful returns. Read them carefully,  implement and share with your friends.

Follow Top Blogs to Get Free, Premium Content

Nowadays, there are blogs about almost anything. Whether you’re a freelance graphic designer, writer, programmer or web designer, there is a blog that has free information on how you can make more money.

Personally, I am a freelance writer and internet marketer so I follow these top blogs on my niche and always get lots of premium content for free.

Check out knowledgebase info

Most top freelancing websites have a knowledgebase where people can learn how to make more money on the site. For example, in Elance, you can get lots of content from the Elance University. It also runs a lot of free webinars and shares PDFs on how one can succeed on Elance. Most people who are signed up are already seeing these things but they simply never take their time to read and learn.

Outsource

Do you know you can double or even triple your income simply by outsourcing? Think about it.

Let’s say you’re comfortable making $50 daily. That’s great, it will get you around Sh. 80,000 per month. On the other hand, you can use the same skill you used to get more clients then outsource the work to other freelancers.

For example, if you’re a writer being paid $4 per article on Elance or Fiverr, you can hire them out for $2 per article and get a profit of $2 per article. You can then have 50 articles written in a day.

This way, you double your income and get $100 per day for just giving out instructions and submitting. This is just an example, there are people who get a design from Fiverr for $5 and sell it elsewhere for $100 and above.

Therefore, to get the real power of outsourcing, you need to know the right buyers and the right sellers.

Get better paying sites

Which site are you working on? Are you still on Freelancer or oDesk? Maybe it’s time to move on to better paying sites such as Elance, Fiverr or iWriter. As stated above, there are tons of free resources online that can help you succeed in these sites. You just need to find the right one.

Start a free blog

Quality rules! I started my blog as a free blog on WordPress.com making $0 per month. My aim was just to help people, hoping that they will also help other people and make the online world a better place for everyone.

You can do the same. Start a blog about your passion and focus on helping people out. You never know what financial and social returns blogging can get you.

Take care of yourself physically, mentally and socially

Yes, take care of yourself.

You can easily become a withdrawn introvert once you get lots of clients and money online. Note that life is not about money, you need to be a joyful, all-rounded person. Some things you can do to take care of yourself include:

• Being spiritual (For example, if you’re a Christian, live strictly by biblical standards)
• Hanging out with family and friends
• Eating healthy
• Exercising
• Going for regular checkups
• Taking good care of your finances – spending carefully, saving and investing

PLR Stuff

Have you ever heard of PLR (Private Label Rights)? These are materials that give you the right to republish, reuse and sometimes even own and sell the content.

There are lots of free content online that you can take and use whichever way you like. These can come in the form of eBooks, articles, graphics, software programs etc. Look out for private label rights stuff and feel free to use them to get people to your mailing lists or even sell them as guides on Fiverr.

Don’t use PLR content on your blog since duplicate content will mess you up with search engines. In case you choose to use PLR articles, make sure you rewrite them completely to create unique content.

Amazon Free eBooks

You can go to Amazon right now, grab an eBook about your favorite topic and read all you want about it. If you can’t afford an online course, Amazon would be the best place to start. Don’t undermine what you can get there.

Help people

People out there need your help!

You don’t always have to charge for helping them out. As stated above, you can start a blog and give out free stuff, give out free consultations to people who need your expertise, write an eBook and give it out for free or even donate your old laptop to a struggling new freelancer.

Will helping others help you invest? Yes, helping others should be done for their good but it silently becomes an investment in people. Somehow, you’ll end up being happier and more and more blessings will come your way.

When starting out, I didn’t have even a quarter of the information I had. Worse still, I didn’t have the money to pay for the information. There was only one blogger who had an online course but this was going for Sh. 1,400 which I couldn’t afford.

I therefore turned to the above free methods and they pushed me through till when I was able to afford premium stuff. I am speaking this all from experience and the above methods come highly recommended.

Which free methods do you use to invest in yourself?