When I first started this budgeting process, I was under the impression that if I could just save more money, I’d find my way out of debt. So I started out by cutting out my daily eating out habit, started doing my nails at home and started going for walks with friends instead of meeting for dinner.

After a few months however, I realized that just being more frugal would take me a lifetime to be debt-free. I started to see how little I was contributing to debt repayment and I was beginning to get discouraged.  Now, I’ve been guilty of having a few false starts when it came to paying off my debt. The only difference this time was that I had a new idea.

Make more money!

This realization changed the way I look at debt repayment and I couldn’t believe I didn’t ‘get’ this before. I started a side hustle writing resumes and it was like my debt repayment was on steroids. I was able to pay off $34,000 of debt in a year because of the extra money I was able to bring in.

I have to admit that I was exhausted that year and it felt like all I did was work, but seeing those debt numbers diminishing every month was motivation enough to keep going and that’s exactly what I did.

If you’re barely managing to pay bills or paying bills and saving just a tiny bit of money, the likely that your financial situation will change much isn’t likely.

For example, let’s say you’re making $50,000 a year and comfortably managing your expenses. Let’s even say that you save a few hundred dollars a month. It is unlikely that, under these circumstances,  that you will get any richer. You’re really just maintaining your lifestyle.

They key is to either go out and find a higher paying job or make some extra money on the side doing something you’re good at.

Frugality and more money pays

There’s no point making more money if you’re just going to increase your spending. For that reason, a combination of budgeting and making more money is the way to become rich.

I was lucky. The first few months of my debt repayment process, I’d been budgeting like crazy. I had already gotten my spending under control and knew exactly where I did to cut my spending. I became pretty frugal and began packing my lunches and planning my meals around what was on sale at the the supermarket.

When my side hustle started to make more money, it was easy to make sure I didn’t spend through it all… which is what I would have done just a few months before.

Are you saving money or making more money?