4 Creative Ways To Chase Your Dream When Money Is Low

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We all have dreams and would love to make them a reality. Sometimes that’s hard to do for various reasons. You may be doing this with a family, which means you don’t have a bunch of disposable income. You may just not have enough income, period.

I’ve been there on both counts. When I started chasing my dream in 2011 I was broke. More than that I owed money to a bunch of people. When I got the brilliant idea to chase my dream of being a writer I had to come up with the cash somehow.

I looked into what it would take and the amount I needed was $900. This would get my website designed, my book edited and a nice cover made. The only problem was I didn’t have $900.

I found a way to get that money and chase my dream with very little money. I want to give you a few ideas if you’re in this same boat.

1. Odd jobs

The easy road would have been to borrow money from my parents but I had already done that too many times. I’m just not a fan of borrowing money from anyone. I wanted to do this on my own.

To come up with the $900 I did odd jobs. I cut my neighbors grass, I did yard work, and I cleaned houses. Whatever odd job someone needed done, I did it.

Was it fun? Of course not and I felt like a failure but I got that $900 in one month. Even after I got the $900 I continued to work the odd jobs because it put much-needed cash in our budget.

Wherever you’re at there are opportunities all around you. For me it was manual labor, for you it might be something else. Do you have a skill that you could do on the side to make some cash?

You just might have to do the manual labor but rest assured it’s getting you closer to your dream. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to make your dream happen.

I’m guessing there’s something you do that you don’t even think about but are skilled at. How can you make a little cash on the side with that thing that could help build your dream?

2. Bartering

If you’re building an online dream are there others doing the same that you could barter with? Maybe you have writing skills and that person does web work. There’s an opportunity to help each other out for free.

Look for those in your space that are doing what you’re doing. Look for opportunities to help each other out. When I was building a few times I put ads out on Craigslist offering to barter.

A few times I encountered some nut jobs but a bunch of times I was able to trade services with others for free. It was beautiful and in my budget. Look for those opportunities because they’re all around you.

3. Crowd funding

There are some amazing crowd funding sites that have helped many dreams become a reality. My good friend Jared Easley from Starve the Doubts and his friends had a dream to host a conference for podcaster’s.

They put that dream on Kickstater and got it completely funded. They’re having an amazing conference that’s even bringing in A-Listers like Chris Brogan.

Do you want to release a book or product? Crowd funding could be the way to go. You put your idea on those sites and offer things if people donate. Things like a signed book, two books, an exclusive chapter and so on.

There are many examples of people who have rocked crowd funding and made their dreams a reality.

4. Beta version

Let’s say you created a book or program but don’t have the money to market it. You can pre-sell the thing and let people know this is the beta version.

The beauty of this is you get the money you need to finish and market the thing and get valuable feedback from people on what to improve. You put out the beta, get the feedback and make the final version killer.

This is a concept the Foundation talks about and uses. If people are willing to buy your beta version you know for sure you have a thing that will sell. If no one buys it you know you have some work to do.

Chasing your dream with little or no money is possible. If you’re willing to work hard and get a little creative you can generate the income you need and then some.

Take advantage of some of the opportunities that we didn’t have before. Use them to make your dream a reality. Get even more creative to fund your dream and let us know what worked for you.

Are you using any creative ways to chase your dream? 

P.S. If you’ve never read the $100 Start Up (affiliate link) by Chris Guillebeau you need to this week! I have the honor of interviewing Chris for the Huffington Post about his new book that launches September 9th. The book is fabulous! What questions would you ask Chris about his dream chasing journey? Ask in the comments.

P.S.S. My latest article for the Good Men Project is live, comments and shares are appreciated!