Author: John Au-Yeung

Software is a skill that not everyone has and it’s useful. Therefore, it’s a skill that’s worth money.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some ways that we can make money as a developer using our skills.

Writing

We can write about what we know as a developer to share our knowledge on sites like Medium.

Medium has a partner program that gives us money if we write and someone reads our stuff if we join it.

Also, we can write to other people’s blogs. Some blogs pay for guest posts. They can be found online by finding keywords like ‘write for us’ or ‘pad guest posts’.

They’re also ones that don’t advertise that they’re accepting guest posts. In that case, we can inquire about them or waiting for them to reach us.

We shouldn’t overlook sites that don’t pay for posts but have lots of reads. Sites like dev.to have lots of readers and some of them will want our help if they find us.

They don’t pay, but they may give us opportunities.

App Development

We can make web apps and mobile apps to make money. For mobile apps, iOS has great potential to make money either with ads or as a paid app.

For web apps, people will pay if the app we make if of any use to them.

However, we shouldn’t go all-in on making apps and spend all our time coding. Instead, we should build a quick prototype to gauge the interest of our potential users before doing anything.

This way, we can build many of them and find one that sticks. Then we can double down on that one instead of wasting our time and taxing our brain on something that no one wants to pay for.

Freelancing

Freelancing means we’re offering our programming skills on a per-project basis to people that are near where we live or online.

We can do that one website like Upwork or Freelaner.com, or we can reach out to people in meetups or small business so that we can have more personal interaction.

To find remote opportunities, we should have a big online presence so that we’re promoting ourselves and being visible to others around the world.

This is probably a better bet than competing on bids on freelancing websites.

Also, reaching out to local businesses is a great idea to make some extra money. They often have software related issues that they want to help with.

For example, many small businesses don’t have money or time to maintain their website and we can help them with that.

Also, they may have custom systems like e-commerce or project management that they may need help fixing.

If we get some happy clients under our belt then they’ll refer us to more clients.

So we should do what we’re good at like making websites and offer our service to them.

It comes with a lot of benefits like being flexible with time and also works wherever we want.

However, it does come with lots of risks like projects being canceled or the client doesn’t want us anymore.

Then we have to go find ourselves more clients again. Each client is more like our bosses in regular jobs so that’s another downside.

Theme and Plugins for Content Management Systems

Content Management Systems (CMSs) don’t come with lots of functionality out of the box. This is why the themes and plugins market is thriving for popular CMSs like WordPress.

Therefore, it’s a great opportunity for us to step in and develop great looking themes and useful plugins that people can add easily to their CMS installations.

The only thing bad here is that the most popular CMSs are all written in plain PHP so that working with that isn’t the most pleasant experience for developers.

People need many things like donation buttons, responsive themes, analytics, automatic backups and much more.

Conclusion

There’re lots of ways for developers to make money. Writing can pay dividends since not everyone can share their knowledge.

Also, we can write software for other people like small businesses and clients online to make some money.

Finally, we can also write themes and plugins for popular content management systems like WordPress.

In these uncertain times, saving money is a must to weather through any storm.

In this article, we’ll look at how developers can save money by following some easy to follow habits.

Cut Cable TV

Cable TV isn’t all that useful since we all have to sit and wait for ads and our program to be on according to the TV station’s schedule.

Also, it’s quite expensive as it can get up to $100 a month easily.

Because of the low value that it brings but with a high price, this should definitely go.

Use Lower-Tier Internet Plans

The Internet is pretty fast nowadays. Even cheap plans are OK.

Unless we’re uploading high-def videos or using lots of upload or download bandwidth for commercial purposes, we really don’t need such an expensive Internet connection.

Even if we’re working at home every day, most people only deal with textual data, which doesn’t take much bandwidth.

Also, we definitely don’t 4K videos for any reason. Regular HD videos are already pretty clear.

And most of the time, watching dramas and movies in standard def resolution is still OK.

We really don’t need the excessively high resolution for videos.

Therefore, unless we need super-high bandwidth for work, we definitely can go for a lower-tier Internet plan.

Downloads can wait a bit and we can forego the 4K streaming.

Eat Out Less

Eating out less will save us a lot of money. We can buy food in bulk and make many deals with all the ingredients we’ve bought.

Also, we don’t need to eat 3 meals a day. Just eat when we’re hungry.

We aren’t going to run out of food in this world if production continues and supply chains are strong.

This can also save us money.

We can always as for a second opinion if we aren’t sure about how many meals we should eat.

Try Other Options When Eating Out

There’re many options when it comes to restaurant choices.

We can save money by thinking out of the box like trying ethnic food. They’re often more affordable than the regular restaurant chains and fancy restaurants that people go to.

They may even if more affordable than fast-food restaurants. The quality is often comparable to mainstream options, but the price is much lower.

If we go out to eat, then we got to think outside the box and try different things.

Buy Older Generation Electronics

Older and newer generation electronics aren’t that different. Things like cell phones, computers, etc. haven’t changed that much for the last few years.

Therefore, even if something is 2–3 years old, it’s still pretty much the same as the newest, shiniest gadgets.

It’s just that the older ones are much cheaper.

For instance, it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between the last few versions of Android.

They all look similar and do similar things. Android has really matured.

Also, developer machines can also live for a few more years. Many developers write CRUD apps that don’t take that many resources.

We can run Linux on Windows with Windows 10 as an app or as a full-fledged VM in the near future, so we don’t really need a Mac for running Linux programs.

Most apps are deployed to Linux VMs or containers, so we can just use Linux instead of Macs except in some rare cases.

Therefore, since PCs can run Windows and Linux, we can just use a PC that is much more affordable than Macs.

The performance is comparable and there’s no vendor lock-in.

It might not be as polished as a Mac, but we can forego that after comparing the price tags.

PCs are way cheaper than Macs for the same hardware.

Pay Off Credit Cards

Credit card balances are meant to be paid off every month. Never forget to pay off our credit card bills.

Otherwise, the interests and late fees will shock anyone looking at their bill.

The interest rate is often more than 10%, and it also is more than 20%.

Therefore, we got to remember to pay our credit card bill every month.

Conclusion

There’re lots of ways for developers to save money. We can choose older electronics.

We never need the newest phone since the hardware and software didn’t change that much in most cases.

Also, PCs are sufficient for most cases and it’s much cheaper than Macs.

Finally, the slower Internet is sufficient for most people. And cable TV isn’t all that useful for most people.

In these uncertain times, saving money is a must to weather through any storm.

In this article, we’ll look at how developers can save money by following some easy to follow habits.

An Emergency Fund is a Must

We should never take any income source for granted. Finding a job may be hard, layoffs can happen, and business revenue can vanish overnight.

Therefore, we all need to save money no matter what we’re doing for income.

Just put some money in our savings account and don’t touch it.

Even with interest rates as low as it is today, we still get interest accrued from putting money in our savings accounts.

Anything will grow big over time because of compounding interest. Even if we put only a little bit in, we can save a lot if we’re patient.

Like anything that worth our time pursuing, saving money is going to be a long marathon.

Since most developers make more money than people in many other jobs, saving for an emergency is a must.

There’s just no excuse not to do it.

Create a Budget

We should create a budget based on what we make. This means that we should budget to spend less than we spend.

I know that’s easier than done. But we can all do it. We can save on rent by living with roommates.

We can eat out less, cancel cable, go for cheaper Internet and phone plans, etc.

If we want to save money, we can’t have fun too much outside. The minute we step out of our home is the moment that we start spending money most of the time.

Unless we’re just walking around our neighborhood, we’re going to spend money.

We’ve to pay to take the bus, drive, go for drinks, eat out, skiing, etc.

As soon as we go out, money flies out of our wallets. Therefore, it’s time to forego some things so that we can enjoy ourselves when we’re older and jobs are harder and harder to find.

Instead of going for a vacation far away, stay nearby, and don’t go so far. Also, sleeping in at home is also a great way to spend our vacations.

It’s also important if we want to retire. Leave the vacations for when we retire.

Stash Our Cash in Envelopes

We can also stash away cash in envelopes and don’t touch them. This way, we won’t spend them.

Also, we do the same with the money that we’re going to spend.

Swiping cards takes no effort and we can’t see what we’re spending directly when we’re spending them.

That’s bad because it’s very likely that we’ll overspend as we can’t see what we’ve spent.

Therefore, it’s better to spend cash instead of using debit and credit cards.

Credit cards are the worst because the interest rates for overdraft is insane. The interest rate that we have to pay for late-payments and overdrafts are double-digit high, so we shouldn’t use it much.

Save Automatically

We can set up an automatic transfer to a savings account under our name automatically.

This way, we always stash away money there.

Then we shouldn’t touch our savings account ever unless we’ve got a real emergency.

We got to do this for our own good.

Start Small But Think Big

Saving money is a marathon. We got to appreciate every small win.

Otherwise, we’ll give up very easily.

Since developers make more money that a lot of people, small wins can also be big wins.

We’ve to resist the urge to spend and stash money away. Then we pat ourselves on the back every time that we save a portion of our paycheck.

If that’s not enough to motivate us, think about the fact that we can retire earlier and be free to do whatever we want earlier we save now.

Start Saving For Our Retirement

The software development career generally isn’t too long-lasting. There just aren’t too many 60+-year-old developers writing Ruby or JavaScript code.

With all the young developers that can do the same thing for fraction of the pay, it’s no wonder that most places aren’t hiring many older developers for things that entry and mid-level developers can do.

Therefore, we may retire earlier than we expect. This means that we should start saving today.

Conclusion

We just got to save money as developers. It’s not going to be a long-lasting career for a lot of people.

Therefore, we got to prepare for retirement whether we want to or not.

Also, we got to save for a rainy day. If we don’t want to save anything, think about how we can use the money we stashed away to enjoy retirement sooner.

In today’s world, we all can definitely use more money. Fortunately, as developers, we have a valuable skill that we can use to make money.

In this article, we’ll look at how we can make extra money as developers.

Email Newsletter

Email newsletters are often overlooked. We can create email newsletters by collecting them from our blog or linking them from our social media profiles.

If people see that there’s something good in our profiles, they’ll subscribe.

Offering to collection people’s emails in exchange for something like an ebook will also work.

Then in our message, we give our subscribers some exclusive content along with some affiliate links so that some people may click on them and make us some money.

Trading Bot

We can make our own trading bot with our own programming skills. If we’re conservative with our trades then we can make money in a low-risk way.

Just make sure that our bot has no bugs that’ll make us lose money.

Investments

Also, we can invest in index funds or we can put it in our savings account to collect some interest.

Term deposits are also a low-risk way to make money. We can put our money in an account and keep it there until the maturity date, and then we collect money from it.

Mutual funds are also an option since they consist of multiple stocks and bonds in one fund, so the risk is spread out. To reduce the risk, even more, we can buy from multiple funds.

Of course, the lower risk ways to invest will have lower rewards. And higher risks ways will have a chance of higher rewards.

Now we don’t have to pay money to brokers to buy and sell financial products, so there’s no better time to buy and sell.

Paid Coding Challenges

If we’re really talented at programming, especially with data structure and algorithms, then we can make money from paid coding challenges.

Even if we aren’t as talented, there’re still plenty of hackathons that we can participate in that we can make money from.

However, hackathons usually last overnight, so make sure that we bring a sleeping bag to sleep in.

Bug Bounty Programs

If we’re security conscious and are good at finding bugs, then we can find security vulnerabilities in popular apps and make some money from them.

There’s a big list of bug bounty programs from Intel, Yahoo, Snapchat, Cisco, and more.

Affiliate Programs

We can earn commissions from affiliate programs by putting affiliate links on our blog.

If someone clicks on it buy something from our link, then we make money.

Just be sure to put links for something that we can endorse so that we have a good reputation in the online community.

Selling Our Own Products

We can sell stuff that we can make. We can take the mass production route or we can make niche products.

Then we can sell them in various places like eBay, Etsy, etc., depending on what products we’re offering.

Making products definitely isn’t an easy route to make money with all the upfront costs of manufacturing and promotion.

We also have to make sure that our product is what someone needs and that it has a differentiator that distinguishes it from millions of other products that are in the market.

Fiverr

Fiverr is a gig marketplace for small jobs that cost around 5 dollars. Whatever we can do for 5 dollars we can offer them on there.

To jumpstart our profile on Fiverr, we probably need some starter gigs from friends and family to get some good reviews, then once people see good reviews, they’ll start coming.

Ecommerce

In addition to making our own products, we can also resell products from other manufacturers.

We should test out the waters by getting some samples and see if they sell. Then we can double down if they sell.

There’re many places to sell like eBay, Shopify, and many more sites that we haven’t thought of yet.

Conclusion

The surefire way to make money is to put our money into a savings account. However, low-risk ways have lower rewards and higher risks ways may get us higher rewards.

Other ways are used to start a business like selling stuff online and offering our gigs online on Fiverr.

Email newsletters are often overlooked, so that maybe another way to make money.

In today’s world, we all can definitely use more money. Fortunately, as developers, we have a valuable skill that we can use to make money.

In this article, we’ll look at how we can make extra money as developers.

Working as a Developer

Working as a developer is probably the most common way to make money with our software development skills.

Becoming an employee is a bit safer than freelancing, but they both have risks, so we have to have other ways to make money that we outline below.

Sell Digital Products

There’re many things that are digital. Digital products take no money to make other than our time.

We can write exclusive content and put them behind a paid membership site.

Also, we can sell themes and plugins for content management systems and frameworks like Angular and Vue.

We can also make our own component library and charge people for it.

Software as a Service

Software as a Service is software that we can build and charge people for using it.

The only cost would be hosting. However, if we want to save on employee costs, then we have to do lots of things ourselves like customer support and maintenance.

Therefore, the cost can be high and it can be very time consuming and stressful.

Also, we have to build it ourselves and validate that there’s a market for our service by building a prototype.

All that takes a lot of effort, so it’s definitely not for everyone. Hosting costs also add up the more things we do.

Mobile Apps

We can also build our own mobile apps and sell them via subscriptions or charging outright to buy the app.

This is in the same vein as software as a service. We first have to build a prototype to validate that there’s a market for our product, and then we can double down on releasing it to production.

Also, we got all the same customer support and maintenance issues with SAAS.

Either we hire employees to make it easier for us, which is costly, or we do everything ourselves.

Blogs

We can create our own blog to make money by putting ads or affiliate links on them.

Also, we can take sponsored posts once our blog gets popular.

This is a long term effort since we’ve to wait for search engines to give us some search traffic. Also, we need to promote our blog constantly.

Books

Programming books are always popular. People need to learn from books. More often than not, it’ll come in the form of an ebook rather than a physical book.

We can write for big publishers like O’Reilly or we can publish them ourselves.

Online Courses

Teaching programming is easier than doing it ourselves, so it’s better that we create an online course if we want a more relaxing way to make money from our skills.

We can make videos or write a text-based course. Also, we can add one on one tutoring sessions or group tutorial sessions into our online course offering.

Lots of people are stuck on basic programming tasks so we can definitely make money solving those problems for them.

Donations

We can accept donations from sites like Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee from within our blog or social media presence.

This way, we may be some extra cash if someone donates. However, this is all the luck of the draw since most people won’t donate for something they can already get for free.

Make Our Own Job Board

We can make our own job board and get people to pay to post on our board.

Of course, this is another software as a service, so it comes with all the hurdles that come with supporting and maintaining one.

Also, we’ve to promote it hard to get any traction, and we have to get traffic from search engines so that people can see our site.

Conclusion

There’re many ways to make extra money as a developer. We can work full time or freelance developer jobs.

Also, we can make our own software as a service or mobile app. However, these are all hard options.

The easier options probably have something to do with writing or teachings like tutoring, blogging, and writing books.