Want to make some changes as 2020 comes to an end, and start trying to be more productive moving into 2021 and beyond? Lockdown restrictions might stop us from getting out and about as much as we’d like, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a multitude of options you can pursue from the comfort and safety of your own four walls.
To help you build some inspiration and ideas going into the new year, why not take a look at this quick and simple guide, showing you a couple of different productive things that you can do on your smartphone from home.
Marketing yourself and starting a business
Got a hobby that you’ve always wanted to take further and monetise? With the abundance of online platforms and marketplaces – all of which are accessible through your smartphone – it’s easier than ever. With the likes of Etsy for crafts and hand-made products, or even Depop for clothing, you can quickly start running an online business from home, turning a passion project into something with an income stream.
Alternatively, you’ve got some expertise that you think would be good to share, you could create an eBook, putting your knowledge and thoughts to paper and quickly distributing it for some profit using one of the many simple online publishing tools out there. You could even offer out your talents and teach others online, something that many people are relying upon at the moment with the pandemic stopping the routine of normal classes/coaching.
Saving Money
Being more confident and smarter with your spending is something that a lot of us aspire to do as the new year rolls around, and the festive period has our wallets suitably drained. If you’re the sort of person that finds yourself consistently living from paycheck to paycheck, and want to make some changes with your financial situation, then starting a savings/investment plan in 2021 could be a great idea.
This is where your smartphone comes into play. Not only can making the full use of your relevant bank’s online app (if you aren’t using it already, of course) give you a better understanding of where your money is going and what you’re spending on each month, but there are also a bunch of different fun, simple and easy savings apps out there to help you along the way.
Cleo, for instance, is a simple and fun social financial advisor app that gives you reccomendations and advice based on your spending habits in a fun way. Yolt, on the other hand, is an example of a more practical financial tool, which is extremely useful for tracking different expenditures and thus potentially getting to the route of a ‘financial leak’, if you’re trying to figure out where your money is going. For a helpful list of saving/investment smartphone apps, The Big Investment have compiled a helpful list that you might want to look into.
Investing Money
If you’ve got some savings and want to start thinking about how to make that money work for you, there are also a bunch of apps that can help you in thinking about an investment strategy, too. Moneybox is a good one to get started, an app that rounds up any change from spends in your everyday life, and puts them into an investment strategy on your behalf. These sorts of small, hands-off approaches are a great way of getting started.
To go even one step further, if you have a decent amount of capital stored away and want to look into the world of property investment, for example, you can even use your smartphone for that purpose, too. RWinvest are one of the many companies out there offering a range of free guides, videos, podcasts and eBooks on the developing property market, all of which are easily downloadable and readily available on your mobile device of choice.
