This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure policy for details.
If you want to retire earlier, you need to make smart money moves.
One of those moves is to carve out money to invest now to create income streams later. To make this happen, you need to get a bang for your buck when you do spend.
Every single dollar you spend is one you aren’t investing for your future. That’s why I love a bargain and money well spent.
This week’s “Retire Earlier: Bang for your Buck” feature goes to a gig economy app called Fiverr.
FIVERR (*affiliate link) is a place to find online services by professionals all over the world. It’s great for entrepreneurs who need business services such as graphic design, programming, and tech. But FIVERR also has services for everyone such as online tutoring, interior design, and genealogy.
That’s right. Someone can help you make a family tree.
How we used FIVERR to save money:
My husband and I are learning French and found a tutor on FIVERR. Our son married a delightful French Canadian woman last year. Her native language is French, of course, and naturally, her whole family is bilingual. We figure if these two have children in the future, they will speak French, too and we are going to want to talk to our grandkids in both English and French.
So decided to jump on in and learn her language. Though we may never read Voltaire in French, we may at least have conversations about our lives, food, and the weather.
Our “Learn French” game plan:
- We are taking a French Class by the Great Courses
- We are using the Duolingo app to work through the basics – it’s free!
- We get the news in French with an app called RFI (and they have a “slowed down” version which is still really fast.)
- We watch French films with subtitles on Netflix.
- We found a tutor so we can practice speaking French and get feedback on our pronunciation.
The weekly tutor was not without its challenges.
Since I have a long commute each day, it’s hard for me to find time to meet with a tutor. My lunch hour would work except my husband is in a different city at that time.
Tutoring is pricey with local French tutors charging $50 an hour. We felt like that’s a bit much when we are learning to say, “Hello and welcome” and “I am eating an orange.” It seems like such a waste to pay $50 an hour to learn the very basics.
Then I remembered FIVERR an online gig economy app.
After scrolling through the services, I found quite a few tutors that said, “Learn conversational French and speak French with me!” So after contacting a few and narrowing it down, we settled on YassineKeyLife – a language teacher who teaches French, Spanish and Arabic based out of Morocco.
That’s right, Moroccans speak French!
We figured we’d start with a Fiverr tutor via Skype. When we’ve got the basics down we could refine our study with a French Canadian French coach.
The prices are reasonable. The fee for one of Yassine’s packages was $25 + $2 FIVERR fee for 5 lessons + 1 free. Six hour-long lessons for $27 is very affordable at less than $5/hour.
After just a few lessons, Yassine taught us phrases and pronunciation so we were able to Skype with our new daughter-in-law in French. (We wrote out phrases on 3 x 5 cards to keep us on track.)
She was blown away and deeply touched.
Learning French is a challenge. Even though 30% of the English language is French, we still need to know which words and how to pronounce them. We already know table and stable. We can easily remember accessible and audible. You may know the words menu, cafe, salade and une omelette!
That said, having an inexpensive tutor to talk with is awesome. Besides, it’s interesting to meet someone from another part of the world. We just have to figure out our time difference and plan accordingly.
But being able to talk with our daughter-in-law in her native language is worth it. And now we have a new friend in Morocco!
How does a gig service provider work to save money?
FIVERR and other gig economy marketplaces like Gigbucks and Zerk are simple to use. Here’s how:
Head to the app, search for the services, read the reviews and send an inquiry to the provider.
Once connected with your service provider and terms are agreed upon, you pay via credit card or Paypal and your service is delivered. It’s that easy.
What can you get on a gig economy app that is a bang for your buck?
Business Services
If you are starting a side gig, you can find someone to:
Design business cards
Write copy for brochures
Launch your website
Set up a blog and write some posts
Write a business plan
Personal training and nutrition consulting:
Gain muscle with a specialized fitness plan
Tweak your diet to lose 10 lbs.
Learn yoga
Learn to:
Speak another language
Play the guitar
Do complex math problems.
Just have fun. Have a:
Charlie Chaplin style black and white video made just for you!
Photo of your cat made into a painting.
I am so glad I checked our FIVERR to learn to speak French without breaking our budget.
What will you learn next? Please share in the comments!
Au revoir et a bientôt!
(Goodbye and see you later.)
