7 Simple ways you can make money now 

In today’s fast-paced world, finding easy ways to make some extra cash can be a game-changer. More people are looking for ways to make extra money, at the beginning of 2024 in the UK 1 in 4 adults had a side hustle, small business or a secondary job alongside their full-time careers. In the US more than a third of adults — and nearly half of millennials and Gen Z have a second stream of income in 2024.

Whether you need to pay off bills, save for a vacation, or just have some fun money, there are numerous avenues available that anyone can tap into. Here are 7 simple ways you can make money now! 

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The BBC has announced plans to eliminate 155 jobs from across its news operations as part of a wider £700mn cost-cutting strategy.

The move will save £24mn, according to an internal memo sent to staff at the UK national broadcaster on Tuesday and seen by the Financial Times, or 4 per cent of the budget of the newsroom.

The BBC has increasingly struggled to cover the costs of its wide range of services, having lost close to one-third of its income over the past decade.

The previous Conservative government capped funding for the two years to 2024 and then awarded the lowest level of licence fee increase up to 2027. BBC executives will enter into talks with the Labour government about the terms of its next licence, which starts in 2027.

The corporation’s news operation will shed 185 roles in total but will open 55 new positions — a net reduction of 130 posts, or about 3 per cent of staff in the newsroom. Its media operations division is also proposing to close the equivalent of 25 posts related to the news division, with a further 25 unrelated jobs being cut.

The cost cuts form part of a wider plan set out by the BBC in May 2022 to find £500mn in annual savings, with a further £200mn of extra cuts announced subsequently. This will lead to total cuts of more than 500 roles, comprising 1,200 post closures and the addition of 700 new positions.

The BBC said it would do “everything we can do to avoid compulsory redundancies”, including through its voluntary redundancy scheme. 

This year, the BBC announced plans to close up to 115 posts in regional editorial and production teams, or about 3 per cent of the division’s staffing. The corporation has already cut jobs in its local news teams, as well as in individual programmes such as Newsnight.

All BBC divisions have been told to reduce content creation by one-fifth. The newsroom cuts announced on Tuesday include closing the bespoke Asian Network News service, axing the HARDtalk long-form interview programme and synchronising the production of news bulletins used on Radio 5 Live and Radio 2.

Domestic radio stations will also take World Service news summaries overnight rather than producing their own.

Stephen Sackur, presenter of HARDtalk, said on X: “This is sad news for me personally, but much more important, I think it’s depressing news for the BBC.”

The broadcaster is having to balance the rapid shift by much of its audience to digital platforms — which require different sorts of programmes and presenters — while meeting the demands of the often older users of its traditional linear channels. 

The proposals do not include cuts to the World Service, which is subject to separate discussions with the government. On Monday, BBC director-general Tim Davie warned in a speech that cuts to the World Service risked helping Russia and China spread “unchallenged propaganda”.

Consumer engagement and activity is on the rise when it comes to pensions even though only 13% have received financial advice on their pension in the last 12 months.

This is according to a report from Boring Money, ‘Pension Report 2024 – The Consumer Focus’, which showed that 75% of British adults who are not retired have at least one pension.

Additionally, 12% of UK adults have a private pension.

Despite over six in 10 finding pensions confusing, this has not stopped pension activity and engagement increasing.

In 2022, 5% had consolidated their pension, with this figure now rising to 8%. Over two thirds (67%) have checked a pension annual statement in 2024, compared to 59% in 2022.

Also, 60% have logged into an online pension account in 2024, compared to 52% in 2022, and 6% have opened a new private pension, up from 4% in 2022.

Boring Money said: “Consideration of financial advice remains strong and events such as the upcoming Budget are likely to further increase the need for advice.”

Almost a fifth of all non-retired UK adults aged 55 and above are considering talking to a financial adviser over the next 12 months.

The report also shows the value of advice when it comes to feeling prepared to retirement; 80% of advised non-retired pension holders aged 55+ agree with the statement, “I have a retirement plan and I’m confident about how I will fund my retirement”.

This compares to less than half of those who have not had any advice on their pension in the last five years.

Boring Money CEO Holly Mackay said: “Activity is up across the board over the last two years. People are looking at their pensions more, opening more accounts and also consolidating.

“It’s great to see increasing engagement form consumers as pensions join the mainstream, very slowly taking their place as a ‘normal person’s’ product not a ‘rich person’s’ product.

“A side effect of this engagement is a greater retention problem for workplace pension providers, as newer ‘shinier’ retail offerings are more superficially appealing for the pre-retired cohorts, for whom the consolidation message is starting to get through.

“Although consideration of advice is higher, the impact of the Consumer Duty and increased servicing costs will likely impact the availability of advice for the mass affluent.

“As awareness and engagement grows, so will the demand for help. This growth in awareness and need is an important factor for the ongoing Advice Guidance Review to consider.”

In order to obtain these results, Boring Money surveyed 4,000 nationally representative UK adults (Sept 2024), 6,500 nationally representative UK adults (Feb 2024) and 700 Boring Money Research Panel Members (Jul 2024).

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

France is pushing for “flexibility” on tougher car emissions rules next year that could spell billions of euros of fines for European carmakers already struggling with slowing demand for electric vehicles.

Antoine Armand, France’s newly appointed economy minister, on Tuesday said the French were sounding out European partners to see what could be done on the EU’s 2025 carbon emissions standards, which will impose limits on how much a carmakers’ fleet can emit.

These will hit the likes of France’s Renault, Peugeot maker Stellantis and Germany’s Volkswagen with more than €10bn in penalties unless they are able to drastically increase the portion of battery-powered cars they sell, or eliminate more traditional engine ones.

“I cannot see why there would be penalties when huge efforts [in investment] have been made [by carmakers],” Armand told auto industry executives at the Paris Motor Show on Tuesday, a biennial exhibit of car designs focused more than ever on electric versions.

“You can’t have sanctions without taking into account the economic context and the development of our industry in France and in Europe,” he said. “We’re exploring what flexibility there can be in co-operation with our European partners who are the most engaged on this question.”

Armand did not detail what shape that flexibility could take — whether it meant diminishing the penalties, changing the underlying criteria involved or pushing back the deadline. He maintained that a 2035 European deadline to phase out sales of non-electric cars was necessary to get the industry to shift.

Brussels is coming under increasing pressure from carmakers to delay or weaken its car emissions rules amid weakening demand for electric vehicles and concerns from car manufacturers that they will face millions of euros of fines for pollution.

The Italian government has also been particularly outspoken about calling for a revision of the 2035 ban with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni dubbing it a “self-destructive policy”.

At the Paris show, Oliver Zipse, chief executive of BMW, warned that the EU ban on internal combustion vehicles from 2035 would lead to “massive shrinking of the industry as a whole”.

The German group called for an earlier review of the EU’s longer-term targets, describing them as “no longer realistic based on current market dynamics”.

However, Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares on Monday cautioned against watering down carbon emissions rules, warning that delaying the shift to EVs would bring higher costs for the industry needing to invest in both conventional engines and battery-run cars.

The 2025 rules mandate that carmakers overall must cut emissions by 15 per cent compared to a 2021 baseline.

So far, the European Commission has stood by the limits as well as a ban on new internal combustion engines from 2035.

At a closed-doors event in Brussels last month, officials said that the EU should stay the course on its vehicle emission limits in order to provide certainty for investors.

“The worst thing that we could do is to create further uncertainty and confusion by changing again the targets we have agreed,” a senior EU official said.

Transport is the only major sector in the EU where emissions are now higher than they were in 1990.