Time to upskill yourself online, for free!

So, your side-hustle has been born and it’s starting to find its feet and take shape. You’re as proud as punch, but you know there are still a few grey areas that need fine-tuning. It’s time to take control and start educating yourself in the areas you are feeling a bit unsure about, but that you know are vital to making a success of your new venture.

Whether it’s the basics of accounting or gaining more info on social media advertising, feeding your ‘grey matter’ with new information, is something that no one ever regrets. Grab your laptop, invest in heaps of data or position yourself near some swift WIFI, and get out of the starting blocks. Do it in your own time, at your own speed and for the greater good of your future self.

How much time will you need and where do you even begin?
It takes the average person between 30 and 45 minutes each morning to get ready for their day and it could take you the same amount of time to genuinely upskill yourself. Yes, as little as 30 minutes a day spent on an online platform, learning new skills would surely be more productive than scrolling through social media?

All you need is motivation, discipline and a device that’s connected to the internet. Put all your excuses in a little box and put it on the pavement. The time is ripe for some upskilling. And we’re about to point you in the right direction:

8 online platforms to help you get up-skilled:

  1. www.youtube.com/ Considering that there are over 500 hours of video uploaded onto this platform every single minute, it’s safe to say that you will find a video on everything and anything that you need to pick up on, understand and study. This is all available at the click of a button and it’s free! Upskill yourself in bite-size chunks on anything from basic business practices, to improving your design skills or just learning the basics of invoicing and accounting. 
  1. www.shawacademy.com are offering an amazing 4-week free trial to start sharpening and enhancing your future offering. Learn about digital marketing, web development or sports nutrition, just to mention but a few. Hop onto their page to see their wide variety of courses.
  1. This one isn’t free but for R250 per month it’s still less than you spend on a night out; and for a while all restaurants and bars are still COVID-closed in any event. So why not use that dosh to expand your horizons. At www.masterclass.com you can learn pukka skills from actual real-life professionals. Think Gordon Ramsay, Christina Aguilera and David Lynch sharing their innermost thoughts, ideas and knowledge. 
  1.  At www.oxfordhomestudy.com you can study anything from events management to fashion design with a side order of life coaching, at NO cost. How fab to be able to learn for free?
  1. Each morning you can wake up to a new 5-minute lesson delivered (for free, of course) to your inbox from www.gohighbrow.com. Imagine the valuable info sinking in, while you sip on a cuppa before your shower? They offer a whole collection of courses but the one that we think you should start with, if you have no previous business experience, has to be the Basics of Bookkeeping. Expand your brain to understand assets, liabilities and gross profits and give yourself a real edge as an entrepreneur.
  2. www.codecademy.com is a website where you can learn to code, through interactive lessons and daily practicing for free, zip, zero. And if you want more in depth info it’ll cost you less than R250 to become a whizz. 
  1. www.udemy.com offer over 100 000 short courses which you can cherry pick from and complete in your own time. They’re almost free at just R210 per course. If web development and digital marketing excite you, or you want to learn how to get the most out of Excel, learn more about copywriting, find out how to take the best photographs or even do a course in Reiki, then this platform is perfect for you. 
  1. Another goody, offering bite-size free courses is  www.alison.com. If you’re just looking to learn more about starting a business or being a successful  entrepreneur, they have quick courses like “Why Entrepreneurs Should think Big” and “Marketing Success for your Business” which could help you really get ahead of your competitors. There are also thousands more specific options, but the best news is that they’ll even send you a certificate once you complete a course which you can frame or pat yourself on the back for. 

So now that we’ve got you amped, and helped you realise that upskilling yourself doesn’t have to involve refinancing your car or attending university on a full time basis, we’ll leave you with this thought from a random bloke, named Mark Perret, who maybe did a free writing course while brushing his teeth and came up with this; ‘’If you want to be more powerful in life, educate yourself” and we couldn’t agree more. Go forth and learn today.

Until next time. 

The Wise About Life Team

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Be Wise - Find your ideal plan with Stangen

We understand that you want to make wise choices that suit you. Use our cover calculator to easily get an idea of your cover requirements.

Need assistance? We'll call you back.

Why not subscribe?

What can you expect from us? We promise to keep content on this site relevant and useful so that you can make wise money choices.
Every time we knock out another great piece of “stay financially wise” content, we will send you a notification via email.