income

Between hosting parties, traveling, and buying gifts for friends and family, your bank account might be looking slim this month. Wise Bread has a few ways to make extra money over the holiday season.

Your bank account will likely take a bit of a hit over the holidays, but you can balance out what's going out by bringing more in if you commit to making money during your time off. To light your financial yuletide fire, here are a few ideas on how to pad your pockets over the holiday break. (See also: 9 Ways to Earn Extra Cash When Money Is Tight)

Babysitting

People with kids love to celebrate Christmas with their brood, but come Dec. 31, they're ready to pawn them off for a night out on the town to celebrate the New Year. If you have a friend or family member with little ones, offer your babysitting services for the evening so they can enjoy the festivities kid-free. While New Year's Eve is a boon for babysitters, also consider the nights before the holiday. There are often other parties planned for the few days leading up to it, so you may be able to make even more cash if you make yourself available for the entire week.

Related: Make Your Own Coupons: 20 Great Free Gift Ideas

Returning Unwanted Gifts

Perhaps this isn't the most ethical means of making money, depending on how you look at it, but if you're strapped for cash and have receipts for gifts that you don't want or need, return them to the store for a quick influx of funds.

Read on for more.

Can you imagine living on $1 a day? Business Insider shares how some students went beyond the classroom to experience it firsthand.

An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world survive on just $1 a day.

It's a figure Claremont McKenna College economics students Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci couldn't get out of their heads.

Related: Here's What Living on $1 a Day Does to the Body

"What can I do? That's the hardest part about it. . . . There is no one answer," says Temple. "[The US] has poured $2.5 trillion dollars into international development trying to end poverty, and a lot of times it just made things worse."

Read on for more.

Reader 0jello0 posts this question in our Ask Savvy group. Do you have suggestions on how to start walking dogs for people or ideas for other types of Summer jobs she can take up to earn money? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments below!

I am almost 16, and I think that I need some more money to save up for a car. I don't want to do babysitting. I've tried putting up dogwalking fliers about last summer, and even put my business cards inside of them, but I don't think that anyone really cares about dogwalking anyway. Over the summer I'll be 16. I need some ideas on how to make money. Thank you for your time.

Ask anything career- or budget-related — well, almost anything — by posting your questions in the Ask Savvy group, and readers and I will weigh in to support you.

After reading about the 10 people who made TubeMogul's list of YouTube stars making over $100,000 on Business Insider, I was really inspired to see people doing what they love and getting paid for it. I've always wondered how much these YouTubers make, and I knew it had to be a lot because of the millions of hits they get per video. Tubemogul, a YouTube analytics company, estimated their salaries from banner ads revenue, which is their main source of income. Shane Dawson tops the list with a whopping $315,000, and The Annoying Orange is a close second, raking in $288,000. If you're not sure what to do with your career, why not get going on YouTube?

Thanks to a recent Pew Research study we know now that more women are outearning their partners than ever before. Let’s hear it for the ever-shrinking gender gap . . . right? According to some women, including writer Sandra Tsing Loh, earning more than our partners isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Loh says that the constant multitasking and duty-splitting of most modern households make her pine for the days of 1950s housewifery. Except, Loh realizes, she wants to be on the other end of things this time — she wants to continue being the breadwinner, while her partner greets her every evening with a clean house, an attentive ear, and ideally, a good Manhattan. "In the end," she says, "we all want a wife."

What’s your take? Do you think the top-earning partner in a relationship secretly wishes for a stay-at-home spouse to make life easier?

Photo courtesy of AMC

Maryland is holding strong as the state with the highest median income for the third year in a row. The U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (using 2008 figures) found the median household income in Maryland is $70,545, followed by New Jersey ($70,378), Connecticut ($68,595), Alaska ($68,460) and Hawaii ($67,214). See which states have the lowest median income when you read more