If you want to save more money to buy a home or retire early, you can start by reducing your discretionary spending — but there are only so many minor expenses you can cut.

The way to make real progress is to focus on "needle movers," Rachel Camp, a certified financial planner and owner of Camp Wealth, . 

Increasing your income is one way to really help move that needle, Camp said. As long as you're not inflating your lifestyle with every raise, boosting your earnings can help you put more money toward your financial goals.

understands this well. The 30-year-old product manager and entrepreneur behind career and financial education platform more than from $72,000 in 2017 to $186,000 in 2021. Now, after nearly two years running her own business full-time, she makes about $190,000 as a senior product manager for the federal government.

Here are three strategies El Amin recommends to move the needle on your income. 

1. Align your skills

Despite not having a technical background like many product managers, El Amin identified "high-value work" within her company and networked with the people already doing it to figure out which skills she would need to succeed on their teams, she says.

Early in her career, El Amin worked on projects with a variety of teams, including marketing, legal and engineering. Having the opportunity to both get to know other employees and showcase her talents "paid dividends" when a manager role opened up on the product development team — the position that ultimately pushed her salary over the six-figure mark.

"I was intentional about positioning myself, even at my early career, for a career path that was going to lead to salary and career growth," she says.

El Amin often encourages her social media followers to use their interests and soft skills, such as organization and community leadership, to pivot into more technical roles, which often pay better. Those who "enjoyed planning events, running clubs, and serving on boards in college" could seek out well-paying product or program manager roles, for example, she .

You may not even have to look outside of your current organization. There are teams of employees who perform these functions across a variety of industries, El Amin says. "The easiest way to start to transition your skills into new career paths is doing it at your current company," she says.

2. Move up or move out

Although you may be able to develop new skills within your current organization, moving to a new company could be the change you need to get a significant raise or promotion.

Workers who change jobs have historically seen faster wage growth than those who stay in one place, shows. At the height of the "Great Resignation" in July 2022, workers who switched jobs saw their wages grow 8.5% annually on average, compared with 5.9% for employees who stayed put.

Starting in 2019, El Amin changed jobs every 18 to 24 months. While that was fairly typical for product managers, she says, she also had a goal in mind: "I need to either be moving up or I need to be moving out, to be really intentional about continuing to sharpen my skills, but also grow my salary."

When she made her first big job switch, "[I] grew my total compensation by $50,000 in one year," she says. "I immediately understood the value of job-hopping."

El Amin acknowledges that right now may be a challenging time to secure a job at a new company as some while bracing for the and a potential recession.

But it's still smart to keep an eye out for other opportunities if you're reaching your limit at your current organization, she says.

"We should not stay in companies beyond our expiration date," she says. "Even in this job market, you should always be assessing your options, seeing what else is out there."

3. Monetize your skills 'outside the 9-to-5'

Other than a two-year period when she focused on Flynanced full-time, El Amin has been running her business on the side since 2020.

You don't have to start your own business to create supplemental income. But El Amin recommends tapping into your existing skills to create a that works for you.

"Don't sleep on monetizing your skills outside the 9-to-5," she says. "A lot of us take for granted the skills that come innately to us, that people are definitely willing to pay us for."

While content creation and influencing often seem like some of the , El Amin says skills like accounting, content strategy and data analysis could help you earn extra cash outside of your full-time job. 

"This is not about going out and , but thinking about those things that your friends, your family, your coworkers are already coming to you on the side and asking you for," she says. "That's probably one of the things that you could start to monetize."

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