When you get your finances in order the next best thing you can do is to make some extra cash to supercharge your efforts. Most of the ideas here are simple ways to make a few extra dollars, some can be part-time jobs, and some, as you might expect if you have been reading this site for a while, are a little on the crazy side.
Easy Ways to Make Money Online
Swagbucks – I am a big fan of Swagbucks and that is why I bring them up at the beginning of this list. The main way you get paid is by using their search engine instead of Google or Bing. The results are really good and they have a bunch of other ways to earn in the member area.
Paid Surveys – The hardest part of paid surveys is finding ones that are not a scam. So far the best I have found is MySurvey.com.
MyPoints – I have done MyPoints for years. You will not make a lot but the points are free to earn and easy.
Online Sweepstakes – Probably only marginally more effective than hitting the casino, but I had a campus pastor from the Baptist Student Ministries who sent his family on a trip at least every other year by doing less popular sweepstakes. You can get started at Online-Sweepstakes.com.
Reward Programs
Bank Accounts – Many online banks will pay you for depositing money into your account. After a certain amount of time the bonus cash is yours.
Credit Cards – There are several credit cards that reward you with bonus points or cash for signing up. You will need good credit to get these rewards.
Ebates – Ebates is a cash back program that pays you for using their portal for shopping at major retailers. You get $10 for signing up with this link. You do have to use the program within the first 90 days to qualify.
Fast Cash
Many of the programs and opportunities on this list take a while to pay out, 30 days or more. These options will help you get money in your pocket very fast.
Sell Some of Your Stuff
Selling things you currently own is one of the fastest ways you can increase this month’s income. My top ways to sell some of your stuff are:
- Yard/Garage Sale – Sometimes the classics are the best ideas. If you need to get money in hand this is one of the simplest and quickest ways to get a boost. The downside is that you are only going to be working with bargain shoppers and they are going to beat down that price as low as they can.
- Local Flea Market – Now I live in the south so there is a flea market within 30 minutes of any decent population density. I live near on of the largest flea markets in the Southeast and you can get a table for $10 for the weekend. You can get a little more money here than a yard sale because the people who shop at flea markets aren’t as discerning as the yard sale shopper.
- Craigslist.org – Is the largest local online yard sale. You get to list your item and someone local will purchase it. I have done really well when selling larger items on Craigslist. This includes my old oven and oven hood when we did a kitchen remodel. People are searching on Craigslist and they don’t tend to haggle too much.
- Local Facebook Group – There are Facebook groups that have popped up all over the place that allow local people to sell and buy items that are a great deal for both parties. On a per item basis my family has gotten the best bang for the buck at these types of
- Ebay/Auction Websites – This is a great place to sell unique items that have a small number of people that would make that type of purchase.
- Consignment Store – If you have nice large ticket items, like furniture, you can do REALLY well at consignment stores. The hard part of this type of selling is that you aren’t in control and it tends to take longer than any of the above options.
Sell Yourself
In hindsight that sounds way worse than I meant it to. While kidneys and such are strictly black market items, there are legal ways to make quick buck.
Your Plasma – People joke about it being something only college students do, but it is actually pretty profitable to make money selling plasma. The good thing about plasma is that you keep your blood platelets. This means you can donate plasma as much as twice in one week. The process of donating will take less than two hours (that includes the screening).
Your Hair – It seems crazy but if you have lovely long locks there is a market for your hair. How much? We went to great lengths to learn how to sell your hair online and, depending on the length and health of your hair, anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
Medical Testing – I find this to be a bit risky but if you have a large university with a medical school in the area they have projects that test the effectiveness of new treatements and medicines. As you might expect the volunteers for this can be pretty sparse so they frequently offer compensation that can get up to over $1,000.
Other Fast Cash Options
Return Purchases – With most retailers, if you are within 30 days you are good to go. If you have something still in the packaging and don’t know where you got it from check and see if Wal-Mart carries that item. They will give you a store credit if they do carry it. Wal-Mart even has a museum at their headquarters of stuff they have accepted as a return that they never sold.
Scrap Metal – You may have heard stories of scrap metal theft surging, well that is because the prices are pretty high right now. Even when they aren’t as high as they are now this is an easy way to pick up some extra cash. Watch the salvage areas in your neighborhood or ask your neighbors if you can “help them” empty out an old garage.
Rent Out Your Posessions
Rent Out Your Vehicle – If you have a truck or a van there are people with tiny micro-machine sized cars that would like to rent your vehicle for a few hours to get some real work done. This one will not work too well in the Southeast where almost everyone has a truck.
Rent Out Your Friendship – Now I am pretty comfortable in just about any situation, but this one seems a little on the sketch side. On the other hand I have read pretty good reviews on renting your friendship out on RentAFriend.com. It is completely platonic and you have control on the outing.
Rent Out Your Garage – People will actually pay you to shelter a vehicle in your garage. This wouldn’t work for me because we cannot park a car in our garage right now.
Rent Out a Room – Taking on a boarder needs to be carefully done with background checks and references. You will also want an ironclad contract so you can kick them out if need be.
Rent Out Your House – This works particularly well if you live in an area with major sporting events. I know that people in Augusta make BIG bucks by renting out their homes to people during Masters week. Some families work together, renting one house out, living in the other house together for the week and then splitting the profit of the rental.
Rent Out Your Driveway – If you live in an area with major events going on you may be able to rent your drive way for parking. Imagine being able to charge $5 per person for 10-15 events a year.
Odd Jobs
There are tons of small jobs you can do that will bring in decent amounts of money. If you have the extra time these might be a great path to extra cash.
Baby Sitting – If you have kids you know that baby sitting has gotten pretty expensive. If you have the connections you can cash in at 15 per hour or more.
Pet Sitting – Most people only expect you to check on their pets a couple of times a day. This means if you are good with your time you can do a few of these at a time.
Dog Walker – in the same vein, people in large cities have to walk their dogs and some would rather pay someoene to do it.
Pet Grooming – If you know how without the animal clawing you to death go for it.
House Sitting – Quite possibly the greatest job a college student could score. Just don’t throw too rowdy of a party. If you need a good resource for finding clients check out mindahome.com
Human Scarecrow – this one is just for the rural readers and yes it does exist and pays between $10-$15 per hour.
Focus Group Participant – If you live in a larger city, the chances are you can be part of a focus group. They pay between $40-$100 per hour
Mystery Shopper – I’ve looked into this several times and making an extra $100 to $500 a month is definitely possible.
Product Reviews for Websites – If you are an earlier adopter for products in a niche, especially tech stuff, you can probably score some dollars for writing reviews for websites.
Delivering Pizza – I have had two friends do this when they needed extra cash to make ends meet. They both said it was surprisingly lucrative.
Sell Bottled Water – You can buy a 24 pack of bottled water for about $2.50 at Aldi. Find a crowded place and sell them for $1. Make sure the area doesn’t have some sort of business license requirement.
Cleaning houses – Most of these type of jobs require flexible hours and some home will provide their own cleaning supplies.
Sell Baked Goods – if you can build up a reputation for yummy baked goodness then you can contract yourself out for parties, business meetings and other events. If you are handing out “business cards” I want one.
Airport Taxi – The cost to rent a taxi to take you too and from the airport is really high, so if you can get in a groove with some clients the word will spread and you may have to turn down some work.
Bartend for Special Events – Parties and weddings can pay pretty big bucks for bartenders. Not to mention the tips are pretty good.
Shoveling Snow – while my friends and I in the south aren’t paying anyone to shovel snow, the more northern amoung us will pay you to clear off their drive way and walk. If we have more years of big storms this could be really lucrative.
Tutor – if you are good at a subject and live near a school then you can get some extra cash helping kids. Tip – youtube has some of the best methods for teaching people in non-traditional ways.
Move Furniture – People who are moving locally tend to avoid moving companies. If you have strong arms and back you can pick up a pretty decent amount for doing this.
Detailing Cars – I hate cleaning my car. If you like it and are good at it you can make good money off people who are like me but not so thrifty.
Stage Homes – If you have an eye for home decorating then you can make pretty good money helping people stage their home for sale.
Paint Street Numbers – All you need is some paint and stencils and you can walk through neighborhoods that have curbs and ask for business to paint numbers on the curb.
Cleaning Gutters – You can make more than $100 if you don’t mind the heights.
Become a Translator – Multilingual people are in high demand with more and more international trade. If you have the skill check out Gengo.com which is solely for freelance translators.
Holiday Decoration Setter Upper – We all like the decoration of homes at the holiday, but many people hate putting them up and taking them down. This might be a great way to pay for Christmas Presents.
Ebay Flipper – If you have an eye for finding a hidden jem at yard sales and flea markets then you can turn around and sell them on Ebay for a hefty profit margin.
Refereeing – If you know the rules of a sport you can probably get a job reffing at youth sports. Most leagues pay their refs.
Participate in a Mock Trial – This is actually done online now. Lawyers present their case to a group of online jurors and get a review of how they perceived the presentation. A case review can normally takes from 20-60 minutes and payments are in the $20-$60 range per trial.
Paper Route – Since these are typically done early in the morning this is a great way to add an extra job If you do not want an every day gig then try to find a paper with weekly publication.
Become an Uber Driver – You get to keep 60% of the cost of the ride, uber keeps 30% and then 10% for fuel.
Golf Caddy – A decent weekend gig.
Farm out Your Talent
Bookkeeping – If you know how to do this well then you can rent out your services to small business owners (who are not always the best at keeping the books).
Play or Sing Music – many churches do not have people with the talent to lead worship and you can make pretty good money for about an hour of work each week.
Catering – If you are a wiz in the kitchen there are people who will pay you to cater their events.
Handy Man – You can fix stuff? A large portion of the planet doesn’t know how and they will pay you to do it for them.
Photographer – If you have some decent equipment then people will pay you to do the photography for them. Professional photographers are really expensive so this could even turn into a good full-time occupation.
Sell Your Produce – Seeds are pretty cheap and you can sell your extra at local farmers markets and yard sales. Of course you have to be able to actually get things to grow.
Make Stuff – Whether it’s soap or candles there are a ton of things you can make and sell locally.
Website Design – With more and more businesses finally running websites there are a bunch of ugly websites out there. All of them need a designer.
Electronics Repair – People throw away their tech instead of getting it fixed these days. If you can fix it you can resell it at a hefty profit.
Writing – if you are a good writer companies will pay you anywhere from $20 to $500 per article, depending on complexity and your ability to write for the content needed.
Fix Computers – Most people “break” their computers. Best Buy is charging ridiculous amounts of money to fix them and you could too.
English as a Second Language – People need help picking up the complexities of English. Heck even native speakers have problems.
Minor Car Repair – If you are a grease monkey you can charge people to do minor repairs. Probably best to not get involved with anything too complicated.
Video Editing – Everyone has a camera these days. They aren’t great at editing. Please help them before they share it on Facebook… again.
Graphic Design – Good graphic designers are in high demand and can demand big bucks on a per hour basis.
Finding the Extra Work
So you have talent and ideas but nobody to sell it to. Here are some places to pick up jobs and clients.
Sites that cater to all types of Freelancers
- eLance
- Craigslist – The best site for local work
- Guru.com
- Upwork
- Workhoppers
- Demand Studios
- iFreelance
- People Per Hour
- Freelancer
Writers
Designers and Programmers
Now Got Get It!
When it comes to making extra money the key is to get out there and get started. So no matter how you decide to add money to your budget get yourself going!
