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You know that old saying, “Stuff happens”? Of course you do! Except maybe the first word isn’t “stuff.”
Anyway – stuff happens. Maybe you’re out of work, and you need a quick way to find money for rent and groceries. Maybe someone in your family has an accident and needs medical care you can’t cover. There are a thousand “stuff happens” situations that can occur, and there are just as many ways to find the cash fast to deal with them. Today, I’m highlighting 20 of those ways to earn quick cash for you.
See if your friends or family have any odd jobs they need done.
My first method means starting close to home – ask your family and friends if they have any odd jobs that need doing. Let them know you need to make some cash quickly, and they’re sure to think hard about any tasks you may be able to do for them. Your dad might need help with housekeeping, or a cousin might need someone to run to the grocery store while she’s home with the kids. Remember to ask your online friends, too – you never know which long-distance friend might need help with their website, or who was just wondering how to improve their résumé. You might just be able to help them out for a modest fee!
Do you have a truck? Offer to transport stuff.
If you have a truck, you’ve got a money-maker sitting in your driveway. Check with your family and friends to see if anyone needs anything moved – with a truck, you can transport anything from furniture and appliances to sod and other garden material. You can even pull trailers! Make sure you ask your friends and family to recommend your services to their friends and acquaintances as well, and don’t forget to factor the cost of gas into whatever fee you ask for moving stuff with your vehicle.
If you have a large movie/TV collection, sell what you don’t watch that frequently.
If you own dozens or even hundreds of movies and television shows on DVD or Blu-ray, consider selling the titles that you don’t watch that frequently or don’t care about that much. Honestly, the ones that you’re lukewarm on are probably available to watch on a streaming service like Netflix, anyway. Sites like Decluttr (use code THEWAHWIFE to receive a $5 bonus when you sign up) will take your used media items and pay you cash for them! (You could also probably sell these items directly to friends and family, so don’t forget to check with them first.)
Sell your plasma.
Selling your plasma is another way to make quick cash while also helping your fellow human beings. Plasma is important in manufacturing therapies for many chronic and rare diseases. Over at Donating Plasma, you can learn more about the requirements for donating plasma and find local donation centers. Reportedly, you can make up to $400 a month selling your plasma, while other reports place each individual donation between $20-$50.
Try to remember who owes you money.
We’ve all done it – given a friend or family member a loan and then not followed up on collecting. When we’re flush, we don’t always like asking for our money back: our loved ones needed financial help, and we had that help to give. However, when we get in a tight spot and need to generate some cash, it’s useful to remember who does owe you money. They might be in a better position than you, able to pay you back and make you both square.
Scout weekend yard and garage sales for items you can flip for a profit.
If you have some funds but need more money fast and have a free weekend, spend Saturday visiting local yard and garage sales. You can find local sales online through Facebook yard sale groups, Craigslist, Yard Sale Search, and other similar sites. Look for any items you might be able to flip quickly – vintage jewelry, electronics, tools, baby stuff, sports equipment, etc. Do some research beforehand to see what type of stuff sells for decent prices online, and don’t forget to negotiate prices at the yard sale to score the best deals. Turn the good stuff around for fast cash on eBay or Facebook Buy/Sell Groups.
Make Websites and Apps Better
There’s generally about a week’s delay in getting paid for user testing, but it can be a decent side hustle to rustle up some cash! Here’s what you need: a computer, Internet connection, and a microphone (your laptop’s onboard mic is fine). If you’re testing apps, you’ll most likely need an iPad, iPhone, or Android device. The user testing process is usually this: you’ll be sent to a specific website or asked to use a certain app. The user testing service will give you some specific actions to complete. They may record your screen while you speak your actions and impressions aloud. Sometimes, you’ll write a short summary of your thoughts afterward. Then you’ll get paid between $5-10 per test, most often sent through PayPal. Sound good? Get started at User Testing.
Sell Your Gift Cards
Do you have a lot of random gift cards you’ve received here or there from your Secret Santa at work or that one family member who doesn’t know you very well? Well, if you’re not planning on buying anything from Dunkin or the App Store (or wherever), you can sell your gift cards on a site like Cardpool or Raise. On Cardpool and similar sites, you can either sell your cards for cash or even other gift cards (such as from Amazon). Over on Raise, you get to list how much you’d like to sell your card for – but you’ll have to wait for someone to buy it before you get paid.
Cut Your Expenses & Get Money Back
You know what can be just as good as earning more money fast? Cutting your current expenses! When it comes time to pay your monthly bills, you’ll find yourself with more green left in your pocket after all is said and done. There are easy ways to achieve this, too: check out Trim, a service that will automatically identify subscriptions you don’t use, report them to you, and then attempt to unsubscribe you on its own. Voila! You could also use a service like Paribus to make sure you’re always getting the best price when you make a purchase – Paribus automatically checks purchases you make for price drops and then attempts to get you the difference refunded if you paid more when you made the initial purchase. It’s pretty cool to have money-saving AIs watching out for you!
Drive Part-Time
Do you have a personal vehicle? That’s money just waiting to be made! Given today’s burgeoning gig economy, all you need to have your own taxi service is an app on your personal smartphone and some time to give people rides – well, and you’ll need to pass all background checks required by the company you’ll be driving for. Also, you should be 21 or older and have a valid driver’s license. If this sounds like the gig for you, check out apps like Lyft or Uber. Fare prices vary according to distance – and you can make more by driving at peak hours.
Answer Questions
Did you know you can make side hustle money online just by being a know-it-all? Hermione Grangers of the world rejoice! There are a couple of different ways you can use either your extensive knowledge base or your research skills to make money. First, you can offer to help people with their questions – sites like JustAnswer, Presto Experts, and Clarity will help connect you with people who have questions that fall into your area of expertise. Then you help those people via chat, email, or even phone. Or you could work with a company like Wonder, which provides a question to research: you find a predetermined number of solid sources and synthesize the information into an answer for their client.
Get Crafty
Do you have any skill with handicrafts? Whether it’s knitting or cross-stitch, beading or wire-wrapping, or even polymer clay sculpting, there’s a market for your handmade wares! Just set up a shopfront on a site like Etsy and go to work. You can take commissions to crochet dolls for people, to knit hats and scarves, or even sell your own original knitting, sewing, or crochet patterns for others to use. You can spend a weekend making a dozen beaded necklaces then throw them up for sale. If you’re a crafter, I just know you’ve got a ton of extra materials laying around – why not have a good crafting session and turn those extras into cash?
Pick Up Some Microtasks
Want a way to make some extra cash that’s broken down into easy chunks? Try picking up some microtasks! There’s more work than anyone can do available across the Internet, and you can find many of these simple jobs shared on micro jobs sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) and ClickWorker. After joining these sites, you can find jobs like data entry, categorization, transcription, and more. While these simple tasks require human intelligence to complete, they don’t pay well – you’ll need to be diligent about fitting microtasks in wherever you can – while waiting on laundry, or your casserole to bake – to make that cash. (Discover other microtask job sites over here.)
Locate Any Unclaimed or Missing Money
Did you know that billions of dollars in property – from savings accounts to stocks to uncashed payroll checks to unredeemed money orders – have been turned over to various state’s unclaimed property programs? Some of that money may be yours! You can check for this lost property by visiting MissingMoney.com or searching by state starting at the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators’ website. It’s like searching your virtual couch cushions for lost change!
Get Academic
This one’s especially great for university students or native English speakers: spend your downtime tutoring other students in your best subjects or teaching English online (or through various apps). You can find people to tutor the old fashioned way – put flyers up on campus or ask around your neighborhood to see if anyone has kids who need help in math or English, and so forth. You could also sign up with a website like StudyPool, which lets you browse student questions and help them with their homework. For teaching English as a Second Language over the Internet (which often doesn’t require you to have much, if any, experience), check out companies like Cambly (more opportunities listed here). If you can play a musical instrument, that’s another great way to attract students and scare up some cash. Some of these opportunities pay more quickly than others, of course!
Make Deliveries
Between the Internet, the gig economy, and humans naturally craving near-instant gratification, we live in the Age of Delivery – and you can exploit this to earn yourself some cash, fast! So long as you have a personal vehicle (or maybe live in an urban area in walking distance of everything), you can easily turn yourself into a delivery driver for any number of restaurants or retailers. Just check out DoorDash or UberEATS. You can even deliver packages part-time for Amazon through Amazon Flex – they advertise you can make $18-25 per hour! Not bad!
If you’re an artist, do a quick sale on social media avatars.
Do you have a gift for drawing? Maybe you don’t do it professionally, but people have always comment on how much they like your doodles or illustrations. If so, you could do a quick sale on social media avatars! Many people love having cartoon or illustrated versions of themselves, especially for their Twitter or Facebook profile pictures. And these images are generally limited enough that you should be able to do them fairly quickly. Sell them for $5-15 a pop and score some quick cash! (If you don’t have a large social media following, consider offering your services through Fiverr.)
If you enjoy practicing photography, sell some of your photographs.
Do you enjoy taking photographs? Have you taken some pretty great photos? Sell some of them! You could sell your photos as stock photos to sites like Alamy, Adobe Stock, and Shutterstock. If you don’t want to sell stock photos, try selling your photographs directly as art pieces or on merchandise at sites like FineArtAmerica, Redbubble, and Society6. You could also look for magazines or greeting card companies to sell your photographs to!
Sign up with TaskRabbit.
TaskRabbit is a handy app that connects local people who can do odd jobs with people who need odd jobs done. It stresses being a safe and reliable facilitator as well! So if you’re a handy person, and someone nearby needs a TV mounted, you can land that gig via TaskRabbit and earn some cash. According to their website, the popular task categories include cleaning, delivery, furniture assembly, and personal assistant-type jobs. (And you thought struggling with all that Ikea furniture assembly wasn’t preparing you for anything!) Sign up on TaskRabbit’s site to get started, and you’ll need to attend an onboarding session near you.
Sell your hair; it’s summer!
Do you have long, healthy, and untreated hair? Have you thought about rocking a cute new ‘do? Consider chopping off all that length, and selling your hair! It’s summer and hot as heck, anyway. Quality human hair is often in high demand for wigs and extensions. You can make anywhere from less than $100 to over $900, depending on the length of hair and how in-demand your color or hair type are. Check with local salons or hair stylists to see if they’re buying, or turn to an online marketplace like BuyandSellHair.com.
That’ll do it for now. I hope you’ve found a way to ease your financial needs – and don’t forget to drop me a note and let me know how these methods work for you!
P.S. Paribus compensates us when you sign up for Paribus using the links we provided.
