Need to make some money NOW? I hear you! When stuff happens and more stuff hits the fan, hit my list of FAST money-makers to help boost your finances quickly. No matter if you’re dealing with replacing a flat tire, covering an unexpected medical bill, or just can’t seem to make ends meet this month, there’s an idea here that’ll work for you.
1. Clean Out Your Closets, Basem*nt, Attic, and Garage
Not only will it feel good to clean out your space, but you may be sitting on some serious cash! If you have some high-quality, gently used items around just taking up space, consider putting them up for sale online. There are a number of websites that will pay you upfront for your gently-used clothing or other items—check out sites like ThredUP and Gazelle.
You can also hit up local Facebook Buy/Sell Groups and eBay. This is a great way to pick up extra cash and the turnaround is fast. List, sell and have cash in hand in the short term.
If you need ways to make money today, I wouldn’t bother listing things on eBay. Instead, I would head straight to local secondhand stores to get rid of those old video games, books, and clothes. Alternatively, for clothing, I may consider ThredUp who will pay you upfront for items as opposed to making you wait until they sell.
2. Have a Yard Sale
2. Have a Yard SaleEven better than taking your stuff to a reseller is having people come to you! Depending on how much and what kind of goods you have to get rid of, it isn’t too hard to net $500 to $700 by holding a weekend yard sale.
Make sure everything is washed, tagged and organized by size. People should feel like they are shopping – because they are. No one wants to dig through piles of clothes. You don’t want to spend all day showing people where to find the sizes they are looking for. Spend the time on organization. It will pay off ten-fold.
3. Sell Your Books
So if you are a bookworm like me, this is going to be hard! I hate parting with books, no matter how many times I’ve read them. But sometimes they’re worth parting with: hit up BookScouter.com, enter the book’s ISBN, and see who wants your book and how much they are willing to pay. If you’ve recently been in college or graduate school, you may also be able to make a pretty penny off your textbooks! Maybe not enough to match what you paid for them—textbook prices can be ridiculous—but you can recoup something through sites like BookScouter, BookFinder, and Chegg.
4. Make Something
I have an obsession with old windows. I’ll take every free or cheap chippy old window I can find. I had asked my husband to put a few coat hangers on one I wanted to hang by the front door. It became quite a hit. Unique old windows themselves can go for $45 and up. Adding a little flair and he could easily pull in $65 or more. If you have primitive hoarding tendencies of your own, go through your stuff and see what can be upcycled for a little extra cash.
5. Freelance Writing
Content creation is a great skill to have when working from home. Being able to create well-researched, quality articles will allow you the ability to make extra money quickly.
When it comes to selling your freelance writing services or selling articles you have already written and are ready for publishing, I highly recommend Facebook Groups for bloggers. There are several groups that are focused specifically on articles for sale and writers for hire. You will find a list of those here. Just make sure you don’t pre-sell more than you can produce.
You can also hit the content mills — there are websites like Textbroker that allow you to work as much or as little as you would like. These websites with no activity requirement are great to keep in your back pocket for when times are tight. Many pay weekly or every two weeks via PayPal. They may not pay the greatest, but when every penny counts…
6. Hold a Flash Sale on Your Services or Products
If you are an online business owner, chances are good you are either offering your services or products in exchange for payment. As a well-rounded business owner, you may have a training course, book, membership site or even a physical product for sale. Do you have an eBook or course available for purchasing online? Do you sell advertising space on your website? A quick way to make extra money is to discount the price for a just day or two. Calculate your profit margin and cut those prices as low as possible for a limited time. Scarcity works in sales so, regardless of what you have to offer, consider running a flash sale if times are tight.
Freelance writers, for example, can offer a block of articles to be written at a reduced rate. If you have an online course, consider offering it at a 50% or 75% discount for one day. If you sell handmade items, run a Buy One Get One 50% off if your profit margin allows. The key is not to undercut your prices to the point of looking of little value or that you are losing money. You should also only do this occasionally or your customers may become conditioned to only buy from you when things are on sale.
Don’t do this often or you will lose the ability to make sales at full price—people will always wait for your next sale instead!—but it’s a great option to have in a pinch. This is also an excellent reason to build a qualified email list of potential buyers year-round.
7. Sell Direct Advertising
If you have a popular, established website or blog, selling advertising spots is a great way to get some quick cash in your pocket. Not only should you always have an Advertising Page available, you should continuously add potential leads to an “In Case of Emergency” list. These may be people who have expressed interest in an ad spot in the past or those you have seen advertising on similar websites. Reach out to them with a special, limited time offer.
8. Offer One-Off Services
You may not have the time to find, woo and contract a long-term client for your freelance services. However, there are likely several services in your arsenal that are perfect for short-term, one-time, quick turnaround offerings. Think along the lines of Fiverr listings. Great at airbrushing and improving photos in Photoshop? Offer beauty fixes for photos. Do you have a great eye for fonts and logos? Offer cheap word-based logos. (Make sure you limit the number of revisions available for these types of services.) You could even sell brainstorming sessions for brand tag lines, company names, and more. These things do not require a lot of back and forth or time to complete.
9. Sell a Turnkey Website
If you are an experienced webmaster, you can probably put together a new site in no time flat. Do a little research to uncover niches on the rise and then create everything a new blogger would need to get going. Create an autoresponder series and graphics. Make a list of applicable affiliate programs. You can even provide a handful of articles to get the buyer started. What you can’t do yourself (e.g., graphics, logos, CSS), you can outsource on Fiverr.
10. Sell Domains
Many of us working online and as bloggers have a bad habit of hoarding domains. Those dollar domain sales are just too tempting, even if you have no time for another site now. Even the best of intentions can be expensive when you never get around to putting them to use. Unload those unused domain names for a few extra bucks. You can sell them to a (trustworthy) buyer directly or use a service like GoDaddy Auctions. I recently sold a domain through a 7-day auction on GoDaddy and it was only about two weeks from the time I listed the domain until I received the funds via PayPal.
11. Sell Your Services Locally
Many online entrepreneurs overlook their local market, but this can be a great place to make some quick cash. Every time I see someone in a Facebook Buy/Sell Group making themselves available for Saturday night babysitting, raking leaves or doing a little puppy pen cleanup, my heart swells with entrepreneurial pride. The fact of the matter is there is opportunity to make money all around you. You just have to ask! If you can hang Christmas lights, haul trash or help with homework, someone may know someone in need of your services. You may even already know these people on a personal level.
Put yourself out there, and you may also be able to secure payment at the time of completion if you have traveled to them. Don’t forget to offer online or writing services as well – a local small business might need affordable assistance with their website, or friends might need a critical writer for their résumé. There are so many things people are happy to outsource, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be an ongoing gig if you don’t want it to be. List your services in those local Facebook Buy/Sell Groups. Offer to babysit, mow yards, spruce up friends’ WordPress sites, do the laundry, whatever you’re capable of doing! If you need additional help finding these tasks, consider using an app like TaskRabbit or MechanicalTurk or a website like Zaarly.
12. Go on a Gigwalk
If you live in a large city, you may be able to find plenty of available gigs to complete on Gigwalk. These are small in-person tasks like checking a price or availability of a product in your local store. The minimum amount a gig can be listed for is $3. You will have access to high-paying jobs as you build up your reputation.
One reason I like this app over many traditional mystery shopping jobs is payment is quick. If you are looking for ways to make money fast, you probably don’t have two to four weeks to wait. Gigwalk pays immediately upon approval and you can receive your funds by PayPal.
13. Dog Walker
If you live in an urban area and are in need of quick cash—and love animals, of course—I highly recommend you consider dog walking. Estimated salaries run $30,000 to over $100,000. Most dog walkers charge pet owners $15 to $25 for a one-hour walk. With six dogs, that’s $90 to $150 in just one day—and just one hour if you walk them all at once. And you’ll get a little exercise and fresh air while you’re at it! There are even apps like Wag! which will hook you up with dog-owners who need your services.
14. Cash In on Day Labor
Maybe you are in between gigs right now. Taking on a temporary day labor position will allow you to work today and get paid today. PeopleReady and Labor Works are two sites that offer job boards and matching services to temporary workers.
15. Make Some Deliveries
Apps like OrderUp, Postmates and DoorDash will pay you for delivering everything from lunch to a store order. They claim you will earn up to $25 per hour, but that’s usually a pretty generous estimate. Payments are typically weekly, but onboarding usually takes about a week for most companies, so this is one to put into place before you actually need it.
16. Get Your Taxi On
Like delivery driving, you should also put in your driver applications before an emergency arises. Uber and Lyft are two big names in this industry and you will need to go through an application and training period prior to being able to pick up rides. That being said, once you’re in you have the freedom to pick up time slots as you see fit. You aren’t locked into a schedule. Therefore, it’s a good one to keep in your back pocket for emergency purposes if you don’t care to be a full-time driver.
17. Sell Unused Gift Cards
This one’s especially useful after the winter holidays! If you need fast cash, unload any gift cards you received on Cardpool. You can get up to 92% of the face value of your card. Already spent some of it? No problem. You can still sell the remaining balance. You could also score cash for these unused gift cards from sites like Gift Card Granny and Raise.
18. Rent Out a Room
Do you have a spare room in your house, or plan on being out of town for a bit? Rent out a room to university students or through Airbnb. Make your space work for you and pull in cash when you’re not using it.
19. Pull Out Your Phone
There are so many apps that make money, and most have immediate cash payouts once you reach the payment threshold. You can use these apps to get cash back on things you need to buy anyway – like on groceries through Ibotta or Checkout 51, and any number of items through Ebates. Check out a couple more of my favorite money-making apps:
- FieldAgent
- Swagbucks
20. Cash In Your Rewards
When you need some cash fast, don’t forget to check your digital couch cushions! If you have any credit cards that offer cashback bonuses, check your balances and see if you can get a payout. Cards like Capital One and Discover offer varying percentages in cashback on purchases (with Discover, only purchases made in a specific category qualify), so look into those.
It’s also a good time to check your Ibotta, SavingStar, Patreon, Fiverraccounts, etc. for any balances that you can have transferred to your bank or PayPal account. You may be surprised what you find! It’s also a good time to get signed up for these extra money-makers for next time.
There are so many more ways to score extra cash that I simply can’t cover them all here. I haven’t even touched on how you could participate in a clinical trial, sell plasma, tutor online, pet sit, give cooking lessons…. The list goes on. You just need to pay attention to see opportunity all around you!
Once you start making extra money, make sure you aren’t squandering it somewhere else.
