We’re all looking for ways to make a little extra cash these days (or any day, honestly), but it can be hard to think of ways to bring in some money without forking over a ton of money and time to get there.
These 16 people have some pretty great suggestions that you might not have heard of before, so give them a look!
16. Always read the rules.
Class action lawsuits.
Obviously people can abuse this since the majority doesn’t require proof, but it is pretty crazy how many class actions affect the majority of the general public.
Bought Roundup in the last 5 years? Get some money here.
Used 1-800-Contacts in the last 15 years? Get some money here.
Bought 2 Towns Cider in the last 4 years? Get some money here.
Be sure to read the rules.
15. You’ll never miss it.
Taking advantage of an employer match on a retirement plan.
14. Plus, DOGS.
Walking my neighbors’ dogs. A lot of old people in my neighborhood.
I make an extra $10-$25 a day bringing along 3-5 dogs with my daily jog. I don’t even have a dog of my own.
13. I’ve never even thought about it.
Oh!! I have a ton of photos, mostly from vacations, that I post to Pixabay. Also some digital vectors that I made while learning illustrator. They can be downloaded for free, but people have the option to donate. I make about $40/month from an account I haven’t updated in at least 2 years.
most of that is paid in euros or British pounds, but also USD as well. It’s hooked up to my PayPal so I can convert the currencies easily to CAD. My most popular photographs are of the northern lights, and marijuana leaves, and rattlesnakes. Using reverse image searches, I have found them on Icelandic tourism webpages, book covers (lots of these!), mousepads, blog articles, and as YouTube backgrounds. It’s kind of cool.
12. Read the fine print, though.
If you’re into graphic design, websites like Redbubble. A good thing about the website is that they don’t close your account due to inactivity so if your designs were a hit then it’s like you’re just taking in free money every month.
11. It’s just like that Seinfeld.
I have a friend who did work as a Standardized Patient. Basically, you get money so that medical students can examine you as practice for when they go do medical stuff for real. It’s not much, but it’s honest work.
If you’re reading this, you probably live in a country where selling your kidney is illegal — but as far as it goes in the medical field, everybody already knows about selling parts of your body (especially plasma, in the US, which is well-saturated with broke college students and the truly desperate). Being a Standardized Patient isn’t quite as common.
Read more about it on the Johns Hopkins website. It’s not typically a full-time gig, but Johns Hopkins advertises $20 an hour for literally just pretending to be sick / injured. Rates may vary; check with your nearby medical schools.
10. Evil genius.
When you go to Whole Foods, load up your bowl in the buffet area, sit down and eat it, then go and check out and say you had one buffet. They’ll be so confused that they’ll just ask you to leave.
9. Where do I sign up?
Life modeling for art classes. Ridiculously easy money and they sometimes have clothed sessions as well as nude.
You get paid, you get tea and biscuits, you get complimented on your body, and you get some cool art done of yourself.
8. Maybe not right now, though.
In Australia it’s definitely working in the construction industry like some shifts you work can be up to $100 and hour for 12 hours. It’s hard but it brings in the cash
7. Just be smart with your money.
Sometimes it’s as simple as not spending the money you have. My friend is a veteran, and apparently Target is doing 10% off for veterans. His wife is super excited about this and wants to go to Target.
My friend is like “ok, what do we need from Target?” and his wife says “I don’t know”…..She is happy to “save” 10% but realistically she’s spending 90% (kind of).
6. Not too often, though.
Selling blood plasma.
Selling myself and saving lives. It feels good getting cash for selling my juices.
5. You have to be prepared to call their bluff.
Call up your cell phone, internet, cable, whatever company.
Say “hey I really like your service but it’s too expensive and I’m wondering if you have any discounts or special offers”
9/10 times they’ll give you a discount of 10-30 percent.
4. Don’t turn yourself into a lab rat, though.
I once got payed like $25 for a study.
Just look up free studies, there’s bound to be a couple results. Sometimes universities will pay you do things like answer questions.
The one I did was a zoom of the person asking me questions about my perceptions of some gender based game. I got a $25 Amazon gift card for about 30 to 45 minutes of my time.
3. Can confirm.
Fiverr.com — like reading? People need beta readers and will pay you ~80bucks to read their (probably sh%tty) novel and write up your feedback. Good at proofreading / editing? That’s more.
That’s a small slice of the things you can advertise / do there (music, programming, graphic design, etc etc), but freelance work isn’t always hard or even hard to find.
2. Just go into debt.
Using credit cards responsibly.
By rotating purchases depending on bonus categories by card, I get thousands of dollars in free money a year for things I need to purchase anyhow.
As long as you pay your balances off in full every month it’s literally free money.
1. Color me intrigued.
Some years back, an acquaintance of mine got out of significant credit card debt with dumpster diving.
They hit places like Staples and Best buy, would get last year’s SAT prep software/antivirus/tax prep when the new stuff came out… sell it on ebay.
Eventually staples started locking their dumpster, but by that time they’d moved on to rich neighborhoods, where people would just throw out nice furniture or filing cabinets or one time a nice computer that just had a bad power supply.
My brother has done it for profit and food (he’s fine, he was fine at the time, long story) — you return an expensive specialty pillow to walmart, they can’t resell it for hygienic reasons, it ends up in the dumpster, he grabs it, he sells it on craigslist. Dented space heater, same thing. New-look boxes of cereal come out, old boxes end up in the trash, breakfast for weeks.
I could definitely use the money, so might have to look into these!
Do you have something you could add to this list? Tell us what it is in the comments!
