It seems no matter how great of a financial planner you are, and how dedicated a budgeter, life still has a way of handing you bills you weren’t prepared for. Whether it’s a tire that needs to be replaced, a bachelorette party gift or just a night on the town with a surprise out-of-town visitor, you might suddenly need an extra $50. Here are 10 ways to make that outside your regular job.
Perform tasks that others won’t
There are a handful of websites dedicated to finding the right person for one-time or short-lived miscellaneous tasks. Websites like TaskRabbit, Zaarly and Agent Anything (the latter is exclusively for college students) match people looking to pick up a few extra bucks with people who don’t feel like picking up their takeout, dropping off dry cleaning, or organizing boxes in the garage and such. If you prefer to be less hands-on, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk will pay you for jobs like writing product descriptions or choosing the best photo for a product. UserTesting.com matches you with website owners needing feedback on their sites.
Rent your home
List your entire home, or just a room, or even just a couch on a website like Airbnb and make a quick $50 by giving a traveler a place to stay for a night or two. If you plan on being out of town for an extended period, sites like HomeAway will match you with someone looking to rent an entire house while traveling.
Claim lost money
The site Unclaimed.org helps you track down any unclaimed money in states you previously lived in, such as paychecks, rebates or refunds.
Offer your body for health or research
There are several ways you can do this like selling your blood plasma to a local blood bank or hospital, participating in medical studies or clinical trials, or selling your hair on sites like OnlineHairAffair.com.
Become a consumer researcher
Sites like MySurvey or SurveySpot list surveys from legitimate companies looking to pay consumers for feedback on their product, service, website or customer service. For a more active job, you could partake in a marketing study—companies like Concepts Consumer Research and other retailers often test their products on paid consumers. If you love to shop, get paid for it by looking at Mystery Shopping Providers Association, a company that pays you to evaluate a business in person.
Teach
Think of your extracurricular activities that you’re skilled at. Could you give high school students golf lessons? Could you tutor? Teach beginner’s piano? Teach English to foreigners?
Sit
Housesit for friends or neighbors who go out of town. Simply watering their plants and bringing in their mail could earn you $20 to $50 a day. You could also use sites like Sittercity and Care.com to find babysitting jobs, and Fetch! Pet Care for pet sitting jobs.
Sell stuff
Bring old or unwanted clothing into consignment stores that pay you on the spot, sell your used books at places like Half Price Books (hpb.com), and sell used video games, DVDs and CDs to local resellers or online retailers like SecondSpin.com. For miscellaneous items, list everything from old cribs to garden tools on Craigslist, and new or gently used items on Amazon.com.
Manual labor
Return to your teenage years and offer to mow your neighbor’s lawn. If you live in a cold climate, offer to shovel snow. During the summer, offer to clean pools. If you have a truck, rent it out to people moving, and for extra money offer yourself as a mover. Wash cars in your neighborhood for $10 a vehicle, or pick up a paint job a homeowner doesn’t want to do himself.
Arts and crafts
If you’re a craftsperson, designer or artist, check out sites like Etsy where you can sell everything from handmade jewelry to knitted gloves. RedBubble turns your art work into posters, T-shirts and other paraphernalia. At DeviantART you can sell photography, classic prints and digital work. At Jewelry Wonder, you can sell handmade jewelry.