Let’s be honest, no one will ever complain that they make too much money. Lot’s of people out there are living paycheck to paycheck, maxing out credit cards, and burning the candle at both ends and never taking time off for themselves.
Whether you’re looking for extra cash to make ends meet, pay down credit cards, mortgages, etc., or saving for a big expense like a new car or a vacation, here are 15 ways to earn extra money, plus extra tips to stretch your money further.
Oh, and most of these don't require you to build a website or anything complicated.
Ways to Bring in an extra $1,000 in Extra Income fast
Here are just 15 ideas that should inspire you!
1. Paid Market Research
We’ve all seen the ads at the top of our inboxes, or in our Facebook and Instagram feeds offering huge money for participating in market research.
While you probably can’t make a complete living completing surveys, you can definitely bring in some extra funds to help pay off bills and increase savings.
Major companies partner with survey companies and researchers to seek out people to provide feedback on offerings they are looking to bring to market, and you can often complete this research in the comfort of your home.
If you don’t mind getting out of the house, you can also look into big companies in your area, such as fast food companies and medical testing companies, that will pay you to eat new sandwiches or test medication before they are fully released to the public.
Here are some sources where you can find research opportunities available to you:
- Survey Junkie
- Swagbucks
- Vindale Research
#2 Food Delivery
Food delivery is a great option to make quick easy money. How frequently have you gotten home from work and been too tired to cook, so you just order something from your local favorite restaurant for delivery?
Why not seize this opportunity and be a delivery driver?
Every week I see more and more restaurants posting signs up that they now offer delivery through UberEats, DoorDash, or Postmates. Earning $15-$25 an hour delivering on these platforms is definitely a reasonable expectation if you drive during busy times like lunch and dinner. You also get to deduct your mileage on your car to help stretch your earnings a little further.
In addition to meals ready to go from restaurants, fewer people are choosing to go to grocery stores themselves. Great new services like Shipt and Instacart allow customers to create shopping lists online, and a personal shopper goes and picks up your items and brings them right to your door. Grocery delivery is on a massive upswing, and this is a great opportunity.
Here are some options to consider for food delivery
- UberEats
- DoorDash
- Postmates
- Shipt
- Instacart
#3 Ride Share Driving
I recently posted a blog from a guest author about how to get started on rideshare, expectations for the platforms, and tools to maximize your earnings available here.
Long story short, rideshare driving is a way that lots of people earn enough to make a moderately comfortable living on its own; and it’s a great way to supplement income from a full time job. It is fairly low effort and allows you to write off a substantial amount of earnings through mileage.
#3 Renting Out Your Car
I’ll be honest, this was something I never considered, but it makes a lot of sense.
There are already avenues available for renting specialty vehicles: moving trucks, renting a pickup truck for a day from a from a hardware store, etc.
But what if you have a bunch of errands to run in a day and don’t want to deal with the hassle of requesting a ride to and from each destination you need to hit up that day?
That’s where Getaround comes in. Getaround offers you the option to make your car available for people to rent.
Flying out of town for a business trip? At home sick and just can’t get off the couch? List your car as available when you’re not driving and earn passive income while doing it.
#5 Renting Out Space In Your Home
You may have an extra bedroom in your home. Or maybe you own more than one property. Finding tenants or roommates can be a hassle and take lots of time, and it comes with potential legal risks.
If you have extra space in your house, consider renting it out through Airbnb.
Airbnb allows you to make a room, a house, a converted detached garage, and any other number of spaces into makeshift hotel rooms. Lots of people choose Airbnb for the unique experience compared to a hotel, and if you live in an area that hosts pro sports teams, major business conferences, or other similar events, you can definitely make some easy money from travelers.
#6 Yard Sale!
OK, maybe not in a physical yard lol.
But we all have stuff in our houses that we probably don’t need, but other people are in the market for. Between Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and posting signs in your neighborhood, you can easily reduce clutter and earn some extra money.
If you don’t sell everything you want, you can always relist it, or donate the items to charity for a small tax write off.
And, you can always expand your potential customer base by selling stuff on Amazon or eBay. Just make sure you list everything as used and include detailed descriptions of items to avoid complaints.
#7 Tutoring
Know how to play guitar or piano? Fluent in a second language? Why not consider being a part time tutor.
Apps like Chegg offer a way to connect tutors with students, and if you are tutoring a high demand subject or skill, earning $20 and hour can be consistently be earned
#8 Freelance Writing
You’re reading this blog, right? Why not start your own blog and create an audience? It can be business related, recipes, or whatever you are passionate about. If you cultivate it, and help it grow, you can eventually get ad revenue, affiliate commission, and develop a customer base for other products.
You can also do ghostwriting and make yourself available on platforms like Fiver, Upwork, and Freelancer.
Here is a big fat list of sites that will pay you to write content.
#9 Become a Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is someone who assists in basic office clerical items, specialty technical tasks, and other miscellaneous jobs.
Sometimes businesses may only need an employee for a very limited set of tasks, and it doesn’t make sense for them to hire a full time employee.
VA’s can also do specialized tasks like
- Responding to emails
- Managing a Facebook, Instagram, or other social media for a small business
- Graphic Designs and ads
Here is a big list of sites you can work through to become a virtual assistant.
#10 Freelancing
Much like being a VA, lots of companies and individuals may need a very specific set of skills, and your knowledge can help you fulfill the needs and earn some extra money.
- Become a notary
- Proofreading is an easy gig if you did well in English class!
- If you have accounting experience, lots of small businesses may be looking for an accountant for a couple hours a month.
There are lots of ways to earn extra income from easy tasks, and promotion of your services through business cards, Facebook ads, etc can be written off as a tax deduction.
#11 Pet Sitting
Everyone loves their doggos and hates leaving them behind when traveling for work, going on vacations, etc. Some people can make arrangements with friends and family to let the dogs outside, refill their food and water, but the pets are still left alone for long portions of the day.
There are pet hotels, but they can be expensive and still may not offer a pet the freedom and mobility they need.
That’s where services like Rover come in. Rover allows you to connect to local people in your area who will gladly take care of your pupper for the weekend.
You can easily charge $30-$40 a night to let animals stay in your home, but you can also charge to go to a client’s home and feed the dogs and check on them as much as your client is willing to pay for.
Much like rideshare driving, if you live in a good location and can develop good repeat clients to pay for less involved services like going to a clients house to let their animals out and feed them, you can make a modest living doing just this.
#12 Moonlight Jobs
Bartenders and servers don’t generally make a ton of money. But if you have experience and are willing to work the more grueling hours (9pm-3am), you can make a couple hundred bucks a night bartending or serving at a busy bar in a major city.
Bar crowds not your deal? No problem. Lots of grocery store chains have regional distribution centers where employees pack up items to be sent to individual stores. These jobs generally go around the clock, so you can easily find spare time to pick up a couple shifts.
The cool thing with these jobs is that they often are considered part of the “corporate” structure, since they are not at an individual store. This generally means they offer better benefits, such as insurance, to employees that are not as readily available as cashiers at the local stores.
#13 Entertainment
Remember when we talked about if you can play guitar and offer tutoring? Well, you probably won’t get a lot of tutoring gigs late at night. But lots of neighborhood bars are always looking for entertainment for their customers.
And it doesn’t have to be guitar. It can be a different instrument, comedy, anything that you can make an act out of.
You can also do the cliché thing of standing out on the street corner playing covers with your guitar case open.
You won’t become rich with these. But you can probably earn enough to cover some of your bills, your Netflix and Hulu payments, etc. And the little bit you earn out there is better than the $0 you earned sitting on your butt at home.
#14 Offering Help to Family and Friends
Know somebody who is moving soon? Make yourself available. You good with kids? Offer to watch your nieces and nephews so their parents can have a date night. Shovel snow. Mow lawns. Clean out gutters and pools.
There are lots of ways you can help your friends and family out and earn some extra money in the process.
#15 Asking for a raise
I was debating whether to put this in the “earning more” column or the “stretching your dollars” column.
Asking for a raise is always an incredibly daunting task. But, even if you can make a case for something meager like $1 extra per hour, if you work 40 hours a week, that is almost $2100 a year extra. And if you happen to get overtime, the pay goes up more and more.
To avoid allegations of favoritism, a lot of companies offer raises at fixed times for all employees every year. They sit down with a rigid list of requirements, and for every little tick mark they can check, you get a bigger and bigger raise. If your company is like this, keep track of EVERY specialized project or task you work on.
Over a year you may have taken the lead on a project, or presented at a team meeting. These are all items that you can reference when it is appraisal time, and you are trying to get those boxes checked, and if you have kept track of everything through the year, you will be in a much better position than your co-workers.
4 Ways to Stretch Your Money
A penny saved is a penny earned! Here are some ways to make your money go a little further.
#1 Freebies and Rebates
Use browser extensions like Honey and PriceBlink to find and apply as many coupon codes as possible.
Sign up for services like DOSH and Ebates to get cash back on other purchases to make your money go further.
#2 Dive Deep Into Your Spending Habits
Go to your checking account right now, and there is probably an option to download an excel file of your purchases. Go check the last 90 days and see how much you spent on bars, cigarettes, eating out, and other lavish purchases. I think you’ll be surprised.
If you don’t have the time to sort through your spending like that, your bank may offer a program like that, or you can go to an outside service like Trim. Trim helps analyze your spending and identifies areas where you should try to cut back, as well as helps search the market for other areas of savings, such as car insurance and subscription services.
#3 Business Write Offs
Most of these money making gigs give you a 1099 or an “earning statement” at the end of the year. You can offset lots of these earnings by keeping detailed books of your business expensed and mileage on your car.
Standard deduction for mileage on your car in 2019 is $0.58 per mile. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you end up driving 1000 miles for all these gigs, that’s $580 that you aren’t taxed on.
If you happen to volunteer in your spare time, there may be savings for you, too. Even though you can’t write off time volunteering, you may be able to write off the miles to GET to the place you are volunteering. This is usually less than the $0.58 for work related miles, but it all adds up.
Mileage Tracking Apps
- Stride
- MileIQ
- Everlance
- Quickbooks Self Employed
#4 Set a Little Money Away In Savings
I know this can definitely be hard. But developing the willpower and discipline to put money into savings and LEAVE it there instill a sense of frugality that will eventually affect your other spending habits.
On top of that, you earn a little teeny tiny bit in interest from your savings, so it is constantly building like a really small snowball.
These are some of the ways I have found to bring in some extra income, and some combos of these gigs can easily support someone for a year.
Is there something I missed? Sound off in the comments about your favorite fast money gig or dollar stretching tip.
This is awesome! I'm going to share it with my friends!