Side Cash

Need Money? 50 Ways to Make a Quick $50

Online businesses are a great source of side or even full-time income. However, that reality occurs after a period of months, if not years. What if you need some extra money today, not three months from now?

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To this end, there are many upon many resources available to you so that you can make some spending cash fast. Here are just 50 ways you can generate a quick $50:

Sell stuff

  1. eBay– The all-time biggest, oldest and favorite place to sell your unwanted clothes, jewelry and other tchotchkes is eBay.
  2. Amazon– The other major online marketplace is Amazon, where selling fees start at 99 cents.
  3. Bonanza– Sell your stuff here and keep 97% of your profits.
  4. Craigslist– This site works well for local sales of items that need to be seen before they are purchased; some examples include motorcycles, furniture and used electronics.
  5. Consignment shops– Your dressy and/or trendy clothing can fetch a good price at local consignment shops, and you’ll keep a portion of the sale.
  6. Half.com– This book selling site will carry your tomes for months or even years until they sell.
  7. Used book shops– If you sell your books at used book stores (e.g., Half Price Books), you get cash on the spot. These places also usually accept your used DVDs and CDs.
  8. Gift card sites– Cardpool and CardCash will accept your gift cards and give you a majority of their value in cash.
  9. Used smartphone sites– Consider selling your used smartphone through a site like Gazelle or NextWorth.
  10. Garage sales– If you have a weekend, you can organize your unwanted stuff and sell it by having a garage sale.
  11. Nextdoor– The neighborhood social media site Nextdoor offers an area for neighbors to post stuff for sale.
  12. TeachersPayTeachers– If you are a teacher, you can make money here by selling your old lesson plans.
  13. CourseHero– Sell your class notes here and earn up to $10 per carefully annotated lesson. Nexus Notes is another marketplace where you can sell your class notes.
  14. Foap– Your vacation and landscape photos could fetch you $5/piece when you list them on Foap.
  15. Your hair– OnlineHairAffair will sell your cut, undyed hair for hundreds of dollars.

Sell your skills

  1. Fourerr and Fiverr– If you can edit a document, create a graphic, or record a voiceover, you’ll quickly make money on microjob sites like Fourerr and Fiverr. You can also package your services and charge $10 or higher for these add-ons.
  2. Tutoring– Sites like WyzAnt and Tutor.com pay you to tutor people either online or in person.
  3. oDesk– This site enables you to sell services like freelance writing, editing, graphic design, etc. on a per project basis.
  4. Amazon Turk– This micro-job site allows you to complete small jobs like testing links or proofreading a document for quick cash payouts.
  5. TaskRabbit– If you are OK with doing small tasks in town like waiting in line for event tickets or picking up dry cleaning, this site is for you.
  6. Microworkers– Test websites, post tweets, and do small tasks for small (but quick) dollars on this site.
  7. Constant-Content– Earn tens or even hundreds of dollars by selling your articles or answering requests for written content.
  8. Textbroker– Earn up to 5 cents per words for your freelance writing- or even higher for personally priced projects.
  9. Internet research Experts123, Web Answers, Yahoo! Answers will pay you for your carefully researched and posted answers to user questions.
  10. Test scoring– Score tests like ACTs and SATs through testing sites ACT, the ETS Online Scoring Network, Pearson Assessments and Write Score.
  11. Etsy– If you have a bunch of homemade arts and crafts, you can make money for them here.
  12. Cafe Press– Upload your designs and photographs to this site and make money whenever someone buys a T-shirt or coffee cup containing your work.
  13. RedBubble This site will transform your photos and drawings into posters, T-shirts and stickers, then sell and ship your sold merchandise.
  14. Society6– This site will also transform your artwork into sellable items like iPhone cases, wall prints, pillows and laptop sleeves.
  15. DeviantArt– This site might be the place to sell your artwork if it’s not exactly “run-of-the-mill” and/or features comic book style design.
  16. Technical support– Sites like AppleCare, ComputerAssistant and PlumChoice are always on the lookout for people who are tech-savvy and can provide technical support to customers.
  17. Craft fairs– Sites like Festivalnet list upcoming craft fairs in your area, where you can sign up to sell your photos, greeting cards, handknit items, etc.
  18. Feastly– Like to cook? Then cook for others right inside your home and earn money while doing so.

Sell professional tasks

  1. SitterCity and Care– Register as a sitter on these sites and get paid to babysit and/or engage with an older adult who requires supervision.
  2. Call center agent– Available as seasonal or full-time work, many customer service jobs can be completed from home. Amazon is looking for seasonal customer service reps and paying $10/hour. There are also sites like LiveOps and Arise.
  3. Survey taker– Various online survey sites such as 20/20 Research, Opinion Outpost, Pinecone Research, Swagbucks, and Toluna will reward you for your opinion about a product or service.
  4.  Leapforce– This site hires search engine evaluators to evaluate websites for usability and cohesiveness.
  5. Uber– If you have a car, you can make money by driving people around town as an Uber driver.
  6. Moving stuff– If you have a pickup truck or a large van, you could hire yourself out as a mover.
  7. Presto Insta-Shops– This smartphone app enables you to mystery shop on-the-go. Some tasks are quite simple to complete, such as taking photos of a drive-thru sign board, or applying for a store credit card.
  8. Swagbucks– Get rewarded with Swagbucks for doing tasks like viewing a video, searching a website, or filling out a survey. Redeem your Swagbucks for cash in the form of Paypal payouts or VISA gift cards.
  9. Pet sitting– FetchPetCare is a national pet sitting service site where you can list your availability and preferred pets, then collect money through the site once you’ve completed your pet sitting session.

Rent stuff out

  1. AirBnb– Rent out a portion of, or your entire home, to travelers looking for a place to stay.
  2. HomeAway– Earn money by having others rent your entire vacation or second home.
  3. FlightCar– If you’re flying somewhere, you can park your car at the airport and have it rented out to other people.
  4. Parking space rental– If you live within walking distance of a sporting event or concert, you could rent out your driveway and even entire yard to people who need a place to park.
  5. Loanables– This site lets you rent out almost anything, from your clothes to your boat.
  6. Zipcar– You can list your car on this site and have people pay to rent it out by the day or week.
  7. Spinlister– This site allows you to post your sporting and recreational equipment including your road bikes, kayaks, fishing rods, weight sets, etc.
  8. Desktime– If you have an unused bedroom or office in your house, you can rent it out through this site to telecommuters and contractors that don’t have a stationary office.

Do you have other ideas on how to make some cash fast? Post them in the comments below.

8 thoughts on “Need Money? 50 Ways to Make a Quick $50”

  1. Hi Steve,

    You posted a lot of ways to make extra cash. I tried eBay and Bonanza. They are very good sites to sell any items you want to sell…I’ve made some money through these sites but I’ve also lost money.

    However, I see other opportunities where to make money by doing simple work which sounds easy to do, like Swagbucks.

    Great post! Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
  2. Hey there! This is very helpful to me. I’m a college student and I’m looking for a quick money for my required book to buy. This is pretty interesting ideas since I don’t have any ideas to earn money quick. I have some console games that is not used I’m going to sell them online. Thank you for sharing this information.

    Reply
  3. Hello Steve
    I have really enjoyed your post on ways to make extra income, some I already knew and some are new to me.
    Selling used books seems like what I`d chose, as someone who`s always enjoyed books till recently, must say I have a huge collection dating way back 20 years ago.
    Seems like everything can be sold online, unfortunately in my end of the world, selling items online is not yet as common especially physical products as shipping is very costly.
    Your post has opened more options than I knew existed and will look into some of these, like consignment shops to get rid of all the junk(they become junk when one no longer needs them) I have accumulated over the years.
    Thanks Steve, this is very informative.

    Reply
  4. I am just in the midst of spring cleaning (I am trying the joy of tidying up method) but have the unfortunate reality of my husband having recently lost his job, so our old electronics need to fetch us a bit of cash. I will check out the sites you recommended… haven’t heard of several of them… I was actually considering using a company called Orchard and I’m wondering if anyone else has had experience with this service? They’re at http://www.getorchard.com/us

    Reply

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