I Need Money NOW
We’ve all been there. Maybe a few unexpected expenses hit you all at once – you need to repair your car and book a vacation.
Suddenly, you need a few hundred dollars overnight.
It can be tempting to max out your credit card or take out a loan, especially if you’re in a panic.
But what about making that money? Is that even possible? In a few words, yes.
The internet has unleashed hundreds of ways to make quick cash, most of which don’t require you to ever leave the comfort of your own home.
The amount of points you earn for each survey varies depending on its length and content, but will generally be from 50 to 450.
Once you earn enough points, you can cash out through either PayPal or a gift card
.
Learn More: Survey Junkie Review
Suddenly, you need a few hundred dollars overnight.
It can be tempting to max out your credit card or take out a loan, especially if you’re in a panic.
But what about making that money? Is that even possible? In a few words, yes.
The internet has unleashed hundreds of ways to make quick cash, most of which don’t require you to ever leave the comfort of your own home.
Make Money Now
Here are 32 great ways to make money now:- 🏆 Survey Junkie: Best Overall
- Swagbucks
- Decluttr
- Deposit Bonuses
- Acorns
- InboxDollars
- Rakuten
- MyPoints
- Drive Others
- Rent Your Car
- Deliver Food
- Rent Our Your House
- Instacart
- Dog Walking
- Run Errands
- Complete Microtasks
- Be a Gigwalker
- Rent Out Your Belongings
- Dosh
- Recycling
- Sell Your Clothes
- Have a Garage Sale
- Sell Your Knowledge
- Fiverr
- Negotiate Your Bills
- Earn Cash Back
- Redeem Coins for Cash
- Redeem Giftcards for Cash
- Take Advantage of Refunds
- Babysitting
- Street Performing
- Event Staffing
1. SurveyJunkie
The way that SurveyJunkie works is simple: you get points every time you complete surveys online and can eventually redeem this for a cash prize.The amount of points you earn for each survey varies depending on its length and content, but will generally be from 50 to 450.
Once you earn enough points, you can cash out through either PayPal or a gift card
.
Learn More: Survey Junkie Review
2. Swagbucks
If you know anything about survey apps,
you’ve probably heard of Swagbucks. It’s one of the biggest survey
sites out there and has an endless number of questionnaires available,
which you can earn ‘Swagbucks’ for answering.
The only downside is that you may be told you don’t meet the
eligibility requirements to earn a reward for taking a survey – this can
be irritating, but with a bit of patience, you’ll start to make money.
Even though the site specializes in surveys, you can earn in other
ways too, such as watching videos or playing games. However, surveys are
certainly the most profitable and reliable way to make money.
Swagbucks also offers a $10 bonus for anyone who makes a new account
with the site and earns enough points. However, you’ll need to earn a
$25 minimum before you can withdraw your money
.
Learn More: Swagbucks Review
Swagbucks - Easy Online Reward & Surveys
FREE
Swagbucks is a legit money-making app where you can make money taking surveys, watching videos, and more.
3. Decluttr
With the Decluttr app, you can scan the barcode of whatever you want to sell (or enter it manually) and sell directly to Decluttr.
They’ll let you know the price offered, and you’ll be able to print
off a free shipping label then deliver the package straight away.
As long as the item you send is in the quality you promised, you should get paid a few days later and receive the full amount.
You can sell a wide variety of items, including books, DVDs and CDs, plus larger items like cell phones.
Get Started: Sign-Up with Decluttr
4. Deposit Bonuses: $50 – $300+ Bonus
If you’re like most people, you probably keep the majority of your money stashed away in a checking account with an interest rate of next to nothing.
Switching to a high-yield savings account is an easy way to make a
few extra dollars a month. And, even better, lots of banks offer
substantial deposit bonuses to anyone who switches their account over to
them.
The providers who offer this tend to be online banks, who often
provide stellar service but don’t have the trusted status of more
traditional institutions, who pick up the majority of their customers
easily.
The best bonuses offered by banks are constantly changing, but these are some of the best current offers:
- Chase Premier Plus Checking Account: $300 bonus
- Bank of America Checking Account: $100 bonus
- Wells Fargo Checking Account: $100 bonus
- Charles Schwab Checking Account: $100 bonus
- Bank of Internet USA Checking Account: $50 bonus
5. Acorns: $5 Bonus
$5 might not sound like much, but it isn’t bad for doing something as simple as downloading an app and creating an account.
Acorns is a new investment app known for rounding up any purchases made using your card and investing your spare change.
The idea of starting to invest might sound daunting to you, but with
Acorns it’s simple – you just need to answer some basic questions about
your demographics and risk tolerance, and there’s no minimum investment
amount needed to get started.
There are other ways Acorn can make you money, too, such as the
‘FoundMoney’ cashback program. This means that you can continue to earn
money even after you receive the $5 since your money will make more
returns as it’s invested.
6. InboxDollars: $5 Sign-Up Bonus
You can get other free $ by signing up for InboxDollars. Once you
start to collect $5 bonuses from a variety of companies, the total
amount you have will really add up.
The main purpose of the market research company is to extract data
from individuals by analyzing their habits when searching the web. An
income stream doesn’t get much more passive than that – you simply have to surf the internet in the way you always do, but you’ll get paid for it.
As you might expect, the amount of money you can make this way isn’t
very substantial, and it will take you a while to accumulate a decent
amount.
Nonetheless, you may as well take advantage of the sign-up bonus and start building up some extra cash.
7. Rakuten: $10 Sign-Up Bonus
Rakuten is a major cashback site: you can make purchases through their shopping portal, and they’ll give you a percentage of the amount spent back in cash.
This is generally a very small percentage that varies slightly
between retailers, but if you use it for every grocery shop, it really
adds up over the course of a year.
It’s possible to earn up to 40% cashback with some retailers, but the
most common percentage is 5-10% – which is still very respectable. You
can also earn an extra $25 every time you make a referral.
You’ll get a respectable $10 for signing up to the service, but
there’s one catch: you need to make $25 of qualifying purchases first.
However, this shouldn’t be difficult since you can use Rakuten for everyday purchases such as grocery stores.
8. MyPoints
Another popular survey website is MyPoints.
There’s a $10 sign-up bonus you’ll receive after completing surveys, and you can then withdraw your earnings once you make $25.
Learn More: MyPoints Review
MyPoints - Get Paid To Shop Online
FREE
MyPoints pays you when you shop online at your favorite retailers and delivers the rewards through free gift cards.
9. Dosh: $5 Sign-Up Bonus
Dosh is another cash back app that will give you a nice monetary bonus for signing up.
They might give out less money than Rakuten, but you won’t have to do
as much in order to get the money – just link your card, and you can
receive the money immediately. It really is instant gratification.
The cashback amount varies, but you can earn up to 10% with some retailers. If you’re lucky, you might even get a bonus of $10.
Dosh constantly changes the sign-up bonus between a bonus of $5 and
one of $10, but if you can’t afford to wait, then you might have to
settle for $5.
10. Drive Others
You might be surprised at just how easy it is to get started as a driver on the virtual economy.
Uber: With Uber,
it can take just 60 days as long as your car meets the requirements.
The average Uber driver earns around $19-21 an hour, and you’ll be
issued a special debit card that allows you to cash out your earnings
straight away with no clearance period.
And there are competitors being launched every day.
Lyft: Lyft recently introduced a program whereby
they guarantee $1,000 to everyone who becomes a driver within a certain
time frame – even if you don’t meet this minimum, they’ll make up the
difference for you. This is certainly a strong incentive to choose Lyft
over its competitors – but it’s reported that its drivers earn less than
those on Uber.
Get Started: Sign-Up with Lyft
11. Rent Out Your Car
There are other ways to make money from your car, too.
You could rent it out to strangers using an app like Getaround, which
offers a cheaper alternative for those who want a hire car. You don’t
need to worry about your car getting damaged either, because you’ll be
covered by a $1 million insurance policy.
Turo is a similar app that lets you rent your car out. It’s
particularly lucrative in rural areas and for those with in-demand
vehicles, such as minivans and convertibles.
Get Started: Sign-Up with GetAround
12. Deliver Food
Not everyone has a car. But as long as you have a motorbike or even a
regular bike, you can make some side money by delivering food with a
company like Doordash and PostMates.
The latter even lets you deliver by foot, although admittedly this isn’t viable in a lot of locations.
The sign-up process is generally quite simple: just fill in an
application, sign-on, and start taking requests for deliveries from
local establishments.
DoorDash and PostMates both pay you daily, so you really can earn money instantly this way.
13. Rent Out Your House
Other than delivering food or passengers, the other mainstay of the
gig economy is renting out a spare room or second property using AirBnB.
Lots of people have a spare room within their house, especially if
they have children who have left home or they have a guest room. Why not
take advantage of this extra space by offering it up to tourists or
other people passing through your locality?
The idea of sharing your living space with others might sound strange
at first, but you might even find that you enjoy the social aspect and
getting to know people from different parts of the country – or even
world.
You might be worried about items being stolen or damaged within your
property, but as is the case for renting out your car, AirBnB provides a
huge $1 million insurance policy to reimburse you.
14. Instacarting
People are so short on time these days that they’re willing to pay for almost anything that will help them to save time.
One of the more unusual forms is by paying somebody to do their
grocery shopping for them and delivering them – this is exactly what
Instacart set out to do.
You could be the one doing the shopping and delivering for others in your neighborhood if you sign up.
Although the exact rate you can expect to be paid varies depending on
factors such as order size and miles driven, you could be earning
around $15 an hour.
15. Dog Walking
All dog lovers have dreamed of making money by doing nothing more than spending time with furry friends.
It might sound too good to be true, but this is now a legitimate job
opportunity, thanks to an app called Rover, which brings pet owners
together with people willing to care for them.
As well as taking dogs for a walk, this could include looking after
pets for a night or an extended period while their owners are away.
You might even find yourself making $20 an hour or more for walks or $49 for an overnight stay.
Get Started: Sign-Up with Rover
16. Run Errands
Completing small tasks for neighbors has long been an accepted way for children to make a bit of pocket money.
Now that we have the gig economy, that concept has been expanded beyond children to connect people who need work done with those who are willing to do it.
TaskRabbit is a platform made with this exact purpose in mind. You
could find yourself doing work like cleaning, assembling flatpack
furniture, or even personal assistant work. The nature of this type of work is that it’s very flexible, and it can pay quite well too.
Of course, the app works best for people who live in big cities,
because there will be more users of TaskRabbit around ad thus more
possible errands for you to complete.
Get Started: Sign-Up with TaskRabbit
17. Complete Microtasks
Microtasks are simple, online-based tasks that can be completed very quickly for a small amount of money.
A few websites are offering to give this type of work, but the most
popular is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (otherwise known as M Turk).
The tasks available vary enormously. You could end up doing anything
from taking surveys to tagging photos to editing transcriptions.
Although the amount you can earn is generally quite low, once you get
used to picking out the highest-earning jobs and completing them
quickly, the pay can be decent.
Get Started: Sign-Up with Mechanical Turk
18. Be a Gigwalker
What exactly is a gigwalker, I hear you ask? It’s anyone who signs up
to use the platform GigWalk, which pays those who are willing to
complete a task at a local store.
The idea is similar to mystery shopping, but you usually won’t have
to make a purchase – most tasks are much simpler activities, such as
answering some questions about the store or filming a video of it.
Like many sites, you’ll have the most luck with actually finding gigs if you live in a big city.
Get Started: Sign-Up with GigWalk
19. Rent Out Your Belongings
It’s common knowledge that renting out your car or house are good
ways to make a bit of additional money, but a lesser-known fact is that
you can rent out other, smaller belongings.
Fat Llama lets you list anything you own online to be rented. This is
often specialist equipment, such as a professional camera or speaker
system, but it could also be something simpler like a drone or tux.
You can also rent out your baby equipment to tourists on Babyquip or your parking spot on Craigslist.
20. Recycling
We all know there’s some money to be made from old belongings that
still serve their original function – but what about rubbish? Surely
nobody would want to buy that?
Actually, that’s no longer true. It’s often possible to pull in a few
dollars by taking recyclable items into a recycling center, such as
bottles or cans.
If you want to go big, you could also ask your friends, families, or neighbors if they have anything for you to take, too.
21. Sell Your Clothes
We all have clothes we don’t use – often far too many. Why not take a
Marie Kundo approach and throw away everything that doesn’t spark joy?
There are various online sites dedicated specifically to helping you to sell clothes.
The classic site is eBay, a pioneer when it comes to second-hand e-commerce, and they still win in terms of users.
However, you’ll face high commissions from both eBay and PayPal.
Some alternatives to eBay are:
22. Have a Garage Sale
Not everyone fancies selling their clothes online. Sorting out
posting and packaging can be a hassle, and there are more fees involved.
Selling locally might mean you have fewer clients, but it can make the whole process a lot quicker or easier.
You can also merge the best of both worlds by advertising your garage sales using your social media profiles and Craiglist.
23. Sell Your Knowledge
Maybe you don’t have any belongings worth selling, or you’ve already sold everything worth selling.
In that case, you could still sell your knowledge in a specific area by making a course on a website like Udemy.
This isn’t the quickest way out there to make money – creating a high-quality course from nothing takes a decent amount of time.
Nevertheless, it’s a great way of establishing a passive income if you have the time to do it.
Get Started: Sign-Up with Udemy
24. Fiverr
Essentially, Fiverr is a freelancing website based on the concept of
selling a service for $5. In reality, most sellers are charging far more
than this.
Amongst the other freelancing websites on the internet, Fiverr stands
out for how quick and easy it is to get started. All you need to do is
fill in your profile, create your gig, and you’re good to go.
However, you might find it difficult to find clients straight away
when you have no reviews. Plus, even when you complete a task, it takes a
couple of weeks for the payment to clear so you can withdraw it.
Get Started: Sign-Up with Fiverr
25. Negotiate Your Bills
This is one idea that really comes close to the concept of getting something from nothing.
Just by signing up on a website like Trim and giving them the details
about your bills, you can shave hundreds of dollars off the amount
you’re currently paying.
You’re probably aware there might be a better deal out there for your
phone or TV bills than the one you’re currently paying for, but
sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to be checking and
calling up your providers. Trim has a team of negotiators who will do
this process for you and find you a cheaper deal.
Trim also works to reduce the APR you’re charged for on your credit card bills.
They do take a cut of the total amount saved, but you’ll still be
able to save more than you would by sticking to your current provider.
It’s definitely worth doing, especially if you’re not a confident
negotiator, and the idea of ringing yourself fills you with nerves.
26. Earn Cash Back
We already mentioned a couple of cashback apps that will pay you a
bonus for signing up. Ibotta does not offer a sign-up bonus, but it is
one of the best cashback apps out there.
Like other similar apps, you can make money by scanning your receipts
or using the shopping portal. You then earn a small percentage back,
which you can choose to receive by PayPal or gift cards. You’ll need to
earn $20 to be able to withdraw.
Although you can’t earn anything for joining, there is the chance to
earn $5 for every new user you refer. The referral incentive can turn
out to be quite profitable if you get all your family and friends on
board.
As well as downloading a cashback app, you can get a cashback credit card.
It’s often possible to ‘stack up’ your cashback, so that you can double
or even triple the amount you get by using multiple apps and a credit
card.
This doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a go.
27. Redeem Coins For Cash
If you’re anything like me, you have a little jar somewhere in your
house where you store all the pennies and small change that you don’t
want to carry around, but nor do you want to chuck away.
Take them to a credit union or Coinstar machine to convert them into dollars.
28. Redeem Gift Cards For Cash
It’s not just coins you can get some money for at Coinstar machines – some of them accept gift cards too.
You won’t be able to receive their full value – you’ll usually lose around 20% – but it’s better than nothing, right?
Once the sites have verified the balance on the card, you’ll get paid
within a day or two. The process is fastest if you have digital rather
than physical gift cards.
Places to Sell Gift Cards:
29. Take Advantage of Refunds
We all know how annoying it is when you buy something, then realize the price has gone down a few days later.
That’s where Paribus comes in – it will take note when you purchase
something by checking your emails, and will then monitor for price
reductions and try to negotiate a refund for you.
It also works for physical receipts, but you’ll then have to upload your receipts manually.
Paribus compensates us when you sign up for Paribus using the links provided.
30. Babysitting
Another classic job for teenagers alike is to secure a babysitting
gig – but it’s not just limited to teenagers. Care.com is a great
website offering this.
However, babysitting isn’t known for being a well-paying gig; expect to earn $7-$10 an hour.
31. Street Performing
It might sound daunting, but if you’ve ever been told you have a
talent for singing or playing a musical instrument, then street
performance could be worth a shot.
Even if you decide not to pursue it in the long run, it’s an interesting experience to try out.
32. Event Staffing
There are often local events that will pay people to steward people
as a one-off; this can be a way to make some quick money. You can find
them in your local area establishments or on SnagAJob.
Get Started: Sign-Up with SnagAJob
I Need Money Now FAQs
How can I make $100 a day?
Many of the ideas mentioned in this article could give you the chance
to make $100 or more. You might not make this much money just from
signing up for apps to get the joining bonus or by taking surveys
(although both these methods can help with bumping up your numbers), but
some of the other ideas will.
With gig economy work, like renting out a spare room or driving
people around, it’s easy to make at least $100 a day, if not more.
Where do I get free money?
The idea of ‘free money’ is a fairly strange one. After all, there’s
no such thing as a free lunch – you almost always have to do something
to receive it. Nonetheless, there are plenty of ways to make money
fairly easily without ever leaving your home.
Most of these opportunities can be found online by harnessing the gig
economy, but it’s also possible to make money within your local area –
although this is easier in some places than others.
What do you do when you have no money?
The most important thing is to act on the problem straight away. Many
people are tempted to live in denial about the fact they have no money,
which can make their situation even worse as the debt continues to
stack up. Instead, try to clear your mind and look for a solution
If the worst comes to the worst, you can always resort to borrowing
money. Ideally, it’s best to borrow from a friend or family member who
will lend to you without charging an interest rate. If this isn’t a
possibility, you might have to resort for a loan – if that’s the case,
it’s better to opt for a personal loan or installment loan than a credit
card loan or payday loan.
How Will You Make Money Now?
It’s time to unleash your creativity and entrepreneurial side. You
can make money quickly if you need to – it just requires a little effort
and creative thinking.
As you’ve probably noticed, most ways to make easy money require a
bit of planning and preparation, so it’s best not to wait until you’re
desperate for money to start earning something extra.