8 Quick Ways To Make Some Extra Money Even If You’re Already Working

By

For employees and stay at home moms, articles that talk about ways to earn extra money through freelancing are useful. It might even be inspiring for them.

But if you’re already a freelancer like me, I suspect you’re still interested in earning some extra dough, just not through another freelancing site. It just doesn’t feel like ‘extra money’ if it’s freelancing because that’s already your day job.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m tired of articles that suggest learning other freelance trades to earn extra cash.

I’m sure there are other ways to supplement our income—more creative ways, that is.

1. Make Extra Money while Shopping!

To be honest, this is one of my favorite ways to earn extra cash. I love doing my groceries, and I love shopping, so this is a no-brainer extra gig for me.

Several apps like CheckPoints and Ibotta offer rewards in the form of cash back, airline miles, gift cards, or points for scanning the barcode of certain items or submitting your receipt. It’s a fantastic way to earn money while doing your groceries.

You can also work as a mystery shopper. EasyShift is an app that turns users into on-demand secret shoppers. Product manufacturers offer different shifts on different stores, so you can work anytime you’re available.

The job is easy, too. For most shifts, all you have to do is scan barcodes, take pictures of products to confirm they’re displayed on the shelf, and confirm that their promotions are running.

2. Sell Old Textbooks

College textbooks are expensive! That’s why there’s a thriving market for second hand textbooks online. Bookscouter, Bookfinder, and Half.com by eBay are popular textbook selling sites.

This isn’t a quick way to earn money. But it doesn’t take a lot of work either. Just find the market price for a second-hand version of your book then upload it on one of the sites above.

3. Be an Uber or Lyft Driver

A lot of my friends are Uber or Lyft drivers and operators, and they all tell me the income is great even if you only do it after work.

Granted, this job isn’t for everyone. If you hate being stuck in traffic, you’re better off picking another side gig. But if your car is only used once or twice a day, you can have someone else drive it. The money you earned can go a long way towards your monthly car payment.

4. Get Paid for Your Opinion in Focus Groups

I don’t believe in websites that pay you for participating in surveys. In my experience, the survey takes too much time so the pay isn’t worth it.

Focus group discussions, on the other hand, are fun and offer a decent pay. Payment depends on the company holding the focus group and the topic they want participants to discuss, but in general they pay $10 per to $150 per hour. That’s a decent amount for sharing your opinion.

Check out Focus Group, a website that lists focus group opportunities per city and industry. For instance, as of this writing, there’s a focus group that pays $150 for eligible participants in Los Angeles age 25 to 65.

5. Invest in Peer to Peer Lending

Peer to peer lending is a crowd-sourced financing option, where investors lend money to different creditors using a P2P platform.

Lending Club is one of the most popular P2P platforms right now, and they also have the highest returns for high-risk borrowers.

But you don’t have to loan money to high-risk borrowers just to get a good return of investment (ROI). According to a review from Investmentzen, you can get an annual return of 4.45% lending money to low-risk borrowers.

That’s not enough if you compare this to investing in stocks, or working an extra gig, but it’s a fantastic return for a passive source of income. Bonds and certificates of deposit rarely offer a 4% return after all.

6. Teach Coding

Many bloggers and small business owners operate on WordPress, Joomla and other types of CMS. Unfortunately, many of them only have an elementary knowledge of their chosen platform.

That’s where you, a website coding or programming expert, comes in. You can provide live help to show others how to operate their site, and do one-off tasks for business owners that takes them 2 hours to figure out but only takes you 10 minutes to solve.

With platforms like Codementor, you can apply to become a mentor and get paid to teach others how to create apps, create websites, or maintain their sites.

You don’t even need a degree in programming or computer science to become a mentor, all you need is the know-how.

7. Host Dinner for Others

If you love to cook, this is right up your alley. Sites like EatWith, Feastly, and NewGusto lets amateur cooks create menus and invite others to dinner in their homes. As the host, you control how many people can attend, what to cook, and how much you’ll charge per plate.

When you sign up, don’t forget to add information about yourself, your cooking skills, and a description of the menu you’ll prepare. Add pictures of the food, too.

8. Give Tours of Your City

Want to enjoy your city’s sights and earn money at the same time? Work as a part-time local tour guide.

Normally you’d need a tour guide license and government permits before you can earn money doing this. Sites like Vayable and Tours By Locals, make this side-gig easier. All you have to do is sign-up to their platform, describe the tour you want to offer, and upload some pictures.

These sites don’t charge a fee to list your tour packages, but they take a percentage of your fees. In exchange, you’re given a platform to list your services, tools to receive payments from tourists, and some training materials to help you become a better tour guide.