Struggling to have enough money is no fun. I know this from personal experience, and even though I’m thankful for having learned to live so incredibly frugally, there’s no escaping the fact that frugal living isn’t enough. You have to make money too!
Sometimes making more money means getting a new job, or starting a home business like blogging professionally, but other times, you just want a few extra dollars to spend on something, and need to find a few simple ways to earn cash this month, right now.
There are many, many ways to do this, and these are ten of my favorite:
10 Simple Ways To Earn Some Extra Cash This Month
Take Surveys
Sites like Survey Rewards, and National Consumer Panel pay you to give your opinion on products and services offered, participate in market research, and test mobile apps and other technology. You won’t get rich doing surveys, but when you participate regularly, the dollars add up!
Survey Sites:
Search The Web
There are many rewards sites that reward you for using their search engine rather than google’s, but in my opinion, Swagbucks is top of the line.
When you use the Swagbucks search bar, you will randomly be rewarded with “swagbucks” which, you guessed it, can be traded in for swag. My swag of choice is usually an Amazon gift card, but sometimes I go for a restaurant or Target gift card if I’m feeling indulgent.
100 Swagbucks typically equals $1.
There are numerous other ways you can earn Swagbucks, such as watching SwagTV, taking polls, shopping through Swagbuck’s site link, and printing coupons through them, and it can get pretty addictive, which leads to more and more Swagbucks.
Again, you’re not going to get rich doing it, but I’ve earned literally hundreds of dollars using Swagbucks. Seriously, you’re going to search, why not get paid to do it?
Use Cash back Shopping Sites
Ebates is my favorite way to earn 1, 3, and even 10% back on my purchases.
How cool is it, that you can shop through a website’s affiliate link, and they’ll share their commission with you? It’s their incentive to get you to shop through them, instead of straight through Amazon, or whatever retailer you’re shopping at.
It’s totally legit, easy to use, and doesn’t cost you a penny – win-win for everyone!
While I haven’t earned hundreds upon hundreds using eBates like I have with Swagbucks, I’ve made almost $200 so far!
I like to order through eBates, then use my Amazon gift cards earned through Swagbucks to make the free stuff go even farther. Boom!
Review Music
If you love to listen to music, this one is right up your alley! Just listen to the tract, and leave your opinion.
After you sign up, you’ll be asked a few questions about your music preference, and then you’ll review a few test tracts. So fun!
Test Websites
You can get paid up to $30 an hour to review websites. What?? It’s true! I went through the process of becoming a website tester, and even tested a few websites just to see how doable it was, and yep, as long as your computer has a built-in mic, or you have an external mic, you can do it!
Review websites are available on a first come, first served basis, which means that you won’t always have one available when you have a minute to do it, but it’s a great way to earn extra cash with very little effort!
Sign up with User Testing here.
Write For A content Mill
Do you like to write? A content mill is a web-based company that hires many writers to create content for it’s customers.
These sites usually have an administrative area where writers can login and find new jobs on a first come, first served basis.
You won’t get rich writing for a content mill, but if you’re looking to get into freelancing, it’s a great place to start!
Content mills to write for:
Share Affiliate Products On Social Media
Do you have a Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest following? You can share your affiliate and referral links to earn money!
Companies such as Amazon.com, have an affiliate program, where they pay you a commission for directing people to their website to make purchases. It doesn’t cost the consumer anything, but it can result in quite a paycheck for you if they go through your link and end up making a big purchase (I’ve had people buy really expensive camera equipment through my amazon link!)
A referral program is similar, in that you share your unique link, but in this case, the amount you earn is usually a fixed rate per referral. For instance, if you click on my Dressing Your Truth link, and make a purchase, I’ll earn $10 credit to the Dressing Your Truth store.
You Can share these links across most social media channels (I have found Facebook to be the most effective – okay fine, I haven’t even tried Pinterest yet), just be really sure to disclose that the link you’re sharing is your affiliate or referral link to keep the FTC happy.
You can also get sponsored posts to share on social media through brand agencies such as SponsoredTweets.com
Amazon Mechanical Turk
It’s a simple program where you complete simple human intelligence tasks for a small amount of pay.
Amazon is obviously a reputable company, but since I’ve never worked with them, here’s a short synopsis from The Simple Dollar:
For those unaware, Mechanical Turk is a service from Amazon where you can complete simple tasks in exchange for a tiny payment. For example, you might look at an image and describe it in ten words for $0.08. You might fill out a multiple-choice survey for $0.10. You might be asked to write a product review for $2.50. For the most part, the tasks available through Mechanical Turk are quick and very simple. The problem is that, individually, they’re not big earners. You have to do quite a few in an hour in order to earn anything of significance.
Complete CashCrate Offers
CashCrate is kind of an all-in-one site where you can get paid for taking surveys, offers, and get cash back on purchases made from their link (similar to eBates).
While eBates and Survey Rewards Are my favorites, CashCrate is a great way to diversify!
Be A Field Agent
Field Agent is a really cool app you can download to your phone, and find tasks to complete in your area. For me, they usually include going to a store (Dollar General is pretty typical for my area) and taking pictures of product displays, scanning product bar codes, checking prices, and conducting short field surveys.
Assignments typically pay between $3-$12, and it’s pretty cool, because you can complete them while you’re already out running errands.
None of these simple ways to make extra money are going to make you rich, but they can be the catalyst to take pressure off when money is tight, or serve as a great way to earn what we call “fun money” – money you can blow on indulgences like expensive nail polish, or pizza.
Totally worth while! (I mean, you SAW that screen shot of my gift card history from Swagbucks, right??)
Learn All The Tricks!
Enter your email for instant access to our Ultimate list of blogging resources!
Justin says
Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn some extra cash. I did this for few website and earned a decent amount. If you are a good writer then also you can earn good money with it.
Lizzie || Wholehearted Life Coach says
I love the idea of swagbucks, I have absolutely never heard of it. Sometimes I wonder what else is going on in cyberspace I am missing out on. I am totally going to pass on the music tester to my husband, he will love it, plus a few extra dollars. nice.
Sharon says
Thank you for sharing these. Will be using for sure