7 Effortless Ways to Make Extra Money

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It’s time to give the couch cushions a rest. No matter how many times you take them off to do yet another search for coins, it’s not the most effective way to find extra money.

Here are some ideas for relatively painless ways to make additional cash by doing things you might be doing anyway, or doing things that require virtually no effort and no cash investment.

1. Get paid for shopping

Using cash-back portals earns you cash rebates for something you’re doing anyway: shopping.

With Rakuten, for example, simply provide your email address if you don’t already have an account, and within seconds you’ll be ready to start earning cash back when you shop at thousands of online stores and certain brick-and-mortar stores.

Other cash-back portals include:

2. Answer surveys

You probably won’t get rich doing it, but you can get paid for taking online surveys.

For example, the free rewards program Swagbucks enables you to earn free gift cards by sharing your opinion with brands.

Meanwhile, a similar program, InboxDollars, pays cash. The site explains:

“Most online surveys for money pay from $0.50 to $5.00 and take 3 minutes to 25 minutes to complete. There are some online surveys that pay $10, $20, or even more if you match the demographic profile they are looking for.”

For more options, check out “3 Ways to Get Paid for Your Opinion.”

3. Share your pictures

If you’re one of those people who’s always getting compliments for the pictures you take, why not make a little money doing it?

Smartphone apps like Foap — available for Android and Apple devices — enable you to make money off the photos you take with your phone anyway.

4. Rent out your vehicle

It costs more than $9,000 per year to own and operate a new vehicle, according to AAA. But you can recoup some of your costs by renting out your car to others when you’re not using it.

Platforms like Getaround and Turo enable you to make your car available to others by the day or the hour, while RVshare lets you do the same with your recreational vehicle.

5. Clean up by cleaning out

If you’re going to clean out your closet, spare room, garage or other cluttered area, you might as well make some money off your castoffs. You name an item, and there is likely a place to sell it — from unwanted gift cards (Raise) to old phones (Gazelle).

So, before you throw anything away, check out stories like these to find out if there’s an easy way to sell your unwanted stuff:

6. Look under your virtual cushions

Somewhere in the world, money might be looking for you: Security deposits you didn’t get back, pensions you forgot about, unclaimed tax refunds.

The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators operates a website where you can search for lost loot, but there are others. For details, see “7 Ways to Find Your Unclaimed Money.”

7. Be a Nielsen home

Many past “Nielsen home” TV viewers agreed to track and report what they watched on TV to help compile program ratings. The modern version of the service, Nielsen Digital Voice, involves allowing Nielsen to track the websites you visit.

In return, you get chances to win $10,000. Nielsen Digital Voice explains:

“To reward you for your important contributions, you’ll earn regular entries into our $10,000 Monthly Sweepstakes — where we give away up to $120,000 a year! The longer you stay with us, the more chances you have to win.”

Do you know of other easy avenues to extra cash? Share with us in comments below or on our Facebook page.

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