If you suddenly found yourself asking “I need money right now, what can I do?”, I would recommend the following methods.
Sure, there are lots of other ways to earn even more, but most won’t fetch you the cash needed as fast as you need it. If you need money today, building a blog and monetizing it isn’t going to do you any good.
Though with the following methods you may not make a lot of money, they don’t take much time either, and in most cases you can get the cash needed faster than many other methods.
1. Sell your blood or plasma through BioLife
What runs inside of your blood vessel is a convenient source of income, assuming you are healthy. The rate varies across many for-profit blood centers, but in general you can expect about $50 in return for your blood or plasma.
Biolife Plasma is one such place so maybe you want to check if any one of them is in your neighborhood.
As a safety precaution, wait for at least 56 days between consecutive blood donations and 28 days for plasma donations, as recommended by the Red Cross.
2. Use TaskRabbitTaskRabbit is an app that individuals and companies use to hire people for small gigs in their local area.
I have seen gigs offering $100 for a two-hours social media focus group, $20 for someone to take a load of laundry to the laundromat and bringing it back clean and folded… the longer a gig takes the more it pays. Another similar service is OddJobNation.
3. Sell your clothes to Plato’s Closet
Take a look at your closet and take out anything you do not use or need anymore. Put them in a bag and take them down to your local Plato’s Closet.
They pay cash right then and there for any kind of brand name clothes from jeans and T-shorts to scarfs, hats and even shoes. And when I say “brand names”, I don’t mean just the high-end stuff, they buy any recognizable brand, Gap, Lee, OldNavy…
4. Pawn Shop
A lot of people seem to overlook this. Sure, in normal circumstances I wouldn’t set foot in their (at least as a seller), but when you need cash and you need it now, its one of the best chances you have got of getting it fast. You can take anything from tools or old jewelry and anything in between.
5. Rent a room with AirBnBThrough websites like
AirBnB, you can advertise spare room for rent and you probably can cut a deal in minutes if you are reasonable on rates.
If you are willing to explore other websites, you will find loads of other items that can go on leasing arrangement, they include your car, parking spot or even gardening tools. But do check with property management before you confirm on anything so as not to run foul on any rules or restrictions.
6. Do odd jobs
You can also offer yourself on doing stuff shunned by most people like cleaning out gutters, raking leaves, pulling weeds, etc…
Granted, they are no glam jobs but they offer quick and easy cash. The things that people put off because of reluctance in carrying them out can usually command good money. I would say the more gross a job goes, the more you stand to make.
7. Use Fiverr.comFiverr.com is a good website to go to if you think you can settle on a $5 assignment. Providers decide what service to offer, but a little bit of promotion about yourself won’t hurt due to the amount of competitions there.
You can propose to help website owners to create donation buttons, do some elementary accounting stuff or whatever you can imagine. I suggest you check out the site for job ideas.
8. Mow someone’s lawn
If there is a mowing machine laying somewhere in the household, you can bring it out to mow someone’s lawn. Subject to negotiation, most homeowners are happy to pay you $30 – $60.
No doubt, it is not going to be a walk in the park, but the physical exertion is good for your health anyway, while making money. As winter comes, snow shoveling work sounds like a fantastic idea.
9. Use Craigslist to sell your junk
If there are items, both used and unused, idling around the house, sell them when you can’t figure out what to do with them. You can list them on Craigslist or eBay, advertise on your community bulletin board, or stick to good old garage sale.
Some other folks may just have some need of your stuff, like old cell phones, ink cartridges, and whatever. To find potential buyers, Google for keywords “we buy [fill in your stuff here that no longer fancy you].”
10. Sell baked goods
Your bakery skills could bring in good money with right exposure. But be sure that your home based food business does not run foul with local rules and regulations. If there is some regulatory restriction that prevents you from selling at home, do it at a market instead.
You could do a bustling business if you are able to cater to the local taste, not to mention ensuring adequate food safety standard. Depending on your luck and skill, this could be a few hundred dollars business, or maybe even thousands of dollars.
11. Street performance
If you enjoy entertaining people with your magic tricks or some oddball antiques, you can start busking where laws permit it. Try to do it in a area with good crowd traffic. Though this is easy to get attention, you probably have to slog for your money as not many people tip.
12. Sell Blood Marrow or White Blood Cells
This is yet another moneymaking option from the health industry. In most states, hospitals and large-scale medical research institutions have no qualm about paying you for your bone marrow and/or white blood cells provided you are a healthy individual.
Donation of bone marrow or white blood cells can yield easily a few hundred dollars. If you have no clue on how to find interested buyers, Google “sell bone marrow your location” in your internet browser.
13. Sell your sperm if you’re a male
Granted, sperm banks do extensive screening before they agree to pay for your valued donation. But assuming you make the cut — there could be easily $50 – $250 on offer. If you must ask, it should not take more than a few minutes of work.
14. Sell your Eggs if you’re a female
Comparatively, the screening process involved for donated eggs is even lengthier than sperm. But the amount of money on offer more than compensates the comprehensive testing.
Seriously, we are looking at thousands to tens of thousands here. If this is beginning to sound interesting to you, then Google for “paid egg donation” without delay.
15. Walk dogs
If you are animal friendly or better yet enjoy their company, this is the perfect opportunity. You can make anywhere between $8 to $30 per walk, per dog. The easiest way is to get your first few clients is to let your friends, family and neighbors know about your service.
16. Sell your long hairIf you have untreated hair of acceptable length, you can
sell it for thousands of dollars. Of course, only healthy hair is preferred. Just imagine 12 inches of un-treated hair can fetch payment in the region of a few hundred bucks.
The internet is full of websites trying to link up hair sellers with hair buyers: try BuyandSellHair.com and HairWork.com. Before you start on the business side of thing, be sure to check out what is the current going rate for hair.
17. Use RelayRides to Make MoneyNot so long ago, only those full time licensees can be employed by cab operators as taxi drivers. But today we see services like
RelayRides happily employ just about anybody who has a valid driver’s license plus a clean driving record.
Cab drivers have an edge over the 9 to 5 office workers, as you choose the time you want to ferry people around. Two other companies offering similar servcie are Lyft and Sidecar.
18. Freelance
You can make some quick cash by either offering to write content for clients on sites like Freelancer.com, or better yet hit up a few webmaster related forum and put up an ad on their Classified section.
Offer a lower price than what you see there so you can get a few clients quickly. If you can write the content the same day, you can get paid the same day via PayPal.
19. Participate in clinical trials
The medical field offers quick route for cash. In addition to blood donation, you can make yourself available to clinical trials. Usually, large universities and research institutions would entice participants with cash so that they can partake in their research, which range from a sleep study to testing out a new drug.
For your participation, you will get paid in the region of hundreds, or even up to thousands of dollars if you are lucky.
20. Babysit
Babysitting offers guaranteed fix income but it would vary depending on your skills and experience in this area. Generally rates fluctuate from $10 to $20 an hour. Another factor in the rate is the number of children you are in charge of.
Bonus
If you have a little more time and don’t need the money that fast, here are a few ideas to try:
21. Be part of a focus group
Businesses conduct focus groups to solicit inputs on their new products. By sitting on a mock trial jury, the payoff is definitely decent at $50 to $300 an hour. Since the objective is to gather frank and honest opinions, they tend to be pretty diligent on the qualification criteria of individual focus group.
22. Sell to stock photo websites
Established websites such as like Shutterstock and iStockphoto do not mind paying photographer for decent snapshots, they can range from an empty teacup to a wonderful portrait of a kid in the playground. Good thing here is that they don’t expect you to be a genius artist with camera. They gladly take in routine items that are parts of our daily life.
23. Take paid surveys
If you have serious opinions about things, you can render your thoughts through paid survey. Research companies such as Harris Polls and SurveySavvy would gladly pay for your contributions.
This represents one of the easiest ways to make money online as there are plenty of them out there. But this also presents the problem of scamming as well..
Bottom Line
I personally find that the fastest way to make money is to provide some kind of service, be it online or offline, winter or summer.
So, next time you find yourself saying “I need money”, think of a product or service you can sell fast.