44 ways to make extra money

Kamal Khurana 5th Mar 2020 254 Comments

Reading Time: 19 minutes

Looking for easy ways to make money on the side? We’ve got lots of ways to make extra money online and offline. Some are easier than others but we’re always finding new ways so keep checking back!

If you’re not already a subscriber, sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest updates and check out our popular money-making articles 10 easy ways to make quick cash, Benefits for over 60s and Online surveys: easy cash for your opinions.

Make extra money from your stuff
Make money just by being you!!
Make extra money online
Make money having fun
Get creative
Earn cash helping others
Make money part time

Make Extra Money from your stuff

1.make extra money from your driveway

If you don’t use your garage or driveway you could rent it out for money – particularly if you are in London or another parking-unfriendly city. Just register with a site like JustPark, put your postcode in and wait for desperate would-be parkers to contact you.

For more details read our full article on making money renting out your driveway or garage.

2. Rent our your spare room

If you’ve got an empty bedroom, why not take in a lodger? You can earn up to £4,250 tax-free income on your spare room, and with a summer of sport including Wimbledon and The Ashes coming up, there’s never been a better time to advertise your room. Check out roomgo to advertise your room for free.

If you don’t like the idea of someone staying in your home long-term, just rent it out for a few days or weeks at a time through Airbnb or HomeAway. It can make you more money in the long-run too.

For more information read our article on renting a room for tax free cash.

3. sell your personalised number plate

Seriously, it’s amazing how much money these are going for now. If you have a number plate with ‘MAGIC’ or ‘LOONY’ or even ‘GR8 GAL’ or similar you could be really surprised how much it would sell for now. In fact the reg F1 went on sale last year for £15,000,000!

There are regular auctions going on where you can sell your number plate or buy others as an investment to sell for profit later. Contact the DVLA for more information or check out our article all about it here. You can also visit DVLA-approved websites like TopReg to sell your personalised number plate. They provide a free valuation from the UK’s industry-leading specialists, which means you will get a good price for your number plate.

4. Sell unwanted DVDs and CDs

Make some extra money selling your old, unwanted DVDs, CDs, games, books and tickets on websites like Ziffit, Amazon.co.uk, eBay and MusicMagpie. In fact, why not de-clutter your whole house and sell everything you no longer need?!

For more information read our full article on making money selling old books, CDs, DVDs and video games.

5. sell your designer clothes

Have you got a few nice bits and pieces in your wardrobe? Or perhaps you’ve got some fun items from your gran or your auntie that could class as ‘vintage’ now.

There’s a HUGE market for vintage clothes – designer or not – and if any of your bits have a bit of a label (Chloe, Hermes, Lauren) then you could really make some cash, probably at a local auction.

But if you’re just good at picking up items that are probably 1980’s or older at jumble sales and car boots, you could make some good money selling them on.

See how you can make money from vintage clothing and accessories here.

6. Make money recycling your gadgets

Recycle your gadgets for cash. It’s quick, FREE and could make you over £200. From mobile phones to cameras, games consoles and more, by recycling your gadgets you can make a mint and help the environment.

If it’s a mobile phone you’d like to recycle use the MoneyMagpie phone recycling tool. Just click on the make of your phone and we’ll show you which recycling company will give you the most for it. Do it now!

See more ways to make money by recycling your gadgets here

7. Make £100 a month with ads on your car

OK, if we’re being honest, not everyone can get this. The companies that put ads on people’s cars for money have very specific ideas of who they want.

However, if you have a decent car, drive a lot and you don’t mind having Vimto or Heineken or something splashed across your bonnet, then this can be a lovely way of making money without effort at all. Full insurance is provided against any damage to the paintwork of your vehicle caused by the advert’s placement, so you don’t even need to worry if something does happen.

See our article here on how to make money with ads on your car for the links to companies that do it and how best to apply.

make money just by being you!

8. be a model – whatever you look like!

You…yes you!…could be a model and make money for standing around! It really is living the dream.

Take a look at our article here on how to become a model, whatever you look like. In fact, if you look really odd you could make good money through the Ugly Models Agency. Seriously. Take a look.

9. Have your true story published

Sell true-life stories to newspapers and magazines can be fairly lucrative, you can earn between £200 and £2,000 depending on the story. Take a Break magazine offers up to £1,000 for sensational stories, so if you’ve got something to say don’t hold back!

Check out our full article on how to sell your story.

10. Take part in clinical trials

Did you know you can make up to £4,000 taking part in clinical trials? Volunteering for clinical trials doesn’t have to involve taking risky drugs. Many trials are perfectly safe – some are simply sleep studies or psychological tests. The exact nature of the trial (along with any possible risk of side effects) will be clearly explained so you can make an informed decision.

If you’re in any doubt about any aspect of the trial, ask. If you’re still not convinced, don’t sign up for anything you’re not happy with – risking your health or your peace of mind for a bit of extra money isn’t worth it. See GPGP.net, Trials4us and GlaxoSmithKlein to find trials in your area, and check out The British Medical Association for more information on clinical trials.

For more information read our full article on making money taking part in clinical trials.

11. get paid for your opinion

Online surveys are a great way to make some extra money or store vouchers. Never pay to join an online survey site and set up a separate email account so your personal one doesn’t get flooded with spam.

Survey sites we recommend include:

For more information take a look at our article on online surveys.

Join inCompass and earn £20 for your first month

Speaking of surveys, this is particularly good!

Join Ipsos MORI inCompass and earn £20 for your first month and £10 every month after.

All you have to do to join is complete a five minute questionnaire and then install the free app.

They are currently only looking for Android users.

If that sounds like you then what are you waiting for?

Sign up here.

12. Review products for money

If you need some emergency cash, there are companies out there that will pay you to review products including all sorts of cosmetics.

To find out about these opportunities, sign up to our freebies and competition newsletter and get freebies delivered to your inbox every week.

13. get into Mystery shopping for freebies and cash

Mystery shopping is a fun way to earn some extra money while shopping, or testing services at local restaurants and pubs. Sounds like a dream job! TNS is looking for new shoppers nationwide to assess a variety of different businesses such as shops and restaurants. Read our essential article about mystery shopping for more useful links and information.

Download our FREE eBook on how to make money and get freebies through mystery shopping here

14. Be a life model

If you’re comfortable with nudity, you could make extra money as a life model. Pay depends on where you are in the country, but you could earn between £8 and £10 an hour. Take a look at our article on how to make money as a life model for details of how to get started.

Make Extra money online

15. make money just for downloading an app

If you like to earn for downloading apps check out Nielsen Online Panel. You won’t get paid for downloading it, but you will be automatically entered into a prize draw to win up to £30,000 – so there’s potential to make a LOT of money doing nothing.

For extra ideas, find out how you can find daily cash jobs.

16. make money shopping

Basically, by joining a cashback site, you’ll get a bit of money back on everything you buy.

All you have to do is sign-up (absolutely free) and shop through the cashback site’s portal. It’s exactly the same as online shopping any other way, but they’ll be able to track where you make your purchase so both they and you can get paid for it.

Two of our favourite cashback sites are TopCashBack and Quidco , both of which are absolutely free to join.

You really are getting money just for shopping as normal – why wouldn’t you sign up?

17. make money being on Twitter

OK, so just joining Twitter won’t make you a millionaire – but it is a fantastic, quick paced forum for picking up little extra jobs to make extra money on the side. Try @extrapeopleltd who tweet ads for lookalikes and extras or go to TwitJobSearch, type in what work you want to do and see how many tweets pop up!

Read our 5 ways to make money using Twitter.

18. make £700 in a free, easy online competition

Have you heard of the Pick My Postcode? It’s an entirely free (and very easy) competition site. They give away at least £700 a day to people who have a winning postcode. All you have to do is sign up for free putting in just your email address and postcode. Then you check back each day to see if your postcode has won. You get 24 hours to claim your cash so you need to look every day. Easy – sign up here!

19. Make extra money blogging

There are occasionally websites seeking bloggers to write daily posts, reviews and adding links. It won’t pay really well but it can be a useful little earner for little effort – particularly if you already enjoy writing your own blog. Check on Gumtree under both the part-time work and the media, design and creative tabs.

For more information read our full article on how to make money blogging.

make money having fun

20. Get paid to party

Become a consultant for The Body Shop. The Body Shop recruits people to sell their products at special beauty parties in people’s homes. If the party goes well, you could earn over £100 in just one evening as well as receive lots of beauty products for free. What’s more, as you get to decide when you want to host these evenings, you can work as little or often as you like.

21. get friends into clubs

Like clubbing? Do you have lots of friends? Make extra money by bringing them into clubs. Go to Velvet PR for free. Tell them where you live and they’ll let you know which clubs need promoting.

To find out more, read our article on becoming a club promoter.

21. Get paid to buy alcohol

Yes really!

If you are 18 or 19 years old and looking for a well-paid part-time job – this is it.

How about getting paid to go to the pub? Plus you get to keep the drink!

All you have to do is have a valid passport or driving licence and right to work in the UK. Head to Serve Legal to find out more.

22. be Festival staff

Festaff supplies casual staff for over a dozen music festivals in the UK including Bestival, Creamfields, Wickerman, Camp Bestival, Isle of Wight Festival, Sonispshere, Rockness and Beachdown. This work is seasonal, they’re always recruiting, so if you fancy going to a festival next year for free, and make some extra money as well, keep an eye on Festaff for recruitment opportunities. Pay is minimum wage – but you do get free entrance to the festival and camp facilities.

If you like the idea of free festival tickets then read our full article.

23. get paid to be a friend!

Yes, this is an actual thing. There are businesses out there that will charge people to have a friend. Ever thought of that?

As you can see in this article, there is quite a thriving business in the States where people pay someone to be their ‘mate’ and go hang out together.

You can do it in this country too – there’s nothing to stop you copying their idea and doing it here. Maybe you could add in extras like organising trips to shows or galleries. You could even have two or more ‘friends’ coming out with you at a time – you make money from all of them and they get the added bonus of meeting other people.

24.be a film extra

Want to be in a movie with your favourite celebrity? Always thought it would be fun to see your face on the big screen? Acting extras are ordinary people that are essential to setting up scenes in films or television shows. You can earn £65 for 9 hours of work, with a £20 bonus… not to mention the bragging rights if you are in the same shot, even momentarily, with lead actors. The Acting Website offers loads of information on how to become an extra, and you can see a directory of extra’s agents on UK Screen.

Take a look at our article on how to become a TV or film extra for more information.

25. Get paid to review music

If you’re a music fan you can turn your passion into extra money, sign up to the unique Slicethepie website for free and become a scout. This basically involves getting paid to listen to the music of unsigned bands from all over the world and review it. Obviously, your reviews have to be competent and fairly well informed, but need only be a few sentences long.

Initially you won’t make much, but as you get a better scout rating (i.e. the more reviews you make, and the more they agree with the majority of reviewers) you can make more and more.

Read more about it in our article on how to make money by listening to music.

26. Be a pedicab driver

Driving a pedicab/bug/rickshaw is a great way to stay in shape, meet loads of people, offer emission free transport to London’s visitors and make yourself some extra money. The Bugbugs Community offers training with an accredited National Cycling Certificate awarded. The cost of training is £50, with a £100 deposit required for the duration of your employment, you keep everything you earn, so the harder you work, the more you make.

To find hundreds of job opportunities, as well as all the best offers and discounts for students, check out Studentbeans.com.

27. make money with video games

Yes, believe it or not, you can actually make money by playing video games!

There are various ways to do it, including being a reviewer (some experienced reviewers make serious money by videoing themselves playing the games and commenting on them) and writing guides to video games.

Of course, the ultimate is to actually design a game yourself that gets made and sold worldwide. We can’t all do that but if you’re a mad-keen gamer you’re in a good position to create a winner!

See how you can make money as a video gamer here.

28. get paid to test food – including chocolate!

It must be the best job in the world…to get paid to eat chocolate all day!

Admittedly food testers have to test all sorts of foods, including dog-food in some cases (!) but it’s not a bad way to earn a crust.

See here how to make money as a food tester.

Get creative

29. Sell your photos

You don’t have to be a pro to sell your photos. Nor do you need to albums full of dramatic shots. If you have a library of decent, ordinary digital snaps just sitting in folders they could be making you extra money. Online agencies like 123RF, Fotolia and Picture Nation may be interested in buying them from you. You’ll get a royalty fee each time one of your pictures sells. You may be surprised at how many websites and businesses will be interested in using your pics – and are willing to pay for the privilege.

Read our full article making money by selling your photos.

30. make and Sell cards

To make a bit of extra money on the side you could start up your own card business. Starting up your own business sounds like a lot of work, but with Phoenix Trading it doesn’t have to be. To start off you simply order an Introductory Pack, which contains an application form which you then fill in and return along with your first order for cards.

Read our full article on making money writing greeting card messages for more ways to make money from cards.

29. make cakes and sweets and sell them

The beautiful thing about earning by baking is that it’s straightforward and flexible. It isn’t something that you necessarily have to do on a regular basis – if you’re a little short of cash one week, it’s easy enough to hunt down your next local car boot sale and get baking. All you’ll really need is to have a good few recipes under your belt and a reasonable idea of what people would buy.

You don’t have to be qualified for this, but there are hundreds of baking/cake decorating courses you can go on which are likely to benefit the quality of your products.

For more info on selling your own cakes and sweets read our article.

31. Create web pages

One of the most popular sites in the US is Squidoo. It is a site where people create a lens (their own webpage) on their favourite topic. The site then makes money from advertisers and links. It then pays 5% of its profits to charity, retains 45% to cover its admin costs, which leaves 50% of the profits for the writer or the charity of their choice. So get started writing about any of your favourite topics, it is free to set up and you can start earning some royalties.

32. Write travel guides

Get paid to write travel guides at SimonSeeks. They are looking for intelligent, well-written and grammatically correct guides of holiday destinations. Register and upload your guide, await approval from the site’s editorial team, and get paid based on its popularity.

33. Write a story

If you’re a budding writer, you could try your hand at writing a short story for Clonepod for a bit of extra money. Clonepod produce science fiction and fantasy podcasts from work its users send in. They’ll pay you $25 through PayPal for a 2,000 word story that they like, and they don’t ask for any rights to the work at all – which is great if you want to try selling the story over and over again. Go to the Clonepod website to find out more.

34. Become a voice-over artist

Do family and friends comment on how you never shut up? Now you can earn extra money and put your voice to good use. Subscribe with Voices.com, upload a sample of your voice and quickly and easily apply for voice-over jobs. (You may find that you get head hunted if you have a distinctive voice!). If you are successful you can earn up to £50 an hour!

Earn extra money helping others

35. Host and teach foreign students

Can you teach English language? If you have time on your hands and a spare room, you could host a foreign student in your own home and earn extra money giving them tuition. To host and teach English in your home visit the InTuition Languages website or give them a call on 020 7739 4411. You could also rent your spare room out to a foreign student and get a bit of culture at the same time as extra money. For more useful information have a look at our article on hosting foreign students.

Read our full article on making money by hosting foreign students.

36. get into childminding

This is a great way for mums to make money while looking after their own kids.

It used to be that you had to charge a set amount for the children and babies you cared for, but now the market has opened up and you can charge whatever parents in your area will pay.

There are checks that your local Council will do and there’s an application process you have to go through, but we explain all that in our article here all about how to make money as a childminder.

Check out our articles for more information childminding.

37. Become a personal tutor

If you’re a graduate, and eligible to work in the UK you could earn extra money as a home tutor for a range of subjects and levels, usually on a one-to-one basis at the clients’ home. See London’s Learning website for details on tutoring in London or agencies like Personal Tutors for more information on nationwide tutoring.

And don’t worry if you don’t have a degree, you can start college any time so you’ll be equipped to tutor in no time.

For more information on who to contact and how much you could earn, have a look at our article on earning money as a tutor.

38. Become a dog walker

If you’d like to combine your love of the outdoors and animals then dog walking can be a great way to earn some extra money too! Earnings range from £6 to £10 per half hour. Register your self as a dog walking company at Petpals. For more information read our article on how to make money from dog walking.

39. Earn money for yourself and for charity

Become a charity fundraiser and do your bit for good causes whilst you earn! Charities are constantly on the lookout for people to stand on the street and persuade passers-by to pay monthly amounts to their cause. You can earn between £8.50 and £11 an hour, on average, and the work is flexible. It involves being outside and meeting people, of course, but you could get a lot of abuse from pedestrians. There are several commercial organisations that run campaigns but they keep a percentage of the money raised. Better to work direct for the charity if you would like to do this. Just a few of the organisations looking for fundraisers directly are Shelter and Concern.

40. Make money referring friends

There are more and more companies offering to pay you to refer your friends. The website Refermehappy has a load of companies that do it, and you can join as either a ‘referrer’ or a ‘friend’ and you both get a referral bonus from the company. Plus, we’ve got loads more companies to look out for in our article on referring friends.

Companies that pay you to refer include:

Quidco – £2.50 cashback every time a friend joins up
Virgin Media – £50 off for you and the person you refer
TopCashBack – Up to £15 cashback for referring a friend
RAC – £25 M&S voucher for recommending a friend
Plusnet – Save money on your monthly bill for recommending a friend
Groupon – £6 every time you refer a friend
Cineworld Unlimited – You’ll both get one month free unlimited membership

Make money in your own time

41. Become a ‘virtual assistant’

If you’ve got secretarial experience, you could work for small businesses – from the comfort of your own home! Experienced virtual assistants charge up to £25 an hour, visit societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk.

For more information read out popular article on making money as a virtual assistant.

42. Get paid to iron

By doing other people’s washing and ironing you can make cash when it suits you, whilst catching up with the EastEnders omnibus! Bring in customers by putting an advert in the local paper, handing out leaflets in your local area or, for more professional advice, check out Mark & Sue’s Ironing Service. If you want to start up your own ironing service business you can buy a starter kit for £175 (which includes your own website, flyers, business cards, and the like). This is quite a comprehensive kit but you could probably do it cheaper yourself – see our article on how to make money by running an ironing service.

43. write letters to magazines

Did you know that a lot of magazines pay money – or give gifts – for ‘readers’ letters’? The thing is, they don’t get many so the field is wide open for you to make some easy money by writing friendly – or funny – letters.

See our article here about writing letters for magazines. Some of them pay £200 for a good letter or photograph!

44. make money asking questions

If you’re friendly and like to work flexible hours, being a market researcher can be a great way to pull in the extra cash.

As you can see in our article here about being a market researcher, there are various ways you can do it.

You can do market research on the phone, knocking on your neighbours’ doors, sopping people in the streets or visiting people in your locality after setting up an appointment with them.

You get paid either an hourly rate or a job rate. It’s good for mums, students or anyone who wants work that will fit around their lives.

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