Making money takes work, but work is too hard.
Luckily, there
are some ways to make money with little to no effort. Thanks to apps, basic
investment tools, and savvy shopping strategies, you can make get extra cash
without doing much.
Though some of
these methods do take some work upfront, they can set you up to earn passive
income for the long term.
Here are 20 ways to make money with minimum effort.
1. Get cash
back on credit cards.
Credit cards
often offer cash back as a reward for making purchases. What this means is, for
every purchase you make, the credit card company will give you a small
percentage of the money back.
The percentage
differs between credit cards and categories. So, for example, one type of
credit card might offer 1.5% cash back on all purchases. Another might offer 1%
back on most purchases, but 5% back on gas and travel purchases. An
app called Birch can help you figure out which credit card is best for
a particular category.
You also often
have to reach a certain threshold of payment to be able to cash in. And cards
will often allow you to redeem your cash back as "points" to purchase
things directly from the credit card company's website instead.
2. Invest
in index funds.
It's generally
a really bad idea to try to play the stock market unless you're a financial
professional.
There's one
exception: index funds. Investing in a small number of stocks is a volatile
business. It's possible to make a lot of money, but you could lose a lot, too.
Investing in
index funds puts a little bit of money in a lot of stocks. Those stocks track
parts of the stock market as a whole. One
index fund known as the S&P 500 has grown by more than 2,000% over the last 40 years, so it's a relatively safe, stable fund to invest in.
However, you
likely don't stand to lose or gain as much money as you would if you invest in
individual stocks.
To invest in
stocks, the easiest way would be to get a brokerage account at a bank like
Charles Schwab.
You can also
use the
free stock trading app Robinhood, which gives you a free share in a stock,
usually worth around $5, if you sign up with a referral code.
3. Refer
people to apps.
If you use an
app often enough, referral credit is as good as cold, hard cash. Uber and Lyft
(ride-sharing), Seamless (food), Proper Cloth, Spier & Mackay, and Everlane
(clothes), and other apps and sites offer you some credit for every person you
refer who uses the app to make a purchase.
4. Become a
referral source for local businesses.
A lot of
small, local businesses — like landscapers, electricians, and home improvement
companies — spread by word-of-mouth. Many of them pay referral fees for people
to help spread a good word about their businesses.
So the next
time you have your plumber over, ask if they offer referral bonuses. And if
they do a good job, take advantage of that when you recommend them to a friend.
5. Write a
book and get royalties.
Okay, so this
one takes a bit of work. But lets say you're an expert on a subject. On Marissa
Mayer and the company Yahoo!, for example (now available in paperback). Once
you actually write the book and put your expertise to paper, then get it
published, you're pretty much done.
From then on,
whenever people buy your book, you get paid in royalties. The precise amount of
royalties are contingent on your contract with the book publisher.
6. Cut out
the middleman with self publishing.
If you self
publish on Amazon or another self-publishing platform, there are standardized
contracts that pay out depending on how many people download the ebook or read
it through Amazon's ebook-lending program. That way, you can cut out the
middlemen of the publishing industry and make a higher percentage of profit
from your own book.
7. Create
an online course and get paid for it.
Let's say
you're an expert in a subject, but don't think that a book is the right way to
communicate the knowledge you want to share.
You can do it
with an online course. You can make and upload one to Udemy, for example, and
set your own price points. Whenever someone buys the course, you'll get paid.
8. Make a
website and get advertisement revenue.
If you're an
expert in a subject, but that subject isn't fit for a book project or an online
course, set up a website!
Use Wordpress,
Weebly, or some other web-creation platform to make a site and make your guide
there. Then sell online ads — which you can do with Google, for example — on
your site so that you get some spare revenue whenever someone reads your work.
If you'd
rather implement a paywall instead of advertising, the startup Verst can help
you do just that.
9. Or make
a YouTube video guide.
Stick with me.
Let's say you're an expert on a subject, but the best way to convey your
information isn't in a book, an online course, or a post on the web. Instead,
consider making a YouTube video.
YouTube is
filled with thousands and thousands of guides on every topic imaginable. If
you're an expert on how to do a factory reset on an iPhone, you can make a
video about that. If you're an illustrator and want to explain the vocabulary
of your trade, you can make a video about that.
As with the
web, YouTube lets you set up ads on your videos. People searching for those
subjects will find your videos, watch them, and then the ad revenue will roll
in indefinitely.
10. Play
video games and stream it.
There's an
enormous audience for people who want to see people play video games on the
internet. And that audience can be monetized. Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, AKA
PewDiePie, has the most-subscribed channel on YouTube and all he does is play
video games and crack jokes.
The best ways
to do it is by setting up an account on the video game livestreaming service
Twitch, where you can set up
donations and join its affiliate system. You can also turn those videos into a
YouTube channel, where people like watching skilled gamers guide audiences
through difficult games.
11. If you
already have a website, use referral links.
Whether your
website is an online guide, a blog, or whatever else, use referral and
affiliate links whenever you discuss a product.
Sites like
Amazon, for example, let you add a bit of code in the URL of a product. If
anyone buys the product through that URL, you get a percentage of the revenue
from that purchase.
12. Get
even more cash back with Rakuten.
Thousands of
online stores, whether it's J.Crew or Amazon, also offer cashback for purchases
you make on their sites. You just need to know where to look.
The website
Rakuten — formerly known as Ebates — catalogs almost all of them.
If you shop
with their browser extension installed, it'll tell you when cashback or coupons
are available. You can also use the extension Wikibuy or Honey, which have
Rakuten integration built-in, and additionally checks in the background if the
item you're shopping for is cheaper on a different website.
TopCashBack is
another good Ebates alternative. It's a bit harder to use but sometimes offers
better rates.
13. Invest
with Stash and get $5.
Stash is
another app that, like Robinhood, lets you invest in different stocks. You get
a $5 bonus just for joining that you can use toward investments.
14. Save
your money in a high-yield savings account.
When you save
your money in a savings account, banks often give you extra money based on
interest.
Sometimes
their interest rates can be low — below inflation rates, even — which means
you're effectively losing money. The interest figure, often referred to as
"APY," can differ based on which country or state you live in and
what each bank offers in your area. On the low end, they're about 0.01%,
assuming you meet the bank's minimum requirements.
But with a
high yield savings account, you can get an APY of about 1%. It isn't much, but
it's significantly higher than what a low-interest account would offer.
Unless you
have a lot of savings, it's hard to be eligible for a high-yield savings
account from a traditional bank. Instead, you'll probably have to park your
money in an online bank, like Ally or Synchrony. Since they don't have
brick-and-mortar stores, they pass the money they save on rent to the
consumers, with things like high-yield savings and by reimbursing users for ATM
fees.
15. Use
Acorns to invest your spare change.
The app Acorns
also offers a similarly safe, relatively stable way to make a little extra
money.
It's an app
that lets you link credit or debit cards to it. When you make a purchase, it
rounds up the price and then invests the difference into stock portfolios.
So for
example, let's say you buy a cup of coffee for $2.69. You can instruct acorns
to charge your credit card $3, and then invest the extra 31 cents into an index
fund, or in another stock portfolio.
Bank of
America has a similar program called Keep the Change, which puts the difference
into a savings account.
16. Invest
in high-dividend stocks.
Among the
funds you invest in, make some high-dividend stocks.
There are two
kinds of dividends: cash dividends and stock dividends.
Cash dividends
are when companies give shareholders cash based on their profits, and stock
dividends are when corporations give shareholders extra stock.
Dividends are
given for different reasons, but they're ways that companies reward shareholders
for holding on to a stock.
The list of
companies that regularly give out dividends sometimes changes, but you can find
some recent ones on finance sites like The Motley Fool.
17. Be in a
commercial.
Any actor will
tell you that getting an acting gig — even a commercial — is tough. But if you
live in a major metropolitan area, though, it isn't as difficult to become an
extra.
If the
contract is good, you can make some serious money. One of my friends was
featured in a Target commercial that was in heavy rotation during the 2012
Summer Olympics. He got $500 every time it aired and used the cash to pay off a
good chunk of his college tuition.
Here's more
info on how to become an extra and what it's like.
18. Airbnb
your unused apartment or room.
If your kids
have flown the coop and you have an extra room in your house, or if you're
traveling for awhile and won't be in your apartment, consider renting it out
for the short term on websites like Airbnb or VRBO.
They basically
allow you to turn your room into a hotel. You can list your room, set rental
dates and prices, and people visiting the area will pay you to live in your
room for a short amount of time.
How much you
can make depends on the rental market in your area. If you have an apartment in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for example, you can stand to make a pretty penny by
renting out your room while you go backpacking in Europe for the summer. But if
you're in Pittsfield, Maine, you might not find as much demand for your house's
extra bedroom.
19. Use
Bing.
With Microsoft
Rewards, Microsoft will give you money just by using Bing instead of Google.
Seriously.
20. Sell
old books on Amazon.
If you have a bunch of old books lying around that you never plan to read again, you can put them in a box and ship them to Amazon to sell for you. Whenever one gets sold, they'll take a cut and then give you the remainder of the profits. The decluttering process is a simple one that get's broken down here.