Having a big boy/girl office job can make bill paying and bar tabs less noticeable, but it can also make life a little bit harder. Adulting is just plain hard. I personally don’t see myself in an office job forever. The paychecks and benefits are nice, however, the cubicle and typical nine-to-five lifestyle just doesn’t feel right to me. If you’ve found something that you truly love and you don’t mind being in an office eight-plus hours a day for it, that’s awesome, I truly commend you. However, if you are like me and would much rather not, there are ways to make money outside of the typical office job while you’re finding your correct path. Here are a couple of ideas to get you going!
1. Sell your clothes or extra crap.
Nowadays there are tons of apps that can sell almost anything on and surprisingly people will buy some of your most unexpected items. Check out apps like Wallapop, Offerup, or even Craigslist where you can literally post pictures of items, throw on a price tag, and receive offers within minutes. These apps make it really easy to sell to people who live close to you.
Clothes are fairly easy to sell also. Go to your local Uptown Cheapskate, Buffalo Exchange, or other local stores that will buy your used clothes for resale. Sometimes they can be pretty picky about what they will and won’t buy, but it’s rare that you will leave without selling them some of your clothes. There are also apps strictly for selling clothes in addition to the ones I mentioned before like Poshmark and ThredUP that have similar platforms to the previously mentioned apps but are strictly for clothes. My sister was consistently getting rid of clothes for a few months after she had my nephew and was making an extra couple hundred dollars a month just by selling her clothes on Poshmark.
It might be hard to let go of some of your items, but as soon as you start seeing the money it just might make things a bit easier for you!
2. Work as an independent contractor.
There are plenty of jobs these days that you can work as your own boss creating your own schedule. Be a freelance writer or an Uber driver and make as much money as you choose to with their flexible scheduling. With ride-sharing companies, it’s very easy for you to create your schedule or just pick up shifts as needed. I worked for Instacart as a personal grocery shopper for over a year, and it was awesome! The flexibility was amazing, and being my own boss felt pretty great because let’s be honest, who likes being micro-managed? No one. I was a great boss who chose when I worked and made a decent amount of money grocery shopping for people who just didn’t have the time or resources to make it to the store themselves. Quite a few opportunities exist in these fields whether it’s ridesharing or a delivery driver for something like Postmates or Favor.
3. Find Craigslist gigs.
Recently, I found the gigs section on craigslist and I noticed that it isn’t just for music or talent “gigs.” If you are talented musically or creatively, you will find a lot of opportunities in this section in need of musicians or writers or web developers. There are also a lot of other random opportunities within this section to make quick money. Sometimes there are universities looking for assistance with paid research studies or people who need favors from someone with a truck. It’s really just a section where people may ask for favors or creative help and if you have the resources or skill you can make some quick money helping people out. I found a very random gig once that I still do for passive income. It’s an app where people make videos and ask questions seeking advice or just people to talk to, and all I do is respond to their videos a few times a day to make $20 a day doing it.
If you take a few minutes a day scoping out the gigs section, I bet you will find something to get a couple extra bucks!
4. Take surveys.
I’m not a huge fan of this recommendation, but I guess you should know about it if you’re looking for fast cash. All you really have to do is Google “paid surveys,” and you will find and endless amount of online survey sites that will pay you to take their surveys. The payout is very small but if you dedicate a couple hours a day to it you might find yourself making some decent cash throughout the month. I used to work as a “Mechanical Turk” on Amazon during classes in college, and it actually made me my drinking money for the week. As an MTurk, you log in to your account and either take surveys or help people with minor technical issues like proofreading or transcribing audio clips. Side note: You can also find a lot of transcribing opportunities with the same types of Google searches. There are large websites like Transcribe Me, where you actually have to submit a resume and be approved to work for them, but they will pay you to transcribe audio clips for doctors or people who just don’t have the time but need the help. If you’re patient, you can make a decent amount of money taking surveys or being an audio transcriber, just know it is not a quick resolution!
5. Sell your services.
Yes, I am talking about your body. What kind of skills do you have that might be useful to other people? If you’ve got a booty and you want to shake it on a stage then do it, if you have huge biceps and can help Alice down the street move all of her furniture to her new place, these are all great ways to make some quick cash. Go to the downtown promenade and serenade everyone with that magical voice of yours. If you’ve got talent, you don’t need to be Justin Bieber to make a couple dollars.
Whether you have a full-time job and are looking to make extra cash or would rather find ways to make quick money without working a typical day job, remember that you have options. There are so many opportunities these days to make money in ways you might not even be aware of!
