How To Make Money Fast: 44 Genius Ways To Earn ASAP

Are you looking for the best ways how to make money ASAP and make your bank account thrive quickly?

So let me tell you that these methods for how to earn cash fast are tried and tested by two Savvy people!

You could make $100 a day or even $500 or more with some of these opportunities- and you don’t even need a degree and don’t need any job experience for many of these!

Let’s talk about the best ways to make money fast online or in person.

Key Takeaways

Here are some of the best side hustles and side hustle apps we’ve used to make money fast:

• Easiest to Start: Swagbucks has a $10 sign-up bonus and plenty of ways to make some quick cash online. 
• Best Website: Survey Junkie lets you earn $20+ quickly by playing games, taking surveys, and shopping.
• Best Cash Back – KashKick rewards you with cash for shopping, playing games, and even taking surveys.
• Best Job Board – FlexJobs is the #1 job board for finding remote work. 

How To Make Money Fast: Genius Ways To Earn ASAP

If you need to make money quickly, check out these ways to earn money immediately!

You can easily make money without a job with some of these ideas and find sites willing to pay you for your time.

1. Swagbucks

If you haven’t tried them before, online surveys are the best way to make money fast in your free without much effort!

Head over to Swagbucks and sign up for your FREE $10 bonus and get paid ASAP from your surveys.

Swagbucks will pay you in gift cards like Amazon, Target, Walmart, and even PayPal. You can get $1 worth of gift cards in exchange for 100 Swagbucks.

Check out my full Swagbucks review!

2. Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie is a paid survey site with an online community of over 3 million members dedicated to making their voices heard.

It’s an easy way to earn some extra cash every day without actually working.

When you complete a survey, you get paid with virtual points. These virtual points are then redeemed through PayPal or gift cards.

When you reach 1,000 virtual points, you can redeem your points for quick cash! Check out more about how you can get paid from my full Survey Junkie review.

3. KashKick

• Money Potential: $10+ per week for active users
• Time Needed: 5+ minutes to play games, take surveys, or scan receipts 

KashKick is another excellent resource for making quick money online through a variety of simple activities.

Whether you prefer playing games, taking surveys, or even just scanning your receipts, KashKick rewards you with real cash for your efforts.

It’s easy to get started – you just need to sign up, and you can immediately begin participating in various money-making opportunities.

The platform is very user-friendly and suited for those looking to earn some extra dollars in their spare time.

Each task is short and straightforward, ensuring that you can fit these money-making activities into even the busiest of schedules.

Check out more about how you can maximize your earnings with KashKick by reading my full KashKick review.

4. FlexJobs

FlexJobs is a great way to make extra cash from home. You can work part-time or full-time and there are tons of available gigs to get started with.

Whether you have an accounting background, legal experience, customer service skills or any other expertise, FlexJobs has something for everyone!

You can read my full in-depth FlexJob review for more information. 

5. InboxDollars

• Money Potential: $5 for signing up and around $100/month when combined with other survey sites, but you need $30 to get paid
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up your profile and 20 minutes per survey

InboxDollars offers to pay you cash for taking surveys, watching TV clips and videos, and playing games.

And instead of handing out points like a lot of other paid online survey sites, InboxDollars does pay money – real money, in the form of Paypal cash.

I got a $5 bonus just for signing up, and I get paid every week for watching videos and answering surveys. 

The first way you can make cash is by taking surveys. Literally, you just offer your opinion and get paid.

Check out our full InboxDollars review!

6. Find A Paying Gig

• Money Potential: Entirely dependent on the gigs that you post or respond to
• Time Needed: 15 minutes to search for gigs and however long it takes to complete them

People always need help, whether it’s landscaping, house painting, or simple maintenance repairs.

You can quickly pick up a job under the table and earn money fast! This is perfect for teens  to who want easy jobs to make money.

You can sell your services via Craigslist under its “Gigs” section. You can set your own rates there and if someone is interested, then you’ll get paid.

Of course, a quicker way to make money online is by finding a gig that someone else has posted and responding to it. 

7. Rakuten

• Money Potential: $10 immediately and then percentages off your shopping totals
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up your profile and then however long it takes you to shop

Rakuten is a cash back site that allows you to earn money back on any purchases that you make online, with no extra effort from you.

When you sign up, you are offered either a $10 Rakuten cash bonus or a $10 Walmart gift card.

If you like free gift cards, read our guide on how to earn them.

Check out our full Rakuten review here!

8. Give Blood

• Money Potential: $25 to $50 per donation, depending on the location
• Time Needed: Each donation will take around an hour and a half

You can make money fast by giving blood- you can get paid in just a few hours!

While the American Red Cross won’t be compensating you for your blood, there are blood plasma centers that do. 

Because this process is a little more time-intensive and specialized, you can expect to rack in the dough if you do this on the regular.

Most blood plasma centers only allow you to donate twice over the span of 7 days. 

9. Ibotta

• Money Potential: $10 bonus and whatever you earn above the $20 payout threshold
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up your account and however long it takes you to shop

Ibotta is a FREE app that rewards you for shopping for brands you already purchase.

Signing up for Ibotta is super simple:

1. Open the Ibotta app.
2. Select the products you plan on purchasing from the store.
3. Buy the products at the participating store.
4. Make sure you keep your printed store receipt and upload it to the app.

Ibotta will take care of the rest! It will match what you have purchased to the receipt you have uploaded and boom! In less than 48 hours, you will have the money in your account.

10. Pinecone Research

• Money Potential: Around $100/month when combined with other survey sites
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up your profile and 20 minutes per survey

With Pinecone Research, you can evaluate products before they hit the shelves!

I was able to take surveys of a few products before they hit the shelves because I  do all our family shopping.

After you have acquired enough points, you can redeem them for prizes or cash (PayPal or check).  The first 300 points you earn will automatically be redeemed as a check and sent to your home address.

11. Decluttr

• Money Potential: $25+, depending on how much your used technology is worth
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up your profile and 15 minutes to sell an item

Need to figure out how to get money fast for your tech stuff? Look no further.

Decluttr is a simple and quick way to sell cell phones, tech, CDs, DVDs, and games and get paid for any of your unwanted stuff. Plus, you can even sell used books!

When you go to the site, you can get a valuation, ship for FREE, and get paid! 

Why Decluttr?

12. MyPoints 

• Money Potential: Around $100/month when combined with other survey sites
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up your profile and 20 minutes per survey

Since 1996, MyPoints has separated itself from the other survey companies by simply being in business for so long. 

It has paid out over 236 million dollars in gift cards and PayPal cash since then! 

With over 10 million members and counting, you know you are in great hands taking paid cash surveys with MyPoints. 

The best part is you can use your reward points for free gift cards at places like Amazon, iTunes, Starbucks, and so much more!

13. Sell Unused Gift Cards

You can totally sell gift cards and make a few extra dollars out of ones you don’t need!

Here are a few sites where you can sell unused gift cards:

• Cardpool
• CardCash
• ClipKard
• CardKangaroo

Just note that you probably won’t get them at full value- most unused gift cards that are sold online will have a cost to sell.

Money Potential: Whatever unused gift cards are worth minus a processing fee

Time Needed: 15 minutes to set up an account and get selling

14. Nielsen Panel

• Money Potential: Up to $50/year if you register more than one device plus any sweepstakes
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up an account

When you download the Nielsen Computer and Mobile Panel, you’ll earn rewards just by using your devices as per usual.

You’ll also be automatically entered into the company’s high-prize sweepstakes.

The company gives away over $10,000 each month and is in the market research industry, so it sees value in what you browse and purchase. 

15. Unclaimed Money

• Money Potential: $0 and upward, depending on if you actually have money waiting or not
• Time Needed: 10+ minutes to check the websites of all the states you’ve resided in and longer to redeem it

Does the government owe you a few dollars?

There might be unclaimed funds or property waiting for you from savings or checking accounts, wages and pensions, tax refunds, life insurance policies, and a lot more.

Actually, I personally did this last year and we received a check for over $200! 

Check out the official US Government website to find out the ways to claim it. 

16. Trim

• Money Potential: $10 and more, depending on how much the software says you can save
• Time Needed: 15 minutes to set up the account and start saving

Trim isn’t just an app- it’s basically an AI virtual assistant that will look at all of your financial transaction commitments and see if there is a way that you can save money.

It was founded in 2015 by Daniel Petkevich and Thomas Smyth – and they say that they started with the idea of tackling spending problems.

As their company started to grow, it then began tackling other problems, such as getting out of debt, saving money (for retirement), and so on.

These guys have helped Americans save over $20 million so far through using their service!

17. Amazon Mechanical Turk

• Money Potential: $1 – $6 per hour is the most typical, depending on what tasks you take on- high-paying tasks can be almost $12 per hour
• Time Needed: As much or as little as you want, you decide how much you work

Do you have free time to help businesses perform small tasks? That could be an easy way for you to earn extra cash!

Signing up with Amazon Mechanical Turk is an easy way to make money online right now without taking a lot of time.

Tasks can include transcription, identifying things in photos, researching data, typing data, or duplicating data for reports- but the tasks change every day.

18. Deliver Groceries

• Money Potential: Up to $27 per hour
• Time Needed: A few hours a day

Who knew delivering groceries could be so lucrative? As an Uber Eats or DoorDash courier, you’ll deliver things like groceries, fast food, takeout food, and in some states alcohol. 

The great part about deliveries is there is absolutely no start-up fee. This means you can download the app, apply, and start making money delivering. 

Your schedule is completely up to you meaning you can make as little or as much as you would like.

19. Online Surveys

• Money Potential: Around $50+/month
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up an account at each site and 20 minutes per survey

There are plenty of legitimate, paid survey sites that you can make money from each month.

While you won’t be able to replace your income, if you focus on the best survey sites that pay you cash, you can easily make extra cash every month.

If you’re happy to make a little extra income for very little effort, check out the best sites for online surveys:

• Swagbucks
• MyPoints Surveys
• InboxDollars
• Pinecone Research
• American Consumer Opinion
• Survey Junkie

20. Garage Sale

• Money Potential: $0 to $100 and up
• Time Needed: 2 hours to prepare and then the day of the sale

Garage sales can be a great way to get rid of stuff and make money from it.

Each random thing you don’t want anymore could make $5 fast in a sale!

The steps to a successful garage sale are as follows: 

1. Declutter room by room
2. Price and label stuff to go
3. Make signs and advertise
4. Get change for customers
5. Set up and make sales!
6. Clean up and donate leftovers

Now that you’ve freed up some garage space from your sale, why not make money on that room? Rent out your empty space on Neighbor to earn passive income!

21. Sell Stuff Online

• Money Potential: $10+ depending on purchases and how much you sell
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to list the job and 10 minutes to coordinate a sale

Have you tried to sell used furniture online before? You can declutter your space and get rid of old furniture by selling them on Facebook Marketplace!

You can make money on Facebook in a few ways, but here are a few reasons why you want to sell your items on Facebook Marketplace.

• It’s super convenient for your friends and family to see your items and inquire.
• There are no selling fees at all.
• Instantly selling something is addictive.

If you want to sell, there are two ways to go about it:

1. Selling on your personal timeline
2. Selling in groups

22. Sell Jewelry

• Money Potential: $?? depending on what pieces you sell, some make $100 and others make more
• Time Needed: 10-15 minutes to give them descriptions of your pieces- after that you just wait for a quote, and either accept or decline it

Do you have some nice jewelry or watches that you just don’t wear anymore?

Check out Worthy and sell that old jewelry!

You can send them descriptions of your pieces, get a quote for how much you can earn at auction, and send them the jewelry in no time flat!

8 Ways To Make Money Fast Online & In Person

23. Proofreading

• Money Potential: $400+ per month
• Time Needed: 30+ minutes on a job board site to find a gig (or solicit people in your network)

Proofreading is one of the final steps in the process of content creation and a great side hustle to start this year if you want to work from home.

You will be looking for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Perfect for anyone who has an eagle eye for mistakes in writing!

There are plenty of online proofreading job opportunities, and they actually pay really well! 

If you are serious about learning how to become a proofreader, you should totally consider taking the General Proofreading: Theory and Practice course by Proofread Anywhere. 

It will give you all the education, experience, skills, and tools you need to start a proofreading business. And you’ll even learn how to get clients! 

24. Freelance Writing

• Money Potential: $0.05 to $0.10 per word when starting out
• Time Needed: 30+ minutes on a job board site to find a gig (or solicit people in your network)

Ever wonder how big companies like Business Insider, Yahoo! Finance, MSN, and others keep up with their articles?

They have writing contributors! Anyone with an internet connection and typing skills can become a writer. 

The best part is that you don’t need any prior writing experience to get started and don’t need a lot of money to get your business up and running.

Interested in getting paid to type? Click here to find out how to get paid as a writer!

25. Start A Marketing Agency

• Money Potential: $35+ per hour
• Time Needed:1+ hour to get training, hours to find clients, and then hours to manage the ads and refine your craft

A marketing agency helps local businesses—like dog groomers, chiropractors, and auto shops—get more customers online with the right digital tools and marketing tactics.

From setting up Google profiles to managing reviews and following up with leads, it’s all work you can do from home. 

You don’t need any experience to start one, just a laptop and the right training- you can check out how to get started with Launch Your Agency today!

26. Pinterest Virtual Assistant

• Money Potential: $15 to $35 per hour when starting out
• Time Needed: 30+ minutes for job searching

Are you addicted to Pinterest? Have you ever thought about getting paid to be on Pinterest?

Yes, it’s true you can earn money online by becoming a Pinterest Virtual Assistant.

Our friends Gina and Kristin teach an incredible course that walks you through everything you need to know about how to make money online by becoming a Pinterest VA.

They have had many students start making so much money online that they were able to quit their jobs and work full-time from home. You can learn more about the course here.

27. Facebook Ads Manager

• Money Potential: $1,000+/month
• Time Needed: 1 hour to find a client and then hours to manage the ads and refine your craft

Did you know there is a HUGE demand for small business owners needing help running Facebook ads? This is a big industry that isn’t slowing down.

I did Facebook Ads when I first started working at home, and it’s simple to learn and very profitable for a side hustle. 

Our friend Bobby Hoyt over at Millennial Money Man created a Facebook Side Hustle course to show you exactly how you can start making $1K–$2K per month in your spare time.

28. Shopify Store

• Money Potential: $100+/month
• Time Needed: 2 hours to create your printables and more time to set up your shop

Online businesses are booming with people who have a unique creative flair and can satisfy a client’s wants and desires.

No matter the platform, you can build a company and make good money, but Shopify is the easiest and much more feasible that starting your own website. 

You can sell digital printables, shirts, tools, toys, makeup, etc. the options are endless. 

Our favorite way to make money with Shopify is by creating and selling digital printables. 

There is almost no overhead, and once you create the product, you can sell it for years and keep almost all of the profit vs. physical products. 

29. Flipping Business

• Money Potential: $100+ depending on how much you flip each month. You can join their challenges for motivation. 
• Time Needed: 1 hour for shopping, 1 hour for remodeling, and 1 hour for selling

It’s so easy to find valuable thrift store and flea market items for a fraction of the cost and sell them to make more money than you spent.

Consider the idea of taking those unique finds and reselling them on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Amazon for a profit!

You can learn all about the process, from finding the best deals, determining product value, and reselling and shipping information with this super informative course from Flea Market Flipper. 

30. Freelancing

• Money Potential: $100+ per project, depending on what you do
• Time Needed: 30 or more minutes on a job board site to find a gig

Freelancing is another great side hustle to get more money in your bank account and make use of your internet connection. 

We’ve already mentioned some freelance jobs above. Here are a few more you can try out: 

• Data entry
• Copyediting
• Tech support
• Customer service
• Project management

You can be a freelancer in just about anything and make money online doing what you love!

31. Walking Dogs & Pet Sitting

• Money Potential: $500+ for consistently walking dogs
• Time Needed: 5 minutes to set up a profile, 15 minutes to find per owners hiring, and then walking time

Do you enjoy dogs? Like, a lot? If so, you should get paid to walk man’s best friend and get some sunshine in the process. 

The app Rover allows pet owners to connect with dog walkers and pet sitters. 

It’s simple to get started and it doesn’t require any fees upfront to start a pet sitting or dog walking business. 

32. Ridesharing

• Money Potential: $25 to $35 per hour
• Time Needed: 15 minutes to set up an account and then driving time

While the kids are at school, there’s no reason not to drive for Uber. 

You get to choose your hours and it’s completely flexible. If you can drive, this may be the perfect solution for how to make extra money fast. Most passengers are considerate, and you can even have a nice conversation. 

Who knows, you might meet a famous person or local celebrity in the back seat!

33. Rent Your House

• Money Potential: 50% of hosts make $500+/month, depending on how much time you rent out properties
• Time Needed: 25 minutes to set up a property on their platform

Chances are, you’ve heard of Airbnb before – it is very much a household name now, and a very popular company indeed.

It was founded back in 2007 by roommates who couldn’t afford their rent, so they came up with an idea of putting an air mattress in their living room and turning it into a bed and breakfast (hence the name).

If you wish to host on Airbnb, you can list pretty much any type of property and earn some extra money for your trouble.

34. Join Direct Sales

• Money Potential: $100 to $250 plus per week, depending on how much you sell
• Time Needed: 3 hours to get organized with your products and then a few hours per week to start

I had two side hustles through college, one of which was as a direct sales representative for Avon. 

I was an Avon Rep. for nine years, and through this hustle, I was not only able to get beauty products for free but supply myself with extra money every week.

You can join lots of different direct sales companies (MLMs), but I suggest picking something you’re passionate about to sell.

Just be very aware that only a small portion of very hard-working individuals make money with MLMs. 

35. Cleaning Service

• Money Potential: $75 per house
• Time Needed: 2 hours to get clients and then cleaning time

While the kids are at school, there’s no excuse to not utilize that time by making money. 

If you can clean one house in an hour, that’s around 6 houses you can clean in that time. At $75 per house, that’s $450 a day. 

Start marketing this to your friends and see who wants a cleaner house. This is a great weekend job idea as well. 

36. Moving Business

• Money Potential: $25 per hour per mover
• Time Needed: 3–6 hours per house or apartment, depending on how many people are on your team

If you don’t mind a little physical labor, then a moving business might be for you. 

This entails lifting heavy furniture onto a moving truck and then moving the furniture into a new location. But you could be making money easily from simple labor! 

You’ll probably need some help with this, so feel free to enlist the whole family. If you can offer storage as a service, then you might be able to upsell your customers. 

8 Ways To Make Passive Income

Passive income has been a blessing to Brittany and me and we’re grateful that our readers are kind enough to purchase through our links.

If you want to earn passive income, then I’d recommend trying these things!

37. Blogging

• Money Potential: $0 to $1,000+/month
• Time Needed: At least one hour per day

This is one of my favorite things to talk about because it has literally changed my entire life. We started this side hustle to make extra money, but it became so much more than that!

Recently, I quit my 9-5 job to run our blog full-time. Within a short time period, he was able to grow our blog into a full-time income.

For me, it is such an incredible dream come true to work for himself from the comfort of our home! I get to set my own hours, earn my own income, and not have to answer to “the man.”

We quickly learned that making money from blogging was real and that affiliate marketing wasn’t as difficult as we thought!

If you’re interested in starting your own blog and earning money from affiliate marketing, head over to our Savvy step-by-step tutorial to learn how.

38. Lending Club

• Money Potential: 8 to 10% net annualized return (this is dependent on a lot of factors)
• Time Needed: There is a rigorous vetting process to begin and then you have to put the time in to manage the investments.

Lending Club is a peer investing platform, which means that people seek out loans, and others provide the money to satisfy that loan.

Many people prefer this for quick cash rather than a credit card cash advance.

You can invest in:

• Individual loans
• Small business loans
• Refinancing auto loans
• Medical loans

You’ll help people get money for the things they need and make money from the interest on the loan.

39. Affiliate Marketing

• Money Potential: $0 to $100+/month
• Time Needed: At least 1 hour per day to market your affiliate links when starting out

Making money online is simple once you learn about affiliate marketing. This is actually how our blog makes most of its money.

We partner with companies we absolutely love and think our readers would find value from. We mention the company like we did above (e.g., Rakuten/Ibotta), and we get paid a small commission every time someone signs up. 

When we first started our blog, we had no idea what affiliate marketing was. After we took the course Legendary Marketer, we started to earn hundreds of dollars per month online.

40. Selling Online Courses

• Money Potential: $100+/month, depending on your course’s price and the number of people who enroll
• Time Needed: At least 10 hours to produce a course and then more to market it

This is something we’ve tackled and I’ll be honest – it’s an incredible way to generate passive income!

An online course is a fantastic way to educate others on a particular topic and make money flexing your knowledge.

It helps if you have a blog to sell it on, but you can start selling an online course strictly through partnering with other people who have loyal followings. 

41. Empower (Formerly Personal Capital)

• Money Potential: This is reflective of the investments that you have in your portfolio and the interest rates they have.
• Time Needed: It can take an hour or two weekly to manage your investments, but it’s faster than checking every investment or bank account one at a time.

Empower is one of the best money management apps available.

It allows you to track your bank accounts, investment accounts, mortgage, student loans, etc. The visuals are great for people who don’t like staring at spreadsheets!

The main appeal of Empower is that it provides you with a holistic view of your financial situation and a way to calculate your net worth. You can also invest in and with the platform. 

Invest To Make Money Passively

Now, some sites recommend swapping banks to earn bank account bonuses- and yeah, you could earn a few hundred doing that.

But why not take funds from your savings account and use that money to make more money? That’s the beauty of investing!

Let’s talk about my top 3 platforms for you to earn money passively from investing your cash today:

42. Robinhood

• Money Potential: 5 to 30%+ on your principal investment
• Time Needed: A few hours to pick out your original investments and then many months to monitor them for performance

Many new investors start with Robinhood to make money, and now I can see why.

A few years ago, we decided to give Robinhood a try on top of our regular investment portfolio – nothing like good diversification. 

I started with $1,000 to see where we could take it in a year. The three companies I invested in were Amazon, Facebook, and Pandora.

We’re happy to report that we were up over 30% in one year and have made over $300 in profit on my $1,000 investment.

You can sign up today and earn a free stock worth up to $200 using our exclusive link. Check out my full review of Robinhood while you’re at it. 

43. Fundrise

• Money Potential: Real estate has had an average return of 11.42% since 1970
• Time Needed: Several hours to find properties and then more to rent them out

Have you ever wondered if real estate investing is a good idea for you? Is flipping houses, running rental properties, or buying commercial properties something you have ever been interested in?

I know for us, real estate investing is something we’ve always been very interested in. And now we’ve found great success using Fundrise. 

Real estate payouts aren’t necessarily quick money with every investment, but you’re easily growing your money. Within 3-5 years, you could have doubled your investment!

44. Betterment

• Money Potential: Average dividends are around 2%
• Time Needed: 1 hour to set up your account and then longer to manage your investments

Betterment is an online investment platform and is best known for being the leading Robo-advisor site.

If you’ve ever wanted a robot to do jobs, you can see why it would be appealing to have one do your investing for you.

It invests your money depending on your risk tolerance and investment strategies, trying to make money in ways that fit your ideas.

The reason that it asks this is so that it can assess your risk and determine how long you will want to be investing for that specific goal.

Check out my full review of Betterment!

Final Thoughts

There are many ways to make money fast and they are so feasible- the only limits are your time and dedication. The way you make money is up to what you find yourself capable of.

But using your free time to earn extra cash is worth it when you need to make $20 fast and want to bulk up your bank account.

Learning how to make fast money is the first step to feeling liberated, and you could easily do it whether with a blog, pet sitting, freelancing, a YouTube channel or whatever else.

You might try one idea on our list above or you might try 10. Or, maybe you’re daring enough to try ALL of them.

In this article, we discussed: 

• How to make a lot of money fast today
• Ways to make money online quickly
• Legitimate side hustles to make money this week or weekend
• Ways to make money while you sleep
• The best apps to make money fast
• Ways to get FREE money  when you need money desperately

So, what are you waiting for? Now that you know how to make fast cash, share with us in the comments below how you’re doing it!