If you're hanging around the house a lot these days — and
who isn't? — use your time to make some extra cash.
Moshe Berman and Kari Huus • March 25,
2020 • Advertising
Disclosure
If you’re like most
people in the age of the coronavirus pandemic, you’re spending a lot more time
at home. If that means you need to find alternative ways to bring in money
online, or you simply have too much time on your hands, consider these 12 ways
to earn some cash. Some but not all require a bit of startup funds.
1. Invest in real estate (with as little as $500)
The real estate business
is often touted as a good way to diversify investments and create wealth, but
it has traditionally been out of reach for many smaller investors. Two of our
partners, Fundrise and DiversyFund, have worked out ways to make real estate
investing accessible to everyone.
They each operate a
little differently, but for both of them you only need $500 to get started.
Fundrise charges
a 1% annual fee and an upfront asset acquisition fee of 0%-2%.
From 2014 to 2019, Fundrise investors
had average annualized returns of in the range of 8.76%-12.42%.
DiversyFund is structured a little differently. It also
allows you to start investing with just $500, but charges no fees up front.
Investors get a 7% preferred return. In other words, 100% of returns up to the
first 7% goes to investors before DiversyFund receives a share of the profit.
To learn about each of
these tools in greater detail, check out How to Get In on
Real Estate Investing Even If You Don’t Have Much Money and How to Invest in
Real Estate for as Little as $500.
2. Invest in fine art
You don’t have to be a
high roller to buy fine art anymore. A new company called MasterWorks allows
you to buy in to the global art market with fractional investing — similar to
the way you buy fractional shares in companies through stocks. No, you don’t
get to hang the “Mona Lisa” in your living room. But you can get partial
ownership in blue-chip artwork that has a history of appreciating steadily over
time and provides an alternative to the volatility of the stock market without
buying or selling art yourself.
Remember, past
performance of investments doesn’t predict future performance. And you should
understand fees that apply (PT Money has a good
review of MasterWorks here) to make sure you’re comfortable with
this new and unusual wealth-generating opportunity.
3. Rent out your RV when you’re not using it
If you’re an RV owner,
then there’s a good chance that your home away from home is sitting unused for
a good part of the year. If so, you’re missing out on a great way to make cash
on the side through another peer-to-peer platform called RV Share.
Just as Airbnb connects
people through the web who have space to rent out with people who need a place
to stay, RV Share provides a way to rent out your recreational
vehicle to people who want to hit the road but don’t necessarily want to own an
RV themselves.
Yes, we know that the
pandemic has made travel seem like a bad idea, but by summer, people will
likely want to go on vacation, and our bet is that road trips will make a
comeback as people continue to avoid air travel.
4. Lose weight and gain cash
If you’re stuck at home,
even if you’re doing your day job there, it could be that you finally have an
opportunity to lose that winter weight — and here’s a way you can make some
money doing it.
With the HealthyWage website
and app, you bet on your own weight-loss goal. If you hit your goal, you win
money. If you miss your goal, you lose money.
This might sound crazy,
but recent academic research shows that financial incentives and games are
powerful weight-loss tools. This is because they add fun, accountability and
structure to help you reach your goals.
Play around with
the prize calculator
on HealthyWage to see how much you could make.
5. Get cash back when you shop — plus a free $10 gift card
Earn extra money on Rakuten —
a site that gets you up to 40% cash back on purchases at more than 2,500
stores. Here’s how they make that possible: Retailers pay Rakuten a commission
for sending shoppers to their websites. Then Rakuten shares that commission
with you. So why not get cash back the next time you shop online at Amazon or
Walmart by going through Rakuten first?
Signing up has become
even more lucrative: As a bonus for being a new Rakuten member, you’ll earn $10
when you spend at least $25 within the first 90 days of signing up.
Here’s how to claim your
free $10 gift card:
1. Sign up
on Rakuten.
It only takes a minute.
2. Use
the Rakuten portal
to reach an online retailer, and spend at least $25 on your first purchase
within 90 days.
3. Your
account will be awarded points that you can then use to redeem your $10 gift
card.
6. Get paid to answer surveys
Did you know there are
websites that will pay for your opinion? Taking surveys isn’t going to make you
rich, but if you have some free time to answer some easy questions you could be
making money with very little effort.
We recommend signing up
with a few sites that provide access to surveys. By taking more surveys you’ll
increase your amount of earnings potential.
Here are our top picks:
·
Swagbucks: Get $5 for signing up and completing your first
survey.
·
MyPoints: Earn gift cards for answering surveys and taking
polls. You’ll get a $5 bonus after completing your first five surveys.
7. Earning more interest on your savings
It is common knowledge
that interest rates on savings accounts are very low. In fact, the rate on the
average savings account is hovering around
0.06%. Why not ditch your low-earning savings account and open a
high-interest one instead?
Enter CIT Bank, a better online bank that offers a 0.40% annual
percentage yield (APY) with its Savings Builder Account. It’s a 100% risk-free return and
FDIC-insured. If you follow interest rates, you’ll know how rare of a rate that
is these days.
Read our full CIT Bank review to
learn more.
8. Make money watching videos
InboxDollars will
pay you real cash (not points) to watch content like video clips or the latest
news videos; the types of things you might find on YouTube. You can choose from
topics such as news, celebrities, entertainment, tech, food or health. It’s the
perfect way for someone who loves media to make a little extra money working
without working.
Not only is joining free,
but you’ll also get your first $5 just for signing up.
9. Find out if retailers owe you a refund
It’s easy to find out
whether stores owe you a refund with apps like Paribus.
To get started, sign up for a free account, and then let Paribus scan your
email inbox for purchase receipts. If the system discovers a price drop online
on something you have bought, Paribus will let you know and help get back the
difference in price.
Paribus also
monitors deliveries of internet orders from Amazon and Walmart, and gets you
money back on items that are shipped late.
(Paribus compensates us
when you sign up for Paribus using the links provided.)
10. Invest effortlessly
Sit back and let Acorns, a micro-investing
app, help you save and invest your spare change automatically.
As you go about your day,
Acorns rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the
difference automatically. So, let’s say you spend $10.25 at the supermarket —
the app will take the 75 cents from rounding that purchase price up to $11 and
transfer it to your Acorns account. Then, Acorns will get to work and invest
your 75 cents in savings into a diversified portfolio.
The Acorns app costs $1
per month, but you’ll earn $5 just for signing up.
11. Keep your receipts and earn cash
Ibotta is a free app
that gets you real cash back — not points — on items you already buy, such as
groceries, cosmetics and more.
Here’s how it works:
1. Before
you go shopping, add the items you’ll buy to your shopping list within the
Ibotta app.
2. Shop
for the items on your list at participating stores, and don’t forget to save
the receipt!
3. Take a
photo of your receipt within Ibotta and earn cash.
Download Ibotta and get a $10
bonus after uploading your first receipt.
12. Sell your stuff
Now’s a great time to get
rid of the clutter in your home, as long as you’re spending more time there.
And there are loads of
sites to help you make money on things you no longer want. For instance, you
can sell your used cellphones and other electronic devices through Gazelle. Have
clothes you want to sell? Try a consignment site like Swap.com. Craigslist is a great place to get sell
large items, like furniture, tools, cars, boats — most anything, really, but
you do generally have to exchange cash and goods in person, so consider
precautions to avoid spreading germs.
Note: One
of our favorites to recommend is Decluttr, which will buy your CDs, DVDs and books, as well as
technology like cellphones and game consoles. At the time of publication,
Decluttr had suspended operations due to the coronavirus crisis, but promised
to come back when they can.
Disclosure: The
information you read here is always objective. However, we sometimes receive
compensation when you click links within our stories.
https://www.moneytalksnews.com/11-real-ways-to-make-money-from-home/
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