10 Creative Ways to Earn Extra Money

By: Skye Thomas

10 Creative Ways to Earn Extra Money
Remember to provide a quality item or service to the buyer with a smile on your face and in your heart. Have fun with these!

  • 1) Babysit While Parents Do Christmas Shopping
    Any parent will be more than happy to outsource this work to someone responsible. It's hectic enough to get in and out of the malls and shopping centers without having to drag toddlers along. Contact friends, family, coworkers, and members of your spiritual community to let them know that you're available for holiday babysitting. This can include time that the parents need to get away for office parties, charity events, and volunteering to help the elderly and less fortunate members of their community.

  • 2) Clean leaves from your neighbors gutters
    We are all so busy during the summer months that we completely forget to clean the debris from our gutters when the sun is out and it's dry. Come December when it is cold and yucky outside, many people will probably to get someone else do it for them. All you need a ladder 
  • 3) Bake something amazing and sell it to your friends
    Not everyone loves or have the time for holiday baking. If you have you got an awesome recipe that stands out as everyone's absolute favorite, then, this is your opportunity. Make up some tiny sample sizes, bring to your office or family gatherings and serve up samples. Then while their mouths are watering, sell them your services. 
  • 4) Offer to collect empty soda cans and cash them in
    A friend raised $300 last spring. He went door to door offering to do yard work and most people just handed him bags and bags of pop cans they didn't want to take the time to cash in. He collected most of them over one weekend and then cashed them all in the following weekend. This is a really good one for the younger kids to do.
  • 5) Sell refurbished items on eBay
    Many people make a decent second income all year round by digging around for antiques, fixing them, cleaning them before selling them for a much higher price on eBay. You have to know what to look for, but these folks will pick up an old pair of stereo speakers for $10 or $15 and then sell them on eBay for $200. The customer pays for shipping. You can also do this through garage sales, flea markets, and estate sells too. Most of the time and work goes into hunting for the cool treasures that someone will want to purchase.
  • 6) Sell something at holiday bazaars
    You have to get these kinds of events lined up ahead of time with a bit of preplanning. But plenty of folks make a decent seasonal income by selling cool arts and crafts type items at those holiday bazaars. Often a percentage of the sales goes towards a fundraiser, but you still make enough to make it worth your time and energy to create the art and to hang out at the art shows.

  • 7) Hang up outdoor Holiday lights
    There are many single mums out there who would love to have someone decorate and hang the Christmas lights for them. You could go around offering to hang up people's outdoor holiday lights for a fee and even offer your expertise as to which kind of lights to buy and where to get the best prices.
  • 8) Sell your plasma
    We all know how important it is to donate blood during the holidays, but many people don't know that you can get paid for sitting through a procedure quite similar to the donation process. The difference is that they run your blood through a machine that separates the plasma from the red blood cells and puts the red blood cells back into your body. It take longer and I guess that's why they are willing to pay you for your time. Contact your local Red Cross or other blood donation centers for help finding the plasma centers.
  • 9) Run errands and do odd holiday jobs
    This can be wrapping gifts or delivering packages to the post office. You could start a little side business where all you do is run other people's errands for them. Drop off and pick up the dry cleaning. Take their pet to the vet. Deliver cupcakes to the charity fundraiser. Pick up a handful of gift certificates from national department stores that will later be mailed out. Do their grocery shopping. Pick up new printer cartridge and some desk calendars for them. It's all of those tiny little errands that make for frazzled schedules and crazy timelines. For a fee, you could do it for them.
  • 10) Decorate people's homes or offices
    If you've got a reputation as having a good eye for attractive and festive decorating, you can help others to set up their trees, hang garland, and place some nice poinsettia. You can help make people's homes and their office space a warm inviting environment and also include coming back after the holidays to break it all down into to storage containers as part of the deal.
  • 11) Chauffer Services
    Sign up as a Uber driver. You can send someone's children to and from school. You will be amazed at how much time a person can spend picking up and driving two or three kids to different events and hauling musical instruments and sporting gear from one event to the next. You don't have to hang out and watch them once they get there. Just make sure they arrive on time. Even just having an afternoon at home to cook and clean house while someone else gathers up all of the kids and brings them all home could make a world of difference for someone.

There you have it, 10 creative ideas to earn extra money. Some of these services could easily be turned into a year-round side job. Good luck!

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