Need money? Get money now with fast cash turnaround in an emergency, even if you’re lazy. All suggestions on this list are relatively easy and require little effort.

Updated on September 6, 2020.



Get Money Now

We’ve all been there. Whether it’s saving money for a trip, paying off a past-due student loan, renovating your home, footing the bill for car repairs –or under some form of lockdown from a massive global pandemic.

At one time or another, we all hit a wall. And there’s a million lists out there which offer suggestions for how to get money now –but a majority of them aren’t fast enough. “I need money” means I need it fast.

There will be limitations, like how quickly payments are made or how much effort is required. If you’re looking for relatively easy ways to make money quickly, this list includes solutions that will help you out when you need cash now –as in, within 24 – 48 hours, and others which may take 1-2 weeks to get paid.

All of these quick cash strategies will provide a realistic, doable working solution for people who need cash fast.

You never know when sh*t might hit the fan, so add this article to Pocket and save it for later! I’ll update it when I find new and easy ways to make fast cash now.

I Need Money:

16 Easy Ways to Make Quick Cash

Many of these suggestions are useful beyond those I need money right now situations, and could potentially become a reliable side hustle or a full time job.

I’ve personally used #4, #5, #7, #10, #11 and #12 to fund my full-time travel over the years. My wife is still making a few grand quick cash every month in her spare time with #4.

Keep an open mind and think beyond emergencies. Some of these suggestions are so easy you could make money during dead time like riding the bus, eating lunch, or in between rounds of Fortnite.

How to Get Money from Businesses in Other Countries

Worth note; if you are going to be making money online, you may need a bank account in another country to accept payments.

We use Payoneer for this; Amazon pays me via a Payoneer US bank account, WorldNomads insurance pays me via a Payoneer Australian bank account. All accounts are linked to one card and my home bank in Canada, and currency conversion rates are very competitive.

You can learn more about Payoneer here.

If you try to visit a website on this list and it isn’t loading for you, consider using a VPN with a US or Canadian location.

Many of these fast cash strategies suggestions are only available in the US, Canada, or Europe and you might need a VPN to access them. We audit/review a new VPN company every year, and NordVPN is currently our jam.

1. Fast Loans

A personal loan is the fastest way to get money now, and ZippyLoan can get you all paid out within one business day in many cases –even with a lower credit rating.

Borrow between $100 and $15,000 as soon as tomorrow.

If you think your credit isn’t good enough, applying is the only way to find out for sure. This offer is only available to US citizens (via a US IP address, you may need a VPN).

This is the nuclear option for extreme situations when you really need cash now.

What are the consequences if you don’t try?

ZippyLoan

2. Online Surveys+

Yeah, online surveys. Everybody suggests a bunch of them in these kind of posts, and most online survey sites are crap in my opinion.

Except for Swagbucks. They aren’t just surveys, you can also get paid for browsing the web on your laptop or phone, too.

Some activities that Swagbucks will pay you for;

Playing games

Watching videos

Shopping

Online Search

Taking surveys

Swagbucks is a rewards program that gives you free gift cards that don’t suck, or they give you cash.

They’ve got an 8.3/10 rating on TrustPilot, they give out over 7,000 free gift cards daily, and they’re great if you’ve got some nervous time to burn.

This offer is for those “I need money now for free and fast” situations, and only available for US and Canadian citizens.

Swagbucks

3. Unused Internet (+$5 free, from me)

If you’re not interested in online surveys and want to make free money with no effort –totally passively– then you can sell unused internet bandwidth to data scientists at major corporations and get paid about $50 USD for free, every month, from Honeygain.

Payment depends on how often you leave the app running, how many devices you’ve connected to the internet, and/or how many accounts you create. It works out to about a buck for every 10GB transferred through the app (or more if it’s for a content delivery network).

It ain’t much, but it’s free money, and you can earn it using any data connection. Know your neighbor’s WiFi password? Kidding.

Your data is used to power the backend for companies who purchase bandwidth for quantum computing –SEO companies with heavy keyword research software similar to MOZ, or a content delivery network (CDN). It’s not one of those malicious spyware apps, and there’s nothing shady in their TOS. It’s straight up bandwidth sharing, they don’t log you –you are not the product.

Put your computer to work if you don’t want to. If you use our signup link, Honeygain will start you off with $5 USD for free. Minimum cash out is $20 USD.

Honeygain

4. Small, Repetitive Tasks

Doing small repetitive tasks for other people is a great way to get money now.

My wife makes Pins for businesses that use Pinterest in her spare time and makes a few thousand bucks per month. In her case, she uses a free Canva account to make them and charges $4+ for each design. You can even use the free Adobe Spark app on your phone to design images, so no laptop required.

What can you do quickly and effortlessly when you need cash now? Check out Fiverr to get an idea of all the little tasks people are charging for.

This offer is open to anyone, all around the world. Payouts take 2 weeks before they can be withdrawn.

Fiverr

5. Rent Out Your Apartment for Short Stays

Airbnb hosts make quite a bit of money quickly.

What’s even better is that Airbnb also provides hosts with up to $1M in property protection against damages, as well as $1m in liability insurance.

To get out of a jam or pay down your mortgage faster, you could rent out one bedroom (shared living on Airbnb is very popular, common, and normalised) or hell, crash at a friend’s place and rent out your apartment on weekends. A lot of Airbnb hosts just rent out a room and cohabitate with Airbnb users when they stay there.

To turn it into a side hustle, you could start renting cheap apartments in convenient locations and renting them out on a larger scale. I’ve done the latter, as we tend to rent apartments in every location we visit often. It’s decent money and a great way to pay for travel.

This offer is available to anyone where Airbnb operates, globally.

Airbnb Host

6. Teach English Online

Teaching English online, from home, is a great way to make money when you’re in I need money mode, and it can also make a great work-from-home career. All you need is a webcam and a decent internet connection.

VIPKid pays well, and it’s reliable. If you’ve ever taught English before, I suggest you give it a shot.

If you don’t meet the criteria for VIPKid, consider TakeLessons.com (less stringent) or explore Facebook groups and do a Google search for people overseas interested in having someone teach English via Skype.

This offer is open to most people who speak English as their first language.

VIPKid

7. Work From Home

Before I started making a passive income with blogging, I’d take work-from-home jobs in Canada to make money online in order to cover my living and travel expenses.

Legitimate online jobs are quickly becoming commonplace, with reputable businesses like TTEC, Amazon, Hilton, Dell, Robert Half International, BroadPath Healthcare Solutions, GitHub, VIPKid, and Convergys all hiring location independent job positions on a regular basis, just to name a few.

Working online can sometimes come with risks if you don’t know your employer, or they weren’t vetted first. In my opinion, Upwork is full of deadbeat employers paying rock bottom dollar for your hard work and I recommend staying away from “gig economy” websites like that.

Instead, I trust Flexjobs‘ remote job site to find online work when I need money; they screen out shady employers, offer free coaching to help you get a job, and they’re generally all around good people. You can get an account on Flexjobs for as little as $3.75 per month.

Check out a few of their job listings, they’re automatically updated and always current;

This offer is open to everyone, everywhere.

Make Quick Cash with Flexjobs Hobo with a Laptop readers get an exclusive discount on FlexJobs –use the NOMAD promo code to receive the following discounts: $44.95 for 12 months of FlexJobs (10% off)

$23.95 for 3 months of FlexJobs (20% off)

$9.95 for 1 month of FlexJobs (30% off) Visit FlexJobs

8. Flip Free Stuff From Craigslist for Money

Looking for free stuff on Craigslist.com is easy, and so is turning around and selling it for fast cash.

This one’s pretty self explanatory and could easily generate a few hundos within a matter of days.

Better yet is that it’s not limited to Craigslist –there are websites similar to Craigslist all around the world, making this suggestion open to anyone, anywhere.

Additionally, double check your own closet and see if there’s anything in there you no longer use and can part with. Then browse the closets and storage rooms of your friends and family members while you’re at it.

Craigslist

9. Monetize Your Social Media

If you’re already active on social media and have accrued a large number of followers, monetize them with SubscribeStar.

SubscribeStar is a platform for bloggers, social media influencers, or creators to monetize their blog or social media accounts by providing followers the ability to support them on a recurring basis.

You don’t need to have a website to use SubscribeStar.

All you have to do is sign up, set subscription pricing tiers, and put your SubscribeStar profile link on your social media profiles or blog. From there, your followers can choose to pay a small monthly fee to support you with quick cash that’s readily available.

To encourage donations when you need money desperately you could create exclusive subscriber-only content, ask sponsors to give you free stuff to give away, host Q and A livestreams, or share video “post cards” that highlight what’s interesting about your day-to-day life.

SubscribeStar

10. Affiliate Marketing

Most businesses will have an affiliate program that will allow you to make a commission when someone buys a product or service via a unique link they provide.

You can share affiliate links on social media, a blog, online forums, post comments, and with friends or family.

Amazon is probably the biggest affiliate program the world over, but there are millions of others. In fact, a majority of the suggestions on this page have affiliate links that give us a small kickback at no additional cost to our readers –pretty much any website you visit is going to be making affiliate commissions in this way.

Some of the affiliate programs that make us the most money now;

Amazon (electronics, fashion, travel gear)

Travel Insurance

TargetClick (CBD oils, health and beauty products)

Awin (online services, travel guides)

Shareasale (online courses, debt management, travel gear)

PureVPN (VPN service)

You can do affiliate marketing without a website, but I humbly suggest you build one.

If you’re a beginner, I recommend Wix website builder because it’s incredibly easy to use and they have great support –you can probably whip up a website with Wix in a single weekend.

We also made a guide to learn blogging to help you figure out how we make money with blogging.

We make thousands of dollars passively every month with affiliate marketing, and started making money within a few months after we started. We make money while we sleep, and it’s how we can afford to travel full-time for the better part of a decade to date.

Anyone, anywhere can start affiliate marketing –although it isn’t a “get rich quick” money-making machine when I need money desperately at a moments notice. It takes time to build up, but once it does, you’re all set.

Wix

11. Sell Photos

If you’ve got some really great photos on your phone or digital camera, sell them.

iStock is owned by GettyImages, one of the world’s biggest photo-sharing sites, and they’re always on the look out for high quality, authentic-looking photos. GettyImages can sell your photos for you when you sign up as a contributor.

Selling your photos online is a great way to generate a passive income, although it may take a little while to ramp it up. This option is available to anyone, anywhere.

GettyImages

12. Sell T-Shirts Online (No Inventory)

Another great way to make money online is by selling t-shirts and other merch online, like stickers, wall prints, and so on –without inventory or having to ship anything, using sites like Teepublic or Printful.

The process can be pretty instant; we made a sale on our first day when we gave it a shot. Since then it’s become a regular part of our monthly income.

We wrote a massive guide about selling t-shirts online to help our readers make quick cash, and there’s even a tip in there to help you do it with zero upfront costs.

Read the Free Guide

13. Get Paid for Past Flight Delays & Cancellations

That’s right. If you’ve had a flight delayed, cancelled, a missed connection, or you got the boot because of overbooking, EVEN bad weather –you name it; you must read an article we wrote about flight compensation.

If you’re the kind of person who archives all their old flight confirmation emails instead of deleting them, you could go back up to six full years and still get up to €600.

Free money –for you and anyone you might know who’s experienced a flight delay or cancellation or any other of the million bogus reasons airlines may have given you in the last 6 years.

Take the quiz and find out if you’ve got a case:

Make a Claim

14. Drive or Lend Out Your Car

Uber, Lyft, and Grab are all at the top these make money fast posts, and for good reason. You can choose your own hours and get paid quickly to drive people around your city.

You can also drive kids around with Kango, deliver groceries with Instacart, or loan your vehicle to other people with Fluid Market or Get Around.

Uber

15. Walk

Walking can help you get money now –no car required.

You could walk into a blood donor clinic in the US and get paid for plasma.

You could walk other people’s dogs and get paid with the Rover app.

Or you could do any number of odd jobs with GigWalk. And that’s the one I’ll focus on for this final point on our list.

GigWalk is the “Uber of walking”, an app that dispatches small, simple tasks to users for quick money.

Examples include walking past a store window to check business hours, “mystery shop” to see if you’re greeted when you walk into a store, take a photo of a restaurant menu, or check the stock of a particular item at a local pharmacy.

You can learn more about Gigwalk in the press.

This option is open to any area where Gigwalk is popular –if it isn’t yet, you could always promote it and reap the benefits. The average gig on Gigwalk pays between $3 and $50.

Gigwalk

16. “Jobs Near Me”

For some of you, we may have saved the very best for last.

The gig economy is full of different apps that offer jobs near me –but to apply for a single job often means downloading an app. There are so many apps to find jobs, it’s hard to keep up. Often, applying for multiple jobs means downloading multiple apps just to see what’s available.

AppJobs aggregates the best of the gig economy into one place and sorts them by location for job seekers who need to make money fast, without having to download all those apps.

AppJobs is the shortest answer to “jobs near me”.

AppJobs

Recommended: Where to Find Online Jobs for Stay at Home Moms

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That’s It!

Yes! I could have made this post longer and offered up more ways to make fast cash, but I didn’t want to put any fluff or filler suggestions on this list.

Didn’t find a good solution? Go nuclear and blast away the consequences of going broke with Zippyloan.

When you need to get quick cash, what works for you? Let everyone know your best money-making strategies in the comments.

Looking for a more permanent solution?

If you make money online in US dollars but live or travel in a country where you’re spending pesos, the money you make will go a hell of a lot further.

This is called “geoarbitrage”, and it could free up your time while lowering your stress levels.

Digital nomads earn money online in one currency, and then live in (and spend) in other countries where the local currency has a lower value; for financial freedom, to improve their work/life balance, live in semi-retirement, or pay down those nasty student loans.

Want to become a digital nomad?

Free Digital Nomad Guide

Big love from Palawan –see you in the next post!