Perhaps this year the tax man’s taking away more of your hard-earned cash, or not giving up as much in rebates this year (thanks, Mr. Trudeau!). Or quite simply, perhaps you were unprepared for any given expense, be it a house repair, car repair, or you’re about to dole out for the fancy night out you promised your girlfriend.
Whichever case, maybe you need a little financial boost – and now?
If time is truly of the essence, there are many places to get a short term loan, such as Western Union, and Magical Credit.
People borrow from loan companies for a number of reasons, including wanting to wean themselves off plastic, they’ve already reached their credit card limit, or it’s more comfortable psychologically to get rid of a small debt quick than face a larger cumulated credit card debt.
For a longer-term view, harness your entrepreneurial spirit, to find several sources of side income. Here’s some suggestions:
Home help
Are you an able-bodied individual who has some muscle to spare? There’s good money to be made helping those who are either disinclined, or incapable, of shoveling snow or mowing their yards. There’s also bagging leaves or fruit pickup. Hot tip: Let’s say you contract thirty homes in one area, by offering them competitive mowing rates. Hypothetically, supposing each home takes an hour, and you do five homes a day. It takes you six days to do the whole route. If you charge $30 per hour, you make $900 cash in under a week.
Take a day off, and repeat.
Be a driver on peer-to-peer ride sharing
Sign up for any of the app-based services like Uber, Lyft, FaceDrive, InstaRyde. Make your own hours, take whichever riders you want to. After speaking to a number of Uber drivers, just a few hours a day can make a significant difference to the pocket book.
Leverage your skills
There are several online portals where you can peddle your talents, skills and wares. Guru.com has three million users globally and boasts a million jobs completed. From programmers and developers, to writers, artists, research, translators, admin work, sales – the list goes on.
Upwork.com, Fiverr.com and freelansy.com generally have the same feel to them, they’re all free to join, and no one says you should be exclusive to just one!
Upon joining, it usually starts with “I can [blah blah] for you” and the sky’s the limit to what you can help someone with.
Be a Virtual Assistant
Be indispensable to a company or entrepreneur, from the comfort of your home, on your own time. One site has an exhaustive list of services a VA can offer such as: Data entry, social media management, transcription, answering phones, blog writing (it helps to know your way around WordPress), email management, blog posting, editing.
Start by using your Twitter or Facebook account to post that you are seeking virtual assistant work, and list some of what you can offer.
Sell your stuff on eBay/Kijiji/Craigslist
If you’re thinking a Spring purge/de-cluttering might be in order, take a look around the house to see if there’s stuff you can offload for cash. Now that you have Netflix, maybe that box of DVD movies could be sold? Some of those old Disney VHS tapes could have major hidden value. And if you’re one of the lucky ones to have old collectibles still sitting in the attic, know that things like Star Wars figures, baseball cards, vintage board games and nostalgic toys can be cash cows.
Other ideas: Good quality clothing you don’t want anymore, sports equipment (skis, skates, hockey equipment), bikes, unused/unopened gifts or gift cards.
