How to Turn Fast Cash into Steady Income
#2: Take a Survey, Open a Micro-Investing App, and Invest in Dividend Stocks
Maybe you would rather side hustle at home instead of driving people around. In this case, online surveys through websites like InboxDollars and Swagbucks could be a better fit.
You could sign up for InboxDollars to earn a $5 bonus and take a survey to earn $20 within a short amount of time. From there, you could open an account with a free investing app like Robinhood. If you invested the $25 in dividend stocks and earned a return of 8 percent when accounting for returns and dividends, you would have $36.73 after five years. But if you kept doing surveys each month and were able to invest an additional $25 per month during that timeline, you would wind up with $1,796.71 after five years.
#3: Earn a Checking Bonus and Open a High-Yield Savings Account
Tons of banks let you earn a bonus of a few hundred dollars when you open a new account. The best bank signup bonuses don’t require a lot of work, and keep in mind that you can pursue more than one at a time.
Let’s say you sign up for the Chase Premier Checking bonus, which is worth $300. From there, you could open a high-yield savings account that doesn’t charge any fees. CIT Bank and Discover Savings are good options in this category.
While interest rates are embarrassingly low right now, they won’t be that way forever. And regardless, your checking bonus can grow over time while providing you with some rainy day money that will be there when you need it.
#4: Use Trim to Reduce Your Bills, then Pay Down Your Student Loans
The Trim app claims to work as “an assistant that” saves you money. Once you download Trim, the app promises to analyze your spending to help you find ways to save more money. From there, the company will negotiate your cable bill, internet bill, phone bill, or even medical bills. Trim will also cancel old subscriptions you forgot about and don’t use, leading to more savings.
Imagine you downloaded Trim and were able to save $200 per month across all of your bills. In the meantime, you just starting paying $10,000 in student loans on a ten-year repayment plan with a 5% APR.
Your normal monthly payment on a ten-year repayment plan would be $106.07 if you stayed the course, and you would ultimately pay over $2,700 in interest before your loans were paid off. However, if you funneled an extra $200 in savings from Trim toward your student loans each month, you could pay off your student loans in 35 months (less than 3 years!) and you would only pay $772 in interest over that time.
#5: Use Your Stimulus Check to Buy a Bike, Start Delivering for Postmates
Maybe you haven’t spent your $1,200 stimulus check, or perhaps you have some of it set aside. Either way, you could use your stimulus money to buy a bike, after which you could start delivering food for Postmates.
According to estimates from Indeed.com, the average Postmates food delivery person earns $17.88 per hour, and remember, delivering on a bike won’t require you to pay for gas or upkeep on a car.
If you worked 20 hours per week at this rate, you would earn $357.60 per week or $18,595.20 working only part-time.
#6: Search for Old Money, Buy an Online Course with Your Savings, and Ask Your Boss for a Raise
Have you ever heard of people finding “unclaimed money?” There are state websites that can help you find money that is owed to you, and they seem to help all kinds of people find cash they didn’t even know about.
Using the resources on USA.gov/unclaimed-money, for example, you can search for:
- Unclaimed property in states where you have lived
- Checks for unclaimed funds from bank failures, or unclaimed deposits
- Unclaimed or undelivered tax refunds
- Unclaimed back wages or life insurance funds
- Plenty more
Imagine you found $500 in unclaimed bank accounts or an old tax refund you forgot about. What could you do with that money?
One idea is earning a certification for your job that can help you qualify for higher pay or better benefits. If you work in information technology (IT), for example, you could earn a certification in a specific software program that applies to your job.
Whatever career you’re working in, certificate programs found online can frequently cost as little as a few hundred dollars. Once you finished the training, you could set up a meeting and ask your boss for a raise. If you were successful, you could turn “found money” you didn’t even know about into a lifetime of higher earnings.
#7: Sell Your Stuff and Invest in the New You
Finally, don’t forget to look around at the stuff you already have but don’t really need. This could include fancy clothes you bought during a different period of your life, workout equipment that has been collecting dust for years, computer equipment you no longer need, or anything else you have that is worth your time to sell.
Take a few days to gather everything you have that you’re willing to part with right away. From there, look for ways to market and sell your items for free, whether that includes a website like OfferUp, a local Facebook page for your neighborhood or town, craigslist.org, or any other platform you like to use.
Sell as much stuff as you can as quickly as you can, and see how much money you can earn. Most people can easily scrounge up at least a few hundred bucks worth of unwanted items, but it’s possible you could have a lot more.
Once you have your earnings in hand, invest in yourself in a way that can pay dividends for years to come. Pay for a year of community college, buy a nice suit so you feel comfortable interviewing for a job you’ve always wanted, or buy a computer and start learning online skills that can lead to a virtual career or side hustle. The options are endless, but it all starts with you dropping things you don’t need from your life.
The Bottom Line
Turning fast cash into steady income isn’t overly difficult, but it does require some work. You need to figure out which gigs you want to focus on, as well as the hours and days you want to focus on your new “job.”
If you put in the time and you’re dedicated to making money, you shouldn’t have a problem creating a steady source of income you can count on.
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