Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Ask HN: How have you made "quick" money before?
125 points by throwaway_broke on Nov 21, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 101 comments
I find myself in a unique (not so unique?) situation today: While I am very competent in two valuable areas (web and mobile development), I find myself in a short term and temporary shortage of money, due to the usual hiccups that can happen while providing for a family. While my career is solid, I find myself in deep need for a way to make $1-2k over the next month to pay some bills.

I am pursuing doing some client work on the side, as that's the easiest way to make that kind of money, but projects take time to get started/completed/invoiced/paid. So my question to the very inventive audience on HN is this:

  How have you made 'quick' money, through non-traditional means?
What I mean is, barring the typical routes like client work, day job, etc, what are some ways you have made a little extra money, in a relatively short time frame. Perfectly fine if it's not glamorous, or even nothing to be proud of, just something that paid rent for you one month. Thanks ahead of time for all the great ideas I know you all probably have. Any help is more than appreciated.



If it's really a short-term, temporary shortage (i.e. cash flow crunch), have you considered loans? This is sorta what credit cards, payday loans, and HELOCs are for. I'm guessing that HN is very opposed to debt of any sort, but the interest on even a payday loan is likely to be less than the depreciation hit you take from selling anything you'll need to replace later.

You could be in for major problems if it becomes a habit, though. Take on debt only if it is a one-time, nonrecurring expense that you can pay back in a short time, not if it's a problem of income not meeting expenditures. And work on building up an emergency fund so you can be your own banker next time.

(FWIW: I served as "banker" when my sister moved out and got her own place, because she'd never worked before and didn't have money for 1st months rent + security deposit. She paid me back with interest 3 months later, although the "interest" was only that she paid for my half of our dad's father's day gift and bought me some sheet music.)


If you have a solid job, you should be able to get a line of credit with your bank. It's typically less than half interest of credit cards.

I was in much the same situation as the OP some time ago, when credit card companies wouldn't touch me because I was new to the country and had no credit rating. I called my bank and got a £1000 line of credit in 10 minutes, presumably on the back of them seeing a fairly substantial salary hit the account every month.


This can actually be a little bit tricky in the US, since unsecured lines of credit are sort of a disappearing product at many banks. (They're strictly inferior to the bank as opposed to having you do a CC cash advance and their risk profile is off the charts because anybody whose need is "I can't get a credit card but..." when American banks hand them out like candy on Halloween is not generally a great credit risk.)

You can find them (particularly at credit unions) but they're not, to my understanding, as common in the US as in commonwealth countries.


I have $42,000 in credit with a major bank on credit cards, and just received an $8.5k 0% balance transfer from another (they just put the money in my account). I've earned basically nothing in the last 6 years (been a student). Unsecured credit is out there, it's just about establishing a credit history, which I've been doing since I was 18.


$42,000 credit limit or outstanding debt?


Credit limit, thankfully


Sounds like he means credit limit


The flip side of this is that credit cards are handed out like candy to basically anyone with a decent credit history (and several people without). I would go the CC route; if it's just for a month until the paycheck hits you might even make it under the grace period, and even if you don't, if you pay in full over the next month or two the interest is negligible.


He'll likely find both no grace period and a fee for cash advances but, either way, it will probably cost less than $250 to borrow $2k for 6 weeks. (I am broadly supportive of your advice to smooth out temporary cash flow issues with financial services. That is what banks are for. Obviously, one does not want to make a habit of this, as cash advances are very expensive ways to access one's credit.)


A lot of bills can be paid by card, which solves the cash advance problem. (either these $1-2k in expenses, or the bills he'd otherwise pay).


In America, I would strongly discourage payday loans. A credit card from a credit union will be much less abusive.


This is very good advice. It's surprising how many people are adverse to short term loans in otherwise financially stable situations.

Many people fall into the two extremes: they either borrow too much, or they are so afraid of debt that they never borrow at all. People on HN are a bit more paranoid and tend to be the latter.


Also, while most people have learned to hate overdrafts because of fees, they're another form of credit. But you might have trouble getting more than a few hundred to go through.


Loans don't really meet the criteria of "making" money, but just in case the posted is really more cash-flow oriented:

A vendor recently told me he had taken out a short term bank loan based on my company's purchase order.

If you think about it, this is one of the more solid conceivable bases for a loan. I suspect many of those who may not normally rely on bank credit could still pull such a thing off.


I made a fanzine (Xerox copy produced magazine) covering bands that were due to play in my town.

I'd print the whole thing except for the cover, and I'd then print the cover on the day of a gig with the headline band on the front.

I could produce these fanzines at 30p, and sell them for up to £2 (exact price depends on the people in the queue I was selling to). I could also sell over a hundred at each gig. Which means £170 profit per night.

Gigs only happened 3 or 4 days a week, so I could only bag around £600 per week from this.

That said, it was quick and non-traditional. Requiring only A4 paper, a pen, and snippets from other music magazines (photos).

I did this when I was homeless and had no skills.

Now you have skills in web and mobile development, skills worth way more to people than me selling fanzines at a gig.

If you want to make some money, get the yellow pages and pick up the phone. Go find a local business park and knock on some doors. Walk in and tell them what you can do, what you offer, and explain your situation. Offer to fix their networking, their printer, their website, to add a feature.

MOST SMALL BUSINESSES HAVE NO TECH PERSON.

They pay over the odds and always have nagging little problems that they will pay to fix.

More, once you've done your role as an odd-job techie, you'll be on their books as someone who can fix something. Allowing you to tap into a little future stream of money too.

But ultimately, how badly do you want the money? Because this money is there, if you want it bad enough. But it does take some leg work to find those small companies who don't know how to find you (this is why they pay a premium).


I did something similar with a local music zine (a long time ago in a galaxy far away) and made a bit of cash, but nowhere near as much as you.

So, while I congratulate you on your resourcefulness and success, I think this advice is very particular to where you live, whether you even like local music, do you understand page layout design, good writing etc.

It's a good story (my daughters thought it was cool that their dad was in the local music scene) but lousy advice.

As for going door to door asking businesses for work? Nope. It sounds perfectly plausible but doesn't pan out so well in reality (I've done it). Wearing my business blazer, a pocket full of business cards and a really great deal on a small business website, I went from business to business all. day. long. I explained who I was, what value I could bring to their company etc but got nothing.

Why? I think because they had no intent to buy, or even an expressed interest or need. I was just one of many people walking in through their door trying to sell them something.

And that's the thing: if you are a local business with a brick and mortar establishment in a reasonably trafficked area, you are going to have as many people visit your store to sell you something as to buy something. Most times they will politely listen to your pitch, take your card, then never speak to you again.

So again, while the advice sounds plausible, it's not actually a way to make quick cash or even build a client base. Even if you want to make money "badly enough".

P.S. Desperation doesn't sell.


Don't sell desperation, sell value and service.

I've been doing a day here, a day there, all summer whilst I spend 4 days a week working on the startup. I simply call people I know with small businesses, or charities, and after a short chat to see how they are, I ask them whether they or any of their neighbouring businesses have work that needs doing.

I bill £500 per day, and have got work every day I've sought it.

Sometimes I build a Wordpress site. Sometimes I fix their wifi and network. Other times I get their backup systems working and I test them. For some charities I take my experience with contracts and project management and I review their request for bids and the offers the receive. One company pays me a monthly retainer to configure their Google Apps, as they just want a technical person who is on their side they can call should something go wrong.

I do anything that they need doing, even though my skills whoosh above their needs.

You might say that this is because of London and a surplus of SMEs needing help, and perhaps it is.

Though London wasn't the reason the fanzine thing worked, because I was homeless and hitching from town to town at the time. It worked in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Portsmouth. You might say that fanzines are just a UK thing, you might be right. I also think it's because when I didn't put the headline band on the cover I couldn't shift more than 10 copies... you sell people something they are interested in, so I put the headline band that they're seeing on the cover.

Sell value, sell what people want. People always want something, and in this time people want help with tech stuff.


You essentially repeated what I said about value and finding the right market, so that's cool.

At the time I made the zine I too was in transition, not exactly homeless because some friends who were renting an apartment let me stay with them, but I've been homeless before and simply fulfilling basic needs like a next meal and a place to sleep consumed most of my time and energy.

However, I know your advice needs to be taken with a big ole grain of salt and some major considerations because I've done it. There are better ways.

Another PS! What is great about your suggestion is that it's outside the box. It's not the typical "RAISE YOUR RATES" that you are hearing from the Borg. It's inspirational. So for that, thank you.


"Work a day. Bill a day." will accomplish the goal with very little execution risk (pair it with "Borrow money from a bank." if you want a bit of an insurance policy). Better yet, work multiple days, then put away some of the income in an emergency fund, because usual hiccups do indeed happen when providing for a family.

There are more complicated answers, but they strike me as a perverse sort of poverty tourism. You have such astoundingly better options than poor people. Use them.


I regret that I have but one vote to give. It's disappointing that the actual skills that could be valuable are not listed web and mobile is much too broad for this audience. List your actionable skills. Your normal job probably gives you Thursday to Sunday off (if you're in the states) if you're in a bind, find some work and someone who will pre-pay, or pay on delivery, and make some deliverables.


Thursday to Sunday off??? Which place do you speak of?


This week only... Thanksgiving Thursday+most people take off Friday after Thanksgiving+normal weekend. The OP mentioned needing money quick.


Sell your shit, or pawn it.

Good things to sell are things that hold value - bikes, rolexes, tools, things like that. Imagine you were burgling your own apartment/house, take the things they would take and sell them.

It's entirely possible to purchase a used mercedes, take decent care of it for 2-3 years, and turn around and resell it for virtually the same price. Ditto many luxury goods - a used rolex can sometimes be turned around for a profit.


The side benefit of this is that once you "give up" a bunch of stuff you find you don't really need it around any more. I had a ton of DVDs (this was a few years ago) that I had to get rid of to make short-term cash and once they were gone I didn't even think of it. Same for a bunch of books I was keeping around. The only thing I really miss is the first few seasons of The Simpsons and now that things are better financially I can always buy them again.


On the other hand, you can only really "learn" this lesson once. The second time around, you look for something to sell, and realize that your possessions are now worth less than $300 combined. (And yes, this even includes the computer I would need to do my work! Depreciation is a harsh mistress.)


If I removed my electronics my total possessions would likely be less than that sum, though I suppose my clothes have more monetary worth than I assign them value. And then including electronics, it's shocking highly. Embarrassingly so.


By finding someone with a problem and solving it for them on the spot.

Quickest 1,000 euros (2500 guilders at the time) I ever made was in a place where they ran a distributed message passing system that had broken down on a busy Monday morning grinding to a halt the shipping brokerages in 50 countries or so.

From walking in to getting the job to walking out again with a for me at the time large sum of money was about 15 minutes. Outsider perspective is worth a lot in times of crisis and if you can spot what the problem is faster than the team that built the thing it certainly won't hurt your reputation.

Of course you could argue that I charged them too little and that I should have made them bleed but I don't like ripping people off. And they did turn into a long term customer after that.


If the OP doesn't already know someone in that situation, how does he find them?


It seems like jacquesm's situation was a random encounter, and not as much of a pre-meditated action.


One time, me and my friend came across a book that was only sold through a small publisher in Omaha. The book sold for ~$20 and, since we couldn't find it on Amazon, we resold it for $300 a pop.

Every time we received an order on Amazon, we would just take that buyer's information and buy it on the small publisher's website—we essentially took on zero risk and worked a few minutes every time we got an order.

It was a great example of arbitrage. And just like arbitrage, competitors also saw this exploit and the market inefficiency disappeared. Margins were competed away.

Even though it was a temporary window of opportunity, we found an article saying that some people do this kind of work full time (finding obscure books and reselling at a huge markup)!


Clearly the easiest thing (as many have mentioned) has been "sell your stuff." One of the folks I know who got into trouble post 2009 was selling "PC tuneups and consulting" for $50 initially, and $75 later, he would spend an hour with someone and help 'tune up' their PC (get rid of old software, update to a current AV, etc) and if they were interested he would consult with the client on what they needed/wanted in a PC and would give them some places where they could acquire it. After a couple of weeks, and even after raising his price by 50% he had more business than he could handle. I believe he also got an affiliated marketing deal with one of the AV companies and they would spiff him something like $10 if the customer bought their AV product.

Basically technology is really confusing to a lot of people, many of whom will gladly pay for someone to explain to them in small words what they need to do.


That's a tough one.

If there was a way to make quick money that worked, lots of people would be doing it. With enough people doing it, some people get very good at it and are able to consolidate and raise barriers to entry. So now that previously very attractive thing is slightly less attractive because there's more ramp up required.

Fortunately, you do have valuable skills. Unfortunately, as you point out, even putting those to optimal use requires significant ramp up--you've got to build a name for yourself or you've got to start some kind of consulting company and build a client list. Then suddenly you're in the consulting business. If you just jump into it and take whatever you can get, you'll make significantly less.

It's not even a matter of doing something you'd rather not do--there are tons of people out there that will do things most people don't want to do for very little money--and they do it for a living.

So of those, you could try hitting odesk or elance or any number of freelancing websites to pick up a quick gig--but even that requires a sales pipeline that takes some time to get going. Personally, I'd put it on a credit card if I were in a similar situation, and lacking that, would probably start selling stuff.


Ran a course. Sold a screencast. (Over $10k within 2 months for both.) A little busy to go into details right now but there have been lots of posts with similar case studies on HN - one of the better ones was http://sachagreif.com/lessons-learned-from-an-ebook-launch/


I'll never understand how people promote these things in the sea of noise that is the web, assuming they don't already have a solid presence.


That's where I got lucky.

I've always had a passion for publishing and have tended to build up news sites, blogs, and now e-mail newsletters in the areas I find interesting. So prior to both the course and my screencast, I already had a five figure audience on the right topics and a huge home advantage.

I'll note, however, that this is by no means required, and people in my position frequently become friendly with others with such projects and help them out.


HN works pretty well ;)

But yeah, promoting the thing is a big part of "the thing", and requires its own strategy.


Pick out the parts, build, and setup a powerful gaming desktop, and sell it at double price. Ideally, you already have a buyer in mind, and you talk to him beforehand so you can meet his needs specifically.

People who don't know much about computers, but want (and can afford) the very best, would probably be happy to drop $2-3k on a custom-built computer that you can put together for $1k off of Newegg and a couple of hours of work. Set up Windows, drivers, and all of their Steam games, so they can just pick it up and play. Plus, you get to play with new gadgets, if that's your thing.


Build plugins or themes for WordPress. There are 58 million active WP sites now. There are mature markets for listing and promoting what you create. Bonus money if you can tie what you build into generating revenue for customers -- affiliate marketing tools/integrations, plugins or themes that play with existing e-commerce plugins or themes people use, marketing tools, etc. If you can do that, you can justify a $50-100 price tag, and just one sale a day will create the revenue you need.

8 years ago or so, I ran a little ecommerce site with a wholesale/drop-ship product provided by another company. When I needed extra spending money (being a full-time college student at a private university and no savings), I'd clone my own site. I'd design a new theme for the shopping cart software and sell the same product. I'd advertise it on Google AdWords for a few days to get some orders. Then I'd package that all up and list it on eBay -- a fully functional site with existing customers, a supplier, a known conversion rate, and pre-written ad copy and keyword list for the buyer. These days people use Flippa instead of eBay to sell websites, but it's something you could try as a web dev.


Question I've always had for WP Theme businesses: is there any need / common practice to prevent plugin piracy? Or is the market so big and pirates such a small portion of it that it isn't really something worth worrying about?


IMO, it would be counterproductive to employ any kind of obfuscation or license protection. Having access to the code is part of the reason people choose to build their sites on WordPress. More installs than not have some kind of customization done. Plus, you'll have less satisfied customers (inevitably a significant portion will have issues getting the loader/licensing setup to work on their shared host, or will have other issues you can't help them with because they can't debug the code) so less blog writeups / recommendations driving referral sales.

I was in the WP business for a while, with about a quarter million in sales before I sold it off, and did nothing to prevent piracy. It wasn't an issue. Someone pirating the code doesn't hurt me. Anyone that wanted the plugins/themes and had money was going to pay for it, as that's the only way they would get support and updates.


The people paying for your WordPress plugins and themes are, generally speaking, people who don't have time to fuck around with piracy.

I've experienced this first hand. As a junior web developer at an advertising company, there were plenty of times when my grand schemes for how we could do something for free on WordPress were met with "no, just pay for it".


Mostly echoing what others are saying here. When I deliver a wordpress site to a client, there is no way I am going to include pirated software. I don't want any sketchiness finding its way back to me. Also, I will pay for any software/plugin/theme that costs less than my time to build the same thing. It's just a matter of numbers. A $35 theme can get me 80% of the way to a client's desired layout. If I'm getting paid $500 for the project, then I'm making $465 for only a couple of hours of work, rather than $500 for several hours of work (starting from scratch).


It's like any other piracy as long as you take basic precautions you'll be fine. If you make something worth pirating generally it's worth buying, don't worry about the people who will never buy your product, worry about making the people who do buy it happy.


I'd recommend away from doing this … not because it's a bad idea, but basically because he's in a pinch and he doesn't know the space.

Plugins or themes could require a lot of trial and error before finding success, and buyers may not come until later. He needs the cash now, so he should go the sure thing and try to find paying customers directly rather than put things up for sale and wait for results that may never come.


How does one actually sell Wordpress plugins? I've heard this a few times before as "Pro" or "Premium" plugins, but never seen where the market is


When in college I wrote solution manuals of my text books (as part of assignments) and sold it on eBay. I made over 2k a month for few months. I am not sure if you can apply this but something to think out of the box. You may be already doing something, and someone may be willing to pay for it online. Also, please include your email in the profile. If you are in NYC, I may be able to hire you and pay you some advance payment for web dev services.


Out of curiosity, would there be copyright issues to worry about there?


Probably. But I did it anyways for sometime and sold it as a solutions guide.


One option is for-pay medical studies, especially if you live near the right kind of clinic or university. Googling "medical research for pay" might give you some starting points. I have never done it myself but it is a real thing. (EDIT: http://brokelyn.com/human-guinea-pig/)

In particular sleep studies can pay thousands of dollars (in exchange for living in a lab for a week or two) but the lead time might be too long for you, eg https://sleep.med.harvard.edu/research/recruitment

Also, you might try being a provider on services like Exec, Lyft, or Taskrabbit.


Taskrabbit can be hit or miss. I signed up as a taskrabbit purely because I was curious about the interface they were using for bidding on and being assigned tasks. I completed two tasks in the span of three days.

The first was a pick up/drop off job that consisted of me picking up some rental items and dropping them off about 30 minutes outside Boston ($25). The second was ordering an iced latte at Starbucks and literally delivering it a block away ($14!). Both times the mobile app failed (iPhone 4S, iOS 6) in two different ways. For the first task it failed multiple times when I tried to mark the task as complete-not such a big deal since the task was done. The fail during the second task was critical-it would not let me login to view where the drop-off location was and the email confirmation confusingly showed the start and end location as the same address (Starbucks). I had to call the person who submitted the task to verify drop-off location and explain that the app had failed. They weren't irritated but I could see why me calling might be disruptive since they made this task to avoid leaving the building and walking a block.

Those sort of really simple (meaning ~2 steps) tasks seem to be few and far between. Many tasks such as, "Go shopping for me at IKEA," turn out to be much more involved when you read the details and find out the task includes assembling the furniture on-site.

For me it was more about trying out the interface on really basic tasks than making money but perhaps more complicated tasks would be something you'd be willing to do. Another important note is that the taskrabbit application is not too quick of a turnaround. I think it took nearly two weeks before I was approved.


Hollywood director Robert Rodriguez financed his first film with money from a medical study. He also finished writing the script while living in the lab.


Black Friday is coming up. Be the first in line at a popular shop and sell your spot.


Style points if you bring a laptop and work on a project while waiting in line to sell your spot.


I don't know if you do mobile design or just development, but the payouts on 99Designs can be pretty good and the contests (from my experience three years ago) go pretty quick.

If you're capable of cloning the style that their clients seem to choose most of the time your success rate can be rather high, but it can also be very frustrating to do a lot of work and by chance not win any contests.

It's pretty shallow work artistically, and can be a gamble. But you could probably rack up $2000 in a month if you really committed.

http://99designs.com/mobile-app-design/contests


Having been in that situation from time to time, I've sold stuff. Most of it fairly current technology: SSD drives, iPads, etc.

I also pickup quick projects: $500-$2000 projects that can be completed on the side in under a week.

Hit up Craigslist. (assuming you're in an area where this is relevant) Not always the highest quality work, but you'll find a lot of quick $$ things there.


Your on hacker news. You need to break conventional thinking and "hack" the world to make money. Billing others to program is a dead end. Think of creative way to generate income!


Been there...

1) Sell your stuff

2) Odd job. I always do this, from replacement delivery guy to wedding planner assistant. Ask your network for a short gig and most of the time they have something for you

3) Borrow some money (family/friend)

4) Loan (CC/bank)

Done that


Find small businesses in your local area that don't have websites and offer to build them one for $500 (or whatever number you think). You just need a few to make your money and it shouldn't take you long to build a simple site. Use wordpress and themes to make it really fast.

Restaurants are particularly good candidates.


i) Write a scraper that compares electronic prices on Craigslist with what the fair value is on ebay/priceonomics. Auto send emails to craigslist sellers who are selling below market value, purchase, and then sell on ebay/craigslist. You can do similar live negotiations at moving sales.

ii) Airbnb your home, especially if you live in or near a big city. Or rent a home to Airbnb.


Rent a home to airbnb? AirBnB pays you fixed rent to rent your home from you and then rents it out to guests?


I should have been more clear: rent a secondary home for the sole purpose of generating revenue on Airbnb.


Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.


I'm looking for a part-time web developer for a budget of around $1k/month actually. Check my profile out for my contact details.


Put up a profile on Elance or ODesk, explain your situation clearly that you are willing to work for lower rates than your normal market rates for a short period and ask for people to help you.


Lower than market rates on Elance/ODesk? People are working so cheaply already that it would take ages to make $2k. You can make big money on those sites but you have to build up a profile and that's not done quickly.


You could try selling web related stuff, specially Wordpress & Magento themes. I have made a living on Themeforest (http://themeforest.net) selling WP themes since 2009 up until a few months back.

Serious money can be made there. Sales reached the $16K mark in my last month. I had to retire to dedicate full time to other things.

They pay monthly, on the 15th. Check it out, maybe this isn't exactly what you're asking for, but I think it's worth a look...


You retired from a "job" that gives you 16k ? Right...

Ok, since I'm a good guy, gimme your account and I will keep selling your stuff and only will get a cut of 50%


What's the ongoing work? Don't you post a design and then keep getting the revenue, or do you have to continue promoting it and making new designs to stay relevant?


The issue is not with the promotion itself, since the marketplace handles that and drives the customers to you. When a new theme is released, if it's good/attractive enough, it'll get many many sales. Then, you should provide ongoing support to your items. When you have 1-2 themes that's good, but having 6 or 7 themes, all of them with ongoing support turns out quite hard to maintain.

Eventually, the themes stop selling, unless you've created some sort of product that sells like hotcakes all the time (there are a few). But, most of the themes sell for a few weeks/months then you have to start working on a brand new product again, to keep up with the competition, and to promote your previously released products.

I had issues scaling the business since I was not able to cope with the amount of work that needed to be done (and also because I couldn't find anybody competent enough to provide support / fixes). That is, provide support on the forums, bug fixes, stability & compatibility updates, and releasing new themes. Not to mention having 0% time to work on side projects.

It's not a fire and forget scheme, each product has its own ongoing support service that has to be provided. There are people that purchase the theme just because of your support, not mainly because it looks good enough. For a single person (doing everything) becomes quite a lot to handle, even if the profits are quite lucrative.

If all you ever want to do in your life is sell themes, then the marketplace is great for you. I'm aiming at a more self-managed project, such as a SaaS product, or my own startup, not planning to live out of the themes business, which was one of the reasons why I've decided to stop.


You have two main assets in your hands to generate $2000+ quickly – web & mobile development.

Seriously, I started making money online at 14 with $0 and I remember thinking then if I could make $100 online that would be amazing – I made it within 3 days of my decision to start making money online through forum boosting (there’s a load of forum posts where you can see me winning “forum boosting contracts” etc).

Since you need $2000 now there are loads of options available to you to do it, taking advantage of your Web & Mobile development skills and I’ll suggest a couple of the methods I have used over the years to make money online in a short period of time.

- Create FREE Wordpress Themes & sell the “sponsored” links in the footer = $75 – 150/theme.

Sell 3 slots on each design for: $20-25/each

Sell the “designer” slot by for: $30-50/each

Offer the whole theme for: $100-150

Then submit the theme to 100-150 free theme places (you could even pay someone on fiverr to do it)

- Sell Wordpress Themes on ThemesForest

$30 – 50/each

- Sell Wordpress Plugins

- Code PSD/HTML etc

Offer your services for $30-100/page & charge $50-100 extra to code to Wordpress etc.

- Write an eBook report

Write a report on some aspect to making money online etc & sell it for $7-10 on Webmaster Forums.

- Write a Larger eBook. Sell it on Warrior Forum.

Write a 10-20 page eBook then sell it on Warrior Forum as a WSO.

- Write Articles

500/word articles at $6-8/each.

- Bid for Web Development/Mobile Development on Freelance Sites

Take small tasks which are easy to do & take a short period of time - $100-200 projects.

- Create Mobile Sites

Charge $100-500 for making existing website owners a simple mobile version of their site.

----

There are a load more methods which I have done and what you can do too but, there are some methods you implement to make money online quickly with no capital outlay. I know because these are some of the methods I have used over the years to make money online.


Just because everyone's already mentioned the easy (and probably best) answer of just selling stuff you don't need, let me add something a little different:

Enter programming competitions, app hackathons, that sort of thing. The kind that are typically one whole 24h day, or perhaps an entire weekend, and offer decent prizes to the top few teams.

Now, I'll grant you that this might not be suitable for a number of reasons. The main one being that you sound like you need this money ASAP and perhaps there simply aren't any good contests this weekend. However, they certainly meet your criteria for being earned "in a relatively short time frame" since you're not working more than a few days and potentially collecting a 4+ figure check. You also (obviously) need some solid chops, but you mentioned that you're "very competent" at web and mobile development, and those are the hottest areas so that's a good start.

Some random examples of contests and competitions that I've been involved with recently include Mozilla Ignite [1], The Great Canadian Appathon [2], and a bunch of other low-key contests with smaller payoffs, often aimed at students. I'm linking to the prize pages just to show you that it can be very lucrative :).

So get out there and give it a shot. At worst you make no money but meet a bunch of awesome people, and they usually present opportunities of their own.

[1] https://blog.mozillaignite.org/2012/09/ideation-winners/

[2] http://greatcanadianappathon.com/prizes.php


Depends on the definition of "quick" but sites like vWorker aren't bad if you're willing to work for less (assuming you haven't already built up a reputation) initially. On the one hand, it can sting to work for much less than your normal rate. If you're looking to pay the rent this way, you're going to need to take on a lot of small projects, and it's going to be a lot of work.

But on the other hand, it has some advantages, like potentially growing your client base and building a reputation so you can make more on those sites when you need to in the future. And sometimes time is all you have.

And it can make more economic sense than selling hardware, even if the hardware seems nonessential. Selling an oldish iPad now and buying a new one in six months is much more expensive than holding onto the old one for another year and a half. Hardware depreciates rapidly, so in theory, you could do well by selling an old iPad and then buying the same model used, later on if you need it. In practice, people usually don't do that.


Well, I said that, and today vWorker coincidentally emailed me to tell me it had been acquired by freelancer.com . Paying for the privilege of bidding sounds like a losing model, and I don't know if the free 10 bid plan is sufficient to do anything; on vWorker you always had to place a lot of bids before you could expect to win.


Since you need money quickly, this is what I suggest: 1) Sell your stuff on Ebay or Craigslist or similar. 2) Find temporary work for a company that pays decent money (Lyft, Uber, TaskRabbit, Mechanical Turk, etc). 3) My favorite: call a good friend, tell them that you need 2k within a few weeks, and offer a written payback promise. This way your friend will not feel in a too awkward situation, and you'll be able to give him his money back. Ask for a 4-month deadline payment, and offer interest (let's say 60 dollars?). If he's a friend, he'll help. If your friend is able/willing to give you only 1k, accept it. And find another friend who will lend the other 1k. It's doable, and there's nothing to be ashamed of. Then find some meaningful ways to repay that debt.

Good luck. Hope it goes well.


This is probably not the answer that your looking for but honestly if you absolutely need 1-2k over the next month find some stuff to sell.

You might have to get a little bit more crazy with it than you want to, but I think most people would be suprised how much stuff they don't actually "need".


Arbitrage on virtual goods from different countries/regions. Got lucky and got 15k in a week.


You could go donate plasma. http://www.ehow.com/how_2195131_earn-month-donating-plasma.h...


I would create a (maybe more than one, if I have that kind of time) wordpress plugin/theme (or any other app that has some value) if I have those skills and sell the entire plugin on a site like, say, Flippa. It would be easier and quicker than selling the plugin itself, and you will get the extra $1000-2000 within that time.

That's the simplest way to go about. You can create anything that has a high perceived value—web apps, iOS apps, etc. all count—and sell it. The key is the high perceived value.


Do small-scale client work and ask for half up front. I've done this plenty of times succesfully.

I also paid my rent for several months while unemployed by offering to do work on my landlord's other properties. In fact, me and one of my other housemates were "employed" this way until we found more lucrative work.

Tutoring other people in web development has also paid my bills at times.


If you need to make $1-$2k in a short period the best way to do this is to sell your things. You should have enough things to make that in enough time and you can always buy replacement things when you have the money later.

Once you've sold enough stuff, work out how much you need that's left. Can you get that doing a couple of evenings or weekends of part time work?


Code repurposing

You've probably worked on some interesting projects that are similar to some of the call-for-bids on oDesk or Elance.

Just look for the intersection between what code you already have and ongoing call-for-bids.

While bidding, send a screenshot and say that you already got the solution working.

Clients love avoiding the risk of paying someone to try and reinvent the wheel.


I've been down that road a number of times. And I've been lucky to find myself in situations that allowed me to pull through with out selling my stuff. If you're good at iOS and Android development, I may have some short terms (few days) projects.


Sell Twinkies on ebay!!!!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&...


This time of year, the package delivery companies are hiring lots of temporary help. There was a sticker looking for temporary delivery guys covering up the local paper's lead story last week.


Set up a profile on Elance.com and bid on some dev projects. It's not a particularly non-traditional mean but I mention it because you say you're competent in web and mobile development.


Definitely this. It's very low risk, and you have the skills to make quick money on smallish jobs. You won't be earning what you are worth but that's not really the point if you need the cash fast. People posting ads on these sites are primarily looking for an indication that you fully understand the requirements, so when responding lay out in detail what the job entails then pitch why you can do it and the timeframe/cost.

These sites are crowded with non-native English speakers that often pitch for a job with something like "yes i can do", so putting in a little work up front will get you good hit rate.

I haven't really looked at this stuff for a while (and I'm no expert save from hiring a few people) but last time I checked odesk.com and freelancer.com were the main ones.

Not good money and yeah it's traditional, but fast and fairly reliable/predictable.


Do you write iphone apps? If so ping me, I may have a gig.


There's a good market ($50+) in console modding and (i)gadget fixing.

You only need forums, tutorials, some screwdrivers and iFixit. Personally, I also find it really fun.


You could attempt to find a vulnerability in a major system for a vendor that pays bug bounties.


Ping me I may be able to help


borrow it. http://www.prosper.com/


Side trades at the family food cart I ran during summers, like selling drugs.


consulting


Two weeks ago, I wandered into an Office Depot that was having a moving sale, and just about everything in the store was 50% off. The computers and most of the electronics were only 10-20% off, with one major exception: graphing calculators. They had about 30 Texas Instruments graphing calculators of all kinds from 40-50% off.

I bought them all, 30 in total, and started selling them on Amazon and Ebay, undercutting everyone by a few dollars.

I just shipped the last two off yesterday, and after shipping costs and selling fees, I made just over $1,000.

It's not something that you can do any time, but going-out-of-business sales aren't that uncommon, and suffice to say that I will be on the look out for them from now on.


1K is credit card money. Get one.


some people have no credit score - in particular it is hard to get one if you have never had any previous debt or credit cards...


i sold a .com domain at a high price


How?

Someone approached me about one of my domains the other day at a price I found adequate, but then they disappeared, and I don't really know how to fix it.


Gamble. Just don't lose.


If I was down to my last 1000 and lost my job, I'd play poker for a living. I am pretty confident I can consistently make ~200 in a half day in low level tables. But, that is with years of paying tuition. Besides the numbers, it's about psychology (your own, mostly). Gotta be able to keep discipline.


100 BB downturns are not uncommon even among winning players.

Poker is a game of skill but it doesn't mean you can't have bad luck.

I play poker when I have $1000 to lose without risk. That's when I can play my best, with detachment from the money and the freedom that provides.

My last $1000 with no job? It's time to think about food and shelter and a new job -- any old job will do. I made a decision in my mid-20s that I would never again sponge off my parents or friends, that for me, I'd outgrown that. So no way would I risk my last $1k.

But, of course, YMMV.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: