Hey guys.
It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet.
And this week's video is brought to you by Wealthsimple.
And today we're talking about some extremely lazy ways
to make money right now.
You can do these things when you feel like it.
And in some cases, you may already be doing them,
you're just not making money off them.
Especially in times when money might be super tight
or you're working toward a specific goal,
every little bit counts.
And these little bits are some of the laziest ways
to make more money.
So let's get right into them.
Number one is rent out everything.
It turns out there's basically no limit
to the amount of things that you can rent out,
depending on how open minded you're willing to be.
Enterprising individuals have apparently rented out
everything from their bathroom during Mardi Gras, all the way
to their old Halloween costumes.
But some of the most common and practical ways to do this
are renting out your car with services like Turo
which have been around for almost a decade, or an app
like Getaround, which is newer but growing quickly
in places like LA and DC.
In either case, how much money you can make
depends on the value of your car and how often
you want to rent it out.
Getaround states that their average user makes
around $6,000 a year, and Turo even
has a little tool to help you estimate how much money you
could make with them.
And even on the very low end, it's over $1,000 a year,
which is enough to fund a vacation.
You just want to make sure you totally
understand the insurance implications, which
we will link you to more info on in the description.
If you have one, you can also rent out a parking spot.
This works very similarly to renting out your car.
And according to one source, you can
charge anywhere from $15 to $35 a day
in big cities like New York, Philly,
San Francisco, et cetera, where parking is scarce,
which could add up to more than $3,000 in a year.
And there are tons of services to choose from,
things like Curb flip or Spot Hero.
And you can also rent out many household things
that you're just not using all the time, things
like outdoor equipment like bikes or kayaks,
which people apparently rent from anywhere from $15 to $50
a day, or tech like cameras and projectors.
One easy rental site you can check out is Zilock,
but there are also many smaller sites
that are specific to certain items, things
like surfboards and paddles.
We will link you to all of those in the description as well.
Number two is make an investing piggy bank.
When it comes to making more money,
there is simply no lazier way of doing it than investing.
But for so many people, it can feel
really complicated and intimidating,
and it's easy to assume that you need a lot of money
to get started.
Which by the way, is extremely untrue.
You can start with literally $1.
And this failure to take investing seriously
costs us big time, especially women.
The wealth gap is even starker than the pay gap.
Women have about $0.32 for every $1 of wealth a man has.
And without that nest egg, women are
80% more likely to live in poverty after retirement.
And even amongst millennials, despite our increasing gender
parity and things like education and employment, only 53%
of millennial women are saving for retirement
versus 71% of millennial men.
So what do you do to combat this, especially as a woman?
You make what we call an investing piggy bank.
Not the kind that you'd smash as a little kid,
but an online place to grow your money.
You open up an investment account,
according to your needs, and they take literally minutes
to set up.
You label it piggy bank, and every extra dollar
you come across goes into that piggy bank.
Of course, following our 80-20 rule of unexpected money,
which is to say that 80% goes to something smart,
in this case, your piggy bank, and 20%
you get to spend as you like.
Get an unexpected reimbursement for something?
Piggy bank.
A big tax refund?
Piggy bank.
Card from grandma, which for some reason
still includes a check even though you are definitely
an adult?
Piggy bank.
Even challenging yourself to shave off
one bit of extra money from a specific category
in your budget can be extra money for your piggy bank.
If you challenge yourself to do this for an entire year
with all of your extra or unexpected money,
you will be shocked at the kind of nest egg
that you can save for yourself in such a painless way.
After that, you can make this investment account
a regular part of your budget.
But this will help you get the ball rolling, which
is usually the hardest part.
Treating investing as something as un-scary, convenient,
and routine as a piggy bank makes
it accessible for everyone.
And there is no better place for your piggy bank
than Wealthsimple.
Wealthsimple is an online investing service
that is as simple and human as it gets.
They'll build you a custom portfolio
to fit your personal needs, goals, and timeline.
Just answer a few simple questions
about your financial goals, and they'll
manage it for you on autopilot.
Set it, forget it, let it go to work in the background,
and drown out the noise along the way.
They also offer a socially responsible investing portfolio
that invests in companies that support gender diversity.
You can set up automatic deposits
from your bank account, as well as
set up a smart savings account with higher rates
than big banks for your shorter term goals--
your wedding, your next adventure,
or that handbag you need.
The fees are much lower than traditional investors,
and TFD viewers get a $50 cash bonus for getting started.
Check them out Wealthsimple.com/TFD,
or use the link in our description.
You can get started with literally $1
and it only takes a few minutes.
No excuses.
Number three is form an Airbnb buddy system.
Now, this is one of my absolute favorite ways
to earn a little bit extra sneaky cash because it
checks so many boxes.
It's low effort, you get to buddy up
with one who shares your goal, you spend more time
with friends, and you get to use a system creatively.
This is actually something I did from time to time
with my old studio when I lived in Paris,
and it's something that you and a friend
can easily do if both of your apartments, or rooms,
are eligible to list on Airbnb--
and you're looking to make a little extra cash.
You simply pick the time frame that you
want, like one week a month, one weekend a month,
two weekends a month, et cetera.
And during that time, one of you rents out
your place or your room and stays with the buddy,
and then you reverse it.
And even if you choose to just do this over the summer,
let's say, or in saving up for a summer vacation--
even in a short period of time, It's
a way to literally make potentially
thousands of dollars while getting to have slumber
parties with your friends.
This is especially effective if you each have your own place,
but it can also work great if both of you
have a decently sized room in an in-demand area.
Number four is be a Guinea pig.
In other words, be part of surveys
and focus groups that help researchers find out
what consumers want.
There are loads of online destinations
that make it simple to take short, easy surveys for pay.
A popular site for this Surveyjunkie,
which pays in either gift cards or cash.
The catch is that the range of what these surveys pay is huge,
so you want to make sure to do your research.
One frequent user of Surveyjunkie
from the blog, Frugal for Less said,
I found that you can make anywhere from $5 to $12 an hour
with Surveyjunkie.
If you want to earn at a rate closer to 12 per hour,
stick to higher paying surveys that
can be completed in a short amount of time.
Another big site is Swag Bucks, which
doesn't pay in cash but rather in points
that you can redeem for gift cards for stores like Amazon.
They also have a lot more that you can
do besides just taking surveys.
For example, you can watch videos for them.
The same user we just mentioned said,
it's a great method to spend less than half an hour per day
on the website and rake in about 10 to 20 extra dollars in gift
cards.
And while surveys are definitely the easiest route,
focus groups are definitely the biggest bang for your buck.
You can often make anywhere between $100 and $200 an hour
doing focus groups.
To find focus groups in your area,
you can simply do a search of focus groups
plus your location.
But you can also do them from home.
To avoid leaving your house, you can check out
the website Respondent, where the average payout is
about $140.
The only catch is that you have to qualify based on your job,
demographics, et cetera.
But it's really worth checking out for that extra easy money.
Five is do a radical decluttering.
Something that I am a huge fan of personally,
and which we love to talk about on TFD,
is doing a radical declaring in an area of your life.
It could be your home, your wardrobe, your social media,
wherever.
And when it comes to those first two,
getting rid of all of that stuff that you no longer need or use
frequently isn't just about freeing up space in your home
or being more intentional about the things you're actually
using.
It's also about making money off of all that
stuff you're getting rid of.
So go through your house and sort the things
that you're getting rid of into categories-- things like tech,
books, clothes, et cetera, and challenge
yourself to see how many of those items
you can resell for the best possible price.
Here's where you can do it for each category,
and we'll link you to everything in the description.
Thread up, Poshmark and local thrift or consignment stores
are great places to resell clothes that you're not using,
but which are in good quality.
Make sure, of course, to wash iron and nicely photograph
the items before you take them in or list them online,
because nothing will decrease the value of a clothing item,
even a really nice one, more than it looking
really sad and old and used.
When it comes to tech products, there
are several excellent websites which
specialize in the reselling of old tech products--
things like cameras, phones, computers, et cetera.
Selling old furniture, of course,
can also be a great way to not just declutter, but also
potentially finance, the new, better suited for your life
furniture you might be getting.
For example, in our bedroom we're
about to change back to a queen bed
because Mark is, just frankly, a giant who should not
be sleeping in a full bed.
And in order to do that, we have to get rid
of our dresser, which we're turning
into a vertical wardrobe, as well as obviously get
the new bed.
So we're selling that dresser as well, as that bed and mattress,
to help finance our new purchases.
And when I switch over to that vertical wardrobe
from my current closet dresser setup,
it will be a great chance to go through my clothes
and be radically honest with myself about what I could sell.
Voila.
And even books-- especially textbooks or technical books--
are extremely resellable.
There are several different websites
and ISO places that you can sell these books.
And getting different payouts will just
depend on the quality and the reusability of the book.
Number six is monetize things you're already doing.
So here's something you may not have realized.
That thing you were already planning on doing in your life,
like walking more, losing weight, or cutting your hair,
is something you can make money off of.
For things like weight loss, there are really cool sites,
like healthy wage, where you can bet against your own weight
loss goals.
You earn real cash profits if you hit the goals
that you bet against.
And it's not just a way to earn money,
it's also a great motivator to stay true to those goals.
And if you're like me, who used to have almost down to my butt
length hair, and then went super short because I wanted
a new do, and you're looking to make
some super easy extra money, selling that long hair can
be extremely valuable.
And yes, you can also donate your hair.
But if you are really in need of cash, this is a great option.
There are calculators that will show you about how much you
could get for your hair.
And just for fun, I looked up how much
I could have made when I did my big chop.
And since I have quite thick hair that is red,
and also has never been dyed in my life,
and I cut off quite a lot of it, I
could have earned $850 from my hair, approximately.
There are also great apps which will help you make money
while you shop, either through cash back incentives,
or for paying you to be a secret shopper.
And lastly, as we're always going on here at TFD
about how you should be swapping in walking for driving whenever
possible, there is a really cool app
now that will pay you to do just that.
It's an app called Sweatcoin, and it literally pays you out
for every step you take, every move you make.
Literally, it pays you.
It pays you in it's own coins, which you can then trade in
for things like gift cards, workout equipment,
classes, et cetera.
Sweatcoin currently has a 4.4 rating
on the appstore with over 20,000 reviews.
And I'm actually signing up for it
myself, because as a New Yorker who walks everywhere
by default, I could be making hella sweat
coins without even trying.
These are just a few examples.
But the point is, figure out what you're already doing,
and then figure out how to make money off of it.
And lastly, number seven is pet sitting.
Now, one of the things that you're never
really prepared for when you get a pet
is how expensive slash inconvenient pet sitting
can be.
And we're fairly lucky in that Mona is a very good traveler
and small enough that we can take her a lot of places.
And my parents are just a train away
in Philly, where they can often take her and sit her
with their own dog.
But recently, when we were out of the country
for nearly three weeks, we had to pay for all that time
in pet sitting.
But it dawned on me in that moment
just how easy an income pet sitting is, especially
on the side.
It's even lower maintenance than babysitting.
And even if you don't want to use it just for income,
you can also use pet sitting as a way to travel for free.
Trusted house sitters is basically a site like Airbnb,
where instead of paying someone for their home, you house sit
and pet sit for them while they're also away.
And if you're just looking to make extra cash,
there are great apps and sites like Rover,
that will allow you to do it at your convenience.
And you can either stay in the person's house,
or bring the pet to your own.
This can also be a great way to see if you're really
ready to have a pet if you've been considering it
for a long time, or to get the joy of an animal
from time to time without having to commit to one.
It's also one of the few jobs where
you can literally earn extra money while you're sleeping.
Plus, you get to cuddle with an animal.
Whatever you decide to do, remember
that earning extra money doesn't have to be overly complicated,
require you to learn new skills, or even do things differently
than you were probably already doing them.
You can make extra money while still being super lazy.
And you can tailor your side incomes
to the way you live your life.
And remember that no way to make more money
is going to be lazier or more rewarding than investing
intelligently.
And you can get started today with just $1 at Wealthsimple.
Visit Wealthsimple.com/TFD, TFD followers will receive
a special $50 cash bonus when you open end fund a new
account.
As always, guys, thanks for watching.
And don't forget to hit the Subscribe button
and to come back every Tuesday and Thursday
for new and awesome videos.
Bye.