Christmas is arguably one of the most festive, highly anticipated and stressful holidays of the year.
Christmas is also a very expensive holiday – there is a ton of shopping, gift sharing, decorating and ill-advised spending going on and by the time the new year rolls out, you would only be too painfully aware of your negative credit balance. This could leave you in a place where may need to settle your debts or worse file bankruptcy.
Financing your holiday expenses on a credit card is not exactly a sensible thing to do which is why having an additional source of income is of the essence.
For one, you’ll get to make more money which can go into your holiday budget and with your Christmas expenses already taken care of, you may even have enough left to save up so you can start the new year debt and bills free.
Best Ways To Make An Extra Money For Christmas
Christmas is just a few weeks out, and it is not too late to pad your budget.
If you need an additional source of income, here are 11 Ways to Make Extra Money for The Holidays.
Personal shopping
While Christmas shopping can be fun and exciting, it can also be very draining, and a lot of people would rather not be bothered.
This is where you come in. If shopping is your thing, then you could make money by getting paid to shop for people who are not so into shopping.
The beautiful thing about this kind of job is that you have complete control over your work schedules and payment. You can either choose to get paid for each trip, or you could choose to work at an hourly rate.
You can advertise your shopping services on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and websites like Craigslist and Marketplace.
And of course, we can’t forget one of the oldest and most efficient forms of advertising – word of mouth.
You can also sign up on Instacart where you can either be a full-service shopper; shopping and delivering groceries to customers.
Or you can be an in-store shopper where your job description entails just shopping and pick up is by the customer.
Being a personal shopper is fun, and at the end of the day, you are getting paid to do something you love.
Food delivery
Delivering food is another great way of making extra cash.
While some companies may allow you to deliver meals on a bike, motorcycle and even on foot if you are going into the food delivery business, having a car of your own is most recommended.
For starters, with a car, you can still make deliveries regardless of the weather conditions not to mention that is so much more convenient than using a scooter or a bike.
You can make a lot of money by being a delivery driver, and with the holidays fast approaching, you can be sure of a lot of orders that will need dropping off.
The amazing thing about delivering meals is that you get to choose your work schedule.
This way, you never have to work about getting a meal delivery request while running other unrelated errands.
UberEats, DoorDash, GrubHub, and Postmates are some excellent meal delivery companies you can check out if you are interested.
Driving
Unless you have been living under a rock, then you definitely know about Uber and Lyft.
If you have a car, which is a necessity in this case and delivering food or groceries doesn’t interest you, then you should consider becoming a driver with Uber or Lyft.
With every passing day, more and more people are subscribing to ride services.
People like having to not worry about finding parking spaces when they go to the mall and knowing you can easily order a ride means you can drink as much as you without thinking about driving back home drunk.
Driving is a very simple and flexible job, you set your schedule, and technically, all you are doing is just driving, nothing more. How about that?
Taking online surveys
Companies work with feedback.
They use this feedback to improve on their goods and services to better serve their customer base.
So how do the research companies get this feedback?
Via online surveys. Here, all you need to do is answer a questionnaire and to make extra money.
The questions are relatively easy, so you can do it pretty much anytime you are free.
There are dozens on survey websites where you can sign up to join the community of users and give your own opinion.
Most survey sites pay either in cash or gift cards redeemable at major retail stores.
Survey Junkie, Ipsos i-Say, Inbox Dollars, Global Test Market, Toluna, Panel opinion, PanelBase, YouGov and Pinecone Research are some of the best-paid survey sites available.
Virtual assistant
The job description of a virtual assistant is no different from that of an actual assistant.
The only difference, in this case, is that tasks are being outsourced online and you will most likely not come face to face with your employer.
As a VA, you could do anything from managing emails, blogs and social media accounts to invoicing clients and setting up meetings.
You could be surprised by how often people outsource tasks.
With the holidays coming up, people get busier, the errands pile up and to relieve the workload, they hire a virtual assistant.
However, as a VA, you can work all year round, even after the holidays are over.
As a virtual assistant, you can earn from $15 to $30 per hour.
The pay is usually dependent on the kind of tasks you will be expected to complete and your level of competence and expertise.
There are a lot of freelance VAs, and you can easily become one too.
Freelance writing
If you have a knack for writing and research, then monetizing that creative talent is a great way to make to extra cash.
If you intend to make a lot of money from freelance writing, then it is recommended that you find a niche that you are knowledgeable in to provide top quality articles at all times.
It could be healthcare, technology, finance, digital marketing or any specialized area of your interest.
You could get jobs through networking with people who might need your services or better still, you could join working boards like Upwork and Fiverr to help you get on.
There are lots of people making it big from freelance writing and if you are consistent, you could have made a lot of money even the holidays come around.
Proofreading
If you are not so sure about your writing skills but you have an eye for grammar and would still love to earn money through creative writing, then proofreading jobs might be for you.
Proofreading is precisely what it sounds like; your job would be to check documents and texts for grammatical and typographical errors.
This job, however, entails a lot of meticulousness and you must be conscientious and thorough if you want to make money proofreading content.
Like with most other jobs on this list, proofreading is very flexible, and you can easily do it in your space-time.
Teaching
If you are interested in impacting knowledge, you can get paid to teach online without even having to step into a physical classroom.
Expectedly, because people are entrusting you to share your knowledge, they expect to see some proof that you do in fact know what you are teaching.
As such, most teaching boards require that you possess at least a Bachelor’s degree before you can be eligible to teach people.
Teaching online is great, you get to set your own work times, and you can do all of it from the comfort of your own home.
There are variations in how much you can make from teaching online depending on the site you sign up with.
On a site like VIPKid, you can make as much as $22/hour, and they also provide the courses and lesson plans.
All you need would be a computer with a webcam, your lesson notes and you are good to go.
Beyond VIPKid, other credible teaching boards where you can sign up to teach online include Gogokid and EF Education First.
Housesitting
From traveling to see family members going on vacation, a lot of people tend to travel a lot during the holidays.
Either way, there is an empty house, and they may need someone to look after their property while they are away.
This job doesn’t involve a lot of work and if you are looking for a way to make some money during the holidays, housesitting is an option worth considering.
You can advertise your services through networking with people who may be in need of house sitters as well as on social media channels.
Babysitting/Pet sitting
Babysitting or pet sitting is perhaps one of the more common ways of getting additional funds.
Because of how busy people get during the holidays, they will most likely need someone to help them look after their babies and young children while they are working or running errands which are where your services come in.
Other times, it could be to watch their dogs, cats or other pets while they are away.
Wag is great company on the rise that highers dog walkers at around $15 an hour.
Most people tend to leave their pets behind when they travel which means more jobs for you and more jobs get you more money.
Nonetheless, you have control over your schedule, so you are never overwhelmed with having to look after children or animals.
People want to believe that they are leaving their kids or pets in capable hands so they might run background checks on your before hiring you.
If you need to advertise your babysitting and pet sitting services, Sitter is a good place to start, respectively. Wag is also on the rise as a company that pays you to walk dogs.
Sponsored posts
To make money through sponsored posts and ads, you need to have a blog that receives a lot of traffic or a social media platform with a large follower base bed it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
How does making money through sponsored posts and ads work?
First of all, companies will always want to advertise and promote their products and services, and in this age and time, digital marketing is the fastest and easiest way these companies can access their target market.
To reach their customer base, these companies pay bloggers and social media users to promote their products and services through posts and links back to be companies website.
Such promotional posts are called sponsored posts because you are being “sponsored” by the company to promote it.
The reward for sponsored posts is mostly in cash, but you can also get freebies from the company as well.
Like stated earlier, you must have a large online following or a blog that receives a lot of traffic after all the main essence of sponsored posts is to reach a broader market.
Some people make a living from being online influencers as they are called.
You can make anything from between $100 to $20,000 or even more depending on how large your follower base is.
Regardless, it is a lot of money to make from just blogging or tweeting.
Conclusion
Overall, there are dozens of ways to make money, and if you are consistent with it, you could build it into a steady source of income.
Most of these jobs do not require any specific set of creative or technical skills meaning they are open to anyone.
The best thing here is that the jobs do not expire after Christmas.
It can help you pad up your budget for the holidays and even afterward, you can still save up to help facilitate debt settlement and get out of debt.
What are some ways that you have been able to make money during the Holidays that aren’t on this list? Leave a comment below and share.
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