24 Ways To Get Extra Money With Minimal Effort | Forbes

Need to get extra money? There are various ways to save, find, or earn extra money out there. Forbes has a list of 24 of them that require minimal effort. These tips won’t make you rich, and aren’t meaningful ways to boost your income, but they are ways to get a little extra money from simple changes or tasks you can do. Maybe one or more will help you put extra money in your wallet!

Here is their list of 24 Ways to Save, Find and Earn Extra Money With Minimal Effort:

1. Switch to a high-yield savings account. We’ve had articles on this before. Instead of earning interest of 0.11%, which is the national average APY (annual percentage yield), switch to a savings account paying closer to 1% or more. Check BankRate for current interest rates.
2. Acorns. Their website says to “invest spare change automatically from everyday purchases into a diversified portfolio.” Sign up for Acorns, connect debit or credit cards to the account, and they will round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and invest it for you into a portfolio of ETFs. A great way to easily become an investor.
3. Get a piggy bank. Instead of only saving your change, start saving your $1 or $5 bills.
4. Cut Subscriptions. How many unused subscriptions and memberships do you have? Eliminate recurring expenses you don’t really use.
5. Claim your employer match. If you are offered a 401(k) through work and aren’t investing enough to get the employer match, then you are leaving money on the table. Invest enough to get it.
6. Auto-escalate your savings. Many big 401(k) providers allow you to pre-set annual boosts to your savings rate.
7. Digit. Every few days Digit will take a few dollars from your checking account and saves it for you. They check your spending habits to make sure you can afford it. It’s a way to save money without thinking about it.
8. Take a 52 week money challenge. Week 1: save $1. Week 2: $2. Week 3: $3. And so on. After 52 weeks you’ll have $1,378.
9. Claim unclaimed money. States sometimes take possession of assets that are deemed unclaimed. Search MissingMoney.com to find out if you have unclaimed money. We recently did this and found $15 we were not aware of from a refund check sent to an old address after the forwarding order had expired.
10. Find and sell unused gift cards. Search your wallets, drawers and cars for unused gift cards. Then use them. Don’t need anything the gift card can get you? Sell it. Gift Card Granny is one place you can do that.
11. Get a credit card for the points or cash back. Don’t get a credit card to buy things you can’t afford. But you can use them for purchases you would make anyway and earn points or cash back for those purchases. As long as you pay it off each month!
12. Wallaby. The Wallaby app helps you maximize every purchase by telling you which of your credit cards offers the best cash back or points deal for the retailer you are buying from. It will also warn you if you’ve used too much of your credit limit for the month.
13. Complain. Received bad service at a restaurant or was something wrong with the product you bought at the store? Complain to the company. You may receive credit, coupons or a refund. But don’t be the person who complains for no reason just to get a deal. That’s not cool.
14. Compare prices. There are quite a few apps out there that will help you find the best prices on just about everything. Some of them are ShopSavvy, RedLaser, GasBuddy, and Walmart’s Savings Catcher, which scans your receipt from Walmart and compares it to their competitors advertised deals and gives you back the difference.
15. Collect rebates. When buying online, check Ebates for cash back. The Ibotta app helps with collecting rebates when you buy in a store.
16. Upromise. Register your credit and debit cards with Upromise, shop through their website, or get a Upromise MasterCard to get cash back toward college.
17. Amazon Trade-In. Have used books, electronics or DVDs you no longer want? Trade them in to Amazon and get a gift card in return. Amazon Trade-In even suggests items you’ve purchased on Amazon to sell.
18. eBay. If you think it’s valuable take good photos, write a good description, then price it to sell. However, keep in mind that eBay charges selling fees. But it may be worth it and is usually effective.
19. Sell old electronics. They may be worth something. Try places like Gazelle, Next Worth and USell.
20. Consign old clothes. Click here for our article about this. If you have nice clothes it may be worth it. You’ll probably earn more on eBay, but eBay takes more work.
21. Sell old books. Many used books stores will pay a small fee for your used books.
22. Mechanical Turk. People post digital “Human Intelligence Tasks” to this Amazon site and pay workers a small fee to complete them. There are hundreds of thousands of tasks to choose from. Some take minutes to complete, others hours or even days. They may pay you pennies to complete the tasks, or you might get paid much more.
23. Switch to Bing. Microsoft will pay you credits to use its search engine. Credits can be redeemed for gift cards, airline miles and other discounts.
24. Recycle wine corks. Yemm & Hart buys wine corks to make tiles and eBay also has a cork market. It takes a lot of corks to make any money, but if you drink a lot of wine it’s a good thing to know.

For the full article from Forbes, click here.