Get Fast Cash
If you need a bit of cash to pay off an outstanding debt or take a loved one to dinner, there are lots of ways to get it. Making honest money involves hard work, perseverance, and patience. Decide if you can make money by selling possessions or even your skills, or perhaps look online for other opportunities.
Contents
Steps
Selling Items to Raise Cash Quickly
- Identify potential items for sale. Selling items is the quickest way to gain cash quickly, and it begins by looking for items you own that are either unused, unnecessary, or that you can simply do without. This can often be a difficult task, especially if you have a connection with your possessions or are keeping them for sentimental reasons. You need to decide whether having the cash or having the item is more important.
- Begin by asking yourself what your key needs are. Your goal is to identify the minimum amount of items required to meet those needs, with any extra items being potential candidates for sale. As an example, entertainment is a key need. However, having multiple entertainment systems (like a computer, stereo system, smartphone, gaming system, and TV) is likely redundant. You could, for example, sell your stereo system and use your TV or computer for audio, or sell your television and gaming system and use your computer for both purposes.
- Make a list of all potential items for sale.
- Consider websites as a means to sell your items. Once you have made a list of items, you need to determine where to sell them,and you should first explore online markets for sale to see if any meet your needs. The type of website you choose depends on what you are selling.
- Craigslist or Kijiji are excellent ways of selling items to your items directly to your local community. It is a faster way to access potential local buyers than other means (in most cases). Items that may require inspection before purchase (like clothing), or large items (like furniture, televisions, bed frames), are especially appealing to local buyers.
- It you are meeting face-to-face with someone to sell items, take precautions to protect yourself. Some police departments suggest meeting in a police station parking lot to make the exchange.
- Amazon is an excellent source if you want to sell beyond your local community, and has a large community of buyers. Amazon can be a particularly useful way to sell electronics, books, small appliances, and other household items. The major appeal of Amazon is that your item will be quickly found by potential buyers, and enables buyers to easily contrast your item with potential alternatives
- Ebay is another potential source, but sales typically take longer and your item will not be located as quickly as on Amazon. Ebay is very useful if you have a valuable item, and want to make sure you are getting the best possible price due to their auction process.
- Consider offline means of selling your items. If you are having difficulty selling online, or prefer to take a local and offline approach to selling, consider holding a yard sale, visiting pawn shops, or using social networks like Facebook to advertise to your friends that you have items for sale.
- Yard sales are useful if you identified many items to sell. Selling 20 items online is challenging, and a yard sale allows you quickly raise cash by selling many or all of your items over a day or two. The key to a successful yard sale is advertising, and make sure to tell everybody you know as well as place posters around the city.
- If you want to sell your items very quickly, consider a pawn shop. You may not get the best price, but they are typically negotiable.
- Get a short-term loan from a pawn shop. While this is not technically selling an item, you can temporarily part with your item by giving it to a pawn shop as collateral in exchange for a loan. If you do not repay the loan, the pawn shop simply sells your item to recover their loss.
- This can be an excellent way to get a quick loan, but it is important to ensure the pawn shop is fully licensed (by your state or local authorities) and it is also important that you receive full documentation for the loan, which will include all the terms and conditions of the loan.
- This can be an attractive way to get a quick cash loan without requiring excellent credit, because your loan is fully secured by the underlying item.
- There are monthly fees, so be sure you can pay the loan back quickly. The fees can be very high — 300% APR or more in most states. If you can't pay back the loan quickly, consider just selling the item for cash.
- Consider selling unused gift cards. If you have a gift card with an unused balance on it, that you also do not plan on using, consider selling it online. This will allow you to redirect the cash on the card to where you need it more.
- There are several websites you can use to sell gift cards online, and a Google search will reveal many options. One popular option is GiftCardGranny.com.
Sell Your Skills and/or Experience to Raise Cash Quickly
- Examine your current skills and experiences. If you need cash quickly, formally applying for a job is not likely the best way to acquire it. You can, however, perform one-off, cash-based jobs to quickly raise money. To identify where to start with this, begin by looking at what kind of work you have done in the past, what skills you have, or even who know that may need work done.
- Do you have experience doing labor or construction work? You can consider mowing lawns, or finding people locally who need quick jobs done. Are you a parent? You can consider babysitting other people's children with your own.
- Consider doing odd-jobs around your community. During the summer months, there is always a need for basic landscaping or lawn mowing work. During the winter, there is always a need for snow removal services. In your direct neighborhood there are likely elderly people, or people who are too busy to perform these tasks on their own, and when offered, they would likely pay to have it done.
- Ask your direct social network (either in person or online) if they need any work done, or knock on doors to see if neighbors need snow removed or grass cut.
- Look on Kijiji or Craigslist. Both these sites often have plenty of postings for one-off odd jobs. Often times people will need a laborer for a single project, or need assistance with a task (like moving, or even driving).
- The more skills you have, the easier it will be to find work on Kijiji (skills like electrical, plumbing, and carpentry are in demand), but there is also plenty of general labor work available.
- Consider babysitting. If you have children, experience working with children, or know people with children who trust you deeply, consider babysitting as a means to make quick cash. Parents often need babysitters when they go on vacation, go for a night out, or have appointments. If you have children of your own, babysitting can be an excellent means of making money quickly while taking care of your own children.
- You can advertise your babysitting service online on Kijiji or Craigslist, but it is wise to tap directly into your social network. Speak to parents you know and let them know you are available for babysitting.
- Sell products that you created. If you know how to make something of value, there is a good chance you will also be able to sell it either online or to people you know directly. The list of potential things to make and sell are endless, but can include baked goods, clothing, arts & crafts, wood-worked items, and even photography.
- Use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to advertise what you are selling to see if anybody is interested. Make sure to include high quality photographs, and clearly indicate the items are for sale. You may choose to indicate a price in the post you make, or discuss with potential buyers via private message afterwards.
- If you sell homemade products, consider Etsy. You can sell arts and crafts very quickly on Etsy if they are of high quality.
- You can sell photography on websites like Shutterstock or Istock.
Considering Alternative Means to Raise Cash Quickly
- Ask family or friends for a short-term loan. If you need cash quickly, consider asking a family member or even a friend for a loan. This can be tricky, as failing to repay this person may cause a serious strain on your relationship, so make sure you agree to realistic terms.
- Make money via your online activity. While it may be difficult to make plenty of cash doing this, there are several websites that are willing to pay you for online activities like shopping, playing games, searching, taking surveys or watching videos. These sites will typically make money by charging businesses every time you interact with the business via their site, and giving you a portion of the fee. The business benefits through access to the extra customers.
- One of the most popular sites is Swagbucks.com. For example, if you shop online via Swagbucks, or use the Swagbucks search engine, you will accumulate points. You can then trade these points in for free gift cards, cashback on purchases, or direct cash in PayPal.
- Note that it does take quite a while to accumulate cash, but if you use Swagbucks often, points can accumulate quickly and become a way to earn extra spending money.
- Ebates.com offers a similar service, except it only offers cashback for purchases made via the website. This means you save money from purchasing things you would have already needed, which in turn represents an extra source of cash.
- Reduce your spending. Perhaps the easiest way to get cash fast is to cut out an expense. If you reduce $100 from your budget, you now have an additional $100 to spend. This may seem obvious, but it is the quickest way to raise cash by routing money from things you need less to things you need more.
- For example, you may need $100 to go to an event. To save that $100, you may try to stop eating out for a month, choosing to walk more or take a bus if you drive, making coffee at home instead of buying it everyday, or some combination of the above.
- Reduce your spending via Start Couponing. Couponing can be an excellent way to free up cash by reducing what you spend on things you would buy anyway. With couponing, you collect coupons via a variety of means to reduce the cost of items.
- To find coupons, begin by looking in the newspaper (typically the Sunday paper). To gather coupons quicker, you can find coupons online via websites like Coupons.com that are printable.
- Consider using mobile apps like Favado as well to locate coupons. When you download Favado, it will check your locations,and identify sales in your region. It will then provide coupons for those sales.
- Take a look at the items you typically buy. If you spend plenty on one particular item, check the manufacturer's website for the item. Very often, you can find coupons to reduce the purchase of the item. Consider looking at different manufacturers for the item to see if one offers more coupon support. The time effort can be worthwhile.
- Get a payday loan. Normally you should avoid these at all costs, as the interest rates on these loans are usually extremely high while the loan itself is usually quite small. In addition, there may be a fee tacked on, making it not really worthwhile in the long-run. If, however, it is an emergency situation and you are out of options, then you may want to get a payday loan. You will need to work hard to pay the loan back on time or you could incur serious debt.
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