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Looking for quick and easy ways to save $1000 by Christmas? You’re in the right place!
If you’re like me, you love Christmas—it’s the holiday my family and I look forward to all year. But when it comes to finances, Christmas can easily become a source of stress for many people.
With all the holiday expenses—food, decorations, vacations, and gift shopping—the season can quickly lead to financial stress if you’re not prepared!
According to studies, the average American spent around $885 on gifts alone. When you add in other costs like kids’ activities, festive meals, and additional shopping, the extravagance of the season can make a significant dent in your finances. Being proactive and planning ahead can help ease the pressure and keep your budget in check.
No need to worry—you still have time to start earning extra cash for Christmas so you won’t feel the post-holiday financial strain! Let me share a few quick ways to make cash before the holiday season.
Plus, I’ve created a FREE Christmas Savings Challenge printable just for you! Download it below and start saving today so you can enjoy the holidays without breaking the bank!
Let’s get started!
Ways to Earn Extra Cash for Christmas and Save $1000!
Table of Contents
1. Sell your stuff online
If you haven’t deep-cleaned your home for a while now, it might be the perfect time to do so to find treasures in your closet, storage areas, and drawers. Yes, we’re talking about clothes, shoes, and purses that are still in excellent condition but no longer serve you.
Look around and you might find things like toys, dishware, decor, novelty pieces, electronics, and books that you can sell as well. Hold a garage sale or put them on eBay or craigslist or consign them to earn some money, at the same decluttering your space.
Here are some great places to sell your stuff:
Declutter
Sell your old books and electronics such as cell phones and CDs or DVDs.
Gazelle
Another site (similar to Declutter) where you can sell your old electronics such as cellphones, tablets, apple computers, and TVs. Receive $5 BONUS on your first trade-in at Gazelle!
2. Make Money Answering Surveys
Answering surveys is one of the quickest ways to earn extra cash for Christmas! I used to do this a lot before I started blogging, and it was a fun way to make some extra money in my free time—without even leaving the couch.
For example, I earned cash by taking surveys on Swagbucks, and it was an easy way to boost my holiday savings.
If you’re interested in making money by answering surveys, I highly recommend using the following platforms. Keep in mind, surveys won’t make you rich, but if you have some free time here and there, it can be a great side hustle to earn a little extra cash!
Swagbucks
Swagbucks is a search engine, survey company, and cashback site in one. When you answer surveys here, you earn SBs which you can redeem as cash or convert into gift cards. You can also earn SBs when you make a purchase through the site, use the site for research, or watch a video through the site.
With Swagbucks, you can earn $2 to$3 per quick survey but there are also high-paying surveys such as the one below:
This 75-minute survey above pays $18.
If you are not yet a member, you can join Swagbucks below and get a welcome bonus of $10 for just joining.
Join Swagbucks!
Vindale Research
This company offers up to $50 for some surveys and a free $2 as an incentive for just signing up.
InboxDollars
Inbox Dollars works just like Swagbucks where you can earn money by answering surveys, watching TV, and shopping online. It’s best to sign up with a few companies so you’ll have more opportunities to earn money from surveys.
You can join Inbox Dollars here and receive a $5 bonus for just joining! US and Canada only.
Pinecone Research
What I like about this company is that you’ll never get disqualified for surveys with Pinecone Research.
For each survey you complete, Pinecone Research awards you with a minimum of 300 points which equates to $3.00 USD. You could easily complete 4-5 short surveys in an hour and make $15 or more!
One Opinion
One Opinion is another survey site where you can earn extra cash for Christmas. They pay via Paypal or you can redeem your points via Amazon.com, Visa Gift Cards, and more! OneOpinion is an exclusive survey site and not everyone may qualify to join.
Apply to One Opinion
MyPoints
Earn points by answering surveys or making a purchase through MyPoints! The company is currently offering a $10 Amazon Gift Card with your first purchase!
3. Make cash for Christmas using your car!
Food delivery has become one of the best ways to make extra money these days. The great thing about this side hustle is the flexibility—you can work on your own schedule and take time off whenever you want. It’s also easy to get started! With companies like Instacart and DoorDash, you can earn up to $25 per hour in your free time by delivering food or packages.
Some delivery services, like Postmates, don’t even require a car. You can choose to deliver by foot, bike, or scooter, making it even more accessible!
Interested in becoming a delivery driver? I recommend Instacart, Postmates, and DoorDash. These are among the most reputable delivery companies for freelance delivery driver gigs you can do to start making quick cash for Christmas!
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You could also earn passive income by renting out your car with Turo. Turo works like Airbnb but of car rentals, mainly due to the way the platform is set up. You can learn more about Turo below and list your car to earn income without working.
4. Freelance Writing
One of the side hustle ideas I always recommend is freelance writing. Before I started blogging, I worked as a freelance writer for various blogs and websites.
What I love about freelance writing is its incredible flexibility. You can do it alongside your day job or in between your parenting duties, and the best part is, you can work from anywhere. It’s also a side hustle you can start today and begin making money right away.
If you are interested in freelance writing, check out Holly Johnson’s FREE introductory course on freelance writing. In this completely FREE training, Holly will share with you some great tips on how she grew her freelance writing income t to $200,000 per year!
Freelance writing pays well, too! You can get paid $100 per article or more, depending on the writing project specifications and who you work for.
Some of my favorite places for finding freelance writing jobs are:
ProBlogger – This site is completely free. All you need to do is browse through the site’s job section and find writing opportunities that interest you. You will have to manually apply to writing jobs here and the platform can get competitive.
FlexJobs – This is my most recommended site for finding remote and flexible jobs like freelance writing. FlexJobs does charge a small subscription fee for job hunters but this subscription allows you to use great features of the site to better position and market your skills to companies or clients. FlexJobs takes pride in its stringentvetting process so you can be assured that the jobs are all legit.
5. Sell Holiday Products/ Services
The holiday season is a prime time when people and businesses are willing to spend money, so why not take advantage of this by offering in-demand holiday products or services? Here are a few ideas:
- Holiday Decorator: If you have a talent for interior design, you can work as a holiday decorator. Many businesses hire decorators for their offices, stores, and other establishments during the festive season.
- Sell Sugar Cookies: I used to do this, and it’s a fun and profitable venture. Decorated cookies can sell for $2-6 per piece, making it a great way to earn extra cash this season. You can even sell them on Etsy!
- Sell Christmas Decorations/Cards: If you’re crafty, consider making and selling Christmas decorations or cards. This is a perfect way to tap into holiday spending, and platforms like Etsy are great for selling handmade items!
6. Make Money with Cashbackack Apps
Don’t leave money on the table each time you go shopping! Use cashback apps to earn cashback on things you are going to buy anyway. These apps also offer generous welcome bonuses and incredible savings of up to 40percent when you use them while shopping.
These are the apps I constantly use to earn cashback from my purchases:
Rakuten
Rakuten (formerly called Ebates) pays you cashback for your online and even in-store purchases. It’s affiliated with thousands of stores including Amazon, Macy’s, Sears, and JcPenny.
I’ve personally earned over $2,000 through Rakuten, so I can confidently say it’s legitimate and it really works!
Rakuten offers up to 40 percent cashback, earning you big savings if you do your holiday shopping through the app. The company also offers a welcome bonus of $10 (get it here) when you make your first $25 worth of purchases and a generous referral bonus of $25 for every friend you refer to them.
Ibotta
For groceries, I use Ibotta, a cashback site/app affiliated with the stores I go to (Walmart, Kmart, Sam’s Club, Costco, and Walgreens.)
Ibotta has expanded to other categories,too;Restaurants, drugstores,and retail stores are all ways to earn free money through this app.
So far, I’ve earned over $1000 in cashback and bonuses from Ibotta!
You can check it out here below and receive up to $20 bonus for just trying the app.
7. Get a seasonal retail job
The busy season comes with a surging need for extra manpower in many stores. When there are too many customers to cater to, stores need extra hands to keep their businesses running. The malls are the first place to look for seasonal part-time jobs, but you can also look at free-standing retail stores and other establishments if you want to work a couple of hours each week.
8. Get extra work on Fiverr
Fiverr is a platform that allows you to complete small tasks for a fee (typically each at $5). The tasks could range from writing, graphic designing, proofreading, and so much more
9. Work on Amazon Mechanical Turk
The mTurk program provides micro-tasks that you can work on a part-time basis. As a “turker,” you will get access to numerous micro-tasks like answering surveys and spotting errors in sentences thatt bots cannot recognize. You won’t get paid big bucks doing the tasks, but most of them don’t require a lot of time, so it’s easy to complete multiple tasks in a few hours.
Related post: Amazon Data Entry Jobs that Pay Quick Cash in 2022
9. Make Cash for Christmas by Flipping Items
There is a lot of cash in flipping items. Melissa and Robert Stephenson from The Flipper University make a full-time income from buying and selling items online! Flea markets and thrift stores are two of the best stops if you wan to purchase great products that you can resell for a profit.
If you want to learn more about flipping items for a profit, I highly recommend joining Melissa and Robert’s free webinar to start your flipping side hustle today.
10. Work as a website tester
Website testing is another simple job you can do, even without experience. A lot of companies will pay you around $10 to test the functionality of their sites and apps. You don’t have to be very savvy about how a website works, but you need to communicate your observations clearly and provide honest feedback.
You can get website testing gigs at companies like Loop11, Usertesting, and WhatUsersDo.
11. Task Rabbit
The Task Rabbit is an online marketplace for small errands and services. Serving at Task Rabbit exposes you to a wide variety of everyday tasks consumers are willing to pay for including cleaning, handyman tasks, and help with moving–just about anything a homeowner doesn’t want to do on their own!
12. Babysitting
The holidays will expectedly see a surge in demand for babysitters and house sitters. When parents have plenty of shopping to do or want to attend workplace holiday parties, having someone they can entrust their kids and homes to can be a great point of monetization for you.
If you don’t know where to look for babysitting opportunities, consider hitting up Sittercity to see what might fit you.
Learn More About Sittercity!
13. Deliver packages for Amazon
Amazon Flex is a rideshare program that allows you to deliver packages, grocery store purchases, and restaurant orders to customers in your area. It is a great side gig for people with lots of extra time who want to earn $15 to$25/ hour part-time income.
14. Put your photography talents to work
Right around this time of the year, people are thinking about holiday-themed photos. If you’re creative with the camera, you can start shooting high-quality photos and sell them to sites like Deposit Photos. Each time someone buys or downloads your photos, you earn a commission.
Or, you could work as a photographer and shoot family portraits to be used in greeting cards. Either way, you’ll earn from your passion.
15. Shovel snow to make extra cash for Christmas!
Shoveling snow is not everyone’s favorite chore this season, but you can use it to your advantage and earn extra money for Christmas. You can personally ask your neighbors if they need someone to shovel their snow, send out fliers, and post classified ads online.
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More Money-Making Ideas
Still looking for more ideas? I highly recommend the following:
Are you ready to make extra cash for Christmas this year?
If you make extra money for Christmas, you’ll likely enter the new year feeling happier and a little closer to being debt-free. Start exploring job opportunities that fit your lifestyle and skills, so you can earn additional income during the holidays. This way, you can plan vacations and shop for gifts without the guilt of overspending.
Remember, you’re in control of your money—don’t let the season cost more than it should. After all, the true meaning of Christmas isn’t about how much you spend, but about the time and love you share with those who matter most.
