A little extra cash in your pocket. Who wouldn’t want that? In today’s financial environment, in which decent pay rises are often hard to obtain, I’m sure that most people would be pretty happy to pick up a little bit of extra money.
The good news is it’s never been easier to do so. Here’s a look at three good ways to pick up some extra income today.
The internet
Technology has come a long way over the last decade and there is now a broad range of innovative websites that enable those in the UK to generate some extra money without a lot of effort. Here are a few examples:
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Airbnb: allows you to rent out your house or a spare room
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Drivy: enables you to rent out your car when you don’t need it
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Fat Llama: allows you to rent out just about anything including bikes, tools, sporting equipment, cameras, and musical instruments
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Your Parking Space: enables you to rent out your parking space
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eBay: allows you to sell things you no longer need
These are just a few examples, but you get the idea. If you’re willing to use your initiative, there’s a ton of money to be made online.
Part-time work
It’s also never been easier to pick up some (enjoyable) part-time work if you have some spare time. For example, if you enjoy writing, there are plenty of websites such as Upwork, Peopleperhour, and Freelancer which could help you bring in some extra cash. The demand for content these days is enormous.
Enjoy driving? You could sign up with Uber and become a taxi driver in your spare time. Love dogs? With DogBuddy you make a £1,500 a month looking after them. If gardening or handyman work is your speciality, Task Rabbit may have a job for you. Again, with a little bit of initiative, you could make a small fortune.
Dividend stocks
Finally, one really easy to way to generate some passive income (and one that I’m a big fan of myself) is investing in dividend stocks. These are stocks that pay out a proportion of their profits, in cash, to shareholders on a regular basis.
Right now, it’s super easy to build a solid income stream with dividend stocks as the dividend yields on a lot of FTSE 100 stocks are high. For example, Lloyds shares currently offer a forward-looking dividend yield of 5.6%, meaning that a £1,000 investment could bring in around £56 in cash every year. Similarly, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell currently offers a dividend yield of 5.8%, meaning a £1,000 investment could bring in nearly £60 cash per year.
Of course, it’s important to be aware of the risks here. Stocks rise and fall in value, meaning you might not get back what you put in. Dividends are also not guaranteed. However, when you consider how easy it is to build up a passive income stream through dividend stocks, I think they are definitely worth considering if you’re looking for extra money.