How to Make $500 Fast in 2021 (29 Proven Ways)

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No doubt, by the end of this article I can teach you how to make $500 fast. And, who couldn’t use an extra $500 right now?

Imagine if $500 was just sitting in your bank account seven days from now. That would be pretty cool, right? (That is enough money to get one Chipotle burrito a week for a year!)

Well, unless it’s tax refund season, the chances of you seeing $500 magically appear in your bank account are slim to none. However, below you will find a list of strategies and a wide variety of ideas to help you make $500 fast.

This article will provide you with tips to earn money online as well as some long-term passive income ideas that could help you make more money down the road too!

How to Make $500 Fast in 2020:

Table of Contents

Here is an extensive list to help you make $500 really fast that doesn’t consist of filling out 657 surveys per month.While surveys can help you make money, (And if you want to make $10 in 15 minutes using surveys when you are bored at work go for it), but that is going to take some time.The quick list of how to make $500 fast includes:

Fill out surveys with Survey Junkie, get $10 to start.
Download the Nielsen app and earn $50
Get free Paypal money
Deliver for Door Dash
Take advantage of selling stuff online
Become a virtual assistant
Teach English & tutor online with VIPKid
Start an online side hustle, like a blog.
Make extra cash doing odd jobs <– My favorite.
Help people move
Sell unused gift cards on Card Pool
Take advantage of sign up bonuses of all kinds
Complete surveys watching videos& video games with Mistplay

While those are the quick ideas to making $500, here are some more in-depth tips and practical ways of making money outside your 9-5.

Let’s start with selling things online, because let’s face it – sometimes, the quickest way to make money of any kind – is to sell something.

Tips to Selling Stuff Online to Make 500 Dollars:

1. Use Craigslist

Go through your garage, closet and house and take anything you have not used or worn in the last 6-12 months. Put it all in a pile, take a bunch of photos, and post it on Craigslist.

While the process of selling stuff might take a little more time then let’s say ride-sharing for a weekend, it really boils down to what you have to even sell.

Simply selling some old skis, some furniture, a PlayStation, a few DVD’s and a wedding dress can help you quickly make $500. Just be sure to meet a well lit neutral location when selling things on Craigslist.

Side note: You won’t get rich, and you will get paid in gift cards, but there is an amazing shopping app called ShopKick that will reward you every time you go to the store just for walking in. Your “Kicks” add up and you’re able to redeem them for gift cards. No purchase necessary!

2. Download the App Offer Up

Similar to Craigslist but really simple to use, Offer Up is an app where you can buy and sell things.

I found my Apple Watch on Offer Up and a pair of sunglasses I wanted. Buying used on Offer UP can help you save money, but it can be a great resource for selling things.

Between Offer Up and Craiglist my wife and I sold over $250 worth of wedding decorations – some which I even made – two months after our wedding.

I have made over $700 selling things on Offer Up including these products (Speciality items like blenders and watches seem to do well):

Ninja Blender
Ninja Food Processor
Garmin GPS Watch
Wedding tabletop decorations (I made)
Old laptop (Sold for $125)
End tables
Random decorations

3. Amazon

You can make $500 pretty quickly selling stuff on the e-commerce mega-site Amazon with very little experience. From fulfilling orders to selling some of your used stuff, selling on Amazon is actually a good skill to acquire with the current trajectory of retail stores.

“Flipping” items such as discount items you find at Walmart, Walgreens or clothing stores like Tj Maxx, is just one quick way to make money selling on Amazon.

If this is something you’re seriously considering, here is a step by step selling guide to using Amazon.

Try This: Go to a local Marshalls, Ross, or Tj Maxx. Look at the random Nike cleats, New Era hats, and fancy jackets. If you see something valuable, see how much it’s going for online. If the item is worth it, buy it, then resell it on Amazon. Once you do it one time, go back and do it again, but this time buy two things. As you progress, you can easily start making $500 a month by selling things on Amazon.

4. Start a Facebook Sales Page

Some people don’t like selling things because they think they have to be an Amazon sales wizard or deal with people using Craigslist or Offer Up.

However, if you don’t want to still sell things to make $500 simply create a Facebook Sales Page. The pros to selling on Facebook include:

Communicate with customers on Facebook
Unlimited amount of products to sell/promote
Easy to organize products and collections
Simple to expand customer base & target with Facebook Ad policies
Very simple to use and manage

5. Create an Etsy Account

If you make jewelry, crafts, or something worth selling – use the Etsy platform to sell it.

Not only can you make $500 pretty quickly, but you can also make $500 routinely on Etsy as you grow your following and product line.

Pros to Etsy:

Can set up your own business
Can monetize a hobby such as woodworking and crafts
Focuses on handmade items
Customizable personal site

Cons to Etsy:

Popularity has led to some over-saturation of similar products
Sites are customizable but limited
Takes time to develop following and reviews

However, there are have been some people who have made more than a few hundred dollars on Etsy, you can read about how this lady started making $1,000,000 a year using Etsy.

6. Make $500 selling on Poshmark

Ever heard of Poshmark?

Yeah, I hadn’t either until I needed to sell a custom $650 suit that no longer fit me (The guy who sold me this suit was good at what he did because this thing is way too big).

None the less, my wife recommended signing up with Poskmark and seeing about selling my suit online.

The steps were actually pretty easy, to start selling, I simply signed up with Poshmark using this link (You can use your Google, e-mail or Facebook account).

Side Gigs & Odd Jobs to Help You Make $500

If selling things isn’t up your ally, or maybe you sold everything you could at this point from your garage, then the next best go-to is providing some sort of service to others.

Here are some side gigs and odd job recommendations that can help you quickly make $500 (keep in mind others have turned their side hustlesinto full-time careers, so you never know!)

7. Make Money Offering Home Services

There are a plethora of home services people can provide to others to make money.

Let’s face it – there are some things we all love to do, but chores and housework typically aren’t one of them. However, you can make some money by offering some home services to others if you have skills in those areas.

A list of home services ideas to quickly make $500 include:

Fitness background? Cook or meal prep for other people
Creating Pallet Walls (Something I did)
Wiring speakers & helping with electronics
Putting together grills or furniture for people
Painting the interior of a home

8. Landscape Yards for $500

While landscaping falls in the realm of home services it is worth elaborating on its own. I can add a personal testimony because this is my go-to after working in landscaping for over 10 years of my life.

After looking at a few of my neighbor’s yards and realizing they lacked the time to mow their lawn, I simply asked them if they wanted me to cut it for $20.

Before I knew it I was making $40 a week every time I cut my own grass. By the end of the summer, I had easily made over $500. Mowing grass is a little slower to earning $500, but a quicker way is to do landscaping.

Large landscape companies charge a pretty penny to do landscaping. If you have a green thumb, you can easily charge $500+ to do a spring landscaping package that includes:

Clean out beds
Trim bushes and shrubs
Edge
Mulch with dyed mulch (lasts longer)

Your biggest marketing tool – “Don’t waste your weekend landscaping, let me do it for you.”

9. Dog Walking

Sort of like Uber but for dogs, Rover.com lets people find dog walkers and caretakers in their area for their animals. If you like dogs and want to walk a few, consider becoming a dog walker with Rover.

You can check in on pets, walk them or even watch them. The flexibility is nice and people who use Rover can easily make $1,000 a month. Some make $3,000+ if they treat it as a full-time job.

You can use my exclusive Rover link here if you’re interested in walking cute dogs to make money.

10. Door & Shutter Painting

Similar to landscaping, door painting can be thrown into the home services category, but it stands alone for this reason:

From time to time homeowner associations will hit an entire neighborhood with property inspection notices.

When this happens typically front doors that have faded are an easy target to spot for the HOA inspectors (I know this because it has happened to me).

When I contacted my HOA to figure out what paint to use they gave me a pallet of paint to choose from and I realized there were only five possible colors.

That is when the entrepreneur in me took over. I went ahead and spoke to a few of my neighbors and let them know I would paint their door for $100 since they got the same notice.

While painting their door required a little skill and timing, I walked away that spring making over $1,000 just being thrifty and cashing in on an opportunity to paint doors.

In fact, with the help of a friend, we ended up painting the shutters and doors on five houses and we landed one job that was over $1,000. Who said you can’t make $500 in a weekend painting?

11. Clean Cars, Decks, & Patios!

If you enjoy cleaning or like cars, cleaning the exterior of a home, power-washing decks, or detailing cars is a quick way to easily make $500.

Do a full car detail and you can make $150. The going rate for a home cleaning is upwards of $200 and to pressure wash a deck can cost well over $750.

Once again, this will require some expertise in those areas, but if you can rent a power washer for a weekend for $100 and complete five jobs at $200 each – you surpassed your goal of $500 and just made $1,000!

12. Pet Sitting

On Twitter, a reader recently informed me that they made $500 in one weekend watching pets. While she stated she hit the mothership, her pet sitting services did help here make some serious coin:

“I had to watch 3 dogs and 2 cats for an entire weekend.”

While watching pets typically means you can charge somewhere between $25-$75 per day, you never know when a cat lady might call you.

Had this pet owner boarded their pets it would have been more than $500 – so it was a win-win scenario for both parties involved.

You can offer pet sitting and pet stay services at your own and keep all the money or use Rover or a company like Wag to land jobs.

13. Tutor & Teach English

Do you like math and science, or do you want to teach English?

If you’re proficient in the English language you can sign up to be a tutor with Vipkid and teach foreign students (usually in China) the English language and make $14-22 per hour.

Do that for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week at $20 per hour = and boom you have $500 fast.

However, if you happen to know math or science, chances are there are some parents in your neighborhood looking for a tutor for their child who is struggling in school.

You can bypass the online tutoring companies that garnish a majority of what you make, offer parents a discount, and tutor a few kids per week at $30-$50 per hour.

14. Become a Tasker

So there is a chance you might lack the marketing skills or network to make money leveraging the home services described in numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Whether you just moved to a new area or you simply don’t live near any homes with yards, don’t worry, you can still make money using Task Rabbit.

Task Rabbit lets you become a handyman and offer home services to those who need things completed such as:

Mounting a TV
Moving things
Loading or unloading boxes
Cleaning a kitchen
General handyman needs
Assembling furniture (God rest your soul, I would never, not even $500 is enough to put together another grill)

15. Use Gig Walker

Ever thought about creating an app for people to request the services of others for the things they just don’t want to do?

Well, Gigwalker beat you to the punch. You can become a “Gigger” today and make $500 in the next week completing small tasks and gigs for others.

Depending on the task, you can make anywhere from $3 (easy, quick gig) to $100 (more important gig) in a single hour.

16. Freelance Online to Make Money:

The quickest way in my opinion to make money is to sell something, followed by offering an online service such as:

Digital marketing
Web design
Graphic design
Photo-editing
Video-editing
Content creation
Copywriter

If you have some special freelance talents like web design, graphic design, photo-editing or whatever, you might not necessarily have the jobs per say to use your services.

Luckily you can offer your freelance services on the following sites to make $500 or even more:

Just Ask for $500

In life, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Not saying you should get in the habit of this, but if you need $500 for a new set of tires, sometimes asking and getting creative is one way to go!

17. Ask a Friend or Family Member for $500.

Not to come across as abrasive, but depending on how bad you need $500, just simply ask a family member.

Hands down this might be the quickest way to make $500 if you have no shame and a well off uncle. Just make sure you plan on paying them back.

18. Visit Unclaimed.org

Check out Unclaimed.org to see if you have money that is sitting around unclaimed.

While there is a small chance you do have money unclaimed somewhere within a state, visiting the website doesn’t hurt and you can also check on deceased relatives who may have left money behind.

If you’re someone who has moved around the country often, there might be some tax refund dollars for you to claim.

Related: Want Free Money in 2020?

19. Call credit card companies and ask for fees back.

Call up your credit card company and do this:

Hi, I would like to talk about my interest charges over the last 90 days.
Yes, I was wondering if I could have those interest charges removed from my credit card… I was inquiring with some other companies and they said that I could open up a card. with them…
Say no more!

Credit card companies want to keep your business!

Chances are they will return interest charges, and this can rack up quickly, I was able to get $70 back recently on a card I forgot to pay!

20. Sell your blood plasma

If asking for money doesn’t sit well with you and you already called a few credit card companies seeking to get reimbursed some interest charges, the next step might take you back to your college days:

Selling your blood plasma for money.

Depending on where you live, you can sell your blood plasma 2-3x per week and make anywhere from $25 to $40 on average. While you might come up short of $500, in the end, you can make an extra $300 a month simply sitting on your cell phone will donating plasma!

Learn more about blood plasma donation here!

Longer ROI Ways to Make $500

Making cuts on your monthly spending, reworking subscriptions, and adjusting your monthly debt payments are all efficient ways that can help make 500 dollars overtime.

For a full list of over 120 different personal finance tips that help with cutting back, use this link.

Aside from food and entertainment, here are a few to consider that can quickly add up to $500:

21. Rework your insurance plan.

Just re-working and bundling your insurance (Home, auto, umbrella, renters, etc) can save you money each month.

Find a way to save $45 a month on insurance and now you have $540 at the end of the year! It’s a smart idea to rework your insurance plans every 2-3 years.

Or consider using an app that does it for you:

Have you heard of TRIM? Consider using Trim in 2021 to help you save money on your monthly bills and subscriptions. I used TRIM to help cut out unnecessary spending and negotiate our bills. It’s how I am now saving hundreds on car insurance this year!

22. Adjust Your Cell Phone Plan

Do this:

Call your cell phone provider. Tell them you are considering going to another company unless you can get some sort of 20% discount or ask for current promotional offers.

If that doesn’t work, check with your work and see what discounts they offer or see about getting on a family plan. Saving $50-$100 per month by adjusting your cell phone plan can quickly add up.

23. Cut the Gym Membership

Just cutting the $75 gym membership is an extra $900 per year. While this isn’t necessarily a fast way to make $500, combined with a few other cuts and you can quickly accumulate $500 extra each month by trimming your expenses.

24. Refinance your student loans

Simply refinancing your student loans or paying off some bad debt can free up an extra $500 a month in your budget (Depending on what you have in loans).

To see whether refinancing student loans will help you or not, simply fill out an inquiry with a lender like LendKey (they will do a soft credit pull) and you can see how much you will save each month.

How to Use Passive Income to Make $500 Per Month:

These last few tips are long term solutions that will take more time to develop, but can potentially set you up to make $500 per week for a long time!

Sometimes walking dogs and painting doors can become a bit cumbersome, in that case it is worth setting up a long term, passive income stream.

Note: Time and effort can vary!

25. Make $500 Blogging:

You can start a blog with Bluehost in about 15 minutes. I made $5,300 my first full year of blogging.

It will take time to create a readership and content, but there are plenty of ways to expedite the process so you can make $500 in a matter of months with ads or sponsored material.

Considering starting a blog?: You can learn how to start a blog step by step using this guide! It’s how I got my start making a $1,000+ extra per month!

26. Drop Ship Products

If you haven’t read 4 Hour Work Week, go ahead and start with that.

Using Amazon and landing pages, you can create or sell a product and make $500 per week in a matter of months. Just like #20 below, this requires some background knowledge and upfront investment.

So in the meantime, maybe start with dog walking and read up a little more on this one.

27. Rent/Own Real Estate

While ways to make $500 can vary from simple to more complex, real estate might be one of the quickest ways to make $500 and keep making $500 every month once everything is all set up.

Surely this requires research and some foundational knowledge, but investing in real estate and being a landlord isn’t reserved for just a few people.

Check out the Bigger Pockets Podcast and if you can figure out how to buy a $100,000 condo and rent it for $1,000 per month – you just figured out how to make roughly $500 per month without having to fill out 700 surveys.

28. Rent a room in your home.

Simply renting a room out in your home might be the quickest way to making a consistent $500 and up each month.

Aside from having to now live with someone, chances are you can offer a room with a bathroom for at least $500-$800 per month depending on where you live.

Just be sure to have a contract in place even if they are a friend and if you live with someone who is not a friend make sure to interview them first!

Tips for renting a room:

Use social media to find roommates, like Facebook Market Place
Always have a signed and written contract
Be sure you interview the person and you’re upfront with everything

29. Be Creative to Make $500 Fast.

I read about a person who did this to free up money in their monthly budget (aka make money):

They owed less than $3,000 on their car that had a monthly payment of about $400. Using a cash withdraw option from a new credit card that offered an interest-free promotion for up to 18 months, they took out $3,000 and paid their car off.

Now obviously this is a very specific case and is semi-risky (And this person will have to pay back the cash amount), but what they did was they knocked their payment down from $400 to $166 a month by extending their loan terms 18 months on a credit card. They also locked in a 0% interest rate for 18 months, so as long as they pay the balance off in 18 months they just freed up over $200 per month and won’t pay a dollar in interest.

This is 100% creative.

Being creative is one of the simplest ways to making $500 fast, but also making $100, $200 or even $1,000 really fast. When my car hit another car and my back was against the wall – I figured it out really quickly.

Figure out what skills or services you can offer and don’t be afraid to just offer them to someone. The worst thing that can happen is you won’t make the extra $500 that moment, but just stay steady.

Need help with a side hustle idea? Get a free copy of my Side Hustle Guide here and use the guide to help you focus in on a few actionable side hustles that could help you make money.

How I recently made $500:

As the saying goes, “When it rains, it pours.”

A few weeks ago I wrote about how my dog got into cocoa powder and ate enough chocolate to take out fifteen small dogs. Long story short the vet bill was $4,300 (Thank God we created an emergency fund in 2016).

I share this because I had to take off a day from work to be at home to give her medicine and make sure she didn’t use the bathroom all over the house. My dog (Morgan) and I decided to take an adventure in my car and when I got back I was in a hurry and forgot to do two things:

Pull my car’s emergency brake
Leave my car in 1st gear

About 10 minutes later a lady knocked on my door and asked if the red car entrenched in the side of my neighbors Mercedes Benz was mine…

Indeed it was. My car rolled into my neighbors who happened to be visiting another country.

I share this quick personal story because not only did Morgan’s chocolate episode cost me a fortune – I now needed $500 fast to pay for my $500 insurance deductible.

So here is what I did – I built a website for $500 (which is a really good rate) and I used the $500 to pay my insurance deductible. This is why I decided to write about some clever ways to make $500 fast… like really fast!

Final Word:

Sometimes you will need to make $10 so you can set yourself up to make $50. From there you will stretch yourself to make $100 and so on.

Don’t feel bad if you need to make money fast. Just look at the 33,100 people who “Needed money” on Google this month:

No matter what you do to make extra money, whether this list helps you or you come up with another idea, realize it’s about stringing a few base hits together!

Take action and go make $25 here and there and watch it all add up!

This article was originally posted on Money Life Wax.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Josh Hastings writes about ways to make money, pay off debt, and improve yourself. After paying off $200,000 in student loans with his wife in less than four years, Josh started Money Life Wax and has been featured on Forbes, Business Insider, Huffington Post and more! In addition to being a life-long entrepreneur, Josh and his wife enjoy spending time with their chocolate lab named Morgan, working out, helping others with their debt and recommend using Personal Capital to track your finances.

How to Make $500 Fast in 2021 (29 Proven Ways)

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How to Make $500 Fast in 2021 (29 Proven Ways)

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