How to make a couple bucks in an hour a day?

[Adam Zapple]

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to make money with minimal time commitment.  I'm talking like $5-10 for an hour (or less) of work a day.  I've been trying to find a way to utilize my free time to earn a couple dollars extra.

[Cranky]

Dog walking? Cat sitting?

[maizefolk]

Amazon's mechanical turk?

[Much Fishing to Do]

If you're in a non-rural setting, its crazy how much people will pay to have their 0.14 acres of lawn mowed once a week, and they are not that picky on when you do it.

[kpd905]

You could look into hitting bank bonuses.  There are many ways to hit direct deposit requirements without a real direct deposit.  You'll make around $200/hour once you get the hang of it, probably more if the account is opened and closed online.

You do need to keep some money sitting in the accounts to avoid fees in most cases.

This is a good thread about it: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/bank-account-churning-how-to-make-$1600-in-a-year-by-being-organized/

Otherwise my journal shows all the accounts I have gotten this year.  We are shooting for $7,000 from bank bonuses, and a total of $20,000 extra income combined from banks, credit cards, tradelines, and other random stuff.

[Morning Glory]

Medical research. Some of the studies just require a questionnaire and a blood draw.
Donate plasma
Swagbucks, top cash back, fetch rewards, ibotta, etc
Achievemint- get $10 every so often for access to your Fitbit data
Flip items on Craigslist, can make good money if you are good at small engine repair

[Rylito]

Secret shopping, market research panels (can pay $100-200/hour), and online market research and opinion surveys.

[Davids]

Sign up for online market research and surveys. There are plenty out there. I usually end up doing 1-2 a month that generate anywhere from an extra $100 - $500/month depending on the survey/online focus group and they usually take less than an hour. The key though in the prescreening questions is to always say the last time you participated in a survey was more than 6 months ago (Options are usually less than 6 months, more than 6 months or never).

[fuzzy math]

Sign up for online market research and surveys. There are plenty out there. I usually end up doing 1-2 a month that generate anywhere from an extra $100 - $500/month depending on the survey/online focus group and they usually take less than an hour. The key though in the prescreening questions is to always say the last time you participated in a survey was more than 6 months ago (Options are usually less than 6 months, more than 6 months or never).

Can you recommend a company or three :D ??

[Fishindude]

If you're in a non-rural setting, its crazy how much people will pay to have their 0.14 acres of lawn mowed once a week, and they are not that picky on when you do it.

/\ /\  THIS  /\ /\
Could easily pocket $30 - $50, cutting one yard.

[beekayworld]

Fiverr.com

It started out as $5 per task, but that's no longer true.

Just for fun, my sister, who is a writer, wrote a love letter for a lady for $5. The lady was so happy, she tipped her another $5 :)  My sister said she wrote it out directly with no editing.

Do you  have a skill like being able to sketch? Put that on Fiverr.

Or just look at what's on offer.  Someone needs  a ride to the doctor or to have a shed painted.  These are one-off chores so you'd have variety and flexibility.

[Raymond Reddington]

Amazon's mechanical turk?

Have you tried it? I'm considering looking into it for me/my wife.

[maizefolk]

Unfortunately my experience is only from the other side of the service (sending work to it instead of doing the work).

Hourly rate is going to be much lower than some of the other options people have mentioned (secret shopping/craigslist repair and flipping/credit card bonuses/consumer surveys), but it has the virtue of being something you'll always be able to do whenever you have some free time to burn, whereas a lot of those other options are going to be more intermittent in terms of when you have an opportunity to do them, even if you have the free time to do so.

The MTurk subreddit is reasonably active, and should give you a bit of a sense for the kind of work available on the platform.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mturk/

[kpd905]

I wouldn't plan on making more than minimum wage at mTurk, and even that will only come with some experience.  R/hitsworthturkingfor can get you some of the more profitable jobs.

[MrThatsDifferent]

Sperm donation? 2 birds, 1 stone.

[2Birds1Stone]

Sperm donation? 2 birds, 1 stone.

Yes my child?

[BTDretire]

Could be.
You might make use of 23 and me!

[whywork]

drive uber, you have the freedom and if you limit it to an hour or two not entirely taxing on health either

[swampwiz]

Sperm donation? 2 birds, 1 stone.

One must be a good genetic specimen.  I have all but one of the qualities that sperm banks are looking for except evidently the most important one: being 6' tall.

Oh, and it seems that there is only one possible bird that is used for extraction.

[CindyBS]

usertesting.com

You review websites and get paid $10 per one, each takes about 15-20 minutes.  It is kind of hit or miss though. 

[mountain mustache]

I've done usertesting.com before, and only gotten paid once! I almost never qualify for any of the surveys.

I dogsit/walk dogs on the side. It's amazing how quickly the money adds up, especially in my town where everyone has dogs. I use Rover.com for some of it, which is nice because they find people for you, and give you the options to say yes/no. I also just tell everyone I know that I dog sit, so I get a lot of business just from friends/connections. I could probably have dogs every day of the month if I wanted, and make about $1000-$1500 extra a month. I usually just do it 2-3 times a month though, because I value what little free time I have after working 50 hours a week at my normal job. Still, in a good month of 2 long stays I'll have about $300-$400 extra which is nice.

[HipGnosis]

Sign up for online market research and surveys. There are plenty out there. I usually end up doing 1-2 a month that generate anywhere from an extra $100 - $500/month depending on the survey/online focus group and they usually take less than an hour. The key though in the prescreening questions is to always say the last time you participated in a survey was more than 6 months ago (Options are usually less than 6 months, more than 6 months or never).

Can you recommend a company or three :D ??

I'd like to hear Davids' answer to that too.
While I'm waiting for it, I'm reading thru;  https://wallethacks.com/best-market-research-survey-companies/  and https://www.sidehustlenation.com/consumer-research-companies-online-focus-groups/

[ohio4life]

I started charging Bird Scooters in my house. Today I made $5 for picking up a scooter on my block last night, plugging it in, and walking/riding it to a bus stop (for the free bus) on my morning commute. You can't use up the battery much or they will dock the reimbursement amount. I pushed it most of the way. It's almost like getting paid to commute. I don't know what the electric cost to charge the thing is. I'm assuming it is pretty minimal. I could make $15 easily every day doing this but it would require using my car to collect/drop them off. It may become more competitive as more "chargers" join up. Another downside is that I missed out on several after walking quite a ways to them. You can't reserve the ones you are trying to collect and others will get them first. If you enjoy sleeping 8 hours then good luck. You pick them up around 9 or 10 and drop them before 7.

[RedmondStash]

Has anyone explored board memberships for businesses and/or charities? I don't know if they all pay, but I've wondered if that might be a useful way to spend some post-FIRE time and also gain a little cash.

[toodleoo]

Check out reddit.com/r/beermoney. It has a bunch of legit sites where you can make some spare cash online. It's not huge dollars, but it would fit what you're looking for.

One of the sites in their FAQ is InstaGC. I've been using it for years and I make somewhere around $75 a month on there. It does take a little while to get a hang of the site and get a routine going, but it does work.

[diapasoun]

In the realm of MTurk is Prolific -- academic studies and surveys. I actually got this put on my radar by a similar thread here about a year ago. These often pay better than MTurk, and are a little more interesting imo. Still not big bucks, but I've averaged about 1 BP/survey so far, and they take like 10 minutes.

In the spirit of the thread, my referral link is here, though obviously feel free to check it out without using the referral. ;) I just never have an excuse to use the referral thingy!

[toodleoo]

In the realm of MTurk is Prolific -- academic studies and surveys. I actually got this put on my radar by a similar thread here about a year ago. These often pay better than MTurk, and are a little more interesting imo. Still not big bucks, but I've averaged about 1 BP/survey so far, and they take like 10 minutes.

In the spirit of the thread, my referral link is here, though obviously feel free to check it out without using the referral. ;) I just never have an excuse to use the referral thingy!

I use Prolific too, it's great!