How to Make Money for Christmas 2019!

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Do you want to learn how to make money to pay for Christmas?

It’s no secret that Christmas is expensive.

In fact, the average family spends over £500 extra in December, according to research from the Bank of England.

The obvious extra cost is all the presents for our families and friends. But there’s also all the special food and alcohol. And we also tend to spend more on going out over the Christmas period.

Sadly, a lot of families go into debt to pay for all the Christmas extras.

But it doesn’t have to be that way!

What if you could make money for Christmas – enough to pay for all the presents and food in cash this December?

By the way, my website uses affiliate links. That means if you buy something after clicking one of my links I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

How to make money for Christmas

Based on the statistic above, let’s set £500 as our goal to earn over the next few weeks.

At the time of writing, there are exactly 10 weeks until Christmas eve. That means we need to earn an extra £50 a week to meet our target.

I know that still might seem like a huge amount of money, but if you start now and dedicate a decent amount of spare time to this, I have full faith that most people reading this will be able to make an extra few hundred pounds between now and Christmas.

You will need to combine several of the ideas below, and you’ll need to make time for money making every week, even every day if possible.

This might involve getting up earlier, going to bed later, cutting out TV or social media – but you can do it! If you need money for Christmas shopping, just set yourself this challenge and see what you can achieve.

After all, what have you got to lose? Even if you don’t make the full £500, any extra cash you can earn before Christmas can go a long way in taking some of the financial pressure off 🙂

Here are some of my best Christmas money making ideas to help you make extra cash this year:

Make money online with OhMyDosh!

OhMyDosh! is a website that pays you to complete different tasks online, such as surveys or signing up for free trials.

You can cash out from just £10, and you will get the money in your PayPal account or bank account within a few days.

This is one of my favourite money making sites at the moment! I tested it out and made around £20 in just 30 minutes!

OhMyDosh! is a really fast way to earn money for Christmas, compared to many other sites I’ve tested that take months to reach a payout.

If you want to be sure of getting your cash fast, look for the ‘Lightening Payouts’ section. The offers in this section guarantee payment within three working days!

A similar site is Cashback, but I personally found OhMyDosh easier to use and it pays quicker. You could sign up for both if you have time. But if you want to focus your energy on one site, I recommend OhMyDosh!

Sign up for OhMyDosh and get paid in 3 days here.

Job Spotter

Job Spotter is one of my favourite money making smartphone apps.

You take pictures of recruitment signs in shop and restaurant windows, and get paid around 50p-£1 per sign (the amount depends on how common the job is – big chain stores pay peanuts, but unique places get more).

The next few weeks will be a great time to get out and snapping, because a lot of shops are recruiting extra temp Christmas staff at the moment!

And if you don’t have many shops near you, you can also earn points by verifying other people’s submissions.

Job Spotter only pays in Amazon vouchers, but that’s fine by me because it’s so useful for Christmas shopping!

Learn about other ways to get free Amazon gift cards here.

Have a clear out

If you need to make money fast, I always suggest starting with a good old declutter and see if you can find anything at home to sell.

This is also a good way to make space for all the new toys and goodies you’ll probably end up with in December!

I suggest you get on this one soon, because as it gets closer to Christmas, people are generally trying to get rid of things themselves or save money for presents rather than buying second hand.

Also keep an eye out for anything in good condition that you may be able to regift!

Some ways to sell your second hand goods include:

Local Facebook selling groups
eBay
Gumtree
Boot fairs
Yard sales
Selling apps such as Mercari, Shpock, Preloved etc

If you have a lot of books, CDs, games and DVDs to shift in bulk try Ziffit or We Buy Books. These are so convenient as you simply scan in the barcode to get a quote. And they’ll even come and collect from you if you have enough!

Website testing

With the colder weather and dark nights, I don’t really fancy getting a second job out of the house. That’s why I love finding ways I can make money online for Christmas.

Website testing is a nice little earner that anyone can do from home. You simply browse around a website or app for a client, and answer some questions about any issues or difficulties you had. It pays on average £5-7 for a test of around 20 minutes.

You will need to download a special software that records your screen and voice.

You don’t need any techy knowledge – the clients just want to know what their website looks like to the average person.

The two main companies I’ve used are User Testing and What Users Do.

I have found that a lot of opportunities come up during ‘office hours’ so it can be difficult for people with a 9-5 job. But if you are at home during the day, you will be able to make some good extra cash doing this.

Matched betting

Hear me out on this one. Matched betting is not for everybody.

But if you are willing and able to give it a go, it’s possible for you to make the full £500 from matched betting alone, in just a few weeks.

(I made £1000 in 12 weeks when I first started – read about my experience here.)

Matched betting is a way to make money from betting sites’ free bet offers.

Despite the name, matched betting is not gambling. You use special online calculators that tell you exactly how much to bet and on which site.

The trick is that you ‘match’ your bets on two different sites to cover any outcome so you don’t lose money. Then you take as much profit as possible from the free bet!

It sounds complicated but I’ve managed to make a lot of money from this despite knowing nothing about sports and being terrible with numbers! I am a member of the matched betting site Outplayed which has instructional videos and full support to teach you how to do it.

You will need to invest about £75 to get started with matched betting and you must be over 18.

Also, please don’t consider this if you have any history of gambling problems.

Ready to see how it works? You can earn up to £40 this weekend with a free trial of my favourite matched betting service.

Survey sites

I’m not generally a fan of survey sites because they don’t always pay so well and I just think there are better ways to make money online.

However, I do have friends who make a couple of hundred a month from survey sites, so if you start now you could make a good dent in your Christmas savings.

A lot of them have the option to take your payment in gift vouchers such as Amazon, Argos, M&S etc. This can be a great way to save up for Christmas because your earnings won’t disappear into the weekly shop or bills. I love saving up a nice little stash of vouchers to spend on Christmas presents.

Another benefit of survey sites is that you can do them in otherwise wasted time, like watching TV or even on your phone on the bus!

My top recommended survey site is Prolific Academic because it pays the highest and never screens you out.

Here are some other survey sites to try:

Pinecone Research (pays £3 per survey – one of the best paying survey sites out there!)
YouGov (daily surveys that don’t screen you out)
Swagbucks (you can also earn from watching videos, searching the web and more)
InboxPounds (as with Swagbucks, many different ways to earn!)

I also have a big list of the best surveys for money, so check it out if you want to sign up for even more sites!

Respondent.io

Respondent.io is a site that recruits participants for high level surveys and focus groups. These are usually done by phone or online.

The surveys on Respondent are extremely well paying. A typical fee is around $100 for a one hour interview!

However, before you get too excited, these surveys are usually looking for very specific participants, such as people who work in a particular job. That’s why they pay so well. So you might only find one or two relevant surveys each month.

But there are still all kinds opportunities on this site! For example, at the time of writing they are looking for UK-based people to take part in an interview about their cleaning habits. It pays $125 for 50 minutes!

It’s worth checking in regularly, and you might be able to pick up a very well paid opportunity 🙂

Sign up for Respondent here.

Task apps

Task apps like Roamler, Field Agent and Streetspotr pay you to complete small research tasks out and about from your phone.

Typical tasks are mystery shopping, checking which shops have certain products in stock, or taking pictures of special offers or advertising displays.

These apps are easy and they pay really well (fees vary by app but on average, around £7 for a 15 minute job). The only downside is that tasks are limited and it really depends on where you live.

If you need money for Christmas, it’s definitely worth downloading a few of these apps. You can make money while you’re out doing your shopping or even on your lunch break from work.

Learn about more money making apps here!

RedWigWam

RedWigWam is an online temp agency that has plenty of short term assignments all over the country.

The jobs I see most frequently on RedWigWam are mystery shopping (they even have some you can do online!), assisting with special promotions/product testing in supermarkets, and pizza delivery. They partner with many well-known chains, so they have opportunities all over the country.

Most of the jobs are one-off or very short term. This is perfect if you just want to pick up a couple of days work here and there to make some extra money for Christmas but you can’t commit to a regular job.

They even have some evening and weekend jobs so you could do this alongside a 9 to 5 job to make some extra Christmas pay.

Pet sitting and dog walking

Love animals? You should definitely look into a side hustle as a dog walker! You can stay fit and get some fresh air while also earning some extra cash for Christmas.

Other great ways to earn money with animals include pet boarding (when you have an animal to stay in your home, either for a few hours while the owner is out, or for a few days while they’re on holiday) and pet sitting (when you look after a pet in their own home).

You can find dog walking and sitting opportunities online, on sites such as Rover and Tailster.

Or try to find jobs in your local community through word of mouth, signs/leaflets and local Facebook groups.

Cashback sites

This is one way to earn extra money over Christmas by doing what you’re doing anyway – shopping!

Cashback sites give you money back on your online shopping. You simply have to click through the cashback site before going to the retailers site, then you can shop as normal. It works because the cashback site earns a referral fee from the retailer, which they share with you.

The two big cashback sites in the UK are:

Quidco (currently offering a free £10 bonus for new customers!)
TopCashback

They both have different deals, so I recommend signing up with both and comparing the cashback before you shop!

One thing to keep in mind is that sometimes, the cashback can be quite slow to pay out. So if you use these sites for your Christmas shopping, you might not actually get your hands on the cashback until the new year. But still, you could earn yourself a nice little treat to ward off the January blues!