On this page you’ll find all the best
ways to make money in your spare time whilst at university based on our own
experience. We’ll keep adding new ways to this page so go ahead and bookmark
it. And please do share your own ideas in the comments!
No-risk matched betting
Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money
(well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s
from this technique. It’s completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone can
do it.
It works by taking advantage of free
bets regularly offered by betting sites through ‘matching’ them at a betting
exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for
and against a certain outcome).
This leaves you being able to
squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £200! Multiply this by how
many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit
of a few hundred pounds.
Owen walks you through how to make
your first £15 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting.
If you know of any better way to make £30/hr sitting at home, please let us
know!
· Online surveys
An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members to answer surveys and test new products.
For a few minutes of form filling,
you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up
to £3 ($5) for some surveys!
A few good ones to try are: Toluna, Vivatic, OnePoll, MySurvey, SurveyBods, Valued Opinions, The Opinion Panel, YouGov, PopulusLive, Global Test Market, Pinecone, IPSOS, Hiving, PanelBase, MintVine, Opinion Outpost, Harris Poll, Mind Mover, New Vista, iPoll.
Also sign up for Swagbucks which rewards you for surveys
as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.
Update: See our new full guide to the best paid online surveys!
· Paid for searching
the web
Interested in earning cash for doing
what you already do online? This has to be one of the easiest methods of making
money online without really any effort or change in your behavior.
This innovative idea by Qmee.com rewards you for searching in Google,
Bing or Yahoo. You just install a simple add-on to your browser and when you
conduct a search there may be a few sponsored results alongside your normal
search.
Each Qmee result has a cash reward attached – if you are
interested in it simply click on it and collect your reward.
The best thing is there is no
minimum to cashout – our first one was just 72p wired to our Paypal account.
You also have the option to donate it to charity.
Sign up now for free and start
earning from your own searches! Click here to start.
· Online market trading
The historically hard-to-break world
of investing in stock markets and currencies has been cracked wide open. Today
there is no need to be a fat cat or fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street
style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market
trading platforms.
Having spent many hours researching
this new opportunity, I’ve been experimenting with the two biggest platforms: Plus500 and eToro.com.
Both offer free practice accounts,
and Plus500 also give you a free £20 (without
depositing, terms apply) for their CFD service which is worth taking up.
Overall I prefer eToro with over
4.5 million users worldwide. It was recently featured in the BBC 2
documentary “Traders: Millions by the Minute” and the Financial Times.
One of the best things on eToro is the CopyTrader
feature. This lets you literally see, follow and copy the investments of other
top performing traders.
Follow George’s complete guide to trading on eToro
to learn more. I think $200 is a good amount to get the most out of the
learning curve by trying out a few different markets. If nothing else you’ll
learn a great deal about various investments and industries.
Disclaimer: CFD trading can be
volatile and you can lose your entire capital, so don’t throw your life savings
into it! Trading CFDs may not be suitable for you. Please ensure you fully
understand the risks involved.
· Start your own
website
Interested in generating passive income? You need a
website. It’s THE way to make money while you sleep.
Starting a website takes less
than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only
takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there
are plenty of ways to monetise your site.
Save the Student is just one example of a successful website, started at
university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since grown into a
full-time and sizable enterprise.
Read Owen’s step-by-step guide on how to start a website in 20 minutes.
It’s really one of the best assets you can have.
· Review websites
& apps for cash
Well it seems like you’re pretty nifty with a web browser,
so perhaps it’s time to turn pro and browse websites as a paid and fun job!
Introducing UserTesting.com – a new platform that pays
everyday people to review all kinds of websites. Each review takes around 20
minutes and bags you $10 (£6.50) via Paypal.
Simply sign up here, complete a test review and look
forward to receiving websites in your inbox.
· The ‘Disney Vault’
secret
To keep demand high across generations, Disney Studios
carefully restrict the supply of some home release classics. They are locked
away in the ‘vault’ for 8-10 years before being released for a short
unspecified time.
Buy them in this window at normal
retail price and you can turn a nice profit when they go off sale for another
decade or so.
For example, in 2011 you could buy Beauty
and the Beast on Blu-ray 3D for just £24.99. In just a couple of years it
was on Amazon for a staggering £74.99!
Importantly, not all Disney releases are subject to the
vault and only the true classics will maintain such demand.
Importantly, not all Disney releases are subject to the
vault and only the true classics will maintain such demand.
Right now there are just 2 titles
out of the vault which I would recommend snapping up. They are Bambi
Diamond Edition Blu-ray and The Lion King Diamond Edition
Blu-ray.
· ‘Get Paid To’ sites
Similar to making money from online surveys, GPT sites
reward you in cash and vouchers for completing various offers or activities
online.
The most popular sites today are Toluna, Swagbucks and InboxPounds.
Exciting update! We’ll soon be launching our own GPT service for our
readers. Invites will be limited and UK only, please join our mailing list if
you’re interested in hearing once it’s live:
· Become a delivery
rider
Got a bicycle, motorbike or car? What about a Smartphone?
That’s all you need to make some extra money working as a delivery driver
whenever you’ve got some spare time.
Sign up to delivery specialist
companies like Deliveroo who are always on
the hunt for new riders. They allow you total flexibility to work when you
want, delivering food from restaurants to the customers’ door. You can make up
to £16 an hour.
Double-up your opportunities by
directly contacting local takeaways and bigger chains like Dominos to see if they have any delivery jobs
going.
· Write and publish a
Kindle eBook
If students are good at anything, it’s
researching and writing. With the Amazon Kindle store, anyone
can publish an eBook and make money.
And the Kindle app is now available
on almost any device (laptops, iPads, smartphones and yes, Kindles) so your
global market is huge!
List your book for £1.49 – £6.99 and
you earn 70% of the sale. Considering Amazon is the ultimate selling machine
(and remember people are looking to spend), that is a fantastic deal.
The key to success with eBooks is to create value, and write
non-fiction. Simply bundling information you have researched and complied on a
common problem (eg. ‘secrets’ to finding a job) and then presenting it in an
easy to digest format (an eBook) justifies someone spending a few quid on it.
Another big tip is to have a great
cover designed so it stands out, and once your book is live on the Kindle store
it’s really important to get some reviews so it shows up higher in results.
Encourage readers to leave an honest review at the end of your book.
The best thing about this lucrative
idea is that once you’ve invested the time (say 20 hours), you’ll earn a passive income for years to
come! For a step-by-step guide to publishing and earning with eBooks, see “How to
write a nonfiction eBook in 21 days“.
· Affiliate marketing
If you’ve got a good presence on
social media or perhaps you even have a blog or website, you can start bringing
in money immediately by promoting all sorts of companies, products, services
and offers online.
Sign up to an affiliate network such as Affiliate
Window, check their offers blog or browse the merchant listings to
find something you think your friends would be interested in, grab your
affiliate link and share it. If someone buys (can be within up to 90 days)
using your link you’ll make a nice commission.
To take it a step further, set up a
website (read our guide) or a
topical Facebook page and invite all your friends to join it and post your
affiliate offers on there.
· Mobile phone
recycling
Credit: CannedTuna – Flickr.com
See how much you can get for your
old mobile phone using our in-house mobile
phone price comparison tool! Maybe ask your parents if they have
any lying around too.
You can get some good money and help
the environment by recycling mobile phones with certain companies listed on the
comparison tool. But be aware: you won’t always get the quoted cash since it
depends on ‘condition’. We recommend Mobile Cash Mate for the fairest and highest
payouts in most cases (they sent us a £203 cheque for an iPhone 5).
· Become a
‘Clickworker’
The Clickworker.com concept is based on ‘internet
crowd-sourcing’ where businesses advertise specific, scalable tasks they need
completing quickly. And for us, it’s an easy way to make fast cash from our
couch.
There are a variety of tasks, but
most commonly they involve mindless data entry, web research or form filling.
You are rewarded and paid in cash (via Paypal) for the work you do, and you can
choose for what and when you work. Give it a go. [If you’re US based, also try
Amazon’s ‘Mechanical Turk‘].
· Claim tax back
Many students work part-time or
during the summer months, and others will be on placements or paid internships.
More often than not, if you are a student working during the year, you will be
overpaying income tax.
Why? Simply because few students
reach the personal tax-free income allowance each year but are put on an
emergency basic tax-code by their employers meaning tax is being paid when it
shouldn’t be.
Use our student tax-back service to help you reclaim any tax
you should not have paid. Just enter your details in the calculator here to work out what you may be owed.
Otherwise for more information read our guide on claiming tax back here.
· Get cashback when
shopping
I earned this much in 2 years
This is not only a way to make money
but also to save money as a student. If you look at it in a different way then
you are making money with every purchase you would have made anyway, whether it
be 10% or 0.5% cashback.
There are a number of cashback sites
out there which pay you the commission they otherwise would have earned.
We recommend signing up with Top Cashback, Quidco.com & Swagbucks which are free and offer the best
selection of retailers and exclusives.
· A part-time job
A part-time job is the obvious first choice, opted for by
most students looking to supplement their student loan. It provides a pretty
steady flow of income and can enable you to gain valuable work experience.
However, depending on where you
live, jobs are not always easy to find. Check local classifieds, our student job search, student
job websites and your university careers service for vacancies.
It’s also worth signing up with the Graduate Recruitment Bureau, a free service which
will match you with both part-time jobs or graduate opportunities.
Read our guide to finding a
part-time job whilst studying for more tips.
· Gigs on Fiverr
Fiverr is now the world’s largest marketplace for people to
make money selling small services (known as ‘gigs’).
What you offer could be absolutely
anything, from writing and translating, social media posting,
playing pranks and teaching to creating music, voiceovers and short video clips
for people all around the world!
The default price is $5 (hence
Fiverr..), but you can attach extra services to gigs for more money. Whilst it
might not seem like much, it can quickly add up and there are plenty of
examples of people making a really good living from the site. The key is to get
a system in place which minimises the time spent on each gig.
But there is another way to profit even more from Fiverr for
potentially far less work. How? By simply reselling gigs elsewhere. For
example, find a decent logo designer then reply to jobs on Upwork
or even local classifieds. A $5 spend can easily become $50+, and it’s
repeatable!
If you’re not interested in selling
at all there’s SO much good stuff you can get done for yourself. Have a
browse and get inspired!
· Review music for
money
If you love music, make it your
business by reviewing unsigned bands and artists online for cash with Slicethepie.
It can take a while to build up your
reputation but some users of the site have said that they earn £40 a month.
This may not sound like much, but if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t
be hard work and is another thing for your CV. Money you earn
will be in $US but anyone can sign up and review.
To get started, head over to Slicethepie now or read our quick guide for more
info.
· Sell your notes
If you don’t mind sharing your notes with other students
it’s a great way to generate a little extra cash. There are sites out there
that you can upload your notes to, along with your price, and then when another
student downloads them you get paid.
Most of these sites like Stuvia & Notesale are free for you to list your notes
but tend to take a cut of your profit in order to handle the marketing etc so
that you don’t have to go out there and promote your notes yourself.
You will most likely have to upload
PDFs but it’s worth it for the return and you can submit handwritten notes but
you’re likely to make more money if they’re typed up.
· Sell second-hand
course books
One great way to make money is to
buy other students’ text books at the end of the year, and then sell them just
after freshers’ week – when the new intake of students know that they need
them!
You can either advertise on campus
or list them online very easily on Amazon.co.uk Marketplace (just bear in mind they
take a commission on books sold).
For more tips on selling items
online click here.
· Competitions
Entering competitions of course
comes with no guarantees, but there is a growing community of so-called
‘compers’ in the UK consistently making up to £50,000 a year through all sorts
of competitions.
Types of competitions available to
enter range from simple registration forms and Facebook page liking to
answering questions correctly over the phone to being a TV game show
contestant. Imagine you made it onto Deal or No Deal instead of just
watching it!
Start by entering our very own
monthly student competition (Like our Facebook page to
see when our next one is)!
Then head to our active competitions page to enter other free
competitions that we have found. Just note that some of these sites may send
you spam so use an alias email address and opt-out of as many of the offers as
possible.
For loads more tips on achieving
success and making money from competitions, read our guide to entering competitions.
· Buy and sell domain
names
A domain name is just a website address (eg.
‘savethestudent.org’ or ‘mysite.co.uk’) and there are lots of extensions (.com,
.net, .co.uk etc).
They cost as little as £1.99 to
register with 123-reg.co.uk or GoDaddy.com yet premium domain names can fetch
£1,000s if not millions when sold on. In 2007 VacationRentals.com went for a
cool $35m!
Now you’re probably not going to
come across anything like that, but you can still turn a quick profit with a
bit of searching. The trick is to find available domain names which have some
commercial value, snap them up and then list them for sale on a site like Sedo.com.
