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Last updated on December 14, 2023 by Daniella
With 14 different religious holidays and even more events in December ONLY, you might be looking for creative ways to make extra holiday cash.
Family gatherings and holiday parties aren’t cheap, especially if you’re expected to get gifts for a lot of people. Add in groceries, decorations, and maybe extra trips to see relatives, and you might have a hefty enough bill to start planning.
If you have children, you probably want to make sure they have the best memories of this holiday, and gifts can be involved in that memory.
If gifts are too expensive and stressful to plan, I recommend talking to family and friends about it. Suggest a Secret Santa or gift exchange where it minimizes costs. Or discuss with your family the idea of having a gift-free celebration.
Trying to save for this occasion in any way can be difficult. With the help of side hustles and options to increase your income this holiday season, we have some ideas that might help.
6 ways to earn extra money for the holidays
In this article we didn’t talk about options like making money with a blog, selling digital products or paid research studies. While these are all great options, they won’t be able to get you the amount of money you need in a timely manner.
This shouldn’t stop you from exploring other income options you want to generate after the holidays.
Let’s check out these 6 fastest ways to make money this holiday season.
1. You get paid to care for pets
If you love pets, use an app like Rover to earn extra money.
Demand for pets sky rockets in the months of November and December with the number of people traveling to visit family for these holiday months.
With more people traveling, more pets are left behind and in need of care during this time. Also, for people who don’t leave town but there is a greater demand on their time to be with family or organize events, people will be needed to help them with their babies. They may require walking or multiple visits which are also services you can do through the app.
Check out our Rover review to learn more.
2. Earn extra money with Gig apps
If you have the extra hours each week to work a few gigs for extra cash, try gig apps for a temporary holiday hustle.
Some concert apps to download and try:
- Instacart: Sign up to deliver groceries or become a shopper if you don’t have a car. This is a great way to earn extra cash during the holidays, when many people probably rent out their holiday shopping.
- Shovler: Get paid to shovel or shovel snow for others.
- DoorDash: Sign up to deliver restaurant orders to people.
- Hyrecar: Rent your car using this app.
- Handy: Find gigs in fields like carpentry, furniture assembly, decorating, cleaning, and more.
- TaskRabbit: Do tasks for others like cleaning, decorating, hanging holiday lights, repairs, painting and more.
Related: 15 Side Hustle Apps to Make Extra Money
3. Freelance Out a Skill of Yours
Think of a skill you have such as writing, graphic design, or web development.
There are actually ways you can monetize these skills by reaching out to small businesses and online creators who may need your skill set (especially during a peak season like the holidays).
Here are some places where you can start looking for those freelance jobs:
Check out this complete guide on how to get started as a freelance writer.
Pro tip: Another option is to work as a freelance proofreader and proofread books, articles, courses, and even social media posts for others. You can get started with this free training.
4. Sell items online
You can also sell items online to make extra cash. These items may be previous gifts that you didn’t want or end up using, or other items that you already have but no longer need or want.
The easiest platform to sell items quickly (in my experience) is Facebook Marketplace. You can either sell the items locally and arrange pickup or sell to anyone regardless of location and send the items to them through the app. The app also has secure payment tool integration with tools like PayPal that make payment quite instant.
Keep in mind that there is a haggling culture on Facebook Marketplace, so some people will try to negotiate the price with you.
Other platforms to explore when selling or reselling items online:
- eBay: Best for electronics and collectibles.
- ThredUp: The best for selling clothes. Whatever the platform doesn’t sell, it recycles for you!
- Poshmark: Best for designer brands and accessories.
- Mercari: The best for home and kitchen items as well as children’s toys.
Check out these 9 different selling apps to sell items online.
5. Become a Part Time Virtual Assistant
If you’re social media savvy, love organizing for others, or enjoy doing anything technical, you can work as a virtual assistant during some of your free weekend hours as you try to save for the holidays. You can find work by reaching out to small businesses on social media or looking for Facebook Groups where people post virtual assistant jobs.
Places that hire VAs include:
- Search Facebook groups using keywords like “virtual assistant” or your specialty like “social media managers”, “content managers”, “fixers”, tc to find people posting that they are looking for virtual assistants and create relationships with other virtual assistants.
- Fancy Hands (used for starters but doesn’t pay enough to keep working – use for starter experience)
- Talent.Hubstaff.com
- Delegated
Related: 11 Best Side Hustles for Introverts That Pay Well
7. Look for seasonal part-time work
If you’d rather have a more steady source of extra income this holiday season, I recommend looking for seasonal part-time work in your area. Depending on your schedule, you could potentially receive additional hours of work during night shifts, weekend shifts, and holiday shifts.
This could be:
- Seasonal customer service work (including remote work)
- Seasonal retail jobs
- Snow removal
- Holiday decoration
- Festive events such as light displays, Santa meets, parades and more
Companies hiring for seasonal jobs:
- Target
- Grocery stores
- Shopping malls
- Godiva
- Nordstrom
- Wayfair
Job boards to be used to search for seasonal jobs:
- CoolWorks: Find seasonal jobs in various categories.
- SeasonWorkers: Find seasonal winter jobs in hospitality, ski resorts, childcare and more.
- SnagAJob: Find seasonal hourly work.
- PeopleReady: Search for seasonal retail, manufacturing, distribution, warehouse, hospitality, hotel and event jobs.
You can also browse part-time and seasonal work in the list of remote work boards.
Bonus Cash Opportunities
With all the different ways to take on extra work for an extra source of income this holiday season, there are other ways to earn cash.
These simple hacks can help you add a few extra dollars to your savings:
They may not be able to get you much, but they add up.
Happy holidays ❄
As you go through this list and think about all the possibilities, don’t get caught up for too long comparing the different options. Choose the one that suits you best and try it.
Which one will you try? Let us know in the comments.
Cheers and happy holidays!
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Daniella is the creator and author of iliketodabble.com. When they and their wife Alexandra aren’t traveling the world or playing with their 7+ animals, they are busy and working towards a future of financial freedom.
