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!
1. 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 (such as PaddyPower.com) through ‘matching’
them at the betting exchange Betfair.com. 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!
2. 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 in rewards. You can make up to
£3 for some surveys!
A few good ones to try are: Toluna, Pinecone, Vivatic,
The OpinionPanel, MySurvey, Valued
Opinions,
SurveyBods, Global Test Market, Hiving, PanelBase, Harris
Poll,
Opinion Outpost, iPoll, YouGov, New
Vista.
Also sign up for Swagbucks.com which
rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and
playing games.
3. 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 – for instance we just wired 72p to our Paypal account. You also have
the option to donate it to charity.
4. Social Investment Networks
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 free online market trading platforms.
Having spent many hours researching this new
opportunity, I’ve been experimenting with eToro.com which has over 300m
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. There’s also lots of training material and videos to
help you out, and it’s free to create an account and use.
Start trading with a reasonable deposit and
learn the ropes slowly. 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.
So far I’m up 28% on my initial deposit of
$200, but of course it can be volatile and you can lose money, so don’t throw
your life savings into it!
5. Mobile phone recycling
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. Most phones are shipped off to Asia to be dismantled and we know of at
least one student who received a £120 cheque in return.
6. ‘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.com, Bank of Offers, InboxPounds and PaidOffers.
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:
7. 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’s now on Amazon for a staggering £74.99!
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’s now on Amazon for a staggering £74.99!
Importantly, not all Disney releases are
subject to the vault and only the true most popular 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 for just £13.50 and Cinderella Diamond Edition
Blu-ray for £14.
8. Start your own website
If you’ve ever seen the film “The Social
Network” then you’ve most likely had your brain spinning as to what website you
can start-up to make you billions.
And of course there are lots of stories out
there about successful students who have started a site while at university, or
even bought a domain name and later sold it for 1000s.
In fact, Save the Student is one such example of a
website started at university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since
grown into a full-time and successful enterprise.
Read Owen’s 4-step guide to setting up a
website if you’re interested in finding out more. It’s really not that
difficult to get started and there are plenty of opportunities to make money
online.
9. 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 remembers
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 (approval
takes less than 48 hours) 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.
10. 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 or
a topical Facebook page and invite all your friends to join it and post your
affiliate offers on there.
11. Review music for money
If you love music, make it your business by
reviewing unsigned bands and artists for cash. I know… we couldn’t believe it
either.
It can take a while to build up your
reputation but some users of the site have said that they have earned £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.
12. Competitions
Entering competitions of course comes with no
guarantees, but there is a growing community of so-called ‘comers’ 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!
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.
13. 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.
14 Get cash back 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 both Top
Cashback and Quidco.com which are free and offer the best selection
of retailers and exclusives.
15. 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.
16. 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, voice overs 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 minimizes 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 Elance 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!
17. 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 Books Trade-In (just bear in mind they
take a commission on books sold).
18. Become an Amazon ‘Mechanical Turk’
Don’t ask us what this means, all we know is
that it’s an easy way to make fast cash from your sofa. The concept is based on
‘internet crowd-sourcing’ where businesses advertise specific, scalable tasks
they need completing quickly.
There are a variety of tasks (known as HITS),
but most commonly they involve mindless data entry or form filling. You are
rewarded in cash (though $USD) for the work you do, and you can choose for what
and when you work.
19. 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 DomainLore.
20. Be an extra
Do you fancy yourself as a budding young
actor or just that person that walks past in the background shot of an episode
of Eastenders? It could be you if you apply to be an
extra.
The pay isn’t bad either – £60-80 a day on
average, and you hardly have to do anything!
You can apply at Be On Screen for a number of
opportunities or 2020 casting is another agency (just know they take a cut from
your earnings).
21. Sell all your old CDs, games and movies
If you are looking to make a very quick buck,
then selling your old bits and bobs that are cluttering up your room is a good
idea.
The best thing about it is that you can rip
all the songs and films onto your laptop or external hard drive before selling
them. This means that you are only really selling the plastic and artwork!
You can earn anything from 10p to £20 per
item, and the earnings can really add up if you have a large collection. Whilst
you’re at it, see if your parents have any ‘clutter’ they’d be happy to see the
back of.
You can also sell almost anything for free on
Amazon Trade-In or Preloved and sites like MusicMagpie will pay you instantly
for sending in unwanted items.
For more tips and places to sell check out
our guide on selling DVDs, CDs and games.
22. Sell on your education!
Become a tutor to local GCSE or A-level
students. There are now a few online tutor sites too, so you can go also global
without too much hassle.
You may feel as if you aren’t qualified to be
a tutor, but seeing as you are at university you will most likely have the
qualifications to tutor for GCSE or even A-Level. Some parents may feel that
their child will react better to a younger tutor, and it can be great
experience, so why not give it a go?
You can advertise on SchoolsTrader or sign up
with Bright Young Things & UK Tutors. You can expect to earn around £10 an hour.
However, make sure you don’t have to do too much tutoring around your exams!
23. Sell your photos
If you think you’ve got a good shot and a
little creativity, try uploading your photographs for free to stock websites. A
good starting point is Fotolia or istockphoto.
Make more money selling photo subjects that
people are demanding, and there’s a great resource to find our blogs. It might
be a good idea to test them out in print first yourself.
24. Rent out your car parking space
Some student accommodation comes with a drive
or garage. If you aren’t using your parking space and you live in a busy area
then you might be in luck. There are plenty of people that may work in the city
centre and are fed up of paying through the roof for daily parking.
Advertise your space on Gumtree, Parklet or Just
Park.
25. Work as a charity collector
Ok so this job takes a certain kind of
person, as you’ll have to take a lot of rejection and be persistent.
But if you are bubbly, personable and reckon
you could sell ice to an Eskimo then this could actually be a great student
money making idea. You get paid commission on new sign ups (typically around
£20).
Have a look at Wesser as well as charity
websites like Oxfam.
26. Babysitting
Advertise your services locally. It’s a
classic money-maker, and for good reason. You get paid (well) to watch TV and
not very much else!
Be warned that you will need a CRB (Criminal
Records Bureau) check to look after small children, even though some parents
may not ask for one. If you are wondering what to charge, then look at local
ads but you can expect to be paid over £6 hour even if you aren’t trained in
child care. It really is easy money (unless you get stuck with the child from
hell!).
27. Become a freelance interviewer
Do you want to excel in an HR career? Do you
love asking questions? Believe it or not a company will actually trust you to
carry out interviews for them and pay you for your time. It couldn’t be
simpler.
You could make £185 a week plus have your
travelling costs covered. The downside is that you will have to commit to 20
hours at least a week so make sure that you have the time. Apply at NatCen.
28. Mystery shopping
Becoming a mystery shopper is easier than you
think. You can get paid to spend money in shops, usually in the form of a
voucher for the shop in question.
For more info on where to apply check out our
guide to becoming a mystery shopper.
29. Dog walking
Dog walking may sound trivial but it’s big
business. Just think that as a student you’re likely to have free time during
the day when others are out at work and worried about their pets at home.
You could make around £7 a dog for a 1 hour
walk, and it’s also a great way to keep fit. Advertise your services locally
with fliers or on classified websites such as Gumtree.
30. Rent out your house for filming
Directors for TV and film are always on the
hunt for houses to film in. For instance, a scene for Coronation
Street was recently filmed in the student house one of the Save
the Student editors used to live in!
Not only can you make good money but it’s
crazy seeing your own place on TV. Start out by looking at film-locations.co.uk.
31.Rent out your body
Ok, ok – this isn’t what you think. “Renting
out your body” can go as far as you want it to go. For example we reported on a
story a while back about students who are turning to lap dancing to make a
quick buck.
If you are comfortable taking off your kit
for a more acceptable cause then why not try life modelling. Sit there in the
buff while budding artists capture your every curve (or pokey bits) in
frightening detail! Try this website especially designed for these kind of jobs
RAM.
You could also get involved in clinical drug
trials. If this scares you a little then you can find more information about
what’s involved.
Warning: Do not do anything you are
not comfortable with, no matter how desperate you are for money! There has been
an unhealthy rise in student prostitution in recent years – do not fall victim
to it!
32. Freelance work
Perhaps you enjoy writing, managing Facebook
pages or doing a little bit of graphic design in your spare time. There are so
many freelance jobs out there that require simple skills or just time that
someone else might not have.
And the best things about freelancing is that
you can work for clients in the UK and around the world with just an internet
connection from home, to your own hours whilst developing valuable skills.
A great place to start is with the leading
freelance site Elance.com. Or try using our student job search to find
freelance jobs.
33. Busking
If you can sing or dance then this is your
time to shine baby! Did you know that Justin Bieber started off busking? That’s
right, with a little work you can be as annoying as him.
There are really no tips for this except
choose a good spot with high footfall, make sure you are good and play your
heart out. Some buskers in the past have been known to make upwards of £20
hour.
34. Sell clothes on eBay
Everyone’s best friend when it comes to
getting rid of junk is eBay. Online auctions are a sure-fire way to turn that
sleeveless jacket (which came in and out of fashion in a week) into hard cash.
Some eBay sellers look at trends and try to
predict what will be big ahead of the market. If you are good and don’t mind
taking a risk then you can buy early in bulk and sell on when the craze hits.
35.Sell your stories and videos
If you have an interesting story then you
could try selling it to the papers. It could be anything from sleeping with a
professional footballer to getting caught in a clothes horse!
One of the Save the Student team was unfortunate
enough to have a pigeon fly through and smash their window at university and
sold the story to The Sun for a tidy £50.
You could also film your mates at all times
and send it into You’ve Been Framed to net yourself £250 and a
few seconds of fame.
36. Sign up for psychology experiments
These are the things you may get to your
student e-mail inbox from your university or careers service every now and
then. They aren’t dangerous and usually don’t require too much effort or time.
They tend to compensate you quite well (around £10/hour), and they may even
interest you!
It’s worth bearing in mind that these are
different from the medical or body experiments/horror stories that you hear
about. There will (hopefully) be no strange probes involved!
37. YouTube videos
According to recent stats we now watch more
videos on YouTube than searches on Google. And with the recently introduced YouTube
Partner Program you can now profit from making and uploading videos. You will
receive a percentage of the advertising revenue collected per 1,000 views.
Depending on how successful you are
(virality, subscriber base and topic) you can make a lot of money, and there
are plenty of stories every week of more and more YouTubers making it their
career.
38. Network marketing
Also known as Multi-Level Marketing (MLM),
this is a business model that allows you to generate ongoing income in two
ways: by making a commission selling products and by recruiting other members
who go on to sell. The later allows you to make money from the sales made by
those you have recruited.
Importantly, this is not a pyramid scheme
(they are illegal) because there is an end goal which involves a customer
buying a product or service of value.
It’s also not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. You
will have to work I’m afraid! However with the growth of social media, network
marketing is becoming easier and lots of people are now making a decent living
from it.
This is a serious way of making good money on
your own terms and it’s well worth reading up on it.
39. Source property for wealthy investors
We all know how much money there is in
property, but on the surface (with house prices as high as they are) you might
be thinking this market is off-limits.
Truth is, lots of people make a great deal of
cash simply sourcing suitable properties for wealthy investors who simply have
no time.
The trick is to find properties below market
value (BMV) by avoiding estate agents and instead flyering your area with your
contact details offering to buy houses. Then approach investors with a
no-brainer offer to pass on the details of cut-price property in exchange for a
% of the sale value.
Most cities will have monthly networking
events for landlords and property investors. Track these down, sign up, put on
your best suit and go along with lots of business cards. Or you could start on
LinkedIn or even Twitter to build some initial contacts.
As you might imagine, this isn’t necessarily
a quick way to make money but once you’ve got a few investors in your phone
book it can prove to be very lucrative in the long run. If you’re interested.
40. Advertise your other skills
What can you do well where others struggle?
Fix bikes, computers, write articles, create websites, make cupcakes or fresh
lemonade?!
The key is to be creative and think outside
the box. A writer at Save the Student actually made small models
out of beer cans and wire and sold them to other students. Great idea with big
profits!
There are many other
creative ways to make money as a student. With any luck you’ll be on the road
to making millions! Please feel free to share your own ideas by leaving a
comment below.
