Unemployed? Make some quick extra money around your home

If you find yourself unemployed and looking for ways to make some extra cash, or just plain looking for some extra cash, there are some easy steps you can take. In fact, you can sit at your computer at home and easily make enough to cover a cable bill or a weekly grocery bill with little effort.

First, go through your home looking for things you don’t really need. Then you can sort your stuff into piles - Craigslist, Amazon Marketplace, eBay, second-hand store, used book/cd store, garage sale, goodwill.

I like to sell things like books, dvds and cds on Amazon Marketplace. I have found that you can make more on there than you can with eBay. And as a bonus you don’t have to deal with PayPal.

I tend to use eBay to sell bulk lots of clothes (say 5 pairs of near perfect Levi’s jeans in the same size), used electronic items (laptops, digital cameras) and collectibles like comic books or Disney items.

Craigslist is reserved for larger items. Things like furniture, desktop computers and other things that are too heavy to mail using eBay. You can also use Craigslist to offer your skills. Let’s say you want to walk dogs - you can place an ad saying you will do that. If you have a truck, you can offer to cart off people’s trash or furniture for them. I often see ads on Craigslist where people are offering to pay someone with a truck to help them move some furniture.

If I have books, cds or movies that are not selling for at least $2.50 on Amazon (I figured up how much it costs me for postage, mailer and Amazon fees and this is the minimum I list for) then I will go to a used bookstore or music store that buys those things. Sometimes they even buy things like comic books and other collector items.

Some places have second-hand stores that will buy used household items. In central Ohio there is a chain called “New Uses” that buys everything from TVs to ice trays to dressers to pots & pans. They pay pitifully though. But once when I lived in Orlando there was a used furniture store that would drive to your home and make you an offer and haul stuff away for you. I sold them a $90 table/chair set for $50, which I thought was pretty decent.

If you have a yard or a place where you can have a yard sale you can do that to get rid of things you could not get rid of elsewhere. You can’t price things too high though, which is why I recommend the other avenues first.

And with everything that is leftover you put that in your Goodwill pile and cart that all off to be donated. Why? Because it will make you feel good and it will get some clutter out of your home!

If you are still in need of cash and are looking for something other than a part-time job you can turn to the internet. There are a few different ways to make easy money online, but usually there is a 30 day wait for payment. You can make money a little quicker by doing something like writing articles for Associated Content. But with Associated Content and other ways of making money online, there is likely a lot more work involved than you realize. And unless you are a super speedy typer/writer then you might be better off getting a part-time retail job.