Ways to make $40 from home fast
Everyone has days when they need money fast.
Perhaps a surprise expense has suddenly appeared – a flat tire on your car is a perfect example.
Or perhaps you just need some extra cash for a busy and expensive month ahead!
I have lost count of the number of times I have been in this predicament where an extra $40 would have been a lifesaver.
Thanks to the internet, there are now lots of options to help you keep your head above water when you need cash fast!
With that in mind, I have put together a list of my favorite ways to make $40 fast.
This post is ideal if you need to:-
- Make $40 in one hour;
- Make $40 in one day;
- Make $40 in one week;
- Or even make $40 in a month.
(Please bear in mind that my audience is largely North American and some of these methods may not work outside this region).
This post contains affiliate links meaning we may receive a commission for any products purchased via those links. For a list of our partners, please read our disclosure.
I need $40 now – what to do?
Swagbucks
Swagbucks is a super cool site where you can make money completing surveys, searching the internet, playing games, and even watching videos.
I love Swagbucks as the tasks you do to make your money are actually quite fun.
You can sign up for free and you even get a $5 bonus just for signing up.
Expect to make about $5-10 an hour with Swagbucks.
Their “gold surveys” are the best-paying tasks I find.
I have probably made around $1800 from Swagbucks since I joined. While it did take time, the little wins add up.
Read our Swagbucks review for further information.
ClickWorker
ClickWorker is a unique company that provides micro tasks to people to complete in return for cash.
In their own words:-
“We’re always looking for people from anywhere in the world who enjoy writing, translating, researching, and data processing. Clickworker provides digital tasks to interested workers – we call them Clickworkers. Clickworkers are freelancers who utilize our workplace platform. As a Clickworker you earn money working completely independently on your own schedule from any personal computer with Internet access.”
This is a super flexible way of making extra cash and it normally only requires an internet connection and a computer to get started.
Read more about ClickWorker here.
Dabbl App
The Dabbl App is another cool app where you can make money doing fun things like completing surveys and playing games.
This app isn’t the highest-paid one I have used so I would recommend downloading this together with the SwagBucks app mentioned above.
I would also recommend Survey Junkie as another fun app to try to make cash completing surveys.
These apps are best combined with others (hence why I have mentioned 3 apps) as they don’t always offer the best opportunities to make money everyday.
If you spread your wings by using several such apps, you can make cash quicker.
Read my review on Dabbl for further information.
Profit Accumulator
Profit accumulator is a way of making money from taking advantage of the free bets that bookies give to people.
This isn’t gambling though! That’s a silly game that always ends in tears in my experience!
Essentially this works by you signing up to bookies and using the free bets they give you.
Step by Step Guide to How Matched Betting Works: An Example
- You get a $20 free bet to sign up to a bookies.
- You go to their website and join up. Great, you’ve got a $20 free bet.
- You place that $20 free bet on the Lakers to win a game of basketball. You place a “back bet” on them to win.
- At the same time you go to an exchange like Betfair and put a “lay bet” on the Lakers to lose costing you $20.
- The game takes place – the Lakers win! You’ve just won your $20 bet back plus winnings on top.
- Alternatively, the Lakers lose. You’ve just lost your $20 free bet. But … your lay bet at Befair (the exchange) has won because the Lakers lost. That means you’re in profit.
Profit Accumulator is just a company that shows you where the free bets are and how to use them.
You can make £40 in about an hour with their matched betting guides very easily!
Please note that Profit Accumulator is a British company – if you’re in the USA then try the Sure Bettor instead.
Read my “how to make money with matched betting guide” which shows how I made around £5000 in 3 months of matched betting.
Fivver
Fivver is a place where you can offer all manner of services to people for $5 or more.
It is perfect if you have an in-demand skill and want to market that skill.
You can market all manner of skills and services such as:
- Writing (blogs, articles, magazines, e-books etc..)
- Graphic design (making logos, branding, clothing design etc…)
- Virtual assistant tasks (managing social media accounts, dealing with ad campaigns, managing an email list)
- Translation (translating written text, audio etc…)
- Voiceovers
Fivver is the perfect place to earn $40 fast for doing tasks other people want to delegate.
User Testing
User Testing is a place where you can sign up to test websites.
The process is fairly simple.
As you can see, you can make $10 for every 20-minute test you do and even more for interviews.
It’s therefore fairly easy to get to that $40 target with User Testing.
You will need a computer (with audio) and a microphone to do the tests.
Sell Old Phones
Most people I know, me included, usually have at least one old mobile phone knocking around their house.
Most of the time these phones are still in perfect working order what with us living in a consumer society these days.
Yup – we tend to replace our gadgets well before their use-by date.
Even if your old phone is dated, you’d be surprised how much cash you can probably get for it – $40 should be pretty easy to achieve.
Trust me, you’re much better having the cash in your pocket than having an old phone gathering dust in your drawer.
So here’s a list of places to sell any old phones you might have laying around:-
Work From Home Jobs That Pay $40 per hour or Day
I understand that some people reading this post will actually want to make $40 a bit more consistently and perhaps do a full or part-time job.
So with that in mind, here are a few ideas if you really want to get serious about making money.
Build a Niche Site
Niche sites are websites that publish content about niche topics.
And believe me, this is a truly epic online opportunity if you’re willing to commit the time.
It might be a site about, say:-
- Coffee
- Lawnmowers
- VR headsets
- Cosmetics
These are just a few examples.
The idea is to write a lot of content about these products and attract readership and traffic from Google or social media.
You can then monetize that traffic with display ads (like the ones on this site) or affiliates where you get a commission for promoting someone else’s product.
This online business can be extremely lucrative and I know of tons of people making 5 figures a month with such sites.
Yes, it takes time as you really need a library of content to make the most of it.
But once you’ve done the hard work, I struggle to think of a more worthwhile online venture.
It’s dead cheap to set up too. All you really need to pay for is website hosting, to begin with.
When you start to make money, the key is to then scale up. This can be done by employing writers so you can churn out a lot more content.
More (quality) content = more money as a general rule of thumb.
Check out my 5000-word guide on how to build a website. This focuses on building a blog but the same principles apply to building a niche site.
Transcription
The job of a transcriptionist is to convert audio into written text.
The two main industries they work in are in the medical industry where you might be converting a doctor’s Dictaphone notes into writing and also in the legal industry where you will be typing up court transcripts (ie audio recorded in court).
This is a job that can easily pay up to $40 an hour and even beyond with experience.
If you’re interested in this then I would recommend the course “Transcribe Anywhere” which will teach you everything you need to know about running a fully-fledged transcription business.
Make a Course
Have you got a knack for something?
For example, can you play an instrument, do you know about investing, can you build a website?
Pretty much any skill can be marketed to people and the internet provides the perfect platform to do it on.
There are now numerous ways to build a course. You can make:-
- Video courses using Udemy
- Audio courses using Avocado Audio
- Written courses using Teachable
Making a course can be extremely lucrative and it’s no surprise that many bloggers who are making 6 figures a year are doing so by selling their own online courses.
Forget $40 a day or even an hour. I know of course makers who are making $100k a month plus teaching their knowledge using online courses.
So, if you have a skill you think you can teach, making a course is something you should seriously look into.
Final Thoughts
Making $40 fast, even in a day, is really not that difficult with the amount of business and side hustle opportunities available.
To earn $40 fast, I would make use of the many freelance opportunities that are available at places like Fivver or UpWork as they provide a variety of methods you can put your hand to such as proofreading jobs, writing, or transcription work.
If you’re in the UK (or USA) then matched betting is one of the quickest ways to make $40 today.
Excellent article. I really appreciate the way you have explained the things in your post. Thank you and good luck with the upcoming posts.