3-Moderate Effort, After-Work and Weekends

If you're willing to put in a bit more sustained effort, or do something you wouldn't normally do, there are some more time and energy-intensive options out there. They're usually a bit more reliable, and payouts vary depending on how much energy you really want to put into them: Answer Questions, Do Research, or Complete Simple Online Tasks You might be surprised how much work and research there is for a real person to do on the internet. Even in the age of Google, there's plenty that teachers, journalists, students, and paralegals need actual human eyes on. Sign up for Amazon's Mechanical Turk, for example, to try your hand at some of those tasks that require human eyes and can't be done by a machine, or ShortTask if you want a less-flooded alternative. If you're the question-answering type, you can get paid for thorough, well-researched answers to questions at sites like Just Answer, filling out surveys at OpinionOutpost, Springboard America, The Harvard Business School's research study program, or Pinecone Research. If you're willing to leave the house, 20|20 Panel and Focus Forward will both pay you to participate in focus groups that may decide the future of products and services you actually use. For more like these, check out our guide to simple online tasks that can make you extra money in your spare time. Sign Up for a "Runner" Service or Sell Your Expertise as a Freelancer We've shown you how to automate annoying tasks and fix irritating life problems with TaskRabbit and Fiverr, but have you considered signing up and offering your expertise? TaskRabbit's sign-up page makes it easy to get started (you'll be background checked before you start getting gigs), and the pay can be pretty good depending on what jobs you take on. Fiverr is similar, but you get to set the price and the job you're willing to do. Everything starts at $5, and again, competition for customers is fierce, but if you have a unique skill or live in an area where lots of people have errands, you can make money pretty quickly. Perhaps you'd rather become a freelancer. List your services on sites like Elance or Freelancer.com. They're not a great way to make a living long term, but they're good for people just starting out who need to find clients and build a portfolio. Plus, they avoid you having to work for free just to get started. Again, the competition can be ridiculous, and you may compete with someone from a country where the dollar goes much farther for the same job, but again, if you're in it for side income, money is money. Both sites have opportunities for writers, developers, designers, marketers, and more. Once you have a body of work, start networking, get real clients and new ones through word of mouth, and you won't need the sites anymore. You may even be in a position to go full-time freelance, if you're ready for it.