Mystery shopping
Mystery shoppers will visit a shop, restaurant, cafe etc and pretend to be a regular customer. However, they will write a report about their visit and send this to the company. They will make a note of how the staff interacted with them, the layout of the store/restaurant and how things were displayed, the prices and anything else that was good/bad about their visit. Sometimes mystery shoppers may need to make a purchase as part of their visit however the cost is usually refunded by the company.
You can earn generous payments for each mystery shopper assignment usually in the region of £5-£30. Depending on the company you may also get any expenses covered.
To become a mystery shopper you will need to sign up to a mystery shopping company who will offer you assignments. It is up to you how many you accept and decline.
Sell study notes
If you have spent hours upon hours researching, studying and writing up your notes there is no reason why someone else can’t also benefit from your hard work (for a small fee of course). There will be lots of students who will be interested in purchasing your old notes.
Your institution may have social media groups dedicated to selling unwanted books or notes. There are also websites where you can sell your notes to students from other schools as well.
Be sure to double-check whether your school has specific rules about selling old study notes.
Sell your photographs
You do not need to have the latest high tech camera to take some good shots. Even your smartphone camera is capable of snapping some pretty amazing photos. The good news is you can sell photos of more or less anything.
You can upload your images to photo stock websites either where you will earn a fee if anyone downloads them. Another option is to sell them outright to the website (you will not receive any extra payment for each download).
Become an extra in films or TV shows
Have you ever been watching a TV show or a film and seen people sitting in the background or walk past the camera? These people are all extras (or supporting actors to be fancy) and they are all paid to appear in the background whilst the main action takes place.
If you see yourself as a budding actor or want to earn some extra cash and don’t mind appearing in an episode of Coronation Street or River City you can sign up to become a film or TV extra.
There are several casting agencies you can sign up to although they will take a percentage of your earnings as their fee. However, some production companies will advertise for their own extras especially if they are filming near to where you live.
Launch your own website or YouTube channel
Anyone can create their own website or YouTube channel and you can pretty much write (or talk) about anything. Once you have some content uploaded and have begun to attract an audience you can start to monetise your site by placing ads or using affiliate marketing.
However, making money from ads placed on websites or video channels will not happen straight away. It will take time to build up your audience.
