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We’ve all googled it a million times and been hit with lists of “easy ways to make money online from your phone.” Always, they’re overwhelming. They throw names at you but don’t walk you through signing up for a medley of these apps and sites in a way that’s reasonable and effective. We won’t overwhelm you with stats, rather, here’s a step-by-step guide you can follow as to incorporate ways into your daily life ways to make money in your spare time from your phone. By the end, you’ll be set up for a life supplemented by simple, passive income.

Let’s start with something you can do RIGHT NOW. Seriously, pause your reading, open a browser and make some extra income before hopping back on the rest of this guide. Many sites pay you just to sign up for an account.

A dozen quick ways you can make over $200 right now

To do this, explore the following ways to make money from your phone:

Earn and save money

  1. Download the SwagBucks mobile app. There are versions for Apple iPhone and Google Android. Get a $10 bonus when you use their cash back program for the first time. Then, use the Swagbucks app to make money on your phone answering market research surveys. Use your rewards to pay out with gift cards towards your favorite merchants like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Paypal
  2. Sign-up for MyPoints.com. They also offer a $10 1st time buyer bonus. Shop through their cash back portal and get a $10 bonus! In other words, you make money from your phone when you shop online. 
  3. Give ShopAtHome.com a try and pick-up their $10 first time bonus.
  4. Sign-up for InboxDollars via their mobile app and immediately score a $5 bonus. Make money from your phone using the Inboxdollarsmobile app by taking online surveys, answering quizzes and scanning receipts.

Financial apps and tools

  1. Try Acorns mobile app; it’s a very user-friendly investing app. Sign-up through Swagbucks and get a $10 sign-up bonus from Acorns and $5 from Swagbucks!
  2. Start investing with the Stash mobile app. If you add $5 to your Stash account, Stash will match it and Swagbucks will pay you an extra $8. So, spend $5, get $13. Profit $8.
  3. Check out Charlie. You connect with it via Facebook Messenger. It gives you tips on how to save money. The service saves uses about $80 per week. And Swagbucks will give you $2.50 to try it out.

Delivery and Rideshare

  1. Deliver food via the DoorDash app and get a $50 bonus from Swagbucks. Delivering food for DoorDash, Ubereats, Instacart and any of the other myriad food-delivery services is a great way to make money from your phone. Many of these delivery programs guarantee certain minimum amounts per hour that you work. Check it out
  2. If you’ve got a car and smartphone, combine the two to make money giving people rides. Sign up an Uber driver and get $90 from Swagbucks. Uber pretty much invented the ability for people to make money using their smartphone. What’s followed since their launch has been an absolute tsunami of app-based money-making opportunities. Lyft is another great car driving alternative. 

Play online games

  1. Get paid to play games on your phone. Explore all the mobile games and apps that Swagbucks will pay you to try. You won’t believe how many mobile apps there are on Swagbucks that will actually pay you to try them.
  2. Make money answering Trivia Questions on your phone playing Swagbucks Live. It’s a live stream trivia game show that airs 5 times per week. Players compete for a $1000 prize in each game played. 

Sell your items

  1. Snap pictures of items you no longer want to keep and sell them on Poshmark, ebay, OfferUp, ThredUp, Mercari and a long list of resale marketplaces. 

Now that you’ve got that extra $200+, let’s talk about how to keep earning extra cash effortlessly on a regular basis.

Treat it as a side hustle and set up a morning ritual 

While you eat your breakfast in the morning, make extra money by being paid to discover great deals and take surveys on sites like InboxDollars (which already paid you $5 to sign up!), MyPoints and Swagbucks. Sign up for these three and rotate your activities. With InboxDollars it’s possible to make an extra $225 per month in your free time. Swagbucks has a deep games archive so you can play all types of games for as long as you like — and keep earning while you do!

Yes, there are other sites, but these three are consistently top-rated and trustworthy. Don’t distract yourself sifting through piles of options, choose a few and commit to stop researching and start earning!

Next, if you’re heading out of the house on a commute, we can earn some income every day in your car. 

Earn passive income with a car 

You can earn extra money while driving with Wrapify. Wrapify connects drivers with companies who will pay you to advertise on your car. Make as much as $450 per month if you choose the full-wrap option. Waze Carpool, an offshoot of the GPS app, splits the price of your commute so you get money back to off-set spending on gas. There’s also Turo for those who are willing to rent out their car while not using it. On average, owners who list their car on Turo make $720 a month.

Get free gift cards for everyday activities


Besides driving, another daily or near-daily activity is shopping. Whether it’s groceries, clothes, garden supplies or decorations, here’s how to keep more and spend less money. Sign up for these services in order to MAKE MONEY WHILE YOU SHOP:

Shoply is a cash-back app that can be used in-store and on-line. Earn cash rewards from grocery shopping. Redeem through the simple task of photographing your receipts, scanning a receipt QR code.

Another option is MyPoints.  MyPoints offers users up to 40% back with every purchase at 2,000 top retailers and an additional $10 Amazon or Visa card bonus after spending $20 at qualifying shops within the first 30 days of activating your account.

As a bonus, here are some fun ways to bring in extra cash when you’ve got down-time or a free weekend:

FREE MOVIES AT THE THEATER

In-Theater Checks get a free movie and $10-$20 through signing up for Market Force Information which sends out emails with deals to get paid to see free movies that are out in theaters

GET PAID TO BIKE

Bike to deliver food with DoorDash. DoorDash guarantees a minimum of $10 per hour and claims you can make up to $25/hr.

WALK OR PET-SIT DOGS

Take care of days with free apps like Rover or Wag that pay you for these services.

STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY

Sell your photos as stock photos with Foap. Upload your photos to the free app and sell each photo for use as many times as you’d like at $5 per sell.

SELL YOUR CLOTHES

Give your clothes new life with DPOP which allows you to upload pictures of your clothes along with prices to easily sell them to a global market — the buyer pays for shipping costs.

Watch your bank account grow as you start making real money from your phone. There are many routes you can take from delivering food to taking pictures or answer questions on a survey for cash rewards.

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