20 Ways To Make $200 Fast With Your Free Time (Or With No Time At All!)

Let’s face it. $200 isn’t a lot. You don’t need to be some kind of financial guru to earn this on top of your income. And all it takes to make $200 fast? Leveraging your time to make money. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how I always convert earnings to $/hr. That’s because:

• It gives you a better sense of your earning potential if you work all the time (which I don’t recommend, by the way)
• Even $100,000 is meaningless if you take 40 years to earn it.
• You shouldn’t have to work yourself to death just to live a comfortable life.

And most importantly, even the richest man in the world only gets 24 hours in a day. It’s just a matter of using what you already have (connections, skills, talents, existing assets, etc.) to find ways to make money fast.

I swear you don’t have to work so hard to earn $200. You can totally rig the system so you can make extra money the easy way.

You wanna know how to make 200 dollars fast? Here are 20 things you can do without having to question your life choices afterward.

Help other people sell their stuff

If you don’t want to part with your stuff, that’s totally fine… unless you’re a hoarder. Then I’d strongly suggest that you let go of some of the stuff before you die in a freak accident, buried under all your crap after a small earthquake.

And some people hate selling. You can sell stuff on their behalf and get paid a fee or commission.

1 – Sell stuff for your friends

As I said, some people hate selling. That’s why they’re forced to settle for a low-balled offer just to end that nightmare.

But I warn you: this won’t work on items that cost under $100 a pop. You need to go for the high-end stuff like computers and cars. That’s where the money is.

Plus, selling stuff online is so easy nowadays. More people are using social media and other selling platforms to find stuff instead of going to flea markets to find a good deal.

And to make money fast, you only need to craft a post for whatever it is that you’re selling and repost it everywhere: Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit… it doesn’t matter!

Even if the platform’s not really for selling stuff, you’ve got nothing to lose. You’re not charged per post anyway.

The trick here is to anticipate their questions and to post all relevant details. I know how annoying it is to be asked the same thing over and over again.

2 – Connect your friends with real estate agents

If your circle doesn’t consist of teenagers working a few shifts on McDonald’s (which is creepy and maybe borderline illegal), you probably have at least one friend who wants to buy or sell their house.

And you can definitely use this to your advantage.

Where I live, house prices are insane, and there’s a crazy over-supply of realtors, many of whom would offer a referral bonus to get a client. I’ve once been offered $1,000 by a stranger on the street, never mind two hundred dollars!

So if you have realtors knocking on your door, leaving calendars and pens, feel free to ask if they’d offer a referral bonus – and then connect them with your friends.

And don’t feel weird about it either! In my city, an average house goes for $700K-$1.5M. A 2% commission for the realtor means up to $30K! Why wouldn’t they give you $200 or more?

Don’t want to push some rando with a calendar to your friends? You could still work something out like inviting them to a networking event (for a modest fee) filled with eligible clients.

Get money that’s already yours

Even if you have zero investment, you probably still have money somewhere lying around.

That’s why this is one of my favorite ways to make money! You’re practically guaranteed to get paid for as long as you can find it.

Now, if you’ve already cleaned out your couch for quarters and haven’t made 200 dollars yet, maybe you should try these:

3 – See if you have unclaimed money

There’s around $14 billion of unclaimed money in the state of New York alone. Don’t you want a piece of that action?

I don’t mean doing an Ocean’s 11-style heist as a money-making strategy because there are a lot of downsides:

• It takes too long to plan and execute.
• You don’t have an A-list looking crew to help you pull it off.
• Everyone’s watched that movie already, so it probably won’t work.

And why steal it when some of it may be yours? Maybe you haven’t cashed in your tax refunds or you forgot about this insurance payout, so you’re entitled to a few hundred bucks.

So instead of pulling a Hollywood-worthy heist, go to unclaimed.org. Check every state that you’ve ever lived in. You’ll be directed to a different site where you’ll type your first and last name to check if the government owes you money.

Sure, it’s not nearly as cool. But money’s still money, right?

4 – Ask people who owe you money to pay you back

I hope you didn’t lend any to your friend’s coworker’s dad’s uncle who really needed the money. Because that’s a long shot at best.

If you don’t want to hear some lame excuse about how they don’t have money, try this strategy a day before payday. This is a great way to prevent them from weaseling out of paying you back.

But let’s say that they aren’t doing so well right now. You don’t have to wait for things to look up. Try getting paid in services instead.

If you have someone mow your lawn for $50 a week, get paid in mowing services instead. You automatically save 200 dollars once you get someone to agree.

Participate in market research focus groups

I know, I know. I’ve talked about how much answering online surveys suck. But with everything, there are always exceptions.

Your average survey site isn’t worth looking into unless you’re punishing yourself, but focus groups are a different game.

Because they’re getting in-depth information from you instead of having you “truthfully answer” survey questions, they pay a lot more.

5 – Sign up on Respondent.io

If you fit the profile they’re looking for, you can earn as much as $150 an hour just by answering their questions.

And there are no wrong answers. You won’t get into a bad college if you think you didn’t do well. Just be yourself because that’s exactly what they’re looking for.

But to up your odds of getting selected, you can also…

6 – Try VIP Voice

No one likes the hassle of going out to answer questions about what they feel about some weird hand lotion that smells like bacon.

So why not answer those questions online instead? You can join an online focus group discussion to earn $25-$100+ depending on how long it is.

If you don’t like going out, this is one of the best ways to make money. It’s just a bonus that they can’t get you to smell their bacon lotion online.

Join the online gig economy

Do you know what Paris Hilton, a millionaire and former it girl, would say about the online gig economy?

“That’s hot.”

Because getting gigs online is so hot right now! In fact, it’s so hot 57 million Americans are a part of it.

I’ve mentioned before that I like sites like Fiverr for various odds and ends. Know how to make a business Facebook page? Offer to do it for someone for up to $300! (Don’t know how to make a business Facebook page? Offer to do it for $15 until you get good enough to charge $300!)

7 – Write articles for extra cash

How to make money in a day? Write stuff online.

If you don’t write like a middle school kid who’s failing English, you have a fighting chance. Because most of the time, you’ll need to keep your writing at a grade school reading level.

Who knows?

If they like your work, maybe they’ll get articles from you regularly. So not only are you securing 200 dollars with a few articles, but you’re also permanently increasing your cash inflow.

There are many platforms that you can try out to get started. Signing up takes minutes, then you can start getting clients right away.

8 – Sell other stuff on Fiverr

So it’s not just a place to buy or offer services. Fiverr also a platform that lets you sell anything starting at $5. It’s far from that $200 that you want, but here’s the thing…

You can sell the same digital product here over and over again. So you only have to prepare whatever you’re selling once, then earn from it forever.

Let’s say you’re a web design specialist. You can sell a checklist and a quick guide that you’ve used to get your site super sleek and responsive.

You can easily sell that for $5! If you get 40 people to buy it, then you’ll make $200. Here’s what I love about this:

• After the initial effort, it’s all income and no work.
• The people who buy your $5 digital product are probably interested in getting a similar (and more expensive) service from you. (Yay! More money!)
• The more positive reviews you get, the easier make $200 again.

Get rewarded for doing stuff you’re doing already

How to make $200 fast? Don’t do anything extra for the money.

No, you don’t have to wait for a handout or wait for the cash to fall out of the sky. But with these, you literally have to change nothing about what you’re doing to get paid. 

9 – Open your emails for cash

I get a lot of emails every day. And you probably do too, especially if you give your email to get discounts or free stuff.

And if you randomly open emails to look for deals, you’ll love Vindale Research. You can actually get paid for doing a lot more stuff, but opening emails really stood out.

10 – Get cash back when you buy stuff

Normally, you’ll only get cash back with online transactions because you have to click links for it to work. And I still strongly suggest that you go for that on top of this one.

But you can also get cash back on your non-online purchases like grocery shopping. Just snap a shot of your receipts, and get cash back: that’s what Ibotta offers.

Just look through their deals online, and see which of your purchases qualify for cashback. It’s great that the app remembers your past purchases, so it’s easier for you the next times you use the app.

Kick it old-school

Who says that earning money has to be complicated? You don’t have to look for ‘secret’, non-conventional ways to make $200 fast.

I say, give your high school gigs the old college try.

11 – Be a dog sitter or walker

The general opinion right now is pets are better than kids… except for mine who is the best kid in the world according to science!

If you love dogs, you’ll love getting paid to hang out with them. Combine this with a job with summers off or early retirement, and you’ll be loving life!

It’s easy to make $200 every week walking dogs in your free time. The money is great, but the real treat is when the dogs start liking you more than the owner.

12 – Babysit

Kids are great, especially when they’ve exhausted themselves from running around the house all day.

I offer a friend-of-a-friend $40 to sit in my house for a few hours while my kids are alseep upstairs so that my wife and I could go out.

You shouldn’t expect to make $200 in one night. But what makes this one of the more popular ways to make extra cash is there isn’t a lot to do. After their bedtime, you can sneak in looking for an online gig to earn $200 more quickly.

If you still feel weird offering to do a job that’s meant for pre-teens, you can offer to connect trustworthy clients with trustworthy workers and take a cut 😉

Get free money

They say you have to spend money to earn money… Not all the time, you don’t.

Even in this there is no such thing as free lunch world, you can find ways to make $200 or even more for free.

13 – Claim free stock

Even if you’re not into investing in the stock market, you should still sign up. For example, Robinhood will give you one random stock for free worth as much as $240 just by signing up an account with them.

There’s no catch! No need to deposit cash to claim your free stock.

14 – Sign up for a newsletter to get discounts

If you’re going to buy from a certain site anyway, check if they’re offering a discount code for signing up for their newsletter.

Usually, you’d get 5%-10% off your purchase but it depends.

So for $200-worth of stuff, you can slash as much as $20 off.

It only takes a minute to give out your email and copy the discount code. And converted to $/hr, this method comes out at $1,200/hr.

Monetize your artistic talent

If you’re a talented artist, own it! And more importantly, get paid for it.

It’s one of the funnest ways to make $200 fast because you get to show off your mad skills and make sure you don’t get rusty.

And the price of art is what someone’s willing to pay for it. So your earning potential is virtually limitless.

15 – Offer commissioned work

The first step to getting offers is showing off your portfolio. You can’t expect people to believe you’re good without any proof.

But gone are the days where you have to carry a big black portfolio case and hope someone asks you about it on the subway. Start an instagram account with your sketches of Brangelina and then offer it as a service to brides or new parents. Two hundred dollars is a steal for an “original” sketch of your wedding day!

And to avoid clients flaking out on you, get paid upfront. Make them commit as much as you are to the finished output.

16 – Sell stuff on Etsy

I love Etsy because there is a lot of unique stuff that you won’t find anywhere else.

So by the rules of supply and demand, you can command a higher price because no one else has what you’re offering.

Plus, you get well-deserved validation on top of your earnings. And who doesn’t want that?

Get paid to judge people’s work

I wish I was talking judging some celebrity edition of a talent show. But unfortunately, life isn’t that great.

So why don’t we go for the next best thing?

17 – Edit and proofread someone’s writing

If you’re a writer who lives to demolish someone else’s work, then I suggest therapy. But let’s be honest. No one cares what your intentions are, as long as you get the job done.

So whether you actually need the extra cash or see it as just a bonus, you can make good money with editing and proofreading.

There are many ways to make $200 fast, but this one will be super easy if you’re in college. Use job platforms and social media to advertise your services.

18 – Test websites

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes rant while using a website that looks like it was last updated in 1990.

But you can get paid testing websites and recording what you think about the experience as you go. When was this gig before I started investing in real estate!?

Each testing session lasts 15-30 minutes, while you get paid $10 per website. So to earn $200 a week, you only need to work around an hour a day. 

Strive for a healthier lifestyle

Did you know that there are financial costs to being unhealthy? It’s $150,000 to be exact. If you don’t have that kind of money lying around, then you better start paying attention.

You can try to live healthier AND earn money at the same time. Here are two ways you can do so:

19 – Get paid to walk

If you want to drop your weight but aren’t willing to pay for a gym membership, this is easily the most practical way to make money.

HealthyWage pays you to walk. Doesn’t matter where, as long as you’re walking.

On top of what the app pays you, this can even help you cut down on gas costs because you now have a motivation to walk instead of driving to wherever you’re going.

20 – Cut back on vending machine purchases

Let’s assume you spend $5 on vending machine soda and snacks per workday. That’s $200 in two months!

If you’re feeling a little snacky, try drinking water first. Maybe you’re just thirsty. Plus, vending machine food is generally unhealthy and highly caloric, so you’re better off without them.

Think you’re above vending machines? You might still be wasting a bunch of money, not to mention time, going out for coffees, lunches, and dinners!

The secret to make $200 fast: don’t think of money as a reward

You’re no pirate. You don’t have to work yourself so hard to get that booty. 

Working 12 hours a day for minimum wage won’t get you far. That’s why no matter how much you’re earning at your job, you should look for alternatives with better earning potential.

To make $200 fast, you just need to earn a lot using the littlest amount of time possible.

Sounds easy, right? Well, that’s because it is.

But you’ll be surprised how many people feel that they have to slave away at their job just to deserve the extra money. If this is still how you think, you’re playing by the old rules.

I can tell you all the great ways to make money, but it’s useless if you’re stuck in this early Capitalism mindset. It’s a whole different game now. You need to update your money-making strategy to win.