The smell of Christmas cookies, mincemeat tarts and other holiday treats baking is a favorite of almost everybody, but many people don’t have the time to bake anymore. If you’ve got a flair for making cookies and other treats, you can bake up some extra money this holiday season!

You can offer your services as a baker to friends and neighbors, by taking orders for custom cookies and other baked goods. Homemade baked goods always taste better than store bought, so you will find a very willing market for your baked goods! This is an excellent activity to get kids involved with too, as they can help decorate the cookies if needed, and can help package them up as well. Of course they will also be happy to be designated tasters for each batch!

A very common way for people to make money on the internet is by taking part in market research. This is most often in the form of an online survey, and can be an easy way to make some quick cash by just answering basic questions about your shopping habits etc.

There are many shady people online who are selling memberships to survey sites and promising that you could make a full time income from surveys. If you come across something like this, it should set of warning bells in your head. Don’t fall for it, real market research companies don’t require you to pay to take their surveys!

One exception  to this would be a company that is offering surveys in exchange for a discount on a specific product, but this is rare. This is similar to business models where you complete a set of offers and in exchange get a particular item as a reward, such as a video game system, TV, or notebook computer. This post, however, is focusing on basic survey questions for which you could expect to receive a few dollars at most.

The first survey company is Ipsos-Reid, they operate an online survey service called Ipsos I-Say, that offers many surveys relating to activities, shopping, interests, etc. In addition to earnings redeemable points for each survey you complete, you’re also entered into the drawing for a cash prize contest. See Ipsos I-Say for details.

I’ve also used Survey Savvy, although not as often as Ipsos I-Say. They offer similar types of surveys, but don’t always have a cash prize contest. Surveys are sent as often as one is matched to your online profile, which in my case is at least once a week. It’s not a huge moneymaker, but if you’re going to be clicking on Facebook quizzes, you might as well click on these and make some cash instead. You can sign up at SurveySavvy.com.

Finally, there’s a new kid on the block. Cashcrate, a website that combines surveys, games and product reviews, is a fun new way to make money online. This is one of the few sites that I know people are making serious cash with, some in excess of $1,500 per month. One of the reasons people make so much more money with this site, is you can earn commissions by referring other people to the website. If you sign up for Cashcrate with my link, I’ll get a couple of dollars once you reach your first $10 on the site. I earned $1.50 by filling out 3 surveys within the first 10 minutes of signing up, so it’s not hard. Check out Cashcrate, you can start earning within 5 minutes!

Resources:

• Ipsos I-Say
• SurveySavvy
• Cashcrate

Continuing on from the ideas presented in a recent article on Giving ‘Experience’ Gifts Instead of Things, what do you do if you can’t offer the type of experience your loved one would really enjoy? Whether it be due to lack of money or skill, there’s always a way to make it work. One good idea is to barter your services for that of the person who is able to provide the experience you want to offer your loved one.

An example of this is a spa visit. If you’re pressed for cash, but your spouse would absolutely love a day at a spa, you could offer to trade your services to the spa in exchange for a gift certificate. It doesn’t even have to be work for the business itself, you could offer to do some work for the business owner. Many businesses are willing to trade services for labor, and if you’re willing to just ask, you may find that you can get something like a spa gift certificate for just a few hours of work.

Other examples could include gift certificates for restaurants or hair salons, admission tickets to a venue such as a museum, art gallery, amusement park or zoo, gift cards for independent book or clothing stores, etc.

Don’t be afraid to ask, the worst they can say is no thanks!

Getting paid to write articles and collecting ad revenue from a blog aren’t the only ways you can earn extra cash online; you can make money with affiliate programs very easily!

If you’ve never heard of affiliate programs before, that’s okay. Basically, an affiliate program is a way for you to make money from recommending someone else’s product to a potential customer. When the person buys the product, you get a commission.

Here’s an example, to show you what can be done with this. A few weeks ago a new Sony portable game system called the PSP G0 was about to be released, so I created an affiliate link for the product from Amazon.com. Two game systems sold, netting me a total commission of just over $20. Not a huge pile of money, but not bad for 10 minutes of work!

Creating affiliate links is as easy as signing up with whatever company has products you want to promote (assuming they have an affiliate program of course) and then sharing the links they provide. Any time someone buys a product through your link, you get a commission. You can promote these links in many ways, such as:

• Your blog or website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Paid ads such as Google AdWords
• Classified ads

No matter what you want to promote, there’s a good chance there’s an affiliate program just right for you. Probably the best one to get started with is Amazon.com, as they have a wide range of products that many people are interested in, as well as being a very well known and trusted online merchant. You can sign up for the Amazon affiliate program and get started referring people today. It’s free to sign up, and doesn’t cost anything to promote the links.

Another great resource for finding affiliate programs to promote, is Share-a-Sale. There are thousands of merchants on this site, all free to join. You can search by keyword to look for products you’re interested in, and then apply to those programs. You’ll need to fill out your profile so the merchants can see your website, as some require approval before letting you in to their program. Join Share-A-Sale and you can get started within minutes. Each merchant has a variety of text links, coupons, and image banners for you to use, and the system is very easy to learn. This has proven to be a consistent income source for me.

Finally, another popular affiliate program for people just starting out is Clickbank. This website offers digital products on a variety of topics, with payouts ranging from a few dollars to around $100. This program is also free to join, and promoting a merchant/product is as simple as creating a link and sharing it with people. Take a look at the products Clickbank offers, and sign up to start making money with them!

Links:

• Amazon
• Share-a-Sale
• Clickbank

One of the downsides of the holiday season besides the stress and expenses imposed on us all, are the combined issues of not knowing what to get for someone and receiving unwanted/unneeded items as gifts. Nobody wants to be on either the giving OR receiving end of an awkward forced smile and and claims that the gift is lovely, despite it being anything but. One solution to this, as well as potentially a money saver, is to offer handmade certificates for experiences, rather than a physical gift.

We probably all remember as children giving coupons to our parents for things like ‘1 Free Hug‘, or ‘1 Breakfast in Bed‘. Who says this concept is just for kids? There are many things people would love to experience rather than receiving yet another gadget that will gather dust in a kitchen cupboard. Some of the ideas such as the museum, art gallery or amusement park, will cost some money when the gift certificate is redeemed, but this can potentially defer the cost of the gift until a time when money isn’t as tight.

Some examples could include:

• A  trip to the museum or art gallery
• A trip to an amusement park
• Doing the dishes (or some other chore) for a month
• Meal preparation
• Romantic evenings
• Snow shoveling
• Lawn cutting
• Car washing
• Babysitting
• Cleaning
• Organizing
• Computer tech support

The possibilities are endless, use your imagination. You can get fancy certificate paper at your local office supply store, which makes it easy to create beautiful certificates right on your own printer.

Blogging was once a relatively unknown form of writing & journalism, but now it’s extremely common now, and many people make a full time living as a blogger. If you have information to share, have a passion for sharing your opinion and can spend a few minutes each day writing, then you can make money online blogging.

Setting up a blog is quite easy, and you can generally get started writing within an hour or 2 even with the most complicated type of blog. The two main types of blogs that you’ll need to consider are self-hosted and third-party hosted blogs. This website is an example of a self-hosted blog, whereas this site is a third-party hosted blog. Each type has its own benefits, but unless you’re comfortable with computers or are friends with someone who is, you may want to stick with a third-party solution as they do almost all of the setup for you.

The 2 best free blogging platforms for third-party blogs are:

• Blogger
• Wordpress.com

Each of these sites allows fairly easy setup, and you get get started right away. The disadvantage of these sites is the lack of flexibility that self-hosted blogs offer, such as plugins, custom themes, and integration with social media services like Twitter and Facebook. If you decide you want to go with a self-hosted option, you’ll need 2 things to get started:

• A domain name (ie Yourname.com)
• Web hosting

GoDaddy.com is an excellent choice for a domain name, they have reliable service and some of the best pricing available with domains costing as little as $9/year. Well worth it!

There are several options available for web hosting as well, most charge between $5 and $9 per month, which is a fantastic deal. Here are some of the sites I’ve used:

• Hostgator
• Green Geeks
• DreamHost

There are many tutorials available online about how to set up Wordpress on your website, most hosts have an installation service called Fantastico which offers a one-click install for most common website software including Wordpress. This makes it incredibly easy to set up a blog; all you need to do is type in the title of the blog and a couple of other options, and you’re ready to go.

Once you have a blog set up, you can customize it with different Themes and Plugins. One of the most common means of monetizing a blog is Google AdSense. It’s easy to set up whether you’re using Blogger or a self-hosted blog, and is one of the easiest ways to make money online. The service will display ads related to the content on your blog, and you get paid every time someone clicks an ad. You can sign up for AdSense here.  Another common means of monetizing a blog is what’s known as affiliate marketing, which I’ll cover in another article soon.

Start writing! Typical blog posts are between 250 and 1,000 words long, and may include links, photos, lists, and of course plain text. Don’t be sloppy, but you can write casually as with informal emails. This depends on the type of blog however; a blog about hobby fishing will be more suited to casual writing than one about financial matters.

Traffic may be slow at first, but you can help this by adding your website to social bookmarking websites, such as the ones down below this article. A well-crafted blog can become a solid income producer, as well as letting you proudly refer to yourself as a professional blogger.

Have fun blogging!

The goal of this website is to help you earn an extra $500 before the Christmas holidays, but what do you do with the money once you’ve got it? Popular how-to website Lifehacker.com has a great spreadsheet for tracking your holiday spending, as well as who’s getting what gift to make your shopping easy and organized.

Holiday Gift Planning Checklist from Lifehacker.com

Store-bought pie is good, but when it comes down to it, nothing beats homemade pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving! If you have a knack for making pies, you can make money taking orders from friends and neighbors for homemade pumpkin pies this Thanksgiving!

All the supplies you’d need can be purchased at most supermarkets, although you’ll save money if you buy in bulk from places like Costco or Sam’s Club. Any good baking supply store will also have cardboard boxes that you can put the frozen pies in if you’d like. Since the pies will be baked by the customers just in time for Thanksgiving dinner, you can make and freeze the pies ahead of time.

Take orders before you buy ingredients, that way you know you’ll have enough supplies for every order. You can charge before delivery or upon delivery of the pies, but charging beforehand allows you to buy the ingredients with no out-of-pocket expenses for you.

You can ask friends and neighbors for orders, as well as posting on a community or church bulletin board. Be sure to specify a deadline for placing orders, as you’ll need enough time to get the supplies and make the pies!

This is an excellent opportunity to get your children involved, with activities such as rolling out dough, mixing pie filling, bagging frozen pies for each order, etc. Making homemade pumpkin pies is a fun way to spend a weekend, and can easily bring in over $100 in profit.

Babysitting is one of the most common ways for teens and adults alike to earn money part time. As the holidays approach, many parents will be needing people to look after their kids while they attend parties, shop, cook, etc. Babysitting is an easy way to earn extra money for the holidays.

You can ask your friends and neighbors for referrals, as just about everybody knows someone who needs a good babysitter. You can also sign up with a babysitting service that will find work for you, or even search Craigslist postings for your area. The best option is to ask people you know for referrals, as this is the safest option especially for teenagers.

Be sure to ask about any important medical issues, special care instructions, and have a list of important phone numbers before you’re left in charge. Aside from that, you can make money while having tons of fun playing games, watching movies, or even doing crafts.

Many teenagers make the majority of their holiday money by babysitting, and so can you!

Chances are there’s a topic that you know more about than 90% of the general population. Perhaps it’s a hobby or skill, a particular technique for performing a task in a new and efficient way, or even something you accomplished that others may want to attempt but might not know how to. You can earn cash fast by writing articles on these subjects!

There are several websites that will pay you for writing short articles, typically a few dollars up front for each article they accept, but some also offer continuing revenue based on the number of people who read the article. For a service like this, you can substantially boost your earnings by sending traffic to the article.

People often wonder what they should write about, and the best answer is to write what you know. Use your knowledge about a particular topic to base articles on, whether it’s a skill or a specific experience. If you’re an expert with computer software like Photoshop, you can write about specific techniques for that program. People always want to know how to do things, how-to articles are some of the most popular articles on the internet, regardless of the topic. If you’re not an expert with a particular skill, you can also write about hobbies or personal experiences. For example:

If you’re a knitter, you might write about how to do a particular type of project, how to find the best prices on wool, or types of projects that sell best at craft fairs. Or maybe you hiked up Mt. Kilimanjaro last summer; you can write about how you planned the trip, what supplies you needed and which ones you wish you’d left behind, how you planned the trip, etc.

Articles for these sites are typically between 400 and 1,000 words, although requirements for each site will vary. Some sites will accept any article, and others require editorial approval before your application is accepted. Take a look at several sites, see their payment structure, submission guidelines, and read some of the published articles to find the best match for you.

Here are some sites you can write articles for:

• Associated Content
• Bukisa
• Helium
• Constant Content
• Suite 101
• eHow
• BrightHub

Happy writing!