12 easy ways to earn £100s each month including selling old junk and switching banks
BANK balance taken a bit of a battering in recent months due to Covid and lockdown?
If you’re looking for ways to give your salary a bit of a boost, there are lots of easy and simple ways you can make £100s extra a month.
Whether it’s switching your current account, getting paid to fill in surveys or selling old tech, there’s a way for everyone to up their income.
Here we take a closer look.
Switch your bank
- Earn £100-plus
There’s lots of activity in the current account market right now, with a host of banks paying ‘”bribes” to get you to switch.
Ditching your current bank and moving to a new one is simple.
All direct debits and standing orders are transferred for you, your old account is shut down, and all payments are forwarded to your new account.
Switch to HSBC’s Advance account, and you’ll get £125 – plus a £20 Uber Eats voucher (offer ends May 9).
Elsewhere, both First Direct and Halifax are offering a £100 incentive to those who make the move.
Crucially though, before switching, be sure to read the Ts and Cs, and check the new bank is offering a decent overdraft and interest rates.
Sell old tech
- Earn around £250
If you’ve got mobile phones, digital cameras and other old gadgets gathering dust at the back of a drawer, fish them out and make some money by selling them.
Auction sites such as eBay are often the best place to flog old tech.
According to comparison site, uSwitch.com, you could pocket around £285 for a pre-owned but fully working iPhone X on eBay, or around £220 by using an online marketplace, such as MusicMagpie.
When selling stuff more generally, also check out sites such as Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, Etsy and Shpock.
With some sites, buyers will come to your door.
This can be super helpful when selling bulky items such as furniture and gardening equipment.
Rent out your driveway
- Earn around £300 a month
If you have a parking space, driveway or garage, but don’t have a car to park in it, you could make a pretty penny renting it out – especially if you live near a train station or city centre.
Websites such as JustPark and YourParkingSpace will do the legwork for you – matching your space with a motorist who needs somewhere to leave their car.
The amount you can charge depends on the level of demand for parking in your area.
Research from comparison site Comparethemarket.com, found parking spaces and garages in Birmingham can be rented out for £227 per month, while in Westminster in London, you could net around £327.
Fill in surveys
- Work hard at it, and you could earn £100 a month
If you fancy earning a bit of cash in your lunch break, look into filling out surveys.
With sites such as Swagbucks, Toluna and i-Say, you can start earning cash with just a few clicks.
Surveys will be distributed to you depending on who you are, where you live, and what you’re into.
Typically, they will take between 10 and 15 minutes to complete.
If you qualify for surveys and check in regularly, you could make around £5 an hour.
With a bit of discipline, you could get close to earning £100 a month.
Payments are usually made via PayPal once you’ve reached a certain threshold, but check carefully, as this can vary from site to site.
As a general rule, steer clear of survey sites where you have to pay to be a member.
Get cashback as you spend
- Earn around £100
A great way to make a bit of money when making purchases online is by doing so through a cashback site.
Sites such as Topcashback and Quidco are paid a commission by providers which they pass back to you as cashback.
Simply click through the website, and you’ll net yourself some extra cash.
Current deals on Topcashback include £185 cashback when you take out an !All dual fuel fixed two-year tariff” with Scottish Power, £100 when you take out an 18-month contract with Sky Broadband Superfast and Boost package.
And you can also get £100 if you take out a pet policy with PetPlan.
Trace lost savings
- Potential to earn £100s
It may seem implausible that anyone would lose track of their hard-earned cash, yet Brits have around £15 billion languishing in lost and forgotten bank accounts – as well as in investment funds and pension policies.
If you lost track of savings many years ago, the money is still rightfully yours.
A simple way to track down old accounts is by going to Mylostaccount.org.uk.
The process could take up to three months, but if you end up with a windfall, it will definitely be worth the wait.
Claim Work from Home tax relief
- Earn £125
If you’ve been told to work from home for even as little a day over the past year or so as a result of the pandemic, you can claim tax relief for your job expenses. Sign up for ‘working from home tax relief’ head here.
You could claim as much as £125 in just a few minutes if you’re a higher-rate taxpayer. For basic-rate taxpayers, the rebate is worth around £60.
Note, though, you cannot claim this relief if it is your choice to work from home.
Check your tax code
- Potentially earn £100s
Every year, thousands of people are allocated the wrong tax code and, as a result, can end up overpaying hundreds – or potentially even thousands – of pounds.
This simple mistake, caused by a small change to your tax code, can commonly happen after a change in job or promotion.
If you’ve changed roles and been on and off furlough over the past year – as many people have – it’s well worth heading to HMRC online and checking your tax code.
If your code is wrong, you can claim a refund.
Pick up odd jobs
- Earn around £100 a month
If you’re a resourceful sort of person, you may be able to pocket some decent cash by doing odd jobs on the side for people in your local area.
This could include painting, decorating and other DIY work or assembling flatpack furniture.
Try posting details of your skills and ability on a community app, such as Nextdoor.
Also check out sites such as Taskrabbit.
With some hard work, you could earn up to £35 an hour on Taskrabbit.
Try your luck entering competitions
- Potentially earn £100s over a year
If you feel that lady luck might be on your side, check out websites with free competitions where you can win treats, cash or huge prizes.
Sites such as Magic Freebies will scour the internet for free competitions, doing the legwork for you.
And you never know, you could find yourself winning a holiday or a big cash jackpot.
Try to stick to free competitions if you can. And don’t forget, there’s always the chance you won’t win anything.
Move to a water meter
- Earn £100 over the course of a year
While you can’t switch water supplier – as you can for your gas and electricity – you may be able to make savings by moving to a water meter.
As a rule of thumb, if there are more bedrooms in your home than people living in it, you may well be able to bring bills down. To find out if you’ll be better off, check out the CCWater’s free calculator.
Most read in Money
Last month Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert explained how M&S Bank customers can get £125 ahead of account closures so you’ll want to be quick to cash in.
And one couple managed to save up enough to buy a £480k two-bed home despite facing redundancy by ditching holidays and working extra shifts at Nando’s.
But these tips don’t come without their risks, so we have three things to watch out for when selling your old gadgets via auction or recycling sites.