How to Make Extra Money from Home During the Holiday Season

Let’s not beat about the bush. The pandemic has tightened everyone’s belts. And we mean everyone. If you’re feeling the pinch ahead of Christmas, don’t panic! There are ways you can make extra money during the holidays.

When you rent out a garage, host a digital garage sale, or sell your existing skills online, you can earn cash without even leaving home. By doing so, you’ll be better prepared for when a young relative hands you their letter to Santa this year.

Yes, you should prepare yourself for it to be that long.

Seven Ways to Make Extra Money from Home in Time for Christmas

There are many ways of making extra money from home during the festive season. Add some funds to your piggy bank by renting out any extra space in your house, filling the gap by teaching or working online, and more.

1) Rent out your extra space

Got unused space at home? Help bridge the gap for those who need it by renting out space in your home this month. Forget about bringing a live-in tenant in while we’re practising social distancing. There is a safer way to make money from the same space with much less fuss.

Affordable storage space can be hard to come by. A lot of people like to renovate their homes ahead of the start of a new year. Your extra space can be the perfect solution for them. Thanks to Stashbee (that’s us!), you don’t have to spend hours finding a reliable renter. Our platform pairs up storage tenants and verified hosts on a gigantic, interactive map. Regardless of where you live in the UK, we’ll have you covered (and earning) before you know it. Easy peasy!

2) Bridge the gap as a virtual assistant

Many office workers take annual leave during the festive season. For a few MDs and CEOs who keep working, the quiet time is a great opportunity to get to some of the lingering business admin. Offering your services as a virtual assistant to help them get through their to-do list and prepare for the new year can earn you a bit of extra spending money along the way.

There are many online platforms for virtual assistants to register their services. These can be competitive, so if you’re not having any luck right away, try to reach out to a few companies in your area. You might even catch a break, and possibly land a steady gig for the festive season each year.

3) Create and sell an online course

Selling an online course is the kind of thing that a lot of people want to do, but most never really get around to doing it. If you have some spare time this December, so why not give it a go? If you’re a specialist in your field, have a lot of experience doing something, or just love the idea of teaching people, this will be an easy fit for you.

Thanks to modern technology, it’s never been easier to sell a course online. We’ll admit that it won’t necessarily bring in large amounts of money overnight, but it can be a steady earner over time. With people writing their “new year, new me” lists in December, you may even get a few surprise sales before 2020 draws to a close.

4) Offer online tutoring for the extended academic year

While we’re not about to celebrate the positives from the pandemic just yet (and we’re not even 100% sure what they are at this stage), it has brought about one new opportunity that could be a money earner for you this holiday season.

School and university calendars around the world have been disrupted in a major way in 2020. Some academic years are trickling into 2021. There might be students who need extra tutoring to prepare for unusually delayed exams. Online tutoring platforms should be less crowded this month with many regulars taking a holiday. Talk about the perfect opportunity to get a foot in the door (and an excuse to show off that big brain of yours)!

5) Sell your old pictures as stock images

How many pictures do you have on your phone or on the Cloud? Probably somewhere in the thousands. Those pre-COVID memories (try not to tear up when thinking about them!) don’t need to be collecting digital dust. Going through these pictures and choosing some that might work well as stock images could be a way to make some money this Christmas.

Stock image websites like Pixabay accept submissions all year. There is a quick turnaround for submission approval or rejection. They’re also transparent about the types of images in high demand. Who knows? Perhaps marketers are scouring the internet this very minute to find an image that’s already sitting in your phone. Cha-ching!

6) Start blogging or vlogging about your passion

Starting a blog or a vlog about something you're passionate about can be a good income churner. When used in conjunction with social media, it can open up doors for you in the form of paid partnerships and product placements, and can even bring in some ad revenue.

Granted, it will take some time and energy to get started. Use December to set the wheels in motion. It might not be an instant money churner, but if you need to make some money while building the idea, there are websites that pay specialists for guest contributions all year round. Research and compile a small database of websites in your niche, and fire off a couple of ideas to them. You’ll get paid, published, and have an article to repost on your blog. An instant credibility booster if we ever saw one.

We said money churner, not butter churner!

7) Declutter and sell your extra stuff

An end of year declutter is always a good idea. Earning money from the process sounds even better. We’re not just bringing this up because we’ve been binging ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’ on Netflix (that’s a lie, we totally have - binge watching has become sacred this year). We’re also not about to leave you hanging if you don’t know where to start.

Marie’s KonMari method will leave you with just the items that still spark joy in your life. The items that don’t spark joy anymore can be sold online like a digital “car boot sale” of sorts. If you’re going this route, work a delivery fee into your listing price to avoid physical contact with a potential buyer. You’ll be making bank while freeing up new space for Christmas gifts in your house in no time at all.

Spreading the Festive Cheer

Even though the year has gone down the way it has (we’ll say no more), you can still have a great time this festive season. For a start, you’ve now got all the ideas you need to free up some extra wiggle room in your Christmas budget. Some will give you the opportunity to earn a side hustle income well into 2021 too.

But having money for Christmas doesn’t mean that only your loved ones should be getting spoiled. You also deserve to treat yourself a bit. Buy yourself that special something you’ve been eyeing as a way to acknowledge that you’ve made it through a difficult year. We all deserve a bit of self-care after all.