Rule Your Wallet Blog

Do you like the idea of making money for using your smartphone? What if it is just a little bit of money?

Still interested? Okay.

EasyShift is a free app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad that lets you be an on-demand secret shopper. You are assigned what are called “shifts” by product manufactures. These manufactures want people to go into stores and confirm that their merchandise is being displayed properly.

What is the pay like? The pay per shift is between $3 and $8 and your pay is sent directly to your PayPal account. It doesn’t sound like much, but in my book you just earned lunch.

Many of us have tons of gadgets lying around that we don’t even use anymore. Personally, mine tend to stay in several drawers around the house. I believe between my wife and I, we have around 6 old cell phones that still work. So, is there some use for these items.

How about unloading your gadgets for extra cash? I’ve got some new websites to share with you.

The New York Times reports there’s a site called Priceonomics.com that offers price trends for a variety of different product categories. For electronics, you type in what you’ve got and it will tell you the value.

As an example, Priceonomics reports that a used iPhone 4S is going for an average of $500 in good condition. (Buying it new costs roughly $700).

The site even goes the additional step of averaging prices it finds on the web and suggesting that if you’re trying to sell your used iPhone 4S, an acceptable price range would be anywhere from $388 to $612.

Other sites that cater to specific resale markets include the following. These can all potentially be great ways to turn unloved electronics into cash:

• Swappa.com for Android devices
• Glyde.com for gadgets and games
• Gazelle.com for Apple products, plus      Android, BlackBerry and other phones
• NewtonsHead.com for Apple products, even      damaged iPhones
• BuyBackWorld.com or BuyMyTronics.com for all electronics
• NextWorth.com for phones, cameras, tablets      and games

Are you one of those people that have a car sitting around? Try renting it out. You could make several hundred dollars a month.

Cars sit idle most of the time.  Frequent travelers and many commuters do not use their cars during the business day.
RelayRides.com, JustShareIt.com and Getaround.com are among several startups in different cities around the country that let you monetize your cars downtime. Some of these sites allow you to rent older cars cheap.

As the owner of the rental car, you keep around two-thirds of the money and the peer-to-peer (P2P) keeps the rest of the rental fee.  The P2P claims that they provide insurance and that is where their share is spent. Also, be prepared to be screened, as many of the P2P’s will pull your driving record from the DMV.

Insurance issues?

Insurance is a major concern for people wishing to rent out their automobiles. These businesses are so new the liability issues can be unclear.

The New York Times reports that only two states, Oregon and California, have laws specifically that allow you to rent car and not be liable for what the renter does. For everyone else, you are on your own with no laws to back you up.

Your insurance company will not like you renting out your car, which makes sense considering the agreement you have with them. However, Progressive is the only insurer who has at this time agreed to let its customers put their cars up for rent with these services.
There’s definite risk if you have a lot of assets, a home and money in the bank. On the other hand, if you are somebody who rents a home and you have few assets, this might be a way for you to generate extra cash.

The benefits for renters and owners

How do you get a renter into your car?

“When [a] reservation [is made,] RelayRides uses global positioning technology to transmit the exact location to the client,” The Los Angeles Times writes. “When the renter gets to the car, he or she uses a smartphone application or series of text messages to unlock the vehicle and find a key hidden inside.”

Meanwhile, Kiplinger says typically you’ll make a couple of grand a year by making your car available for about 2 hours a day. This is not a lot of money for the risk, but it could offset the cost of owning the automobile. So far, insurers have not weighed in on these new businesses by automatically canceling anybody’s policy.

There is nothing better than making money while doing something you enjoy. Here are some hobbies that can make you money.

Bicycle Repair – Low start-up cost with minimal tools needed and easy to learn.

Computer Repair – You can always use Google if you run into a problem you cannot solve,

Seamstress – Repairing expensive clothing can be an excellent side business if you have the skills required.

Furniture Restorer – Excellent for people with a wood working hobby. You can obtain the supplies you need as you get projects.

Crafts Maker – This is one of the most common hobbies that I see people asking about for making extra money.

Website Design – This requires some background knowledge, and you can even use WordPress for some designs.

Custom Baking – It is surprising how much money you can make baking. I would recommend cup cakes as opposed to cakes.

Growing flowers – Sell directly to local florist. You can sell them cheaper than their suppliers can. I would ask around before I started this business.

Freelance Writing – You need some writing skill and expertise in an area helps immensely, but you enjoy writing some money is better than nothing.

Photography – You can sell stock photos on many websites. For example, some of the sites I get photos from have photos for sale for $1 each.

Cleaning Houses- Some people enjoy cleaning. I am not one of them, but if you are, there is good money to be made.

Tutoring – This is a good one for college students.

Lawn and Landscaping – This one may be harder to break into as I have seen many new people around my neighborhood offering these services since the economy declined.

Watch Repair – There are correspondence courses you can take to learn this trade. I remember paying $10 to have the battery replaced in a watch that I didn’t have the tools take apart. It took the guy 3 minutes.

If you do get into one of these hobbies or are already in one, it is a good idea to have a website. I recommend Host Gator to get you started because of their low prices. Use the coupon code RuleYourWalletBlog to receive $9.94 off of any package.

1. The easiest and most obvious solution is to re-gift it.

2. Sell it for cash to a gift card buying website. There are several sites on the internet that will purchase gift cards for a discounted price. Some examples Plasticjungle.com, Cardwoo.com, Cardpool.com, Swap-a-gift, and Cardavenue.com

3. Trade it for another card – Use Cardavenue.com if you want to trade for another gift card.

4.  Auction the gift card – Ebay.com com is the obvious place to sell a gift card by auction, but Cardavenue.com will let you sell, trade, or auction your unwanted gift card.

5. Finally, you can donate your gift card. The end of the year is a great time to make donations for tax benefit.

I have no idea.

If you have a mint.com account (it is free) with all of you credit cards linked to your account you can simply click on “Ways to Save” tab, the click on the credit card icon. Mint.com will calculate your monthly spending on all of your credit cards and categorize them for you. The website then makes recommendations based on whether you pay off your credit card every month and what range your credit score falls into.

If you do not use mint.com you can use:

CreditCardTuneUp.com – Uses the same method as mint.com, but you have estimate how much you send in different categories.

NerdWallet.com – Uses your credit score to find optimum cards.

After picking a card that was suggested by one of these sites, we like to check that card out on cardratings.com to make sure all the information provided matches with regards to APR, rewards, fees, etc.