29 Ways To Make Ends Meet While Unemployed

Trista September 4, 2020

Be careful if you want to make money by renting a room. Shutterstock

4. Rent Out Your Spare Room

This option you may want to hold off on for the time being, with the current pandemic raging, especially if you live in an area that has been a hotspot for new cases. But renting out your spare room can be a very lucrative way of helping pay your rent every month or even paying off your mortgage.

Airbnb is not the only option for renting out your spare room, though it is the most popular. Many other websites allow for room-sharing, so check and see what may be available in your area. You can also rent it out to one person on a long-term basis. Just make sure that you know all of the legal ramifications because you don’t want your in-home tenant to become a squatter.

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Did you ever think your driveway could earn your money? Shutterstock

3. Use Your Driveway as a Parking Spot

If you live in an urban area where parking is at a premium, you might turn your driveway or curbside parking spot into a profit. SPOT and Neighbor are two platforms that can help people who live in densely populated cities like Chicago, New York, Boston, and Washington DC, find parking spots by renting them out from people.

Parking spaces are a valuable piece of real estate in a big city, so if you have one that you don’t need all the time, consider turning it into cash. Maybe you don’t use your parking spot at home during the day, so you could let someone else use it for a fee. Or perhaps you are going away for a while and want to earn some passive income while you are gone.

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If you have a new car or even an older one, you can use your vehicle to make some extra money while underemployed. Shutterstock

2. Rent Out Your Car

Turo and GetAround are two platforms that connect people who have a car that they aren’t currently using with people who need a vehicle on a short-term basis. It’s an Airbnb for cars, where the going rate is typically much cheaper than what you would pay at a rental outlet. Users who rent out their vehicles on one of these platforms can make $10,000 a year.

But don’t make the mistake that many Airbnb users made when they bought properties only to rent out. When the 2020 crisis hit and people immediately stopped traveling, people who owned these properties suddenly started defaulting on their mortgages. So don’t buy a car just because you think you can make money renting it out. You may pay a heavy price in the long run.

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Medical studies can benefit everyone, including your wallet. Shutterstock

1. Participate in Medical Studies

While this may sound like signing up to be Dr. Frankenstein’s test subject, the reality is less horrifying. If you live near a major hospital and a medical school, the odds are that there is much research that needs people to participate. Some medical studies may involve a blood draw and a questionnaire.

Others may include spending our hour or two in an MRI machine. Plenty of medical studies are recruiting people with certain conditions, but they also need healthy participants to serve as a control group. You can make several hundred dollars in each research and know that you contribute to the necessary research and development in healthcare.

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