9 Legit Ways To Make An Extra $200 A Month (Or More!)
I was browsing Reddit the other day and saw a post in a side hustle subreddit I frequent about how to make an extra $200 a month.
There were some pretty solid ideas in the thread, and after giving it some thought, I also came up with a few ideas I tossed out there.
Now, $200 a month might seem like a pretty random number, but the person asking this question was basically trying to pay for most/all of their groceries for the month.
And, if you think about it, an extra $200 per month is $2,400 per year…not a trivial amount by any means.
So, it doesn't matter if you want to make extra money to pay off debt faster, put into savings, or simply save up for some cool trips, it never hurts to boost your monthly income.
Today, I'm going to share nine realistic ideas you can use to make an extra $200 per month.
How To Make An Extra $200 Per Month
Some ideas are methods of making money online while others are in-person side hustles, so there's truly something for everyone!
My main piece of advice is to start out with a small goal, write it down, and ultimately hold yourself accountable.
Who knows, this $200 goal might turn into $500 or even $1,000 or more pretty fast!
1. Use Food Delivery Apps
In my opinion, one of the fastest ways to make $200 a month or more is to use food delivery apps in your spare time.
Gig apps are typically one of the most flexible types of side hustles you can start.
Plus, for food delivery apps, you normally just have to be 18 or older, have a reliable vehicle, bike, or scooter, and pass a background test.
Some popular food delivery companies you can work for include:
- DoorDash – A leading food delivery app that lets you make money on your own schedule.
- Uber Eats – Pretty comparable to DoorDash, and a lot of food couriers actually use both apps.
- Instacart – Deliver groceries to people in your city or work as a W-2 Instacart employee and assemble orders in partnered Instacart grocery stores.
- Shipt – Earn upwards of $20 per hour assembling and delivering grocery orders to people in your city.
- Cornershop – Another popular job like Instacart that pays you to deliver groceries.
My friend Grant actually hustles for DoorDash and Uber Eats on the side, and as you can see from his hourly earnings, making an extra $200 a month isn't that hard.
In fact, if you can work about 15 to 25 hours over the course of the month after work, you should hit your income goal with ease.
Just remember to factor in fuel costs and depreciation into your earnings! If you can, consider delivering by bike in your market to get exercise and avoid spending money on gas.
Extra Reading – The Best Apps That Pay You For Driving.
2. Try Other Gig Economy Apps
Food delivery apps are a popular side hustle choice since signing up is quick, there's a low barrier to entry, and availability is pretty widespread (especially in North America).
However, if you aren't interested in delivering fast food or groceries to people, there are other options.
The gig economy has created a range of other opportunities to boost your income.
Plus, many of these ideas pay around minimum wage or even slightly more, meaning you can clear $200 per month if you put the hours in.
Some other gig jobs to consider include:
- Apps like TaskRabbit for doing odd jobs in your city.
- P2P delivery gigs.
- Completing installation and handyman type tasks for people with Handy Pro.
- Taking care of dogs for people with Rover.
- Finding on-demand work in your city with apps like Wonolo.
- Driving for rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft.
If you don't think these ideas have the potential to make an extra $200, check out this screenshot of Allan's earnings on Handy.
I interviewed Allan about working for Handy, and he was able to make that much money in a single weekend of work.
Of course, gig jobs aren't guaranteed money, but if you research what's popular in your city, I believe making $200 is possible.
3. Stack Cashback Rewards
Alright, now this is definitely one of the more creative methods for making $200, and it's probably not for everyone.
But, the idea here is to stack cashback reward opportunities to recoup more of the money you spend each month.
If you have an expensive month coming up (like preparing for a move or buying something expensive), this idea has even more merit.
Some popular cashback methods you can try include:
- Using a cashback credit card.
- Shopping online through websites like Rakuten and TopCashback.
- Earning cashback passively with apps like Dosh.
- Using receipt scanning reward apps like Fetch Rewards or Receipt Hog.
The cashback credit card point is especially powerful since many cards pay welcome bonuses if you spend a certain amount within a certain timeframe from opening your card.
Many cards also have bonus introductory cashback rates or rotating cashback categories that pay around 1-5% cash back…not bad.
Personally, I have a basic 2% cashback credit card and I also shop online through Rakuten.
I don't normally come close to the $200 mark, but when I bought some expensive gear for my YouTube channel, the earnings were pretty decent at least.
However, I know people who travel hack and are always maximizing their credit card rewards, and they pay for their vacation each year just through points.
Pro Tip – You can also check out our Drop app review to learn how to earn free gift cards for shopping!
4. Start A Blog
I think starting a blog has to be my favorite idea for how to make an extra $200 per month.
The reason for this is that blogging has an incredible amount of potential and can definitely surpass $200 if you put in the work.
For some context, consider WebMonkey's previous three years of income:
- Year 1: Around $1,800.
- Year 2: Around $7,000.
- Year 3: Around $22,000.
- Year 4: $92,000.
Blogging just has an insane amount of monetization options.
Once you learn how to drive traffic with SEO and a social media platform or two, making $200 really isn't that difficult.
In fact, take a look at this early snapshot of my blogging income.
As you can see, by month eight, I was bringing in $200 a month with my blog fairly consistently.
This was my college side hustle as well, so there was class and my job to worry about.
Currently, I use display ads from Mediavine and a range of affiliate networks to make money.
Now, WebMonkey earns around $500 a day (you can read my 2021 blogging income report for all the numbers!)
However, I know many bloggers who make most of their income from selling products, online coaching, or writing sponsored posts.
The key is really to be consistent, to learn SEO, and to always strive to deliver value to your readers.
5. Try Beermoney Sites & Apps
I've been using beermoney websites and apps to make extra money since my phone farming days.
In fact, this is what my desk used to look like in my student house when I had a bunch of burner phones all earning bits of extra cash each day through video reward apps:
Now, while I don't dabble in this world quite as much anymore, I know the world of beermoney has the potential to make $200 each month.
The reason is r/Beermoney, Reddits Beermoney community, has a monthly “who paid you thread” where members share proof of their earnings and the companies that paid them.
Plenty of people clear $200 a month or more, and while it's a grind, the money is there.
Some popular beermoney websites and apps people use include:
- Survey Junkie – Lets you cash out at $5 so it's actually possible to earn rewards.
- Branded Surveys – Another popular paid survey sites that lets you earn free PayPal money and gift cards.
- Amazon MTurk – This microtask website is incredibly popular in the beermoney community and some serious hustlers clear a few hundred dollars per month.
- Prolific – Lets you take paid research studies online and is one of the higher-paying survey style websites around.
Again, this method is a bit of a grind, but if you want to earn some extra cash while watching TV or relaxing, you can try the world of beermoney.
There's also a variety of passive income apps you can use to help boost your passive earnings.
Extra Reading – Android Apps That Pay You Real Cash.
6. Rent Out Assets
I wrote a pretty comprehensive post on how to rent things out for money.
However, I want to bring up this passive income idea because if you're incredibly busy, even taking on a $200 per month side hustle could be too much time.
The idea here is to rent out assets you own that other people are willing to pay for (but don't want to buy themselves).
One website where you can do this is Fat Llama.
Fat Llama lets you rent so many different categories of things to people…drones, cameras, music equipment, bikes, you name it.
Plus, your rentals are insured up to $25,000 from theft or damage.
Other rental ideas include:
- Renting out your clothing with Rent My Wardrobe.
- Renting a spare room in your home with VRBO.
- Listing your car with HyreCar, which rents out cars to gig workers.
- Using RVshare to earn extra cash by renting out your RV!
This is really just scratching the surface, and you can definitely get creative when it comes to creating rental income.
7. Sell Stuff Online
Another simple option for making an additional $200 each month is to sell things you own.
You can also try flipping things online if you prefer sourcing products you think are a bargain and reselling them online for a profit.
Whatever the case, there are tons of apps to sell stuff you can use to connect with buyers around the world.
As for popular categories of things you can sell, consider:
- Using apps like Poshmark to sell gently used clothing.
- Selling Pokemon cards or Yugioh cards online.
- Flipping stuff on websites like eBay.
- Starting a retail arbitrage business with Amazon FBA.
- Selling old tech products with Decluttr or Whistle.
My friend has an eBay flipping side hustle and makes a few hundred dollars per month in profit.
I also know someone who buys and collects baseball trading cards.
The point is there's a lot of opportunity here to make some extra cash. However, it might take time to build up your inventory.
Extra Reading – Is Poshmark Worth It?
8. Start A Print On Demand Business
Print on demand, or POD, is one of my absolute favorite online business ideas.
The reason is because with POD, you can focus entirely on running your online store and coming up with new products to sell…you never have to worry about shipping or manufacturing.
In a nutshell, POD companies let you upload your designs to an existing product catalog and sell on their marketplace or your own online store.
When you make a sale, the POD partner manufactures and ships the product for you. In exchange, they take a cut, and you're left with profit.
One of the most popular POD marketplaces around is Redbubble:
On Redbubble, you can upload your unique designs to dozens of products, including:
- T-shirts and hoodies.
- Coffee mugs.
- Wall art.
- Tote bags.
- Stickers.
- Phone cases.
- Clocks.
- Bath mats.
- Stationary.
You set your own prices on Redbubble and sell through your own store on their marketplace, so you don't need to be very tech savvy either.
Plus, there are other websites like Redbubble you can use to sell POD products, like Zazzle and Society6.
And, if you feel like having more control over your own storefront, you can open a POD Etsy store like I did back in college.
That's right: in college, I used Printify, a POD service, to try selling Spongebob meme mugs on Etsy:
While I wasn't too successful making money with memes, the world is truly your oyster when it comes to POD businesses.
Plus, from what I've seen on Reddit, it's certainly possible to scale to $200 a month or more if you upload enough designs or even sell on multiple marketplaces.
Extra Reading – How To Make Money On Redbubble.
9. Freelance Online
One final idea for how to make an extra $200 a month is to sell your skills online as a freelancer.
This is how I first started increasing my monthly income a few years ago. At the time, I was working a 9-5 office job at a marketing agency but started freelance writing on the side to make more money.
Freelance writing was just a small side hustle for me at first. But after a couple of months, the income started growing and had the potential to match my day job if I really went for it.
So, after about a year and a half, I quit my day job and moved to Colombia for a bit to write and blog.
Since then, freelance writing has become my main income source next to blogging. And this is why I think this idea to make $200 extra a month is so powerful.
In fact, you can probably make $200 a day with this method, or much more depending on your clients.
Freelancing can completely change your life and career path. And writing is just one example. You could also try freelancing in fields like:
- Accounting
- Graphic design
- Social media management
- Web design
- Virtual assistant
Finding your first clients can be tricky. But you can start by using remote job websites or finding jobs on Upwork or Fiverr to get the ball rolling.
Final Thoughts
If there's one thing I've learned over the course of blogging these past 3 years it's that setting income goals makes something a reality.
There's just something powerful about actually writing down your goals.
So, if you're wondering how to make $200 a month, pick one of the ideas on this list and commit to it.
Maybe this means delivering for DoorDash, starting a blog, or using various GPT sites. You can choose a few ideas to test out and give them a try!
There's so much opportunity out there. Plus, you can always get creative and go beyond these ideas to find new ways to make more money.
Best of luck in your journey!
Want other money-making ideas? Checkout:
DoorDash Disclaimer: Actual earnings may differ and depend on factors like number of deliveries completed, time of day, location, and expenses. Hourly pay is calculated using average Dasher payouts while on a delivery (from the time you accept an order until the time you drop it off) over a 90 day period and includes compensation from peak pay, tips, and other incentives.
