Make Extra Money: How My Spare Change Turns Into Over $200 A Month

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Could you use an extra $200 a month?

Many people live paycheck to paycheck.

According to a recent report, few people could cover a $500 expense if an emergency happened.

This was before the pandemic too.

I have been making around $200 extra per month with a combination of smartphone apps, surveys, shopping portals, etc.

I call these my “spare change” activities.

I started doing this years ago.

These are hardly noticed in my day.

I don’t see people out putting an extra $200 a month in their pocket.

I talk to many people who say they would like to start using a lot of the apps I write about on the blog.

Why are people not making this extra money?

I think this is easier than most people think.

If they were like me when I first start, maybe they are skeptical.

Are these apps legit?

Will this waste my time?

Will it be hard to get started?

I don’t know a lot about technology, will it be hard to use?

If you have not started or don’t make as much as $200 extra a month, I want to show you how this works and erase some fears.

I want you to make this easy extra money.

In this post, I am going to give you my personal numbers and show how they add up from spare change to about $200 a month.

This post does not cover all methods of putting extra money in your pocket that we address on the blog.

They just address the ones you shoud start with.

I hope after you read this post, you will start making this easy, extra money.

Things we use to help you make extra money

There are two ways that this blog helps you put extra money in your pocket:

Saving Money
Making money

With the later, making money, these methods will not be enough to replace your income.

That is not the point of Adding Pennies.

Some of these methods include:

receipt scanning apps
online shopping portals
Paid online surveys
Reward credit cards
Bank bonuses
many others

Here is a description of each method I personally use.

It shows how much I make from each app or website.

I give you my personal numbers to show how much all this adds up.

1. Receipt scanning apps

I talk about receipt scanning apps a lot.

That is because they are easy to get started with.

Most just require you to snap a picture of your receipts.

That only takes seconds.

Most of these apps involve your grocery, gas, or convenience store receipts.

Some example of popular receipt scanning apps include:

Ibotta
Fetch
Receipt Pal
Receipt Hog

I have a page on receipt scanning apps where you can read more.

Here is how much I make with each of the receipt scanning apps I currently use:

Ibotta $20
Shopkick $60
Receipt Pal $5
Receipt Hog $5
Fetch $3

Total $93 per month

I did not include Checkout 51 and Saving Star because I do not cash out consistently each month with those two apps.

They are included on the receipt scannng app page though.

Checkout 51 has added some great gas rebates, so I may start cashing out with it every month soon.

Now, back to the apps.

I shop for only one person.

If you have a family, you will make more money since you buy more groceries.

I actually make less than others also because I don’t buy name brand products as much as others.

Most of these apps give you more money for buying big brand names.

So, sure a lot of people can make more again.

From the list of my earnings above, you see the apps that are around $5-$20 per month individually, have become an extra $93 per month when combined.

We will just round that to $100 for the sake of easy addition since there are a lot of numbers in this post.

Scanning the same receipt with an additional app just takes mere seconds too.

Two apps on this list that require more than scanning a receipt, Shopkick and Ibotta.

They also pay you more money too.

Otherwise, for mere seconds, you can add extra money each month by using more apps.

You see the magic was in combining these apps again.

2. Surveys

Surveys get a bad rap, but honestly if you can give up a television show or some social media time, you can add $20-$50 per month.

In general, I do one to two surveys a day.

This is not noticed in my day.

That is the point with surveys.

Surveys range from ten to twenty minutes each.

Surveys have something called a disqualification rate.

Disqualification means you do not qualify for the survey, and must attempt another survey.

Then you have to keep trying other surveys until you find one that you are qualified for.

For each survey, I give five to ten extra minutes for this disqualification time.

So, your ten to twenty minute survey is now twenty to thirty minutes.

One survey a day on Swagbucks tends to get me $20-$30 per month (going for higher rate of $.75-$1 which is all I aim for).

Most surveys pay $2-$4 per hour.

A lot of people take offense to this.

I think surveys are a frugality tactic like all others.

If you give up an hour of television a day, that is about two surveys a day.

Two surveys will get me about $50 per month.

Surveys are not noticed in my day when I only do one or two a day.

Again, only pick the highest earning surveys which tend to be around $1 on most sites.

For the average person who works a normal forty hour a week job, I would not recommend more than one or two surveys a day.

This is just a recommendation though.

If you find another method works best, by all means use that.

You can do the same amount of surveys on the weekend too if you like to keep your week day to yourself.

If you are time rich, you can try for more though.

Read my post here.

So my $100 from receipt scanning apps has now turned into around $120-$150 per month with surveys added.

3. Shopping portals

I do all my online shopping through a portal.

Here is some recent cash I earned from portals:

$15 MyFico (had a big finance move coming up or would not suggest paying for a FICO score)
$1 Reebok
$3 Raise.com
$3 TopCashBack bonus
$7 Fitbit Versa 2
$3 Raise.com
$10 Lemoney Wall Street Journal

Total $42

I also like free travel, so I earned American Airline miles on some other purchases.

I think the average person can make between $10-$50 per month with shopping portals.

If you are a big spender though, you can make even more.

I shop less than others.

So now my $120-$150 has turned into $170-$200 rounding my $42 up to $50.

4. Reward cards

Reward credit cards pay between 1-5% on your spending.

Cards like the Chase Freedom and Discover have each gotten me $300 a year in the past.

That is about $25 a month for each of those cards or around $50 a month if you had both cards.

Just keep in mind, that if you like to travel, credit cards for travel can be worth much more than cash back cards.

So, you would be getting more for your rewards.

If you like travel, I would suggest getting cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred/ Reserve or Ink Preferred.

Chase has some of the best travel credit cards, and they have a rule called 5/24 where they limit how many cards you can have.

If you have opened five cards with any bank, you will not be approved for two years.

Therefore, you want to get Chase cards first or otherwise wait two years.

You can check out my other blog Travel Points 101 for more information on travel rewards.

In terms of cash back credit cards, let’s say we go with the low estimate on this return at $20 per month.

I get into travel cards, so I am using a hypothetical example. .

Now, your $160-$200 has turned into $180-$220 per month.

5. Other things

Those were just the activities I suggest you start with to make extra “spare change.”

Here are some examples of other things I did this month.

First, I made $50 from Swagbucks Discover with SurfEasy and Stash.

So now my $180-$220 has turned into $230-$270

I could have done a bank bonus.

Those on average give you $300 extra though you may not do them every month.

Most just require moving your direct deposit.

Some do require high deposit amounts like $10,0000 to $25,000, but if you do have the cash, that is still a good idea.

Next, you can get referral money from all the apps I described earlier.

That actually adds up if you know a lot of people, especially credit card referrals.

Some of those give an easy $100-$200 just for one referral.

The list goes on.

Again, keep reading this blog.

An extra $200 per month is no small amount of chunk change.

That can be the difference between living paycheck to paycheck as well as almost $500 in an emergency fund in two months.

Honestly, if you do not have an emergency fund, start with $1000.

This is a blog about saving money, but I can’t help but point this out.

Of course, ideally you want six months saved, but if you have no emergency fund that is a good place to start.

Reducing Expenses

The previous activities were about making extra money.

While you earned an extra $200 per month from those activities, you could also be reducing your expenses.

For example, you could cut your dining out budget in half.

If you are like the average person who spends $300 per month on dining out, you would have an extra $150 a month.

You could reduce your grocery bill.

You could save on car insurance.

You could save on so many other things.

Why You Should Put Money In A Separate Account

Many people get this “spare change” and barely notice what they did with it.

Maybe they got a gift card.

I suggest you have a separate savings account, so you can see your money build up.

Maybe try one of those high yielding savings accounts.

You can even use an envelope in your drawer.

The point is to watch the money build up, and put it to one of your financial goals.

I have started to do this lately.

I get to see my spare change turn into financials goals realized instead of not noticing where the money went.

This is an important step in accomplishing your bigger financial goals and must be done or all your hard work could be for nothing.

Adding It All Up

Now, your “spare change” has turned into hundreds a month.

People look at me funny when they see me taking a picture of a grocery receipt.

The motto of Adding Pennies is that a penny may seem small, but it adds up.

Many people are nervous to try some of the things I mentioned in the post as well as skeptical.

Will this waste my time?

Is this legit?

I thought all of these thoughts when I got started.

Now, I have been pocketing extra hundreds a month for years.

Of course, I made a lot of mistakes during that time.

That is why I am glad you are reading the blog.

Some of these activities may look like things that people do not talk about.

Frugality is actually a cool thing today because of books like the ‘Millionaire Next Door.”

It was not always so.

Real wealth is about having money to do the things you really want.

I know you want real wealth, or you would not be reading Adding Pennies.

You can have wealth on any income too, whether you make $10,000 or $200,000.

That starts with not spending more than you earn and having money left over after your paycheck.

Again, most people live paycheck to paycheck.

It is possible in today’s society to live paycheck to paycheck even on an income of over $100,000.

When my mom sees me out doing my apps, she just says that I am out doing “coupons.”

What she calls coupons is an extra $100-$200 a month.

I wanted to write this post to show you why spare change can add up to hundreds in case that does not make sense.

If you have not started using any of the apps I described in this post, get started.

We have a Start Here page that will help you get started easily.

If you find any of the apps don’t work for you personally, try something else on the blog.

For instance, not everyone likes surveys.

I will be creating a 5 day course that will address saving money and cutting your expense later too.

You will get the free course when you sign up for my e-mail list.

Look for this in the next couple of weeks.

This post is only the beginning of putting money in your pocket,.

Keep reading the blog.

What could you do with a couple hundred a month?

Build your savings account?

Add to an emergency fund?

Add to kids college or your retirement?

Treat yourself?

I hope you start making extra money if you do not do so already.

Do you use any of the apps in this post?