On this page you'll find all the best ways to make money in your spare time whilst at university based on our own experience. We'll keep adding new ways to this page so go ahead and bookmark it. And please do share your own ideas in the comments!
No-risk matched betting
Free bets from matched betting Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It's completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone can do it.
It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites through 'matching' them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome).
This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £200! Multiply this by how many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred pounds.
Owen walks you through how to make your first £15 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make £30/hr sitting at home, please let us know!
Online surveys
An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members to answer surveys and test new products.
For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up to £3 ($5) for some surveys!
A few good ones to try are
- Toluna,
- Vivatic,
- MySurvey,
- Valued Opinions,
- IPSOS,
- Global Test Market,
- The Opinion Panel,
- Crowdology,
- YouGov,
- Pinecone,
- OnePoll,
- SurveyBods,
- PopulusLive,
- Hiving,
- PanelBase,
- MintVine,
- Opinion Outpost,
- Harris Poll,
- Mind Mover,
- New Vista,
- iPoll.
Also sign up for Swagbucks which rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.
Click Here!
Click Here!
Online market trading
The historically hard-to-break world of investing in stock markets and currencies has been cracked wide open. Today there is no need to be a fat cat or fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market trading platforms.
Having spent many hours researching this new opportunity, I've been experimenting with the two biggest platforms: Plus500 and eToro.com.
Both offer free practice accounts, and Plus500 also give you a £20 signup bonus (without depositing, terms apply) for their CFD service which is worth taking up. Overall I prefer eToro with over 4.5 million users worldwide. It was recently featured in the BBC 2 documentary "Traders: Millions by the Minute" and the Financial Times.
One of the best things on eToro is the CopyTrader feature. This lets you literally see, follow and copy the investments of other top performing traders.
Follow George's complete guide to trading on eToro to learn more. I think $200 is a good amount to get the most out of the learning curve by trying out a few different markets. If nothing else you'll learn a great deal about various investments and industries.
- Plus500.Com
- eToro.Com.
Start your own website
Interested in generating passive income? You need a website. It's THE way to make money while you sleep.
Starting a website with Bluehost takes less than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there are plenty of ways to monetise your site.
Save the Student is just one example of a successful website, started at university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since grown into a full-time and sizable enterprise.
