Best Quick Cash

Amazing ways to earn extra money.

Sell for Others

These days, there are an amazing number of ways to earn extra money -- we're talking big bucks. You could be an eBay assistant, do some mystery shopping, give parties or twist balloons. Here's how:

Forget about selling your own stuff on eBay. The real money is in selling other people's stuff. Christopher Spencer, author of The eBay Entrepreneur and an instructor with the company's training program, had a job as a celebrity manager when he started selling on eBay as a hobby in 1998. By 2001, he had opened a store where people could drop off their items. Now he's a full-timer and forecasts he will handle at least $500,000 to $750,000 in sales this year.

Spencer's company charges a fee of 38 percent per sale. Assistants set their own rates, which can vary from 5 percent for selling a vehicle to as much as 50 percent for selling low-priced merchandise like housewares. To find out what others in your city are getting, go to ebay.com/tahub.

You don't have to start big. You do have to network and promote yourself. Try selling your own items first (you'll need a digital camera to photograph them). Write detailed descriptions and add a little razzle-dazzle.

Spencer says a person working at home could eventually list 25 or more items a day, generating $2,000 or more in monthly income, depending on how much time is invested. The key, he believes, is the ability to find high-quality products to sell, whether it's Gucci handbags or farm equipment.

Illustrated by Harry Campbell

Lend Assistance

If you've got word processing, transcription, bookkeeping, public relations or website design skills, you may want to try life as a virtual assistant. That broad title refers to people with expertise in a range of services, including administrative support and legal and medical transcription, says Diana Ennen, co-author of Virtual Assistant -- The Series. "There is so much work for VAs," Ennen says. "The field is thriving, absolutely booming."

Though some work might require daytime hours, much of it can be done at night or on the weekend. Hourly rates range from $35 for basic transcribing to up to $100 for Web design.

Online forums and websites can be good places to gather how-to information from experienced assistants. Try the Virtual Assistant Networking Association (vanetworking.com), the International Association of Virtual Office Assistants (iavoa.com) or the International Virtual Assistants Association (ivaa.org).

Throw a Party!

Are you patient, organized and outgoing? If so, you could join the estimated 14 million Americans who sell products at home-based parties and person to person. Hot trends in direct sales include wine, gardening tools, pet products and scrapbooking. And companies like Taste of Home Entertaining (a subsidiary of the Reader's Digest Association) offer cookware and other products for the home.

While it's possible to make a six-figure income working full-time in these enterprises, most people just want to supplement their regular paycheck. They average about $13,000 annually, according to Direct Selling Association research.

Men have joined the party, making up about 20 percent of direct sellers. "People often laugh when I tell them I'm an Avon representative," says Billy Kolber, a writer who sells beauty and other products part-time in New York City. "It's an advantage for me because it's a little bit of an icebreaker."

A sizable portion of his customers are guys who buy a men's skin-care line. Kolber chooses his hours and works 15 to 20 hours a week. "My Avon work pays for all the luxuries in my life -- my travel and the occasional splurge at Neiman Marcus."

For a sampling of opportunities, check out the Direct Selling Association's website (dsa.org).

Shop For Perks

Imagine, mystery-shopping firms hire anonymous shoppers to purchase a vendor's product or try out a service, and then report to management on their experience.

The average retail "shop," or job, pays $8 to $20, says John Swinburn, executive director of the trade group Mystery Shopping Providers Association. That may not sound like a lot, but there are some good perks to be had. One mystery shopper in Seattle, who asked to stay anonymous so she won't blow her cover, says she earns $200 to $300 each month in cash, and more than double that in food, services and entertainment.

More complicated shops might require you to open a bank account and then close it to test the bank's customer service, or to stay at a hotel, eat at its restaurant and get a massage at the spa. You can sign yourself up at mysteryshop.org. You'll be asked to supply your age, gender and other demographic information.

Mike Mallett, CEO of Corporate Research International, which conducts about 60,000 mystery shops a month, says that "if a lumber store wants a male with a beard to ask about two-by-fours," his company will provide a person who fits the description.

Track It Down

Sign up at ChaCha Search (chacha.com) and you can be one of the real, live humans who help people search topics on the Web. Never heard of a search engine guide?

Okay, say a dad wants to buy his teen a video game but has no idea what's new and interesting. At ChaCha, he could instant-message a guide who knows games and get a dozen examples of the latest and greatest. ChaCha is free to users, just like Google and other search engines.

As a guide, you choose your topics, says Scott Jones, ChaCha's CEO and chairman. Users rate you on your performance, and your pay varies from $5 to $10 an hour, depending in part on your ratings. If you sign up other guides, you'll also get 10 percent of what they earn.

Elizabeth Lessard, a guide in Litchfield, New Hampshire, earns about $300 monthly for about two hours of work a day. "To make any kind of money on my own time is amazing," says Lessard, a stay-at-home mom.

Shoot Pictures

Danny DiGiovanni was between jobs two years ago when he participated in a Yahoo focus group. He earned $70 in one hour. Finding similar opportunities proved difficult, so he started findfocusgroups.com.

DiGiovanni's listings generally pay from $50 to $200 per session. Most are held during the day in major cities. You can also contact market research companies in your area and let them know that you'd like to add your name to their databases.

About 25,000 buyers, including magazines, wire services and advertisers, are registered at photoshelter.com, an online archive and marketplace for digital photography, according to co-founder Grover Sanschagrin. Post your photos free unless you want to upgrade to more space for $9.99 a month. The site takes a 10 percent fee for each sale you make. Photographers with quality pictures can easily make $300 to $1,000 a month.

Logan Adams, a senior at Kansas State University, found another way to make money on the site. With permission, he takes photos of children at baseball games and other sporting events and sells the pics to their parents, who see the proofs in an online gallery. In a good month, Adams makes a few hundred dollars.

Showcase Your Talent

Anyone with a knack for the offbeat can turn that ability into a moneymaker. When she was 16, Liisa Pyke enjoyed watching her brother juggle and decided to learn how to do it herself. "It was a very male-dominated field -- young men -- and that appealed to me," she says with a laugh.

Pyke kept adding to her skills and now runs a part-time business in Charlotte, North Carolina, as an entertainer at children's birthday parties and festivals. Clowning, face painting, making balloon animals, juggling, leading games -- she does it all for about $100 an hour, depending on the client's needs and the distance she has to travel.

How do you get into this field? Pyke suggests connecting with clowning, juggling or other entertainers' organizations in your area. Promote your work by listing your name in directories like balloonhq.com and by contacting local event planners.