To make a quick $200
by Rocket FinanceI was recently asked what I would do if I needed an extra $200 and only had two weeks to acquire the money. I have couple of ideas:
- Pray. We are often given unexpected, small sums of money by friends and family. For instance, Sarah was given a $20 gift card the other day and it was a great help to our budget. Rarely are we given sums of that size ($200), but it could happen.
- Sell something on Craig’s List or Ebay. We only have a couple of items that are worth that much and that we would be willing to part with, but we could get most of the money in a pinch this way.
- Roll it over to the next month. Use part of our emergency fund to care for the immediate expense and then make sure that we cover it in a future month. Get it today and then figure out how to pay for it later.
- Find a freelance job. I have experience in painting, roofing and wood finishing. I am confident that if I needed to make extra money in the evenings or weekends, that I could pull it off.
- Qualify for a bank bonuses or credit card bonuses. I am trying to avoid this particular revenue stream right now, but this is how we solved our money problem last year. We could dust off a few of those tricks again if we had to.
Frankly, I think that we would probably just put the money on a card and figure out how to pay for it later. We are currently running a $500 deficit every month anyway, so $200 doesn’t seem like too big of a deal. Now if we needed an extra $2,000. . . that would get my attention. I have already been giving serious thought to exactly when I will need to get a second job in order to continue to make the payments on the house that we still own in Wisconsin.
What would you do if you needed $200 in two weeks?
5 Responses to “To make a quick $200”
By SavingDiva on Jul 7, 2008 | Reply
I would try to get a few extra hours at my part time job. If that didn’t work (or pay day wasn’t right), I would look for freelance work (cash pay) on craigslist or other sites like that.
By Aaron Stroud on Jul 7, 2008 | Reply
“We are currently running a $500 deficit every month anyway, so $200 doesn’t seem like too big of a deal.”
I know this feeling all too well! After building a house and having two kids during the process, it’s all too easy to shrug off the small expenses.
I think it’s a coping mechanism to deal with the stress. Normally I am fairly frugal, but I just didn’t have the energy to save money during that process.
To answer your question, I’d pull it out of savings. When I was younger and in the city, I probably would have used my emergency fund and then worked over time or an odd job or two to replace the money.
By budgets are sexy on Jul 8, 2008 | Reply
Most def. hit up CL first, then go the route of slapping it on the credit card for sure
At least this way 2 weeks turns into 6 weeks…and i’m pretty sure i have enough stuff around the house i could sell by then.
fun post my man.
By JR on Jul 9, 2008 | Reply
Ideas: donate blood, sell your junk, Sign up for an ING account, really watch what you spend at the grocery store. Do staples only for a couple of weeks–rice and beans. Stay home. Drink water only. Find ways to save on gas. It will add up quickly.
By Rini on Jul 9, 2008 | Reply
Don’t forget, you don’t necessarily have to get a windfall all from a single source.
We recently came in need of about $350 in unexpected expenses. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve gotten:
$100 – from my mom, because she heard about the problem
$50 – a late wedding gift from relatives I’ve never met
$100 – an award I got at work (after taxes)
$50 – my husband won a blogging contest
$50 – my parents-in-law sent us a “have fun” check
$154.79 – an unexpected paycheck for my husband’s tutoring (we thought last month’s check was the last one for the school year)
That’s over $500 in two weeks of pure out-of-the-blue Godsends!