Do you want to increase your savings without the need to earn it? You should check out this list of strategies to earn free cash.
Your parents might have advised them that you shouldn’t be able to get cash for free. But, unfortunately for them they’re wrong. We’ve discovered a variety of ways to earn money without any effort.
This “effort” component is vital. Numerous other guides to making money on the internet have paying for online surveys and we believe that is misleading. If you have to perform anything more than the minimum required for your money indicates that it isn’t for free, but it does mean you’re working.
With that in our minds, we’ve selected the most straightforward, basic ways to earn free money. But don’t worry about it, you can still earn £100s!
Are you able to have some time? The following list of strategies to make money quickly require some effort on your part but the results can be well worth it.
Scholarships, bursaries and grants
You’re probably well aware that students can receive cash in the forms of bursaries and grants, as well as scholarships and bursaries (and that unlike Student Loans these aren’t required to be returned). But what you may not be aware of is how many people are eligible to receive this cash.
Many students think that these loans are only accessible to students who have the highest marks, a talent in a particular sports or musical instrument or those from less privileged backgrounds. But, while these students are able to receive help, plenty of others can receive some of the money too.
As we’ll explain in our guide to the most bizarre bursaries, money is available to students for any reason. Whether it’s being a vegetarian, possessing a flair for FIFA or simply having the right name it’s possible to get free money for just about anything. Therefore, there’s no reason not to look for money to invest in yourself.
Offers to sign up
Registering an account with a company selling… Well, anything? Look to see if they are any sign-up offers for new customers.
Far from just offering an initial discount, plenty of businesses offer no cost money when you sign up. It’s possible to have to purchase a qualifying item first, but if it’s something you’re likely to purchase anyway, it’s completely money for nothing.
Sometimes the reward will come in the form of some form of Amazon voucher. However, since Amazon offers almost everything, vouchers are the same as cash. And if you follow our Amazon shopping hacks, you’ll be guaranteed an amazing deal.
There are many sign-up bonuses on the market, but among our top picks is the £5 bonus to join OnePoll along with the £10 bonus when you sign up with Monese as well as Curve (you may also discover the exact details of Curve Cards are within our comprehensive guide).
You can also earn cryptocurrency for free by signing up for Coinbase and then completing a couple of short tasks. Though you can’t buy it at most stores but you can trade it for Bitcoin (some stores do have a policy of accepting Bitcoin) or sell it to £20+.
If you’re interested information, visit our deals page for all the best ways to earn cash by signing up with companies.
Money for switching bank or utility supplier
One of the first points we recommend students make prior to starting university is create a student bank account. But did you know you can switch bank accounts even after you’ve started university? Even better, that you could get cash in exchange?
The process of switching bank accounts could not be easier. No matter if it’s liquid cash, or an Amazon voucher (which is, in fact, as good as cash anyway) There are a lot of banks that offer up to £100 to persuade you to switch.
If you don’t have an account at a bank yet but you’re not worried. These offers are available for those who are new to the market, not just those switching.
Just make sure to double-check the terms of each bank’s offer, since you’re not eligible for the free cash (if the bank has already granted your first year of uni, for instance). Also, remember that banks provide cash to non-students who want to switch.
Free money for referring friends
We absolutely love referral codes. With regard to how little effort is needed and how much you can earn it’s difficult to think of a better method to earn money free than referring your family and friends to join certain companies.
There’s actually a fair bit of overlap here with our previous suggestion. Some of the very best referral codes are provided by banks, energy companies (Octopus Energy provides £50 credit) and broadband providers.
Many times, the offers for the new customer (like £100 for joining) have a similarity to the refer-a friend schemes. But there’s an important difference – both you and the person who you’re referring to receive rewards.
Sure, the biggest and most lucrative offers are offered by utilities and banks. There are many businesses that offer referral schemes. Some reward you in way of credit cards, whereas others will pay cold, hard cash.
Cashback sites (which we’ll look at in the next section) and apps for automatic savings are one of the most reliable sources for this (although the particular offers may vary). You can earn up to £15 per enrollment!
The bottom line is: check all the apps and services you use to determine if they have an incentive program for referrals. It is possible to earn the money in no time.
Request a refund on a student loan
There’s a lot wrong with the present situation in Student Finance in the UK. However, generally speaking the repayments for Student Loans are quite safe. That is until the imperfections in the system lead to that you are forced to make repayments which you shouldn’t.
For you to begin paying back your student loan Two things must occur. First, you must have reached the first month of April following your graduation. And, secondly you must be earning over the threshold to be eligible for a repayment program.
Find out if you’re due a tax rebate
Refunds for student loans aren’t the only way to get back the money you’ve paid in excess.
Each year thousands of taxpayers across the UK accidentally pay too much tax. If you’re among the majority, you’re entitled tax rebates.
You might have overpaid your tax due to one of a myriad of reasons. But the good thing is that there is no need to worry about whether it was your fault or not.
Furthermore the fact that it doesn’t really matter if it happened in the past. You are entitled to an amount of refund for up to four years after the completion period in which you paid more than.
Keep in mind that students rarely earn over the annual threshold to pay tax (currently £12,570 per year). If you believe you’ve paid tax when you’ve earned less than this then you must definitely think about the possibility of claiming a tax rebate.
Earn interest on savings and current accounts
We realize that if you’re a student you probably don’t have much extra cash floating around. But if you are able to save some money it is highly recommended to put it in an ISA or regular savings account.
While the 2008 financial crisis along with austerity measures Brexit and even COVID-19 have reduced interest rates for a time, there are some decent deals available.
In the event of increasing inflation £100 today will not be worth quite as much over the next year (you’ll still be able to use £100, it just will not be able to purchase you the same amount).
As such, you should always try to save the majority of your spare money as possible in an account that offers the highest rate of interest. Even if you’re not after the free cash you could earn in interest, you’ll need to ensure that your savings are kept at its value.
£1,000 is free for the year with Lifetime ISA
Owning a house may appear to be a distant dream right now. But you can help bring that dream to life by putting money in the Lifetime ISA (LISA).
Up to £1,000 per year the LISA is undoubtedly the most abundant source of free money can be imagined.
To receive the entire amount the amount, you’ll need to make the amount of £4,000 in your LISA during a single tax year (April until April). Don’t fret if you don’t have that much to in the bank. The government will still offer you a 25% bonus for saving that is up to £4,000.
The highest amount of bonus you can receive from the Lifetime ISA is £33,000 (equivalent to 33 years in which you put in £4,000 per year) that’s plenty of money for free. But, as is forever the case with life, there are a few traps.
In the beginning, you’ll be able to only withdraw money from your LISA if you’re using it for the purchase of a house if you’re aged over 60 or if you’ve been given more than 12 months in which to live. You can withdraw funds for any other cause, you’ll lose any bonuses you’ve earned plus an additional percentage of your money.
Thus, while it’s best to only deposit money into an LISA if you’re confident you’ll use it to build an investment property or retirement, it’s probably the trick which will yield the most free money.
Use cashback sites for shopping online
We’ve previously mentioned it in this guide on ways to make money for free throughout the UK. And, if you’re interested in making and saving money, then you’re familiar with cashback. But, just in case your situation isn’t so, below’s a brief explanation.
When you purchase something online you can do it in person or via a cashback site. Whenever possible, we’d always recommend using a cashback site.
If you shop on cashback websites, you’ll experience the same shopping experience you would have on the website of your chosen retailer. But, the cashback website will track your activity and then refund you a certain percentage of the total amount you spent (or in certain cases an amount that is set).
A lot of your favourite shops are available on cashback websites like TopCashback and Quidco. Adidas, ASOS, Amazon and a few other retailers which don’t have the letter A, are all the site. It’s likely that you’ll be receiving a maximum of five percent although it’s still more than enough!
The most significant money is like you’d expect, with the larger purchases. If you’re buying car insurance or purchasing a new phone the cashback websites will reimburse more than £100 for the purchase through them.
It is also possible to receive money back from the stores. As well as cashback sites which offer money back for food purchases online, supermarket cashback apps offer up to 100% cashback on a whole range of single items, from sweets to pet food.
You can use cashback sites whenever you shop online . You might earn up to a hundred quid in free money each year.
You can earn money for using the internet by Swagbucks
Spend your life online? And, if you’re not going through your favourite books, such as Save the Student guides (we all have one) there’s a chance you’re earning free money just for surfing the web.
Among the many ways to earn free money in the UK with Swagbucks is to set it as your primary source of information. While that means you’ll have to say goodbye to Google (or or, if you’re lucky, Bing), you’ll earn between 10 and 20 SB points (the virtual currency utilized on Swagbucks) each time you search for 10-20 times.
By using these numbers, we’ve worked out that doing your normal research for six months could earn you approximately £300.
But the free money does not stop there – Swagbucks will also pay you to view videos. In fact, let’s face it the majority of what we end up doing online anyway.
You may find it a little harder to make money free this way as it’s not as simple as just searching, and it’s not always accessible to everyone. It’s certainly worth a go!
Check out our Swagbucks review for more details or sign up for Swagbucks right now.
Earn money through walking
We’re all aware of the primary benefits that walking provides: It’s cheap as well as it helps keep you fit and healthy, and it’s carbon-neutral. But what would you think if we said there was a fourth benefit to get out and walk everywhere?
With apps such as Sweatcoin, BetterPoints and winwalk walking is now better than being free – it’s a source of free money.
These apps monitor your movements throughout the day and reward you for your actions by granting you virtual currencies. The’money’ is exchanged to gift cards at many popular stores and restaurants and, more importantly, for cash too.
It’s true that you’re unlikely to make it big through earning money for free from free walking applications. However, keep your phone with you when you’re out and about and you’ll soon observe the free cash trickling into.
You can win free money by participating in competitions.
Now, let us be crystal clear. When we say you can win free money through competitions, we’re talking about free. This isn’t about playing into the lottery which requires cash and has the chance to win less than these unlikely things.
We mean the hundreds, if not thousands of other competitions being held in the UK currently, which are free to enter and can win you an impressive amount of free cash.
Elite-level competitions (people who participate in competitions on the reg) claim to be able to participate in around 100 competitions each day. But that’s simply not manageable for most of us. If you plan to achieve at least 30 minutes per week, you’ll likely end up winning a fair amount of prizes (be they money, prizes or experiences).
One of our favorite ways to win money is to play free lotteries. Many require you check results on a daily basis to claim the winnings (if you’ve won obviously), but with jackpots reaching hundreds of pounds, it’s definitely worth a few seconds in your spare time.
There are a lot of contests that offer thousands of pounds worth of free cash.
Scan your receipts for cash
Last, but by no way least on our list of ways to earn money for free: receipts. If you are the type of person who throws away receipts or simply ignore them completely, you might want to reconsider your actions.
In addition to making it a lot harder to safeguard your rights as a consumer by throwing them away, it could see you missing out on free cash, too. Also, be sure to keep them in your possession at a minimum for long enough to get an image.
Apps that scan receipts like Storewards, Shoppix and Huyu let you send copies of receipts for every purchase you make from any retailer. Although you won’t be the actual cash amount for every receipt, you’ll be rewarded with tokens or coins whenever you submit a claim.
When you’ve earned enough coins to make a withdrawal then you’ll be able to receive your money for free. It can be a voucher (including Amazon) or free cash (usually via PayPal).
It might take you long to get to this point. But with such little effort required, we’d say receipt scanning is certainly an excellent way to earn free money.