Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?
Every year businesses give away thousands of dollars in free money and gift cards as a way of promoting their websites or products.
We’ve put together a list of of our favorites that will give you more than $1,800 in free cash right now.
Some of them only require filling out a form. Some of them take a bit more effort, but you can easily knock out all of these in a couple of hours.
How to Get Free Money
Without further ado, here are the companies giving out free money right now:
- Automate Your Savings With Acorns — $5
Acorns is a simple savings and investment app that rounds your credit or debit card purchases up to the nearest dollar and invests the digital change.
You can connect the app to your credit or debit card and let it automatically round up all your transactions, or manually round up only the ones you choose.
Contributor CJ Reid does the latter, accepting roundups of less than $0.50, such as his $3.60 cup of coffee.
“Rounding up 40 cents here and 25 cents there moves me swiftly enough to $5 so that I can begin investing without putting myself into the red,” she says.
Once your round ups reach $5, that amount will be transferred from your bank to your Acorns account, and invested into your chosen portfolio.
“Acorns makes it easy to invest by removing the responsibility of choosing individual investments or worrying about trades,” Reid explains. “You don’t need any previous investment knowledge or history.”
And once you get the process automated, Acorns investments make your digital change work for you.
“With a conservative portfolio,” Reid says, “I turned $15 into $19 within a few weeks.”
You can sign up and download the app here.
- Snap a Picture of Your Receipt With Ibotta — $10
Ibotta is an easy-to-use cash-back app that’s partnered with more than 50 retailers, just about anywhere you’d do any kind of shopping.
Before heading to the store, search for items on your shopping list within the app. Strawberries? Check. An ear of corn? Check. Add each cash-back opportunity to your list in the app.
Then shop.
When you get home, snap a photo of your receipt and scan the items’ barcodes.
Bam. Cash back.
Some cash-back opportunities we’ve seen include:
25 cents back for any item
25 cents back on strawberries
50 cents back on frozen fruit snacks
$1 back on a box of tea
$5 back on a case of Shiner Bock beer
Notice a lot of those aren’t tied to a brand — just shop for the staples on your list, and earn cash back!
Ibotta is free to download. Plus, you’ll get a $10 sign-up bonus after uploading your first receipt.
- Complete a Few Surveys at VIP Voice — $30
A number of sites will pay you to read advertiser’s emails, sign up for offers and take surveys.
We’ve tried about a million of them (OK… we’ve lost count), but there are only a few we’d recommend.
VIP Voice is one of those companies. The surveys are relatively quick to complete and reward you with points you can redeem for cash or gift cards.
Sign up for this at the beginning of the month and plan to login a few times each week. You’ll have no trouble earning an extra $30 this month with almost no work.
- Start Investing With Stash — $5
It’s no brilliant secret that investing can be a smart way to make money.
Sometimes, though, it feels restricted to a few wealthy elite.
But Stash is different. This app lets you start investing with as little as $5 and for just a $1 monthly fee for balances under $5,000. (The first month is free.)
Stash curates investments from professional fund managers and investors and lets you choose where to put your money — but it leaves the complicated investment terms out of it.
You just choose from a set of simple portfolios reflecting your beliefs, interests and goals.
Bonus: Right now, The Penny Hoarder is teaming up with Stash to fund your first investment — so you’ll get a $5 bonus to get started!
- Take This 10-Minute Survey — $25
JOANY is a health care concierge service. It helps people find and compare plans, seek out doctors and navigate complicated medical bills.
In order to best cater to customers, it needs you to answer some survey questions. It takes less than 10 minutes, with fewer than 50 (HIPAA-protected) questions.
If you meet these qualifications and complete the survey, you’ll pocket $25:
You purchased health insurance for 2017 through your state exchange, Healthcare.gov, a broker or a plan, such as Oscar or Aetna.
You don’t receive health insurance through your employer or school.
You aren’t on Medicaid, Medicare or VA health insurance.
JOANY promises fewer than 50 questions and less than 10 minutes of your time. Most questions are multiple choice, making answering easy. Your answers are private and protected under federal law.
- Clear Your Old CD Tower — $5+
Have a bunch of movies or CDs collecting dust on a shelf? Decluttr will pay you for them!
Decluttr buys your old CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays and video games, plus hardware like cell phones, tablets, game consoles and iPods.
We talked to one user, Gil Flores, who sold about 100 DVDs and 75 CDs and made $275 — an average of $1.57 each.
Just download the app and start scanning the barcodes on your media to get immediate quotes. It’s completely free to use, you won’t pay listing or seller fees, payment is super fast and even shipping is free.
Plus, enter FREE5 at checkout to get an extra $5 for your trade-in order!
- Do Your Shopping via Ebates — $10
Believe it or not, some sites will give you free gift cards just for signing up with them.
One of our favorites is Ebates, a cash back shopping site. It’s giving away $10 gift cards if you sign up as a new member and earn your first cash-back rebate.
You can choose a $10 gift card for Walmart or $10 in Ebates cash for your next shopping trip on the site.
To earn your gift card:
Sign up for Ebates here with your email or Facebook account.
Make your first purchase through the site within 90 days, and spend at least $25.
Your account will be credited with rewards points you cash in for your $10 gift card.
- Sign up for a Bank Bonus — $150-$200
We’ve put together a list of our favorite bank promotions happening right now. These banks will pay you up to $300 just to open a new account!
It’s up to you to decide how to manage several bank accounts. Some of us find it’s helpful to have multiple places to stick our money for various purposes — we’re less likely to touch it that way.
You could always open an account, collect the bonus, and close it when you’re no longer using it — just make sure you read the details and know the requirements you need to meet to earn the bonus.
- Rent out Your Extra Baby Stuff With This App — $20+
Traveling with kids can be rewarding, but also very challenging. The goBaby app aims to make it a little easier on parents — while giving other parents the chance to make some extra cash.
Packing and hauling baby stuff across airports, planes, trains and automobiles sucks, and it might even cost you extra money.
Through the goBaby app, New York City-based mother of two Natalie Kaminski created a parent-to-parent marketplace where traveling parents could rent baby gear like strollers, car seats and other items from local parents with the same to spare.
This Airbnb-style exchange for baby supplies is available in New York City and will be launching soon in Boston, Miami, San Francisco and Chicago.
If you live in one of these cities, use the app to monetize the baby gear you already own!
Here’s how it works:
Download the app for free here.
Take a photo of the item you want to rent out. Add a brief description, and set your price.
Choose whether you’ll deliver the item or have the renter pick it up.
Give the item to the renter, and get it back within the scheduled dates.
Get paid. Repeat!
- Sign up for a New Credit Card — $1,425
One of the best ways for a Penny Hoarder to make some serious extra cash is to take advantage of credit card sign-up bonuses.
Of course, to get the most benefit, you should have excellent credit, and pay off your card in full each month so you’re not paying interest. (After all, every time you pay interest, you’re losing some of the positive effects of the bonuses.)
For those of you wondering, here’s how opening and closing credit cards affects your credit score (Hint: You can do it without causing too much harm).
- Get Paid to Open Emails and Complete Tasks — $5
You’re going to check some emails anyway, so why not turn it into a paid habit?
FusionCash is a site that pays you for doing a number of tasks, like watching videos, taking surveys — even opening emails. Plus, you’ll get a $5 when you create a free account (you can also participate without signing up).
You’ve got mail — now get paid!
- Transfer Your Prescription to a New Drug Store — $25/Month
If you have a monthly prescription from your doctor, we’ve got an easy way for you to make $25 a month…
Several of the national grocery and drug store chains have been known to run promotions that give you free cash or a gift card when you transfer a prescription to their store.
You can usually find these coupons in your Sunday newspaper circulars or on coupon blogs like Krazy Coupon Lady.
If you can’t find a coupon for a specific location, ask your store manager if they’ll accept a competitor coupon. Then you can take a Walgreens coupon (or another one that you find) and have your store match it. We’ve found lots of stores will do this, including Publix and some Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid locations.
Enjoy Your Free Money!
There you have it. If you’ve finished the list, you’ve just made at least $1,800 in FREE money.
Feel free to take the weekend off.