How to Make Money Faster Than Fast

Slow down a moment and take a look at these ideas.

Female hands with US dollar currency cash money, woman counting savings, managing home budget concept

You have more options than you may think to make some quick cash. (Getty Images)

Sometimes, you need to make money, now. Unfortunately, making money quickly can be harder than it looks. You may be able to recycle aluminum cans and get paid for them quickly, but you may need far more than a few bucks. You know you could probably make a small fortune with a garage sale, but you often can't get them up and running quickly; plus there's a ton of preparation beforehand, putting prices on everything, placing signs throughout the neighborhood and on social media sites.

So what follows are some money-making ideas – along with an educated guess as to how long it'll take to see the green stuff in your bank account.

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You could make package deliveries. Online shopping continues to explode, and that's created some opportunities for people looking to make a fast buck.

Gertrude Oppong, a San Diego resident who blogs about side gigs at her website, MyOnlineBizJourney.com, says she and her husband recently started making deliveries for Amazon.com.

"Pay rates start at $18 an hour, and you can pick up as many or few deliveries as you want. Signing up is super simple and doesn't require any training," she says.

How fast will you get paid? Could be in under a week. You get paid Tuesdays and Fridays, according to the Amazon Flex website, and via direct deposit. There are other delivery services that you may want to look into, but Amazon is arguably the most well-known.

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You could volunteer for a study. Ian Atkins, a financial and investment analyst with FitSmallBusiness.com, suggests this.

"Marketers and advertisers, political consultants, universities and hospitals – they all are looking for volunteers. In most cases, you won't need to take a bizarre new drug, either. Simply give opinions, take tests and participate in various studies," Atkins says.

Of course, if you're volunteering with a company that does clinical trials for pharmaceuticals, then you might have to take a bizarre new drug.

As for what you'll be paid, it'll vary. Medical studies sometimes pay volunteers thousands of dollars; a marketing study may offer $50 to $100.

How fast will you get paid? Could be within 24 hours of completing the study or several weeks after. And these studies can be like auditioning for a role, making it even harder to find and get them. For instance, a marketing firm might be looking for a man in his 50s to comment on a new razor or a mother in her 20s to offer her opinions on what she looks for when buying baby formula.

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You could become a notary public. A notary public is an official appointed by the state government. Your job? To serve as an impartial witness when other people sign documents. You sign them, too, and generally put a stamp on the documents. It's a pretty easy job, but an important one.

It's also a side gig that usually won't make you a lot of money. In California, you might make $15 for notarizing one signature, but in many states, it's $10, $5 and even as low as $2. So, why do it? Well, it's not for everyone. But if you have a business where customers are dropping in anyway, this could be one more service you offer.

"There's really not a typical notary. Some notaries only perform notarizations as part of a full-time office job. Others are self-employed or run their own businesses. Still others perform notarizations part time outside of work to supplement their day job," says Kat Garcia, a spokeswoman for the National Notary Association, headquartered in Chatsworth, California.

How fast will you get paid? Very fast. Right upon signing the documents. So there is that.

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You could tutor someone. You don't have to be licensed to be a private tutor, although you probably will if you work with a tutoring service or school.

Gillian Perkins, who owns Aptus Creative Marketing, in Salem, Oregon, says that several years ago she worked as a private English and math tutor.

"I posted ads on Craigslist, and parents hired me to tutor their kids in basic school subjects. I earned about $40 an hour," says Perkins.

Writing is a big part of what Perkins does for a living, and so that wasn't a hard sell to parents. As for her math background, she had completed college-level math classes.

"Parents were more than happy to hire me to tutor their elementary, middle and high school students in math based simply on the fact that I'd passed those classes myself," she says.

How fast will you get paid? As fast as you can find your first client, and if you're working on your own, when you get paid is up to you and the parent. Perkins says she was sometimes paid after each session, but usually, at the beginning of each month for a set number of sessions.

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Self-publish a book. Sure, on the surface, this sounds crazy as an idea to make fast money. Books, even self-published ones, take a lot of work and time to write. On the other hand, what type of book are you writing? Maybe you aren't interested in writing the Great American Novel but a how-to book on gardening or martial arts or cooking, and you feel like you can whip the text out pretty quickly. Last year, Perkins wrote a time management book called "Sorted" in a month and then promptly published it through Amazon's CreateSpace service.

"It's print-on-demand, so you don't have to pay anything to have your book published. Each time a copy is sold you earn a commission of about $5," Perkins says. "Within two months of publishing my book, I had earned a couple thousand dollars. Now, almost two years later, I'm still earning about $150 every month without doing any additional work."

How fast will you get paid? After a month or two if you go with Amazon's service. If you sell books in July, you'll get paid at the end of August, according to CreateSpace's website. So if you sell a book on July 30, about 30 days. If you sell a book on July 1, about 60 days. That actually is fast compared to many publishing houses, which will pay author royalties generally twice a year. But for everyone like Perkins, who has made good money on "Sorted," there are plenty of self-published authors who likely sell no books, beyond a few friends or family members.

So always keep that garage sale in mind.