9 simple ways to make money without doing anything

You can easily score some extra cash without doing much. 

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• There are several ways to make money that actually require little to no work.
• Creating a YouTube channel or investing in other content can result in millions in the long run.
• Or declutter your home by selling unused clothing, books, and other miscellaneous items. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. 

• Making money takes work, but work is too hard.

  Luckily, there are some ways to make money with little to no effort. Thanks to apps, basic investment tools, and savvy shopping strategies, you can make get extra cash without doing much.

  Though some of these methods do take some work upfront, they can set you up to earn passive income for the long term.

  Here are 32 ways to make money with minimum effort.

• 1. Get cash back on credit cards.

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• Imagine all that cash back. 

  Sean MacEntee/Flickr/Attribution License

  Credit cards often offer cash back as a reward for making purchases. What this means is, for every purchase you make, the credit card company will give you a small percentage of the money back.

  The percentage differs between credit cards and categories. So, for example, one type of credit card might offer 1.5% cash back on all purchases. Another might offer 1% back on most purchases, but 5% back on gas and travel purchases. An app called Birch can help you figure out which credit card is best for a particular category.

  You also often have to reach a certain threshold of payment to be able to cash in. And cards will often allow you to redeem your cash back as "points" to purchase things directly from the credit card company's website instead.

• 2. Invest in index funds.

Robinhood is an app that lets you easily invest in stocks. 

Robinhood

It's generally a really bad idea to try to play the stock market unless you're a financial professional.

There's one exception: index funds. Investing in a small number of stocks is a volatile business. It's possible to make a lot of money, but you could lose a lot, too.

Investing in index funds puts a little bit of money in a lot of stocks. Those stocks track parts of the stock market as a whole. One index fund known as the S&P 500 has grown by more than 2,000% over the last 40 years, so it's a relatively safe, stable fund to invest in.

However, you likely don't stand to lose or gain as much money as you would if you invest in individual stocks.

To invest in stocks, the easiest way would be to get a brokerage account at a bank like Charles Schwab.

You can also use the free stock trading app Robinhood, which gives you a free share in a stock, usually worth around $5, if you sign up with a referral code.

3. Refer people to apps.

Sharing an Uber with a friend can make you money. 

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

If you use an app often enough, referral credit is as good as cold, hard cash. Uber and Lyft (ride-sharing), Seamless (food), Proper Cloth, Spier & Mackay, and Everlane (clothes), and other apps and sites offer you some credit for every person you refer who uses the app to make a purchase.

4. Become a referral source for local businesses.

This guy looks like he's doing a good job. Maybe he'll give you some cash if you refer him to a friend. 

Katarina Stoltz/REUTERS

A lot of small, local businesses — like landscapers, electricians, and home improvement companies — spread by word-of-mouth. Many of them pay referral fees for people to help spread a good word about their businesses.

So the next time you have your plumber over, ask if they offer referral bonuses. And if they do a good job, take advantage of that when you recommend them to a friend.

5. Write a book and get royalties.

You can never have enough books. 

RadnipUK/TripAdvisor

Okay, so this one takes a bit of work. But lets say you're an expert on a subject. On Marissa Mayer and the company Yahoo!, for example (now available in paperback). Once you actually write the book and put your expertise to paper, then get it published, you're pretty much done.

From then on, whenever people buy your book, you get paid in royalties. The precise amount of royalties are contingent on your contract with the book publisher.

6. Cut out the middleman with self publishing.

Amazon's brick-and-mortar Seattle bookstore. 

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

If you self publish on Amazon or another self-publishing platform, there are standardized contracts that pay out depending on how many people download the ebook or read it through Amazon's ebook-lending program. That way, you can cut out the middlemen of the publishing industry and make a higher percentage of profit from your own book.

7. Create an online course and get paid for it.

This person is looking for an online class on the subject of your expertise, probably. 

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Let's say you're an expert in a subject, but don't think that a book is the right way to communicate the knowledge you want to share. 

You can do it with an online course. You can make and upload one to Udemy, for example, and set your own price points. Whenever someone buys the course, you'll get paid.

8. Make a website and get advertisement revenue.

Make money in a snap online. 

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If you're an expert in a subject, but that subject isn't fit for a book project or an online course, set up a website!

Use Wordpress, Weebly, or some other web-creation platform to make a site and make your guide there. Then sell online ads — which you can do with Google, for example — on your site so that you get some spare revenue whenever someone reads your work.

If you'd rather implement a paywall instead of advertising, the startup Verst can help you do just that.

9. Or make a YouTube video guide.

If you're an expert on making the world's largest Nerf gun, for example, go on YouTube and teach the world. 

Mark Rober/Youtube

Stick with me. Let's say you're an expert on a subject, but the best way to convey your information isn't in a book, an online course, or a post on the web. Instead, consider making a YouTube video.

YouTube is filled with thousands and thousands of guides on every topic imaginable. If you're an expert on how to do a factory reset on an iPhone, you can make a video about that. If you're an illustrator and want to explain the vocabulary of your trade, you can make a video about that.

As with the web, YouTube lets you set up ads on your videos. People searching for those subjects will find your videos, watch them, and then the ad revenue will roll in indefinitely.

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