At Millennial Money, we’ve shared a number of the best ways for everyday people to earn an extra $10k through various gig economy apps and online side hustles. There are a tons of different activities you can engage in to boost your income.
But in addition to working for money, you should put your money to work for you. This article will cover 7 different ways to see high returns on your money and build true wealth. We’ll also cover related questions about the benefits and risks involved with significantly growing your funds.
Set Realistic Expectations
Before we dig into the top ways to double $10k quickly, we need to level-set expectations and put out a word of caution. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
There is no risk-free way to double your money. If you have low-risk tolerance, there are more conservative bets. If you want to try doubling up, you need to take into account:
- How involved do you want to be
- Your timeframe (24 hours isn’t realistic, but several months to a few years could be)
- Guidance from your financial planner or other qualified personal finance advisor
7 Proven Ways to Double $10k Quickly
- Retail Arbitrage
- Invest in Stocks & ETFs
- Start an AirBnb
- Invest in Real Estate
- Peer to Peer Lending
- Cryptocurrency
- Resell Products on Amazon FBA
1. Retail Arbitrage
Retail arbitrage offers an effective way to turn $10K into $20K. Many sellers have had success doing this as a full-time online business. While their success doesn’t guarantee you’ll strike it rich, this particular business model has a lot of potential when well executed.
Flipping items for money online involves acquiring products cheaply directly from wholesalers or suppliers — like AliExpress or Alibaba — and then reselling the goods for a hefty markup on sites like Amazon.
You can find endless resources on goods that sell well on Amazon — in blogs, explainer videos on YouTube, and even through Amazon’s reseller resources.
Hare some of the most popular goods that sell well on Amazon that you can also acquire cheaply:
- Phone and electronics accessories
- Pet supplies
- Toys and games
- Apparel and shoes
- Fashion accessories
- Hair accessories
- Home and kitchen goods
- Health and beauty products
2. Invest in Stocks and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
Investing in stocks and ETFs is another way to double $10k quickly. Commonly, you can double your money every 6 to 7 years, assuming annual rates of return of around 10 to 12 percent. Compound interest, the ability to earn interest on top of interest, makes it possible for investment accounts.
There are a few ways to go about making money this way:
- Capital gains: Most common way to make money is through earnings capital gains on stocks and ETFs. Here, you’re hoping the price of your investment will go up so you can sell it for a gain in profit.
- Dividends: This is when stocks and ETFs make regular distributions or payments to shareholders. Dividends are paid out from its profits (whereas capital gains are specifically related to selling the investment for greater than the original purchase price). It’s possible to earn both capital gains and dividends on your investment.
- Short selling: A more sophisticated strategy that involves selling stocks you don’t actually own — through borrowing the stocks from someone else. When the price goes down (hopefully), you can buy it back for less than you had sold it for and make a profit. If the price goes up you would lose money.
- Options trading: Here, you buy the rights (but aren’t obliged) to buy or sell an asset at a specific price — the strike price — on or before a set future date. You could potentially make a profit if the underlying asset price went up or down depending on your contract. This is a risky play but can yield a whole lot of money if the market plays out in your favor.
There are many fintech and micro-investment app platforms available for consumers to directly invest their money in stocks, ETFs, index funds, mutual funds, and other stock market offerings. Among these apps:
These apps are designed to be beginner-friendly, easy for consumers with little stock market knowledge to learn the ins and outs of investment. For just a few dollars, you can invest in various funds, commodities, NFTS like Bitcoin cryptocurrency, and stock shares.
With any of these investment options, it’s strongly recommended that you speak with a stockbroker or CFA (Certified Financial Advisor).
INVESTMENT AND INSURANCE PRODUCTS ARE: NOT A DEPOSIT • NOT FDIC INSURED • NO BANK GUARANTEE • MAY LOSE VALUE
3. Start an Airbnb Side Hustle
With $10,000, you could start an Airbnb side hustle and see a fantastic return on your initial investment.
This $10K budget won’t work for all cities, but in many places, it’s enough to cover the down payment on a small condo or apartment in a popular area. In tourist mecca Nashville, Tenn. for example, you can buy a small condo in a trendy part of the town for just $110K.
With a $10K budget, that could cover the cost of a down payment, furniture, and incidentals for your guests (i.e., bath linens, kitchenware), marketing (high-quality photos), and any contingency expenses.
This is not an undertaking to go into lightly though.
- Do your research Understand what the Airbnb market is in your area, including competition, demand, surge periods, and appropriate pricing.
- Find the right property. Well-maintained, brightly lit spaces in desirable (touristic) areas do best. Make sure the city, co-op, or building allows for Airbnb rentals.
- Market your property. Do not skimp on visuals. High-quality photos with well-arranged furnishings will attract more views and get more bookings.
- Provide outstanding customer service. Always key when running your own business, but doubly so when it involves providing the comforts of home to travelers who are away from home.
- Have a contingency plan for slow periods. Have a backup plan for how to carry costs when bookings are down. These slower periods make it all the more important to get the pricing right during other times of the year, like getting top dollar when there are surges in demand.
Other Rental Opportunities
During slower periods for your Airbnb rental, you can look for other creative ways to monetize your property.
- List your property on Vrbo, TripAdvisor, or other similar home booking sites.
- Network with local groups and organizations in your area. Your Airbnb may be a great space to host a birthday party, a Girl Scouts sleepover, or a church youth group event.
- Market it as a remote workspace. If your condo is by the lake or in a trendy urban district, you could set it up as a workspace for rent. Remote work travel is in. A printer, standalone monitors, and other related expenses are fairly minimal. And this investment can make your property attractive to even more travelers.
- Rent out your home by the hour. Many businesses, creators, or photographers will rent out homes by the hour. At a 2-hour rental minimum, a 2-hour rental fee could be more than what you could have charged for an overnight stay – and for much less work.
The work involved with renting out a property — including the interaction with travelers and other space occupants — isn’t for everyone. But for many people, it’s a very fun and lucrative gig.
4. Invest In real estate
Investing in real estate is another lucrative way to grow your bank account. While commonly seen as a rich man’s game, you don’t need millions of dollars to play.
Admittedly, $10K is a very small sum in the real estate investment world, but a number of real estate investment apps are making it accessible for everyday people.
Some of these apps include:
- Fundrise – It takes an opening deposit of just $10 to get started with Fundrise, a real estate investment app known for being very beginner-friendly. Within the app, your funds are pooled together with the funds of many other users and they are invested into different kinds of real estate: commercial, single-family homes, apartment buildings, and more.
- Groundfloor – A different kind of real estate investment app, it allows you to invest in short-term real estate debt. Within the app, you buy shares of securities of it. Borrowers apply for short-term loans (typically lasting 6 to 18 months) from Groundfloor. These hard money loans are commonly used to flip houses or for other commercial ventures.
- Arrived Homes – Arrived Homes is a crowdfunded type of real estate investment app. For minimal capital, you can invest in single-family residential properties that Arrived Homes will purchase, hold for several years (commonly 5 to 7), and then sell for a profit. You’ll get paid from Arrived Homes as rental income is collected. You’ll also earn quarterly dividend payments and capital gains once the property is sold. Your payments are proportionate to your percentage of ownership in any home.
- RealtyMogul – Another popular real estate investment platform, RealtyMogul focuses exclusively on commercial real estate which does include rental property. An account minimum of $5K is required. This includes both accredited and nonaccredited investors. While RealtyMogul investors have seen attractive rates of return, the complexity of their offerings may be off-putting to more novice investors.
5. Peer-to-peer lending (P2P)
Peer-to-peer lending is a way for individuals with capital to lend it to individuals and businesses who could not otherwise qualify for traditional bank loans with favorable interest rates.
You can earn money by funding these loans and feel good about helping these borrowers.
P2P lending enables borrowers to avoid high-interest or subprime loans like Payday loans with 400% APR interest rates.
- Interest payments: As a lender, you’ll earn money from the interest that borrowers pay on loans.
- Early repayment fees: If there is an early loan repayment fee, the lender would collect it. Generally, it’s a percentage of the total outstanding balance.
- Reinvest your earnings: As you earn a return on your investment — loan repayments with interest come in — you can look for new investment options and generate additional loans.
The amount of money lenders can make through peer-to-peer lending depends on many factors, including how much money you invest (lend to borrowers), the interest rates of loans generated, and the default rates of loan borrowers.
As with any form of investment, there is an inherent risk that comes with P2P lending. Here are some steps that you can take to minimize those risks:
- Do your research before investing in any loan so that you fully understand the risks involved. Research a borrower’s credit score, the loan’s interest rate, and understand the purpose of the loan.
- Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Spread out your funds across a variety of loans to limit your risk. While one borrower may default, if you spread out your money across multiple loans it is unlikely that every single borrower is going to default.
Two of the top peer-to-peer lending platforms to consider are Lending Club and Prosper.
6. Cryptocurrency
While it has experienced some volatility in recent years, crypto enthusiasts are in it for the long haul. You can invest in cryptocurrency through some brokerage firms (like Morgan Stanley) or through popular exchanges like Binance, Kraken, or Coinbase.
Within a cryptocurrency exchange, there are a number of different ways you can make money.
- Buy and hold: This is similar to capital gains for individual stocks or ETFs. You buy a certain quantity of cryptocurrency and then hold onto the asset for the long term. You’re anticipating that the price will rise so that you can sell at a later date for a gain in profit.
- Day trading: This is a more hands-on approach where you buy and sell crypto frequently to make a profit (hopefully) from short-term fluctuations in prices.
- Staking: Earn interest on your crypto Stake your cryptocurrency means you’re locking it up and keeping it secure for the broader network. In exchange, you’ll earn rewards. Not all cryptos support staking though.
- Lending: Another way to earn interest. You can lend your cryptocurrency to a borrower and earn interest on the loan.
- Mining: This is how you create new (more) cryptocurrency. It requires specialized hardware (sophisticated computers) to solve complex mathematical problems.
- Airdrops: This is a way you might be lucky enough to get free crypto. Sometimes (new) crypto projects will give away free coins to promote their currency.
- Forks: This is a way to create a new cryptocurrency from a cryptocurrency that already exists. When this happens, users of the old or original crypto are awarded the same amount but in the new currency offshoot.
Depending on your perspective, you may consider cryptocurrency to be a lower-risk or a higher-risk investment. If you are interested in investing in cryptocurrency, make sure to do your research and take steps to minimize your risk.
7. Resell Products on Amazon FBA
Amazon FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) is a program that enables you to sell goods on the Amazon.com marketplace while Amazon does most of the heavy lifting.
You acquire goods cheaply from wholesalers and suppliers and then sell those goods at an increase in cost so you can make a profit with each unit sold. But unlike being a direct Amazon seller, you don’t have to store and ship out the merchandise. Amazon manages those logistics and takes a deeper commission cut in exchange.
You purchase the goods you want to sell and then ship them to the nearest Amazon warehouse or fulfillment center. When a customer makes a purchase from your product page, Amazon will collect their payment, process (pack and pick) the order, and then ship it to the customer.
Popular Amazon FBA suppliers include:
- AliExpress or Alibabaa
- DHGate
- Royal Apparel
- TopTenWholesale
Any of these supplier sites sell housewares, toys, apparel, and other consumer goods for a fraction of the list prices you see on the Amazon site. They sell just about anything you could find on Amazon, including the marketplace’s top-selling products.
Beyond the merchandise you will need to purchase, you’ll also need to set up an Amazon Professional Seller account. There is a $39.99 monthly fee for this service. You’ll also need to set up an Amazon store, add the products you want to sell, and create product listings.
There are services you can use, like Jungle Scout or Helium 10, to conduct product research and find the best products for you to sell based on profitability and your niche.
According to research by Jungle Scout, Most Amazon sellers make at least $1K per month and 26% of Amazon sellers earn at least $25K per month.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the easiest way of doubling your money?
The easiest way to double your money could be trading options. Investors can rapidly double their money — or lose everything. It’s like the roulette wheel of the investment world with somebody placing all their chips on red or black.
Other safer ways to double your money — at a slower clip — are a much better bet. This includes retail arbitrage, flipping used goods on Facebook Marketplace or eBay, or investing in real estate.
How else can I make $10K quickly?
If you have existing work clients or social followers, you could make $10K quickly by consulting, blogging, vlogging, tutoring online, or freelancing.
If you’re starting from scratch, here are some ways you can go about making $10K quickly:
- Rent a spare bedroom
- Sell your car and switch to public transportation
- Driving for Lyft or Uber
- Deliver groceries or meals through a gig economy app
- Start a dropship e-commerce business
Bottom Line
Today, there are many ways to effectively double $10k quickly. Typically, the quicker the method – the riskier it is. Get-rich-quick schemes are either scams or incredibly high risk.
We’ve shared a mix of ways to double $10K in timeframes that span several months to several years. There’s no guarantee that you will double your money. But if you do your research thoroughly and take steps to reduce your risk, you’ll give yourself the best shot at success.
Read 1 comment or add your own
Read Comments