Thanks to the ever-rising cost of health care and your increasing share of those premiums, you haven’t seen a real raise in your paycheck in years. Yet the cost of groceries, gas, heat, electricity, and everything else you need to get from day to day is going up faster than global temperatures. You’re sick of explanations, theories, and political excuses about why this is happening. What you really need is an extra $100 or two, and fast.

Not to worry, Personal Finance Analyst has heard your call!

Here are some quick ideas (add to the list if you have more!):

Do Some Freelance Moonlighting.

Lots of websites post various kinds of freelance jobs that allow you to pick up extra work at your own pace. You don’t have to be a writer to bid on freelance projects either. Most of the projects posted fall into the category of web programming and/or design and multimedia projects, but there are also lots of writing, clerical, financial, sales, legal, and engineering projects posted as well. The best sites for picking up this kind of work are www.elance.com, www.guru.com, and www.odesk.com, but you can also go to Monster or CareerBuilder and simply type ‘freelance’ into the search window.

Sell Stuff Online.

When I was a kid, I had a best friend whose dad was injured in a fall from a scaffold. She made these weird little crocheted toilet paper holders and sold them door to door and made a ton of money. Probably most of the money she made was due to the fact that she was skinny, big-eyed, and had a sick dad, but the general idea never goes out of style. If you or your beloved makes something crafty that everyone raves about, consider offering it up to the world for cash. A few good sites to do this at are www.zazzle.com, www/etsy.com, and that old standard www.ebay.com.

Sell Your Ideas Online.

‘Crowdsourcing’ is a method of funding start-up businesses over the internet. At Cambrian House you can pitch your idea for other members to critique and then vote for or against. If your idea is a winner, it will be funded by other interested parties who then help you get it off the ground. Some people have actually made quite a bit of money on this site. The internet is aways on the lookout for the next new thing, so if you’re the kind of person who is always thinking ‘what if’ kinds of thoughts, this is the place for you. The site also has a feature that allows you to set up your own online store for material goods.

Be a Personal Chef.

Are you a great cook? You can cook for other people without any special training or licenses in their homes, a couple of days a week, for money. All you really need to get started are some good references and a stack of business cards. Most personal chefs spend a couple of afternoons (or mornings) in the client’s kitchen preparing meals that are then frozen in microwavable portions, but use your imagination and work with your client on what is actually needed. This niche is growing fast, especially in big cities where workers commute long distances and don’t have the time or inclination to make dinner when they get home.

Offer to Plant Other People’s Gardens.

You don’t have to have a degree in horticulture to spend a couple of months every year planting annuals for individuals and businesses. You just have to be willing to actually do it, and be able to get it done in a timely fashion. Every April landscape firms and garden centers get more calls than they can handle for simple annual planting and/or weeding. Print up some cards, post an ad in your local paper, and you will have more work than you can handle, at least for a couple of months. There’s an old saying, “If you can dig a hole, you’ll always have a job.” It’s true.

Become a Freelance CSR.

For awhile, companies were saving money by outsourcing customer service jobs to India and other countries where labor was cheap, but they soon discovered that this honks customers off, a lot. The latest trend is to ‘insource’ these jobs, that is, hire people to work out of their own homes answering the phones in chunks of freelance work. The standard requirements are a PC with a cable or DSL internet connection, a land line phone, and a headset. The companies provide the software and the work. You often won’t get benefits, but you can choose how much or how little you want to work, and you can do it in your own home. Expect to make $8-$15 per hour depending on the skills involved. Some companies to check out include www.alpineaccess.com, www.liveops.com, www.workingsol.com, and www.arise.com.

Become An At-Home Concierge.

Do you have experience in the customer service or travel industry, or do you just love to plan events and set things up? If so, you can do this for other people who are too busy to take care of their own important lives at www.vipdesk.com. You never know who you could end up concierg-ing. I mean, someone has to spray fake sweat on Jennifer Lopez before she starts dancing in her next MTV video. It’s not as if that sweat is just going to appear on its own!

Transcribe Audio to Text.

If you are a fast and accurate typist, you can pick up some decent money transcribing speeches, lectures, TV and radio programs, and interviews into text. Usually you have to type accurately at 75 wpm minimum. A few websites set up to farm out work to you if you can do this include www.productiontranscripts.com, www.moderndayscribe.com, and www.tigerfish.com.

Become and Online Tutor.

You can make up to $10 per hour working five to thirty hours per week helping kids with their homework online. A few sites that will set this up for you are www.tutor.com, www.esylvan. com, www.brainfuse.com, and www.kidspan.com and www.universalclass.com.

That ought to get you started. I can think of quite a few others, which I promise to come back and post. In the meantime, if you have any ideas for picking up extra cash quickly that have worked for you (and are legal) please post them in a comment!

Nobody wants to spend every minute making money, (well, maybe some folks do, actually…) but it’s good to know that if you have to pick up some extra bucks, you can. The cliche that with crisis comes opportunity has a grain of truth in it. You may even find something you like way better than your day job. Wouldn’t that be cool?