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There’s no doubt that cancer treatment is expensive. Worrying about paying medical bills on top of existing expenses can be a source of extreme stress for people with cancer and their caregivers. It’s even worse if one or both have had to stop working during treatment and recovery. A way to boost your income and relive a bit of that financial stress can be found in these flexible gigs for cancer patients or caregivers to make extra cash.
It’s nice to have options to make a little bit of money in the small pockets of free time you have in between doctor appointments, scans, and treatments. I’ve put together a list of 17 simple and easy ways you or your caregiver can make money. Each of these were chosen for:
- Flexibility – there aren’t set hours that you’re required to work. You can set your own schedule around your appointments and how you’re feeling.
- Location freedom – you don’t have to step foot into an office. Most can be done on your phone, sometimes a computer is required.
- You can earn actual cash or gift cards – these aren’t mystery shopping gigs where you pay for something out of your pocket first and wait to be reimbursed.
- Most can be done any time of the day or night. Waiting for your loved one on treatment day? No problem. Up at 3 am with insomnia? No problem.
- Some give you cash or gift cards for doing things you’re already doing, like shopping online or buying groceries or gas.
Now, you won’t get rich from these suggestions, but like I said, doing some of these in your downtime while waiting, watching tv or simply resting can help cover part of the grocery bill that month or pay for a dinner at your favorite restaurant.
One of the things I like to do is redeem points for gift cards. It makes holiday shopping easier to have gift cards to put into stockings, and I know my kids would rather pick something out themselves anyway. Saves money and a trip to a crowded store – definitely a win-win for this introvert!
This list is broken down into 3 categories:
- Complete easy activities online
- Get money for things you’re already doing
- Use your skills and interests for flexible work
Complete Easy Activities Online or Through a Mobile App
You’ve likely heard that it’s possible to get paid to take surveys – PayPal and gift cards are the most popular ways to get paid for doing this. The recommended companies below will pay you to take surveys and complete other tasks.
Savvy Cooperative – This is such an incredible program. Created by two patients to ensure the patient voice is considered and rewarded by healthcare providers, researchers, and the pharmaceutical industry, Savvy Cooperative pays you for your opinion as a patient or a caregiver.
They list paid gigs on their site. These gigs cover a wide range of conditions, not just cancer. If you meet their criteria, you can apply, provide your opinion and get rewarded.
For example, on the site today I saw requests for:
- A breast cancer patient to spend up to 2 hours reviewing documents and providing feedback. This gig pays $220, so $110 an hour!
- Any person diagnosed with cancer to complete a 60-minute video interview and earn $110.
- Triple negative breast cancer patient and/or their caregiver to attend a 2-hour virtual patient advisory board meeting and earn $220.
- Any person diagnosed with cancer to complete a 30-minute online survey for $55.
Swagbucks – This program lets you earn Swagbucks (points) for so many different activities. You can complete a daily poll, take surveys, complete special offers, download and play mobile games, do online searches, participate in their daily trivia games, earn cash back from shopping online, and submitting receipts. You can even earn for buying gift cards! They also have Swago, their version of Bingo. By completing tasks, you fill out squares on the Swago card. At the end of the game (they usually last a week), you submit your card for bonus points.
There are so many ways to earn points, and they rack up so quickly, Swagbucks says that 7,000 free gift cards are redeemed by members every day.
You can earn a $10 bonus just for signing up.
Inbox Dollars – This site pays you $5 just to sign up. Earn additional money by answering a daily poll, playing games, taking surveys, searching and shopping online and submitting grocery receipts. You can cash out at just $15 and can choose to get paid with PayPal, or with gift cards from Amazon and other retailers. So just by signing up, you’re already 1/3 of the way there! InboxDollars has paid out over $80 million in cash rewards to its members.
MyPoints – this is another program that has been around for years and years. Just like the others on this list, you can earn points by completing offers which range from visiting a website to signing up for a credit card, completing surveys, shopping online, submitting receipts and playing games. They even have a section you can book travel using their exclusive discounts and earn points at the same time. Redeem points for gift cards ranging from $15 – $500 from over 75 retailers. Sign up today and get a $5 welcome bonus.
Verydice – This app gives you dice rolls for taking surveys and completing offers. Then you roll the dice to earn the number of tickets shown on the rolled dice (Die? What’s the plural for dice? Anyway…. )They even have a daily spin for up to 10 free tickets, and if you spin daily for a week, on the 7th day, the spins are worth even more, from 15 – 200 tickets.
Honestly, this app used to be WAY better, and when my kids were younger, they’d ‘shop’ (redeem tickets) and pick out toys, Lego sets, whatever they were into at the time. Now the app only offers gift cards, and the number of tickets needed to redeem the gift cards seems pretty high. But for the less than a minute I spend on the app each day (I don’t do the surveys because surveys on other sites have a higher payout) it’s worth it for the few gift cards I redeem each year.
Earn Cash for Things You're Already Doing
What if you’re wondering how to make money online without surveys? Well, most of us shop online, grocery shop and get gas for our vehicles. So why not get cash back for doing what you’d be doing anyway? Here are some of my favorite ways to do that:
Shopkick – I really love this unique app. You earn ‘kicks’ (points) for shopping in-store or online. First, you can see participating retailers that are nearby and the types of rewards they are offering:
- Walk in: You earn kicks simply for walking into the store. How easy is that?!?
- Scan: Use your phone to scan specific products in the store for additional kicks.
- Receipt: If you purchase any of the featured products that you scanned, submit your receipt for a BUNCH more kicks. (Example: it could be 25 kicks to scan an item, and 1200 kicks if you purchase that item and submit the receipt.)
I’ll admit, this app was a lifesaver at times when shopping with my kids years ago. I’d see what scannable items might be in that specific aisle I was in at the time, and I let them search for it and scan it for me. It kept them occupied next to me while I got what I really needed at the store.
The app also lets you watch short ads for kicks. Since many of the online rewards programs have done away with letting you watch videos for points, it’s nice to still be able to do that with Shopkick. You can even link your credit or debit card and earn kicks with each purchase you make, even if it’s not from a participating retailer.
Gift card redemptions start at $5 and go on up to $100, with PayPal payout options at $10 and $25. When you signup with this link, you get 1000 kicks to start.
Fetch Rewards – Fetch Rewards is so fetch! I’m dating myself there with the Clueless reference, but oh well. This program is super simple – all you do is snap a picture of your shopping receipt from anywhere (after years of using this app, I’ve never had a receipt rejected) and you’re automatically awarded 25 points. If you’ve bought one of their special offer items, you earn bonus points. Every 24 hours (if you’ve uploaded a receipt) you can spin a wheel to earn up to 10,000 bonus points.
You can also connect your email along with store accounts like Amazon or Walmart and the app will search for receipts and award you points for those purchases as well – no paper receipts needed!
Collect points and cash out for gift cards including Amazon, Best Buy, Chili’s and Target. There are so many stores to choose from, it’ll be hard to decide where to redeem your points!
You can even make donations to select national nonprofit agencies with your points earned. Join with my link and you’ll get 500 points to start.
Rakuten – You may remember the company Ebates from years ago; they’re now Rakuten and since 1997 they’ve offered cash back, deals and shopping rewards. In the US alone, they’ve paid out over $3.7 BILLION to members for shopping in-store and online!
Rakuten has an extension you can download so if you’re on your computer and shopping online, a notification will pop up letting you know the percentage of cash back you’d receive from shopping at that store. Join Rakuten using my link and after you spend $30, you’ll get $30.
Ibotta – Ibotta is massively popular, with millions of users, and for good reason – it’s a free cash back rewards program both online and through their mobile app. Before you shop, select the available cash-back opportunities at that store. Purchase those items, scan your receipt into the app and Ibotta gives you cash back. Once you’ve earned $20, you can withdraw the cash from your account.
One of the things I love most is that you can use one grocery trip to earn multiple ways! For instance, log into Ibotta and select the items you were going to buy anyway. Then head to the store and get kicks from Shopkick just for walking into the store and scanning as many items as you want/have time for. Then submit the receipt to Shopkick, Swagbucks, Inbox Dollars and Fetch Rewards. That’s 6 different rewards programs for a single shopping trip. Even if you only buy a loaf of bread, you can get rewarded on all these apps.
Make Money From Your Skills and Hobbies
Are you a designer, accountant, writer, or virtual assistant that needs a flexible schedule? Sell your skills! You can set up profiles on freelancing websites like Fiverr or Upwork. These can be a perfect side hustle for caregivers, or another way to make money during cancer treatment.
On Fiverr, you create listings for specific tasks, like designing a flyer. You set up the amount you want to charge for the work and state how long it will take to finish the job. A customer can hire you to complete that project. You submit the finished product, get paid, and you’re done. You can accept as few or as many customers as you’d like.
Upwork is similar in that you can offer preset packages for a flat rate, but you can also list your hourly rate for clients who are looking for help anywhere from a few hours a week all the way up to full time work. The beauty of freelancing on Upwork is that you set your schedule and can decide to only take on projects that sound interesting to you and don’t require you to work specific hours or days – whatever works best for you!
Making money from your hobbies is even possible on these websites. Do you love to read? Offer to be a beta reader, someone who reads a book before it’s published and offers feedback to help the author make the book even better. You can also apply for flexible jobs proofreading or editing manuscripts.
Are you a master knitter? Tutor someone who is new to the craft. Outschool.com is one place you can tutor kids and teens in all sorts of topics, from arts to science to life skills and traditional school topics.
Speaking of tutoring, this is another flexible way to make money during cancer treatment. If you’re curious to learn how to make money tutoring children or adults, check out QKids (for English as a Second Language to young international children aged 6-12), Yup if math is your jam, or TakeLessons for a variety of academic subjects.
Other Ways to Earn Cash or Gift Cards
Here are a couple out-of-the-box options to make a bit of extra money.
The Small Business Knowledge (SBK) Center will pay to read your junk mail! Yep, I’m serious. They are a market research company that wants to see the companies that are sending you advertisements and flyers. They will provide you with postage-paid envelopes. Each week you send off all your junk mail. That’s it! You can earn around $20 every 6-10 weeks for a truly simple task.
Neighbor is a website where you can rent out your extra space – like a shed, spare room or even a parking space. Neighbor connects those needing storage space with those who have space to spare. It’s super simple to set up a listing – just take some pictures of the space, write up a description and post it online. You can check out the average prices for your area and type of space and set your own asking price. The average host earns about $300 per month, and Neighbor gives you up to $1 million in free protection as a host and offers protection plans for renters too.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it! Seventeen flexible gigs for you or your caregiver to earn a bit of money on the side. I hope you find success with one or more of these options, and it eases a bit of financial strain for you.
