Seven unusual ways to make money in 2010

Start the New Year on the right financial foot with these innovative money making tips.

January seems to be a particularly fertile month for weird and wonderful money making ideas. Everyone is skint after Christmas, and all sorts of nutty schemes seem to spring up.

Last January (in Sell your body to survive the recession) I told you about Andrew Fischer. In a nutshell, he put his forehead on eBay as 'advertising space', and earned over £16,000 in a single month by wearing a company logo tattooed above his eyebrows.

If you don't want go quite that far - but you do need some extra cash - read on. Here are ten unusual ways you can make money in 2010.

1. Play your cards right

We've shown you how to make money from cashback credit cards. But there's another way you can turn your plastic into a nice little earner.

0% purchase credit cards allow you to borrow money - at 0% interest - for a set period of time. The longest 0% purchase deal currently comes with the Tesco Clubcard credit card. It gives you 12 months in which to spend before any interest is charged.

So, spend using your card instead of the money in your bank account, and pop the money from your account into a decent savings account instead, to earn from the highest possible rate of interest.

Just make absolutely sure you can clear the balance on the card before the 0% period comes to an end!

2. Get paid to go where you were going anyway!

If you use a car regularly, you could earn money as a courier without going out of your way. Stuff2Send is a company that organises the transport of goods for customers, for an agreed charge.

You register as a 'carrier' with the company, and wait until a parcel delivery coincides with a journey you're already making. Then you bid to deliver the item, and if your offer is chosen by the sender, you deliver the item and claim your fee.

Just bear in mind that joining as a carrier costs £11 per year.

3. Sell your old printer ink cartridges

Every time I have to buy an ink cartridge for my printer, I flinch at how enormously expensive they are. In fact, in my case, a two-pack of ink cartridges costs more than the printer itself!

You can make some of that money back by selling your old, empty cartridges online. CashForCartridges will pay up to £4 per empty cartridge, which you can send them in a prepaid envelope.

Just be aware that the site does not accept toner cartridges. And you'll only receive your payout once the balance of your account reaches £25.

Alternatively, you can earn 100 Advantage Card points for each ink cartridge you recycle at Boots.

4. Sell your skills by the hour

You can earn extra cash using PeoplePerHour, a recruitment site that allows you to bid online for job projects that match your skills set.

Companies or individuals use the site to advertise projects that they want completed, and freelancers bid for them, each naming a price and explaining why he or she is the right person to complete the work.

You don't have to pay to join the site or bid on work, but you do have to give the site a cut of any fees you make.             

5. Make money from energy!

No, I'm not suggesting you dig for oil in your back yard (though you never know...).

If you've installed a renewable technology which produces electricity, such as a Solar Electricity (PV) system, you may be able to make money from the electricity it produces.

One way to do this is to set that electricity back to an energy supplier. There are several 'buy back tariffs' on offer, to suit your renewable energy system, the preferences of the energy supplier in question, and the amount of energy you produce.

You can find out more about making money from renewable energy on this page of the Energy Saving Trust's website.

Just bear in mind that for most people, this will require a serious level of initial investment!

6. Get into politics

Are you cynical about politics and the state of the country? It doesn't matter - you could still cash in on the upcoming election.

Register with your local council's elections office and you could get paid to count the votes that come in (they still need manual counters, even in these high-tech days).

You can find the contact details for your local council on this page of the Directgov website.

7. Come up with a big idea

Perhaps you're good at solving problems?

Innocentive is an online venture which brings together companies with challenges to solve, with 'solvers' who can sort them out. Companies post dozens of problems on the site every month; and as a 'solver', you could be paid tens of thousands of dollars if you come up with a solution to sort out a big firm's conundrum!

For example, one ad on the site at the moment offers $20,000 to the person who comes up with a design for an easy-to-use and robust method that purifies water from Lake Victoria, making it safe to drink. 

Good luck!

8. Get help from lovemoney.com

If you need a bit of help making some extra cash, check out our tips.

First, adopt this goal: Make some extra money

Next, watch this video: Earn £200+ while you shop!

And finally, why not have a wander over to Q&A and ask other lovemoney.com members for hints and tips about what worked best for them?