13+ Brilliants Ways To Make Money for Christmas 2025

Need to earn extra money for Christmas?

If you are facing a shortfall in your Christmas budget then don’t worry, because there are plenty of ways you can drum up some extra cash ahead of the big day.

First of all take stock of how long you have until the big day.

The longer you have, the easier it will be to get the money together. However if you haven’t got much time I’ve got plenty of ways to can make extra cash quickly.

Start by setting your budget for Christmas. How much do you need for every aspect of the festive season?

Your budget might look something like this, depending on whether you are hosting Christmas at your home or not:

Presents – £500
Food and wine – £150
Decorations – £50
Clothes (Christmas jumpers, nativity costumes etc) – £30

Figure out what you need, and then you can be very clear on what your target is.

Now divide that target by the number of weeks you have until the week before Christmas and this makes it feel a little more manageable, especially if you’re starting early or mid year.

Once you have a target staying motivated is key. You can help to keep track of how you’re getting on by making a savings tracker grid.

Simply draw a grid on a piece of paper with 10 x 10 squares. Now divided the total you need to save by 100. The answer you get is how much each square represents.

So if you need to save £1,000 by Christmas then each square represents £10. Colour in a square every time you save £10. Keep this savings grid somewhere you can see easily so that you’re reminded of your progress.

Now look at your current monthly outgoings. Do you have enough to be able to save the amount you need to save? If not here are some great ways to earn extra money for Christmas!

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Thrifty Christmas Tips

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How to make money for Christmas

How you make extra cash for Christmas will very much depend on how long you have.

If you don’t have much time then I would focus on the first two options, selling your stuff and online surveys.

Getting a job to make extra cash can take a few days to get going, and if the pay is poor or there aren’t many opportunities flooding in initially, it can take a few weeks to get a bit of income going.

Be open to other money making opportunities as you go. For example keep an eye on local business and community Facebook groups where part-time work can be advertised informally.

Earn cash with online surveys

Online surveys are a brilliant way to boost your income!

My favourite site is Prolific, which pays out a generous amount and has lots of fun surveys that don’t take too long to complete. You need to hit a payment threshold to cash out the first time, but it’s very low.

By using this and other survey sites such as Qmee and i-Say you can make an additional £50 a month, possibly more.

Swagbucks is also a great survey site, plus has other ways you can boost your points and earnings. Check out my Swagbucks review.

Sell your stuff

The easiest way to make money fast is to turn the stuff you already own into cash!

So take a look around your home, loft and garage and set aside a pile of stuff you can sell. Things you can sell online include:

Clothes
Old pushchairs
Toys
Furniture
Garden tools

There’s a particularly big market for selling on second hand kids clothes and stuff like toys.

I’ve been able to make hundreds of pounds a year from selling my children’s old things, including scooters they are too big for.

My favourite place to sell secondhand stuff is Facebook Marketplace. This is because there’s no fees, unlike with other sites like eBay.

Join local Facebook buy and sell sites, which you can find simply by typing the name of your town and “buy and sell” into the Facebook search bar.

Then list your item, with as much detail and images, as you can. I always get people to collect the stuff I’m selling, so I don’t have to worry about postage costs or hassle.

Vinted is another great place to sell clothes and toys. There are no fees for listing! Check out my Vinted guide here.

If you haven’t had a clear out in a while you could make £500+ just by selling your old stuff!

Always use cash back sites

When shopping for Christmas gifts or anything else you should always use cash back sites.

This is an easy win when it comes to making money!

These sites work by earning commission from brands when you make a purchase by clicking their links. Then they pass back some of the commission to you.

I like Top Cashback best.

Check out my guide to the best cashback apps here.

Task apps are a bit like mystery shopping. They ask you to do things like take photos of particular window displays or aisles in your local supermarket and upload them to the app.

Many work on a points system, where you need to accumulate a certain number before you can cash out. So the cash is not instant, but it’s a simple way of making extra cash over the course of a few weeks.

Some good task apps and sites to try include:

OhMyDosh – check out my OhMyDosh review here
Roamler
Jobspotter
Receipt Hog

Become a mystery shopper

Mystery shopping is a great way to earn extra cash with flexibility. Once you’re signed up with an agency you can pick and choose the jobs you take on and make it fit around your own routine.

This work involves tasks such as being sent to a shop or restaurant or phoning a customer service line and testing out the service.

You will be asked to provide feedback on your experience to the agency after your visit.

You’ll often be paid for your work as well as get free products, or meals.

Some good mystery shopping companies to sign up to include:

Market Force
Ipsos
Clickworker
Retail Maxim
Tern
Grassroots

Find a side hustle

A flexible side hustle is a great way to top up your income.

Some side hustles that can fit around your family life include:

Freelance writing.

Freelance bookkeeping.

Online transcription work.

Deliver for Amazon Flex. Working for Amazon is a great way to make extra cash in the run up to Christmas – when demand is high for the online store! You will need to have your own car to work for them. Sign up to the Amazon Flex app and then book yourself in for blocks of shifts. Amazon says you can make up to £15 an hour. There is a limit to how many hours you can work a month, and in some areas competition for delivery blocks is high.

Making and selling your own products on Etsy. You can set up an Etsy store within minutes, as long as you have the products to sell! People make money selling a huge variety of artisan products on the site, from jewellery to digital downloads such as party invitations.

Sell your skills on Fiverr. The pay is not great (clue is in the name as to how budget this jobs site is), however it’s a good way to drum up extra cash at short notice. What skills do you have that could be sold online? Are you great at writing or graphic design? There are people on Fiverr looking for all kinds of help with things like photography and all manner if freelance work.

Find Christmas casual shift work. Lots of companies are looking for help in the run up to Christmas. This may include shops and department stores or delivery firms.

Save money for Christmas

There are plenty of ways to boost your income and make money for Christmas, but you can also cut back on your spending and top up your savings too!

Move your bank account

Take advantage of offers from banks that incentivise you to switch your current account.

Some may offer you as much as £200 just for switching banks. That’s something you get get organised in a matter of hours!

Ditch your car

Try walking or cycling more frequently to cut your weekly fuel budget.

Petrol costs me around £30 a week due to the sheer volume of journeys we do so I know it’s an easy way for me to cut back on spending if I need to.

Cancel excess subscriptions

Trim your budget by getting rid of subscriptions that are “nice to have” rather than something you actually need.

If you have Netflix and Amazon Prime then pick just one and cancel the other.

Can you swap the gym or weekly trip to the swimming pool for running or power walking outdoors instead?

Make a list of all of your monthly and annual subscriptions so it’s right there for you to see then consider which ones you can live without in order to help you hit your Christmas goal.

Cut back on groceries

Set a budget for your weekly groceries and stick to it. This can be easier than you think it might be if you meal plan and purchase cheaper cuts of meat and seasonable vegetables.

I have meals plans costing less than £20 for the week and a £30 meal plan to help inspire you.

Don’t forget to use rewards points

It can be easy to forget Clubcard vouchers or Nectar points.

Come up with a system that means you use them regularly throughout the year and don’t let them go to waste!

We like to use all of our Nectar points for our big Christmas grocery shop.

And finally, make Christmas affordable

Christmas should be a happy time of year. If you are constantly striving for an unrealistic target you need to save for the festive season then you are turning it into a stressful time for you.

So first things first, your savings target for Christmas needs to be realistic!

If you see a shortfall then you need to think about how you can make Christmas affordable.

I have saved a lot of cash on my Christmas gift expenditure by doing the following:

Buying gifts for kids only. We did this when we were really strapped for cash and honestly it was brilliant! We agreed it with the other adults in our family and this saved hundreds of pounds on the cost of Christmas – I have a BIG family!
Make presents. Another year when I was trying to save money on Christmas gifts I made Christmas chutney. I mixed up my own chutney with a recipe I found from Delia Smith, then jarred it up and made pretty labels for it. This is a super cheap way to make personal gifts for everyone in your family and costs less than £60 including jars, labels and ingredients to make gifts for 30+ people.
Do a secret Santa. Get each of your family members to pick names out of a hat, then you only need to buy a gift for one person!
Set a budget for every person and stick with it. Write down your budget for each person you need to buy for and stick to it religiously. This also challenges you to shop for bargains. You can save money in the lead up to Christmas by taking advantage of things like the voucher deals, so always Google to see if you can find a money off code before making any purchases online.
Try the four gift rule. This means you buy them four things – something to read, something to wear, something they want, and something they need!
Check out my cheapest Christmas dinner guide and shopping list, with tips for saving money on food!

Final thoughts on earning money for Christmas

I hope these tips have given you everything you need to have a very merry, and debt-free, Christmas.

Remember to start saving as early as possible next year, so that you spread the cost of Christmas out over 12 months.

If you want to spend £1,000 at Christmas on gifts, food and decorations then you need to save £84 a month. This is a much less daunting prospect then needing to find £1,000 on December 1!

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