7 Ways to Make Money While Watching TV

Americans watch, on average, 5 hours of TV a day according to Business Insider.  Over 7 days in a week, that’s 35 hours — almost a full-time job!

Now I’m not here to tell you to stop watching TV and go get a part-time job.

But I am here to suggest that you consider how you can make the best of oftentimes mindless TV time to make some extra cash.

How to Make Money While Watching TV

Yes, you heard me right. You can make extra cash while watching TV.

Granted, I’m not talking about very complicated tasks here. The tasks I’m talking about are more or less simple tasks that can be done while doing something else, like watching TV.

So naturally I’m also not talking about life-changing amounts of money here.

I’m just talking about an extra $20 or so a day. But think of what an extra $20 could do. That’s about $140 per week. That’s $600 per month or $7,200 per year.

It won’t retire you, but it will pay for a very nice vacation. It could also be used to pay down debt or even invest.

Or if you’re the generous type, you could donate it to charity.

So are you curious how you can make money while watching TV? Then read on.

1. Literally get paid to watch TV.

Believe it or not, there is a company out there that will pay you to watch TV. This company is called Swagbucks, and you can get a $5 sign-up bonus.

2. Take online surveys.

Surveys can easily be done while watching TV. They literally ask you questions about you. Pretty simple stuff, right?

The trick is that there are only a few legit survey sites. Most of them are spammy, but Swagbucks ($5 Sign-Up Bonus) and Survey Junkie are 100% legit, and they do not send you spammy junk emails.

Their payouts are excellent, and they pay you in cash via PayPal. I actually recommend that you sign up for both of them to maximize your earnings!

My Top Survey Site
Swagbucks ($5 Bonus)

Members receive $5 just for joining and earn up to $35 per survey! Swagbucks is known for giving out fun, top-paying surveys. And you can also get paid to play games and watch TV!

And yes, you are paid in cash via PayPal!

Close Runner-Up
Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie has an 8.9/10 rating on TrustPilot — the highest of any online survey company.

Another great thing about Survey Junkie is that they tell you exactly how much you can expect to earn in what amount of time per survey.

For example, before I even begin, I know the survey below will make me 125 points (which equals $1.25) for 8 minutes of my time. Not too shabby!

3. Make money with a free slots app.

Feeling lucky? Check out the free Long Game Savings app, which acts as both a savings account and a free slots app with prizes up to $1,000,000!

Here’s how it works: you download the app and make a deposit into your savings account within the app.

This money that you deposit belongs to you, and you earn interest on it, just like at the bank. And you can withdraw your cash at any time.

Long Game does not collect any fees from this balance; the app is absolutely free to use.

Depending on how much money you deposit, Long Game gives you coins to play slot and other games where you could win $10, $100, $5,000, or even $1,000,000!

Granted, the odds of winning $1,000,000 are pretty slim, but you may be able to win smaller prizes to help you with your rent money!

4. Start a blog.

If you enjoy writing and helping others, then blogging off-and-on while you watch TV may be something for you to consider.

Blogging has actually become my #1 side hustle. Not only do I find it extremely enjoyable to share what I know about my passion (personal finance) with others, but I am making thousands of dollars a month from it — and I just launched my blog this year!

And as an accountant by trade, I had absolutely no formal training in either writing or computers!

If you would like additional information about setting up your blog as well as making money from it (and more!), I recommend that you sign up for my free blogging e-course below.

5. Get sign-up bonuses.

Probably the easiest way to make money online is to nab sign-up bonus.

Here are our favorite legit sites and apps giving sign-up bonuses right now. Happy earning! ?

Ibotta
Cash Back App
$10.00

1. Sign up through invite link.
2. Redeem your first rebate. It’s super easy. Read our Ibotta Review to learn more.
3. $10.00 bonus deposited within 24 hours.

Swagbucks
Rewards App
$5.00

1. Sign up through invite link.
2. Earn 2,500 Swagbucks within your first 60 days by taking surveys, watching TV, and more!
3. $5.00 bonus deposited within 24 hours.

Rakuten (formerly Ebates)
Cash Back App
$10.00

1. Sign up through invite link.
2. Redeem your first rebate. It’s super easy. Read our Rakuten Review to learn more.
3. $10.00 bonus deposited within 14 days.

Qapital
Free Savings App
$5.00

1. Sign up through invite link.
2. Link one bank account to Qapital app and deposit at least $1.00.
3. $5.00 bonus deposited within 24 hours.

CapitalOne
No-Fee Bank Account
$25.00

1. Sign up through invite link to open a no-fee savings or checking account.
2. For savings account, deposit at least $250.
3. For checking account, deposit at least $250 and make three debit card purchases.
4. $25.00 bonus deposited within 4 weeks.

Acorns App
$10.00 Bonus

1. Sign up through invite link to open an account.
2. $10.00 deposited into your account!

Check out this 30-second video to learn more about Acorns.?

CoinBase
Invest in Bitcoin
$10.00

1. Sign up through invite link to open an account.
2. Buy $100 worth of Bitcoin.
3. $10.00 bonus deposited in the form of Bitcoin within 7 days.

Robinhood
Invest in Stocks for Free
Free Share of Stock

1. Sign up through invite link to open an account.
2. Free share of stock deposited into your account within 2-3 days.

6. Hold the junk food.

Are you in the habit of snacking on not-so-healthy food while binging in front of the big screen? Well, it may pay off handsomely for you to cut that habit because you can literally get paid to lose weight through a new company called HealthyWage.

Check out this Good Morning America special on HealthyWage that explains how it works:

You can bet as little or as much as you want, but obviously the more you bet, the more you stand to win! Also, you can bet on your weight loss of any period between 6 and 18 months.

7. Develop streams of passive income.

Passive income is money you make without having to work for it. This contrasts sharply with active money, such as from your job, where you trade in a certain amount of your time for a certain amount of money.

So every extra dollar I make, I invest in some passive income source. So while I do whatever I do, whether watching TV or exercising or even sleeping, I’m earning the following streams of passive income:

I’m earning interest on my Lending Club investments.

Lending out money is one of the oldest ways to earn passive income. It’s essentially renting out your money for either people to use, and the rent you charge is known as the interest rate.

Now, in the old days, if you wanted to lend money to somebody in particular, you were taking on a pretty risky business, unless he or she put up some form of collateral. But now, thanks to technology, you can spread out the risk by only lending your money in $25 increments.

How does this work? Well, let’s say Borrower A needs a $25,000 loan. Instead of going to one entity, like a bank or rich person, to borrow the full $25,000 — which would be very risky to that one entity — he or she borrows $25 from 1,000 people. This scenario presents much less risk because the most any single investor could lose is only $25.

Such an arrangement would have been administratively impossible just 15 years ago. But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, it is now very possible, and the peer-to-peer lending industry, as it’s known, is thriving for borrowers and investors alike. So if you have $25 and you’d like to earn way more interest than the bank pays you, click here.

The companies I invest in through my Wealthsimple account are making money, which they will pass along to me as dividends.

We love dividends here at Money Done Right.

When you invest in a dividend-paying stock, you are acquiring a portion of a company that somebody else built and that thousands of other people work for, and they are giving you a portion of their profits. Blows my mind!

There are plenty of great places to open up a stock-investing account, but the one that’s getting us hot and bothered at the moment is Wealthsimple.

They’ve developed a pretty amazing platform and for a very limited time, they are giving a $50 sign-up bonus to Money Done Right readers if they sign up and fund a new account through our Wealthsimple Free $50 Sign-Up Bonus Link.

Yes, this is really free money. There are no gimmicks here! If you’d like to learn more about Wealthsimple. and why we think it’s great, check out our Wealthsimple Review.

My tenants are paying me rent.

More young people should start investing in real estate. I think a big misconception about real estate investing is that you need a lot of money to get started. You don’t! My first property was a 4-unit property in a suburb of Los Angeles that I picked up in my 20s for only 3.5% down.

Check out my article How 20-Something Me Bought a Fourplex in L.A. With Only $15k Out of Pocket to learn about my first real estate purchase.

But if landlording your own duplex, triplex, or fourplex sounds daunting, I have good news for you. You can now invest in large-scale real estate for as little as $500.