How to Earn $275.20 in Free Cash This Afternoon

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

Every year businesses give away thousands of dollars in free money and gift cards as a way of promoting their websites/products. And we found two good ones today.

Both of these take a small investment, but you should still be able to profit $275.20 for around 20 minutes of work. Plus, both of these would make a great vehicle to start saving in 2015.

Heads up – both of these accounts require an opening deposit, so if you’re not in position to be without the cash for a couple of months, I’d suggest skipping this one.  

Also, I always suggest putting unexpected money like this in a retirement account or an emergency savings account. It’s a painless way to save and if you taking advantage of all of the bonuses we post over the course of a year, it can be easy way to save a few thousand dollars every year.

Here’s how it works…

1. Open a TradeKing Account & Earn $200

The folks over at TradeKing are offering new, USA customers a $200 bonus when you open an Individual or Joint account and make three trades in the stock market. I love signup bonuses like this because they take very little time and are usually pretty profitable. This one took me about 10 minutes to complete.

Now, TradeKing charges $4.95 for each trade you make, so after making 3 trades, I still netted $185.15 in extra cash. If you want to do it, here’s the step-by-step…

1. Open a new Individual or Joint account (IRAs, other tax-exempt, linked, or shared accounts are excluded from this offer). You need to initially fund the account with $3,000.

2. Make at least 3 trades within 90 days of account opening. I’m not going to be trading any risky stocks here, because I don’t want to lose any money. This isn’t a stock recommendation, but I chose the most conservative Vanguard mutual fund that I could find (VWINX). It’s traded between $24.50-$25.50 for the better part of a year, so it’s pretty steady and I know I’m not going to be taking a big risk.

3. The $200 bonus will be deposited into my account within 90 days. Sweet! It’s not instant cash, but I don’t really care. It’s all going into the long-term savings account.

2. Open an Account at MotifInvesting.com & Earn $100.00

Update: This offer has expired.

Motif Investing also has a promotion running this month where you can earn an extra $100!

Motif is unique among online brokers, because instead of picking individual stocks, you invest in a cluster of stocks (usually 20 to 30) from a similar field.  Sort of like a mutual fund, but the motifs range from Clean Energy, to Republican Companies, to Healthy and Tasty, to Obamacare.  Basically any interest you have or trend you’d like to invest in can be found on Motif…

Now Motif charges $9.95 for each trade you make, so after making a trade, you’ll net $90.05 in extra cash.

Here’s the signup link.

(Editor’s Note: The sign-up bonus is no longer available, but you cans till get 3 months of Motif service for free.)

Want Some Extra Motivation?

Use this extra money and invest it in an IRA for retirement. LendingClub happens to be my favorite (because I’m earning 14%/year), but anywhere will do.

If you can continue to add $175/month to this account for the next 30 years, at let’s say 10% interest, you’ll end up with $364,054! Can you imagine? That’s why I’m such a big believer in taking advantage of little money-making opportunities….

Your turn: Did you take advantage of the bonuses? Are you saving it or buying yourself something cool?