Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

100,000 homeless can't be wrong! In states that require a deposit, 50 cans could bring you $2.50. As scrap, 32 cans make a pound, worth 70 cents.

When I need a little quick cash, I simply grab a little poundage from my cache of scrap aluminum cans and turn them into legal tender. Junk aluminum cans are everywhere, and just about any town has someone who'll pay cash for them. The trick is to get enough of them to make it worth your while, and find a way of managing them which keeps you from getting disgusted with the whole proposition.

Finding enough scrap cans is fairly easy. I scan parking lots and ditch lines. I keep a couple of plastic shopping bags handy to throw cans into. Most people you know send aluminum cans into their recycling bin. I have found that if you make a routine of collecting the cans from them for yourself, they are more than happy to hold them for you. Coworkers are also a good source of scrap cans.

Processing and storage is probably the most difficult part of my can saving project. The foremost rule for me is to deal with the cans as soon as possible after I receive them. I crush the cans a number of different ways, and I store them outside the house and as discreetly as possible. Aluminum cans take up a lot of room. That is why many people are put off of the idea of saving them. However, when crushed, you'd be amazed at how much poundage you can conveniently store. By crushing the cans and keeping them in sealed plastic bags, you can easily save up enough of them to make the hobby well worth your while.

Grab a shopping cart and go hunting!

All 25 ways to raise quick cash.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

In my area of the country, I often see the Amish set up along busy highways selling freshly-baked goods. They do a healthy business. Fellow blogger Amey Stone shared with me an excellent blog experiment on the potential for selling bottled water at a freeway exit, in which a blogger sold a case's worth of water in less than 30 minutes. In the days when I ran a very large bicycle tour, we had people who followed our tour for the week, selling iced-down soda and other treats along the route, and pulled in some very generous profits. A friend who is in the wholesale flower business makes a point of disposing of too-old bouquets in a way that avoids further damage, knowing that people will pick up those discards and sell them at roadside.

Roadside sales can pull in some quick cash. Pick high-profit items that aren't highly perishable and/or have a high cost/sale price ratio; cold soda, corn, baked goods, flowers. Pick a location that is safe, where passersby can park without hazard, a location that has a good traffic flow, and one for which you have permission, or at least is not illegal. (Freeway exits are not usually legal sales areas.) You may be required to have a vendor's license, also.

Don't expect to get rich, or minimize the work involved. But if you really need some quick cash, roadside sales can help you over the hump. And it will leave you with more pride than those simply begging.

All 25 ways to raise quick cash.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

When I was in college, I once visited a friend at another university. As with many such visits, I spent much of my time in an alcoholic haze, wandering from apartment to apartment, meeting my friend's friends, drinking odd beverages, and generally getting down Hunter S. Thompson-style. Good times.

In one apartment, I remember watching some 90210 on the occupants' big screen TV. Over the course of the show, I noticed that they kept referring to it as "the TV that sperm bought." Finally, unable to contain my curiosity, I asked about the nickname. Laughing, one of them told me that the roommates had pooled their resources from selling sperm and had used the proceeds to purchase a TV. Since then, my research has shown me that, regardless of the the truth of the roommates' claims, it certainly could be true. Advertised sperm donation rates vary from $1 to $200 per week; most donors can expect somewhere around $40 per donation. Given that you can only deposit sperm every five days, your career as a sperm donator will probably only net you enough money to eat at McDonald's. Although, if you save carefully, your genetic material could translate into a sweet home theater system.

When I was a college student, sperm donation seemed like an interesting idea. After all, I'd be paid for doing something that I usually did pro bono, would be able to make some poor ladies really happy, and would pick up a little bit of dough on the side. In the meantime, I was legally protected; there was no way that the little Brucies and Brucinias that were wandering the earth could track their way back to me. Then I read the small print.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

In a truly free market economy, you'd be worth a lot of money in organs alone -- selling a kidney or lung could solve your money woes. However, the government and our sense of propriety permit you to only cash in on plasma, hair and (maybe) breast milk.

You can legally trade plasma for cash in the U.S., the fluid in which your blood corpuscles and other tiny bits circulate through your blood system. In most larger cities, there are clinics that will pay you up to $35 or so for some of your plasma, which you can donate twice a week. The process, which involves taking blood, draining off the plasma and returning the remains to your system, takes around half an hour to an hour. To donate, you'll need to be relatively healthy and drug free.

The hirsute can also make some quick cash by selling off their hair. Hair must be at least ten inches long, and uncolored. Well tended (not over-shampooed or sun damaged) hair is worth more. Web sites such as The Hair Trader serve as a market for those looking to sell or buy hair. Sales announced on the site range from several hundred to over a thousand dollars for a generous length of tresses.

Finally, some mothers who find themselves with an overabundance of breast milk have taken to offering the extra for sale on the Internet. However, the trade, of questionable legality and fraught with health issues, remains rather clandestine and I can't recommend it, even in a pinch.

All 25 ways to raise quick cash.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

If you need quick cash, your retirement savings can look like a great place to find the lump sum you need, but tread carefully. There are lots of rules and if you don't qualify for an eligible withdrawal you'll have to pay a 10% penalty plus taxes on the money at your current income tax rate.

So suppose you need about $10,000 and are in the 25% tax bracket: in order to get that net amount you would need to withdraw $15,500. Of that amount 10% ($1,550) would go toward paying the penalty and 25% ($3,875) would go toward taxes, which totals $5.425. From that $15,500, you would be able to use $10,075. Let's say you think you will have enough to repay that money in a couple of years. Forget about it. You can't replace retirement funds you withdraw. You've lost the savings opportunity forever.

Now let's suppose you kept the money in the account and invested it for 20 years at a return rate of 8%. That $15,500 would be worth about $75,000. You must think about whether it Is really worth it to you to lose that savings opportunity or do you want to find another solution for getting the funds together.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to
raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

Somehow I've managed to become WalletPop's poster child for payday loans. I wrote about my experiences with them a few months ago, and then quickly wound up being asked to write a little series about payday loans (the series is at the bottom of the page of just aforementioned post). And now that we're doing a "raising cash in a hurry" series, what does my editor suggest I write about? You guessed it.

It is true, though, that earlier this year I went to a payday loan store. Not once. Not twice. But three times. And in those cases, I was able to get cash in a hurry -- faster than most of these other ideas we have, I'll bet. But that doesn't make it the best of the ideas.

I'd call it one of those last-last-last resort methods, but I have to give the payday lending industry its due, it is quick. Once I made my decision, it took me about 14 hours and 20 minutes to get my money.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

When my friend Michael, an inveterate couch surfer, turned up on my doorstep a few years ago, my boyfriend had just moved out, and I was wanting company and needing extra rent money. Thus Michael took up residence on the couch my ex had recently vacated, and I went about adapting to having a roommate who I didn't want to see me naked.

Aside from having to close doors and don a bathrobe more often than I was used to, my new living arrangement worked pretty well--for a while. Michael was paying rent and lending me a supportive shoulder. We had agreed when he moved in to check in with each other after a few months to make sure there were no major problems, and when we did so, there weren't. So Michael stayed on ... and on ... and on, and I commenced to kicking myself on a daily basis for not having set another check-in (or would that be check-out?) date. When he finally did move out after about a year, our friendship had been sorely tested.

The biggest lesson I learned? Sharing living expenses can put more cash in your pocket. However, If you ask someone to move into your spare room--or onto your couch--draw up a lease agreement, even/especially if your prospective boarder is someone you know. Have conversations about how to share living space, particularly if, as in my case, you only have one bathroom. Make sure to outline kitchen privileges, including whether or not you want to share food.

I was unprepared to be a landlady, and I wouldn't do it again in my current living space. If I ever move into a house with a granny unit, I might consider renting it out--as long as the unit has its own kitchen and bathroom.

All 25 ways to raise quick cash.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

When I've been broke in the past and in need of quick cash, the first place I naturally look is in my own home. Drawing on my experience, here are some tips to uncover the hidden cash lurking in your home.

Everyone's living quarters are different, of course, but there's a certain (rather obvious at first) list that everyone should go through first.

Your bed stand. Don't most of us have a little spot where we put money, after we toss off our clothes at the end of the day? But, sure, there's probably nothing there, because you've already raided this.

Hone in on your home office. Have one? It seems like another natural place where you might have stuffed a few bills or coins aside at one point.

Survey your sofa. Underneath those cushions, where pocket change slides out and drops into the crevasses of your couch, is often, quite literally, a gold mine. And possibly half of a melted Hershey's bar. You really do need to get down here more often.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

I had two parking spaces and one car. My upstairs neighbors had two parking spaces and three cars. So when Joe asked me if he could park his truck in my "guest parking" space, good-neighbor math indicated this was the best course of action.

A couple months later, I found myself on the other side of the equation, in desperate need of a small loan to see me through until payday. I knocked on Joe's door, put on my best "cuppa sugar" smile and made my request. Joe handed me a couple sawbucks, saying, "Don't worry about paying me back. Consider it rent for the parking space."

With those words, a beautiful, mutually beneficial relationship was born. Joe and Rebecca continue to use my extra parking space and so no longer have to park their third vehicle on the street, where it was broken into several times even before the current rash of catalytic converter thefts and gas siphoning. I, in turn, get occasional bump-up to my wallet for doing something I would have done for free anyway.

My building manager has no problem with this arrangement, since it's up to the tenants to control who parks in their allotted spaces. And when I do need my extra space for guests, Joe or Rebecca graciously cede the spot. There's no contract necessary since it's an informal arrangement: I generally ask for "payment" when it's, say, the day before payday and I want to go out to a last-minute dinner with friends.

I'm not sure if our handshake deal would work for others, especially among neighbors who don't already know each other. If trust has yet to be established between the two parties, a more formal contract might be necessary. In my case, though, it's been a nice benefit to getting to know the folks upstairs.

If you own some prime parking real estate, you could put some cash in your pocket and get some exercise by renting out your spot and parking further away. If you car is less convenient, perhaps you'll drive less, saving money on gas, too.

All 25 ways to raise quick cash.

Late on rent? Loan shark breathing down your neck? Can't fill your car with gas to get to work on Monday? Assuming all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 25 (legal) ways to raise cash in a few days. We list them in order from least to most desperate.

Private and public agencies that provide emergency assistance in cash are uncommon, and those that do usually restrict that largess to those well below the poverty level. However, many will provide other services and items that you would otherwise spend money on, so this charity could free up some dollars to apply to your other most pressing needs. Among the most common of these are food banks and open dining opportunities, help or waiver of utility costs, and clothing and other household essentials.

Your local government often has a person or office that acts as a clearinghouse for social services. Don't forget about churches and social clubs, too, who often have less formal outreach programs, especially for members in distress. You'd be amazed at the not-for-profit groups that are sitting on many thousands of dollars simply because no-one has asked them for some of it.

Asking for charity can take a big chunk out of your pride, but depriving your loved ones of necessities does too. Perhaps you can one day use this humbling experience as an inspiration to help others through their tough times. You'll find that giving does as much for the giver as the receiver.

All 25 ways to raise quick cash.