70 Ways to Pay Student Loans Faster

Paying off student loan debt can seem daunting, especially when your minimum payments aren’t making much of a dent. To reduce student loans faster, there are several paths to explore, most of which involve freeing up more money to make bigger payments. You can earn more money, reduce spending, manage your loans better and even find someone else to repay your student loan debt. We have more than 70 ideas to start paying down student loans today. 

Provide Care or Tutoring to Earn Extra Money to Repay Student Loans

• Become a dog walker. Ask your neighbors and friends, or you can sign-up on Rover.
• Dog-sit for people overnight. Find jobs at Rover and Care.com.
• If you’re more of a cat person, offer cat boarding, drop-in visits or house-sit for cat owners with Rover.
• Babysit by signing up on Care.com or SitterCity.
• Provide care for the elderly. Find jobs on Care.com.
• Clean houses for extra cash. Visit Care.com.
• Tutor. Find jobs at Wyzant or at local establishments.
• Create a course on Udemy, and get paid anytime someone downloads it.
• If you know another language, be an at-home translator with Unbabel.
• House-sit. You can find housesitting jobs anywhere in the country on House Sitters America. 

Earn Money from Home in Your Spare Time

• Transcribe audio files and video with Scribe.
• Use Fiverr to sell your services from blog writing and managing social media to voice overs and genealogy research.
• Sign-up for Figure 8 to earn money by transcribing audio, moderating content and more.
• Market your skills on Upwork. Categories include writing, design, legal, translation, admin support, customer service, sales, accounting, coding and more.
• Donate blood plasma for cash.
• Earn money with Clickworker by app testing, completing mystery visits, researching, copy editing and other tasks.
• Rent out an extra room to travelers with Airbnb.
• If you’re a property owner, you can “rent” out a night in your backyard to campers with Campspace.
• You can rent out extra space in your garage or basement for people to use as storage with Neighbor.
• Become a virtual assistant. Find jobs at Flexjobs and Upwork.
• If you’re a talented writer, try freelance writing. Find jobs on Indeed and Upwork.
• Become an at-home customer service rep. Find jobs at Flexjobs, CareerBuilder and Indeed.
• Complete surveys from Survey Junkie or Swagbucks.
• Teach English online for up to $22 per hour with VIPkid.
• Earn a small amount (under $3) for quick tasks with Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Earn Money with Your Car

• Drive for Uber or Lyft. Use your own car and choose to drive whenever you want.
• Get paid to help with deliveries and moves with Dolly (if you can lift over 75 lbs. and own a car). If you have a pickup truck, cargo van or box truck, you can earn $30 per hour ($15 per hour for a car).
• Deliver food (while making your own hours) with DoorDash or UberEats.
• Rent out your car when you’re not using it with Turo.
• Wrap your car with an advertisement, and earn money for simply driving from Wrapify or Carvertise.
• If you have an RV, you can List Your RV for Free on RVshare or Outdoorsy.

Earn Money Helping People with Everyday Tasks and Errands

• Help with everyday tasks for cash on TaskRabbit, including furniture assembly, cleaning or handyman work.
• Shop for people’s groceries, and deliver it with Instacart.
• Deliver fast food, coffee and retail items with Postmates.
• If you’re tech savvy, sign up with HelloTech to make house calls helping people with their tech issues.

Earn Money with Apps

• EasyShift: Perform quick jobs at restaurants and stores, such as taking a photo and checking prices.
• iPoll: Earn money by completing tasks such as taking market surveys and keeping a food diary.
• Job-Spotter: Earn cash by taking photos of help wanted signs.
• Money App: Complete tasks such as giving opinions and playing games.

Earn Cash Back

• Ibotta earns you cash back on specific purchases from grocery stores as well as travel, department stores and more.
• Rakuten sends you cash back from shopping through their referral links.
• Sign up for a credit cards that offers cash back. See what categories offer the most bang for your buck. Just be sure to pay off your credit card in full every month.
• Earn cash back from dining out at Groupon, Yelp and Dosh.
• Anytime you’re setting up a new account, see if there are any bonuses. Cable companies and cell phone companies often have a bonus if you were referred by someone else or refer someone to sign-up.

Earn Extra Cash by Selling Your Stuff

Our guide on how to sell your stuff to make extra money highlights 33 places you can sell literally everything – from clothes and shoes to books and things you create.

Earn More Money at Your Job

• Get a second job. Find a part-time job on Snagajob, Indeed or Craigslist.
• Ask for a raise. If you deserve it, negotiate a higher salary.
• Work overtime. If your job offers overtime, ask to work extra hours.
• Find a better paying job. If you feel like you’re not earning what you should be and your employer is unwilling to pay you more, start a job search, looking for something that pays better.
• Find a job that will repay your student loans. There are many companies that will actually repay your student loans, or at least a portion of them.
• Find a job with better perks that save you money. Sometimes it’s not all about your paycheck. If two jobs offer the same salary, but one is providing health care or matching your 401k, this means you’re actually earning much more.

Save Money on Your Loan

• See if you can qualify for a lower interest rate through refinancing your student loans. But refinancing student loans isn’t the best option for everyone, so be certain to understand how it works and how your loans and monthly payment will be impacted. Keep in mind refinancing payment federal student loans means a loss in federal benefits like income-driven repayment, generous deferment options (pausing payments), and the possibility for loan forgiveness.
• Accelerate repayment of your student loans by making extra payments on the loan with the highest interest rate.
• Signing up for automatic payments could lower your interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point.
• Save money on your federal income taxes by claiming the student loan interest deduction.

Get Other People to Pay for Your Loans

• Take advantage of loan forgiveness if you’re eligible.
• Start a crowdfunding campaign to ask for help.
• Move to a city or state that will repay your student loans.
• See if your employer offers assistance for student loan repayments.

Save More Money

• Consider a big downsize. To really make a dent consider moving to decrease your mortgage or monthly rent. If you live in a walkable area, consider selling your car and opting to bike and use public transportation instead.
• Stick to a budget. Plan ahead, track your spending and don’t give in to impulse buys. 
• Cut expenses you don’t need. You don’t need to cut everything, but eliminate the items that don’t matter to you.
• Cancel unused subscriptions. If you’re not using that gym membership as often as you should, cancel it.
• Negotiate your bills. Call your cell phone, internet or satellite radio provider and try to get a better rate. Shop around to see what the best price is.
• Compare insurance rates. Check to see if you could lower your car or renter’s insurance. You might be able to get a lower premium by increasing your deductible.
• Use coupons, and shop sales. When grocery shopping, use coupons from Coupons.com and your grocery store’s loyalty card.
• Eat at home. Limit eating at restaurants, and bring your lunch and coffee to work.
• Find free entertainment. Skip going to the movies and concerts. Have friends over for a game night or potluck and read books you borrow from the library. Find free things to do locally, such as free days as museums and free live music.
• Lower your electric bill. Always turn the lights off and any other electronics off when you’re not using them.
• Lower your water bills. Take quicker showers and only do full loads of laundry and dishes.
• Use a setback thermostat. It will reduce heating and cooling costs at night.