Whether you need cash fast or want to steadily top up your income, making an extra £100 is more achievable than you might think. Here’s how.
Take advantage of sign up bonus deals
Keep an eye out for websites, products and apps that offer a sign up bonus when you first register with them. Banking app Revolut, for example, gives you £20 when you create an account and spend £20. There are many similar apps and services out there that offer incentives.
Several banks offer switching incentives if you shift your existing current account to one of theirs – and in many cases, the reward is more than £100.
However, it’s important to read the terms and conditions first as you may need to meet certain criteria to qualify. This can include paying in a set amount each month, setting up direct debits on the account, and opening a savings account – you’ll usually need to do all this within a certain timeframe.
You often need to complete the switch using the Current Account Switch Service too. However, this makes the process much easier as your switch should be completed within 7 working days and your new bank will take care of everything for you.
Brand
Product type
Offer details
Link
Santander
Bank account
Get £200 and a £25 gift card when switching your current account to Santander
Many apps and services offer referral schemes where you can earn some extra cash by getting a friend to sign up. This won’t necessarily be as much as £100 but if you do a few, the payments can soon add up.
At the time of writing the savings platform, Raisin, for example, pays you £100 for each friend you refer, subject to them meeting specific requirements. British Gas also offers £100 to share between you and a friend if they switch their gas and electricity to the energy supplier.
Use a cashback website
If you regularly shop online, use cashback websites such as Quidco or TopCashback to earn a percentage of the amount you spend each time. You simply find the retailer you want to make a purchase from on the cashback site and click through to make your purchase as normal. This is then tracked, the cashback site gets a commission and it passes some (or all) of this on to you.
Cashback rates tend to vary depending on the retailer, and you might earn more if you’re a new customer of that particular shop.
How quickly you can earn £100 depends on what you’re spending where. But as you can use these sites when you pay for anything from clothing to a holiday, if you have a large purchase to make, you could earn that £100 fairly quickly.
These sites often offer welcome bonuses or referral payments too.
Use a cashback card
We’ve already mentioned this briefly, but if you apply for a cashback card, you can earn a percentage of your spend back whenever you use it.
Just keep in mind that cashback rates are usually only around 0.5% to 1%, so it can take some time to earn £100.
To speed up the process, you’ll need to whack all your everyday spending on your card, so only use a cashback credit card if you’re confident you can repay the balance in full each month. Otherwise the interest you’ll pay will far outweigh the cashback you earn. Also watch out for cashback credit cards that charge annual fees – you’ll need to earn more than this in cashback to make the card worth it.
The good news is that cashback debit cards are also available. At the time of writing the Chase current account comes with a debit card that pays 1% cashback on some of your day-to-day spending such as groceries and transport. You can earn up to £15 a month, so you could receive your £100 within 7 months.
Bottom line
Earning an extra £100 can be straightforward and easy to do with the right approach. From switching bank accounts and using cashback sites to referring friends and taking advantage of sign-up bonuses, there are plenty of legitimate ways to build up that cash – just make sure you always read the terms and conditions before signing up.
We show offers we can track - that's not every product on the market...yet. Unless we've said otherwise, products are in no particular order. The terms "best", "top", "cheap" (and variations of these) aren't ratings, though we always explain what's great about a product when we highlight it. This is subject to our terms of use. When you make major financial decisions, consider getting independent financial advice. Always consider your own circumstances when you compare products so you get what's right for you. Most of the data in Finder's comparison tables is provided by Defaqto. In other cases, Finder has sourced data directly from providers.
Rachel Wait is a freelance journalist and has been writing about personal finance for more than a decade, covering everything from insurance to mortgages. She has written for a range of personal finance websites and national newspapers, including The Observer, The Mail on Sunday, The Sun and the Evening Standard. Rachel is a keen baker in her spare time.
See full bio
Discover which banks have welcome offers, rewards or refer a friend deals available.
Advertiser disclosure
Finder.com is an independent comparison platform and information service that aims to provide you with the tools you need to make better decisions. While we are independent, the offers that appear on this site are from companies from which Finder receives compensation. We may receive compensation from our partners for placement of their products or services. We may also receive compensation if you click on certain links posted on our site. While compensation arrangements may affect the order, position or placement of product information, it doesn't influence our assessment of those products. Please don't interpret the order in which products appear on our Site as any endorsement or recommendation from us. Finder compares a wide range of products, providers and services but we don't provide information on all available products, providers or services. Please appreciate that there may be other options available to you than the products, providers or services covered by our service.
We update our data regularly, but information can change between updates. Confirm details with the provider you're interested in before making a decision.
How likely would you be to recommend Finder to a friend or colleague?
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Very UnlikelyExtremely Likely
Required
Thank you for your feedback.
Our goal is to create the best possible product, and your thoughts, ideas and suggestions play a major role in helping us identify opportunities to improve.
