While the festive season is a lot of fun, it can also have a pretty devastating impact on our bank balances – thanks to the parties and present buying that are essential to it. The good new is that there are a number of options available online for repairing this damage by earning some extra money, with these being a few of the best ones.

1) Selling on eBay

Selling old stuff online is a good way of both making that much-needed extra cash and clearing away the clutter from your home, and eBay is perhaps the most famous site for doing this. Of course, there are ways of improving your chances of getting the stuff sold, including taking a decent quality photograph of the item in question, providing a good description of it and setting a price that is realistic. Furthermore, you can also buy stuff cheap in the shops specifically to sell at a profit on eBay, if you want to make it a more regular source of income.

2) Entering competitions

You might think that this is an unreliable method of making money – after all, you have to win them before you can do so – but in fact many people actually do this as a full-time gig. The UK has an average of 300,000 competitions active all the time, which means that if you have the free time available to enter lots of them, you have a very strong chance of earning a decent amount by doing so. Furthermore, if you make sure that plenty of these are high value competitions – the sort that offers £50,000 or more in winnings – you will only need occasional wins to support yourself.

3) Filling out surveys

This is another way that you can regularly earn additional funds, as there are always paid surveys available – with sites such as Global Test Market, Vivatic, MySurvey and iPoll offering a steady stream. Of course they do not pay huge amounts of money per survey – although some will offer £3 or more – but it is undemanding work that can easily be fitted in around other parts of your life, meaning that you should be able to complete quite a few at a time if you set your mind to it.

4) Online gaming

This is a very popular way of earning extra money, as it is also entertaining and exciting. One way is by entering online poker tournaments, if you are good enough at the game, and another is by playing at bingo or online live dealers casino sites. These often provide welcome bonuses so you can win without risking any of your own cash at first, while mobile casino sites mean you can play from any location.

5) Selling advertising on your blog

If you have a blog that attracts a decent amount of traffic then you can monetise it through advertising – either selling them directly or via a company such as Media.net or AdSense. That way when someone clicks on the ads you will be paid a percentage.

Why not choose one of these ways of making some money and see if you can get yourself back in the black following the holiday period.