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[janmcneil]

Have you considered online teaching? That seems to be growing field, and there are
free as well as low paid webinars on how to get into it as well as books and lists of
places that hire.

[goldenapple]

If you need to get paid quickly, I'd advise signing up with a temp agency or two. You may be able to do things like: taking inventory in a large store before the holidays, doing clerical work at odd hours, answering phones in an office open around the clock, doing set-up for an event, and so on.

The chances of finding work, particularly work that lines up with your teaching schedule may be slim, but a good temp agency can find you jobs that pay far more than minimum wage per hour. And it doesn't take long to go in, take their tests, and fill out the paperwork. Once you're in their system, you're on their list and can notify them when you're available and when you're not. Also, they pay weekly (unlike many businesses which pay every two weeks) and are usually set up to get you your money efficiently.

Of course, do be careful. When you're really really desperate, it's easy for people to take advantage of you, and the last thing you need is to do work for quick cash, and then not get the cash.

[cyano]

Many of the paid medical studies do not involve taking a risky new drug. I earned $75 for giving a blood sample and filling out a survey to look at genetics of a disease which my mother has.  Several people in my family have had cancer and I earned $60 for filling out a 10 page survey about diet and lifestyle. I earned $150 for doing agility tests and a $40 for playing a video "game" for an hour to look at the eye reflexes of people who spend long hours on the computer. It helps if you live in a larger city with several universities or medical research facilities. I wouldn't consider any of these studies risky. They were small amounts of money, but they definitely helped pay for groceries in graduate school.

Tutoring has been mentioned. Often the money is better with high school students than with college students particularly if you advertise it as college prep. Many parents are desperate for their kids to pull up their grades. Once you get a good reputation among parents in your area, you can get paid quite a bit. Parents have more dollars than college students (unless the parent is paying for that too).

[ideagirl]

3.  I can't get a refund on the bill I paid--it was a mistake only from my point of view, since I hadn't meant to pay the entire thing (over $500), but I pushed the wrong button--or rather, I interpreted the button labelled "make a payment" as meaning that I would be taken to a page where I would be able to indicate the amount I wanted to pay, whereas it meant only "pay the amount indicated at the top of the page."    

The fact that it was your mistake doesn't necessarily mean you can't fix it. You may be able to log in, view your recent payments, and click on "change/cancel" next to the $500 one to change the amount. Worth checking. Also, you could call the creditor and ask to change it.

6.  I have lived in this place for over a year and have seen three people evicted with only a day's notice.  

Leaving a day after your landlord tells you to leave isn't the same as being legally evicted. If you stay put when the landlord tells you to leave, the landlord may--assuming that rooming houses work like apartments, which I'm betting they do in at least some respects--have to legally evict you, which takes a while. Once a person becomes a tenant you can't just kick them out with little or no notice--even if they're living in your house. Of course, if the landlord is evil they might go into your room when you're not there and put your stuff on the street--and that is definitely illegal, FWIW. Might be worth contacting your local free legal services organization (sometimes called Neighborhood Legal Services or something like that). Your county bar association should be able to point you to it. They do a lot of landlord-tenant work. The point of contacting them would be just to learn what your rights are.

[alleyoxenfree]

Do you have a car and is there a possibility that you could deliver newspapers?  Often you can get a delivery route quickly and get paid quickly.  This springs to mind because our local paper seems to be having an impossible time getting someone who can deliver Sunday-only papers.  Usually this is independent work, not too overwhelming in hours.

[wild_rose]

Hang in there, ingirumimus. I've been there, too (my friends here can vouch for me) but during a time when I was sick and unable to get a second job -- I got to the point where I couldn't do my first. I know you're in a state of panic now: It seems like the end of the world. I know you don't want to hear me say, "the world isn't going to end and this, too, will pass" so I won't. ;-)

I was going to suggest things that others have already mentioned: temping, cleaning houses, doing handy-person or yard work that you can get paid in cash for. A quick fix will help, but you really need something that's going to get you out of this precarious position. It sucks bigtime to be sitting on the edge for any length of time.

You haven't mentioned why you are still adjuncting. Can you get a "real" teaching job somewhere else? Or a permanent part-time job locally?

[tolerantly]

Many of the paid medical studies do not involve taking a risky new drug. I earned $75 for giving a blood sample and filling out a survey to look at genetics of a disease which my mother has.  Several people in my family have had cancer and I earned $60 for filling out a 10 page survey about diet and lifestyle. I earned $150 for doing agility tests and a $40 for playing a video "game" for an hour to look at the eye reflexes of people who spend long hours on the computer. It helps if you live in a larger city with several universities or medical research facilities. I wouldn't consider any of these studies risky.

Me either. Usually they aren't actually anonymous, but things like psych studies are good for a quick $60. My rule of thumb is "nothing ingested, nothing pierced, nothing absorbed."

And I agree, OP, that you're less vulnerable than you think when it comes to eviction. Eviction is a long, miserable and potentially expensive process for any landlord in any state with even rudimentary tenant rights. As a landlord in a state with rudimentary tenant rights, I fear it, and that's why I check my tenants' backgrounds & income so assiduously.