If your car is a constant drain on your bank balance, now is the time to turn things around and make your motor work for you.

Here are three ways in which you can tap into a clever market:

Advertise – If you have a nice shiny car and you drive a fair distance, you could earn yourself up to £1500 a year. If you are happy to allow adverts on your car, all you need to do is sign up to: money4space.co.uk  or comm-motion.com.  They can then wrap ads around your car which won’t affect the paintwork.  The prices start from around £60 and go up to £1500, depending on the size of the advertisement.  As a bonus they occasionally throw in freebies from the advertising company.  The other advantage is that with a unique car, the chances of it getting stolen are significantly reduced.

Be a courier – A courier is needed to deliver parcels to set addresses by certain times.  They are self employed, but they contract themselves out to various companies.  Jobs are recorded by the company themselves and the courier and then you invoice them at the end of the week.  This is a fairly straight-forward way of using your car to earn some reddies.  It may be something you can do around other jobs you may have, so you can work the hours you need depending on your circumstances.  You can contract yourself out to several companies and you can earn a good wage in doing so.  The average take home seems to be about £140 a day, depending on where you live and how many jobs you have.  However, you can earn up to £300 a day which works out at over 70k a year!

Celebrate the school run – Working mums and dads often need someone to pick up their kids from school due to work commitments.  That is where you come in! Parents who need a reliable driver to get their children home safe from school are happy to pay for this service on top of fuel costs.  So, if you have children going to the same school or even on the route you go to work then why not top up your income?

If your really organised, you could drop some children to school in your advertising car, before dropping off some parcels and still have time for your original job.  Just think of all the extra money that will coming rolling (or driving) in!