With the holidays just around the corner, coming up with extra cash can be a bit difficult. Some people turn to things like payday loans to get extra money, but that isn’t such a great idea when finances are tight.

So, here are five ways that you CAN make a bit of money throughout the holidays.

1) This is probably the most important, get a job. It doesn’t have to be a permanent job, there are plenty of places that are hiring just for the holidays right now. Temporary work may be the best kind that you can find right now.

2) Clear out your closet and sell that junk! You can make some extra money by selling your stuff on eBay or through a garage sale. I was recently able to raise $300 by selling some of my more useless junk on eBay. I was able to sell an old iPod that was broken for $40…you would be surprised as to what some things can sell for.

3) Work extra hours if you are able to. Not everyone has the option to work overtime anymore, but if you do time and a half is not something to turn down. I’m sure that there are lots of people who have the ability to work overtime and are taking the time.

4) Spend less than you earn. This is more of a tip as to have more money during the holiday season. This would probably be a better tip for earlier in the year if you were trying to save up for the holidays. However, if simply don’t overexert yourself financially then you would have plenty of money left over for the holidays.

5) Eating in versus eating out. Again, this is just another tip to help you save money, but it is still important to remember how much money you can save if you eat in rather than eating out.

UPS has announced that it believes that it will have to deliver nearly 22 million packages on December 21st – it’s busiest day of the year this year. This represents a 40% increase over normal daily volume.

It also announced that between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it expects to deliver around 400 million packages in the United States and abroad. The increase in shipping over the holiday season also leads to more employment. UPS is expecting to hire 50,000 seasonal workers starting soon to help handle the extra holiday volume.

The media watches these expectations from UPS as well as FedEx as a measure of how well the retail sector of the economy is doing.

If you are expecting to wait until the last minute to ship something, you can ship something by air with UPS on December 23rd and it will still get there by Christmas Eve.

FedEx has said that it expects December 14th to be its busiest day of the year and that it will ship 13 million packages on that day. FedEx does, however, have a partnership with the United States Postal Service, where FedEx ships to the post office and the postal worker delivers the package to the buyer.

If you were going to ship with FedEx, if you want your package there by Christmas, you have to ship it by Dec. 17th for ground service and December 23rd for Express service.

Of course, you can also ship with the USPS. I am unsure if it has guaranteed delivery for anything other than its overnight packages however. I do know that Priority Mail is supposed to be 2-3 day delivery and I haven’t been disappointed so far in that service.

Tonight I started noticing new Verizon wireless commercials featuring the “there’s a map for that” motto. The first (pictured above) is a take on Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’s Island of Misfit Toys. There, the iPhone is sent to the island, not because it is a bad device, but because it’s power and abilities are crippled by the AT&T Network.

The second:

The Third:

As you can see they are all geared toward Christmas and the holiday season.

I find them to be quite festive and actually in good taste; they aren’t attacking the iPhone but the actual AT&T Network. Expect to see a lot of them in the coming weeks.