Just about everyone could use some extra money in their pocket. Luckily, there are a lot of different ways you can earn cash right from your home. Maybe you’re a stay at home mom, a college student that’s strapped for cash, or maybe you’re working on paying out any outstanding debts. For these and many other reasons, working a side gig from home can be a great option. If you have some spare time and want to do a little extra work to boost your income, you can do a variety of different tasks. No matter what your interests or your skill level are, there are many opportunities out there for you to take advantage of.
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How Do I Make Money at Home?
Thanks to the rise of the Internet and online businesses, there are more ways than ever before to earn money from your computer or smartphone. Besides that, certain jobs and industries are shifting their practices to use more people working from home, rather than maintaining big office spaces to house their employees. Because of that, there are other methods to earn money at home, even if you aren’t a computer whiz, since they can also provide training to help you get started. Some opportunities may take time to develop into money-making enterprises more than others, while others can start making you some extra income right away. Depending on your available free time, technical skill, and resources, there is almost certainly a way to make money at home that will fit your situation. To start making extra cash, you could try some of the following strategies.
Take Online Surveys
There are several websites that offer to pay you for taking quick online surveys, such as
- Swagbucks
- PaidSurvey
- Survey Junkie
- and MySurvey
These are some of the most popular, but there are at least a dozen of such websites that will pay you for giving your opinions. Almost all these sites are free to sign up, and you can earn gift cards or money via PayPal for providing just a few minutes of your time. You might not earn a full-time income by just taking surveys, but you could easily earn a couple hundred dollars each month right from your couch. Since they have grown in popularity, there has been an increase in the amount of scams, disguising themselves as a legitimate online survey website, so be mindful and stick to the better known companies to stay on the safe side.
Work as a Transcriptionist
Transcribing is detailed work, and you may need to spend some initial time training and learning the ropes of the business, but it’s a job you can do entirely from home at whatever time suits your schedule. Plus, if you have a fast-enough typing speed and improve the quality of your transcription skills over time, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to turn transcribing into a full-time job you can do at home.
Rent Out Your Car
Cars are notorious for depreciating, and the value of a car is even lower for folks who keep it parked in the garage most of the time and hardly ever drive it. Fortunately, if you own a car but you don’t drive it often, there are websites and services where you can rent access to your vehicle to people who can use it to get around. There may be some restrictions depending on the service you choose, but this is a great way to get some much-needed value out of your car if it spends most of the time sitting around idle.
Sell Unused Belongings
Downsizing can be a great way to make some extra cash off the things you barely use around the house. For example, unwanted furniture could sell for hundreds of dollars on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, depending on the demand. Or you could do things the old-fashioned way and have a yard sale. No matter what method you choose, selling your unused stuff is a great way to declutter your space and earn some money while you do it.
Start a Blog
While you won’t make money by blogging overnight, with some time and effort you can turn a blog into a revenue-generating enterprise once you have obtained consistent readers. Start off by picking a topic you are passionate about or that you have a fair amount of knowledge about. Then simply start writing thoughts, ideas, advice, and other helpful information that people might want to read. Once you have a large enough audience, companies may start to reach out to host paid ads on your site, as well as pay for sponsored content and posts. Other ways to generate money with a blog include:
- Merchandise
- eBooks
- Video courses
Perform Freelance Tasks
There are a lot of freelance jobs available out there that you can do right from home. If you have particularly strong knowledge about a certain subject, you could get paid to write articles on a freelance basis. Signing up with freelance sites, such as Upwork, can be a great way to find extra work. And it’s limited to just writing. If you have skills related to graphic design, video editing, voiceover acting, and many other talents, you can put them to use as a freelancer. And don’t overlook other websites like Craigslist, where you can find part time remote gigs and other work you can do from home. If you build up a strong enough reputation, you could even turn freelancing into a full-time job that generates a livable income. Facebook also has a job listing feature, so be sure to not leave any stone unturned!
Join an Affiliate Marketing Network
If you have a robust social media following or a website that gets a fair number of online visitors every day, it’s relatively easy to turn that audience into an at-home income for yourself. Signing up with an affiliate network like the ones offered by Amazon or Google means you’ll get paid a percentage for everyone who makes a purchase through your affiliate link. Obviously, you’ll make more money the larger your audience, but Amazon offers the service to users who have as little as 500 followers, so it’s an option even if you’ve never done affiliate marketing before.
LeadsMarket.com has an affiliate marketing network that’s one of the best in the consumer loan industry. If you have traffic that you think would be a good fit for this industry, check out the LeadsMarket.com website to learn more. It could be a good way to earn some extra income if your traffic is a good fit.
Become a Virtual Teacher
Are you a great communicator and have a wealth of knowledge in any subject or line of work? Becoming a virtual teacher or tutor can put those abilities to work for you, in the comfort of your own home! From personal training, tutoring students in school or teaching woodworking, more and more people are flocking to the internet to learn about any particular line of study or craft. In addition, you can create your own schedule that best suits your needs! This can be shifted into a consulting job where you can provide companies and individuals consulting services based on your knowledge and different areas of expertise, on your own time as well!
Be a Product Tester
There are websites dedicated to connecting people with companies that want consumers to review their products. These are sent to your home, many of them being lifestyle and household items that you can try without having to leave the house. Companies want to know what the consumer experience is for products they already have out on the market, as well as the stuff they haven’t been released yet, so you get a first look at the latest and greatest products from different companies. In addition to getting paid for your feedback, you get to score these items for free, so it’s a win-win situation overall.
Become a Customer Sales Rep
More and more companies have realized that renting and maintaining an office space to house their Customer Service department isn’t the only option available. Because of this, many companies are shifting to at-home customer sales and service reps. Larger businesses like Amazon and Priceline are some of the companies taking part in this practice, as well as smaller companies. Smaller businesses are also interested in this line of work, since it helps cut down on the cost of maintaining a larger office space. This can be a great way to have a full-time position from home, with more flexible hours than a typical office job.
Become a Call Center Rep
Similar to the previous entry, Call Centers are also making the switch, calling them Virtual Call Centers. They provide a computer software that allows calls to be redirected to your home computer. This is also another wonderful opportunity for a full-time jobs that you can work from the comfort of your own home office, for the same reasons as the previous entry.
Become a Website Tester
Whenever you visit a website, you may ask yourself how this user interface came to be. The answer to this question is that people have been paid to visit these websites and provide their feedback on their experience. There is no need to be super tech savvy or have a background in the Tech Industry to review website, so anyone can get in on this practice! There are several websites you can sign up with, that pair people with a website and domain owners to review their websites, However, the spaces are limited, but you can check every once in a while and see if there is an available slot for you, as the number of websites keep growing in the new Digital Age.
Online Data Entry
Similar to transcription work, if you can type quickly, have a steady Internet connection and a decent home computer, you can also work as a data entry professional. The types of data entry jobs are varied from industry to industry, so you can find one that speaks to your skills best and earn a full-time income as well!
Rent Your Belongings
If you aren’t quite ready to let go of some of your belongings, or maybe you have a large collection of clothes that you like but don’t wear as often,. Whatever the case may be, there are a number of websites that allow you to list your belongings for rent. They list these items according to location, so you don’t even have to pay to ship things out and can make money multiple times from one particular item, versus selling it.
Become a Micro Worker
This method of working freelance is much less involved than the previous entry on this list, but it can help supplement your household income. There are many websites dedicated to listing these types of positions that can include work like research, website updates, transcription, data entry, and graphic creation, or anything else you think you are good at. While some people dedicate themselves to making this their full-time employment, you can use these websites to earn some extra cash while you’re sitting around with nothing to do.
Rent Out Your Driveway or Parking Spot
If renting out your car isn’t your style, your parking spot can generate an income for you. If you live in a populated area where parking is scant, like in a city center or downtown in a lively city, this can prove to be a very lucrative side gig. You can also rent out your driveway to paying customers, as well as offer a solution to store vehicles like a boat oran RV for those who live in neighborhoods that have HOA rules that prohibit parking these types of vehicles around their homes. Check out more details on rvside.com .
Sell Your Photos Online
While you may think that this line of work is reserved for those that are highly trained or are skilled photographers, a lot of smaller companies are looking for high quality photos to accompany their content. You can sell your pictures to stock photo websites, where you can make around 15 to 60 percent of the sale price of your photos, so you can make a decent amount of money from pictures that come from your camera or even from your phone’s camera. The cameras on most smartphones have continued to improve over time and can take great, high resolution pictures, so you don’t even have to invest in an expensive camera to earn some extra cash.
Take Part in Focus Groups
Sometimes done via virtual meetings and in person, Focus Group will pay you to give your opinion on just about anything, along with a group of people from different demographics. These chats help companies get a feel for what consumers think about their products, sometimes even before they launch. Media Conglomerates also partake in this practice, so you can influence what kind of content is put on radio, TV and other media outlets. While in-person Focus Group pays more, you can make a significant income by joining a website dedicated to these types of surveys.
Become an Online Juror
Jury duty is an inevitable part of adulthood. While most people aren’t too happy to receive a court summons for jury duty, there might be a small group that might enjoy this civic duty. For those of you that do, there are websites that allow you to take part in mock jury duty for a price. This helps give lawyers and other legal professionals an idea of how things would go down in court, as they present real cases in these mock court proceedings. It doesn’t pay enough to be its own line of work, but it’s a great way to earn extra cash at home, and if you’re interested in the world of law and criminology, it’s even better!
Become a Virtual Assistant
For professionals and executives who work for smaller businesses, they don’t always have the funds to keep a personal assistant on the payroll. In this line of work, they look to fill that position with a person who works remotely, helping them with their administrative tasks. It can develop into a good source of steady income that you can do from the comfort of your own home!
Start an Online Consignment Store
Be it through your own website, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, Depop, eBay or through some other online sale platform, if you have an eye for fashion and style, you can sell vintage and thrift store finds online for profit. Some people prefer to do all their shopping online and not look through racks and racks of clothing to find cute pieces of clothing, shoes and home decor. Some sell the pieces as is, and others alter and rework these pieces to create and even higher profit margin. This has the potential to become a very lucrative business that you can run from the comfort of your own home.
While you might not make a full-time living from home at first, almost anyone can make some extra cash quickly using some of these tips. If you dedicate yourself and follow through for long enough to improve your skills and network, it’s absolutely possible to work full time from home, eventually. One benefit of today’s growing online culture is that more and more work is being done remotely over the Internet. This presents a huge amount of new opportunities for people looking to earn money from home in 2019. If you’ve been considering taking up some extra work at home to generate more income, there is no better time than now to do it!
Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
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