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23 Easy Ways To Earn Extra Money at Home

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If you’re looking for ways to earn money at home then I have good news for you: in this article we’re going to discuss a whole host of different options available to you.

While some of them may feel outside your comfort zone, I assure that they’re all well within grasp.

While it may take a little while to fine-tune your process, none of following ideas are too complex. Remember: there’s tons of free advice out there online for anyone willing to looking for it – such as my guide to starting your own profitable blog.

Best of all, many of these ways to earn extra money at home can be started for next-to-nothing, yet have the potential to grow into a full-time business.

Ready? Then let’s get started…

Blogging

I’ve been blogging in one form of another for over 15 years, and firmly believe that it is the very best way to make extra money from home. Just a few of the benefits of blogging include:

  • Complete flexibility in when and where you work
  • The ability to create an income by writing about your passions
  • No upper earning limit – many bloggers earn thousands of dollars each month from home
  • The opportunity to meet and help other people like you

The fact that you can start your own blog for next to nothing and then grow it into a full-time business (if you so desire) means that the risk of starting a blog is minimal, while the potential upside is huge.

If you’d like to learn just how easy it is to start your own profitable blog then please check out my detailed free tutorial.

Niche Sites

So-called niche sites are rather like miniature blogs. They’re designed around a particular theme – often a product group such as ice skates or pool covers – and help people shopping for products to select the most appropriate solution.

While in my opinion they’re not quite as exciting as a blog to write (because you’ll often write far more about specific products) these too can be very profitable indeed in the right hands. Indeed, while I consider myself a blogger at heart, I do also maintain a number of niche sites which still bring in revenue every month.

Ebook Writing

Some 5+ years ago I wrote a number of ebooks and then published these in the Kindle store. Today, despite no promotion on my part, they still continue to bring in revenue every single month.

While the thought of writing an ebook may sound intimidating, some of the best ebooks are quite short in length. As a result many people are able to produce several ebooks each month, just writing in their spare time.

As discussed, the real benefit with writing Kindle ebooks is that they’re one of the most passive forms of income I’ve experienced, and still earn money even years after they were written. Indeed, one of my goals for this year is to revisit my former Kindle ebook business and start adding more books to my portfolio.

Create T-Shirts

Print-on-demand is a simple concept. You create a design for a t-shirt or sweatshirt, and then offer it for sale. If and when anyone buys one of your designs, it is printed on a t-shirt and then dispatched to them. Even better, you don’t need to do the printing and shipping yourself – the vendor that you partner with does all this on your behalf.

There are now a host of print-on-demand platforms available, of which Merch by Amazon and Red Bubble are arguably the best known. With the only cost to get started being your time in creating designs, this really is a low risk way to make money at home.

Freelance Writing

Generally speaking, the more content (articles) that a website has, the more traffic it will attract. This means that bloggers and website owners are often on the lookout for new writers who they can pay to produce content.

Then of course there are people who want to launch their own ebook business but simply don’t have the time, or the skills, to write ebooks themselves. Once again, many such people look for freelance writers to produce their writing for them.

A good thing about freelance writing is that you really don’t need any formal skills – just the ability to write and the free time to do it. Gigs vary enormously in flexibility and price, meaning that you can start with easier jobs to begin with, then scale up to more impressive projects as your experience grows.

For beginners, websites like UpWork are a great place to find one-off freelance writing jobs producing articles and ebooks, while ProBlogger is a good place to find ongoing writing jobs.

Invest in the Stock Market

If you have any money in a low-interest savings account then investing this money in the stock market can make it grow much faster. Generally speaking investing in individual companies is far riskier than spreading your investment across multiple companies.

Stock market investing is mainly quite a passive sort of income. Open an account with a company like Betterment and let them do the hard work on your behalf. Investing can therefore be a great place to stash the money you earn at home, letting it grow even more until you need it. Sign up with Betterment here.

Social Media Services

Just as with freelance writing, businesses around the world are calling out for marketing experts capable of getting them noticed on social media. These days an increasing number of people work at home helping their clients to succeed on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and more.

If you’re social media savvy, and love nothing more than messing around on Pinterest then this may be the ultimate work at home job for you.

Sell on Amazon

You might not realize it, but many of the products you buy on Amazon aren’t actually from Amazon at all. Instead, a growing number of private individuals – people like you and me – are sourcing high quality products from China, importing them, and then letting Amazon sell them for a commission.

While you’ll need some capital to get started with this business model – thanks to the costs of sourcing and importing products – numerous people have turned an initial investment into a six figure business without ever even having to leave home.

Peer to Peer Lending

In peer to peer lending your money is used to fund loans to borrowers. This means two things: firstly, you’ll need to have some money to invest in the loans. Secondly, while applicants for loans do pass through a rigorous credit check process, there is still a chance that a borrower may default on a loan and so you may get back less than you invested.

For people who have got some funds to invest, however, and are willing to take the odd loss in their stride many peer to peer platforms can still offer far healthier overall returns than the paltry sums being offered by most savings accounts these days.

Popular peer to peer platforms include Prosper and Lending Club, though lesser-known networks like Bondora offer far more impressive rates of return – sometimes as high as 10% per annum.

Property Investing

Investing in property has long been one of the most recognised ways to make money. It is, however, not without its troubles. Putting aside the cost of purchasing a property in the first place, you still need to be able to source a suitable property, do the work necessary to bring it up to standard and then sell or rent it out to realize your profit. Clearly, this isn’t an ideal way to make money at home.

There is, however, an alternative. These days a number of companies allow you to pool your funds with other investors. The syndicate then does the work of finding, developing and renting out the properties, while you earn a cut of the rental income. This is a far easier way to earn money from home as you need never rise from your armchair to start seeing passive income.

Popular options include Property Partner and Property Moose though more property crowdfunding companies are cropping up all the time.

Course Creation

From digital photography to web design, from learning a language to playing an instrument, the internet makes it easy for people to learn new skills. As a reaction to this, a whole industry has sprung up helping people to learn new skills, and one of the most popular sources of tuition comes in the form of online courses.

Courses may come in printed or written form, and you need no skills other than knowledge of a subject that other people might like to learn. Popular platforms like Teachable or Udemy can be used for all the technical aspects, allowing you to focus on just creating the best course you possibly can.

Surveys

Companies around the world are desperate to get your opinion on their products. They’re also willing to pay for the privilege. While the amount you earn per survey may be small ($5-10 each typically) surveys don’t take long to complete. As a result, if you have plenty of free time you can quickly work your way through dozens of surveys each week, bringing in quite a healthy income.

Before you go looking for online survey companies I should issue a quick word of warning: the internet is rife with “scams” that ask you to pay up front in order to take surveys. Even some of the free survey companies rarely if ever seem to have any available surveys.

Instead, if you opt to go down this route I recommend that you open accounts with a number of the more reputable companies. In doing so you’ll not only gain access to the widest number of surveys available, but you can also feel confident in getting paid for your efforts.  

Website Testing

Internet companies benefit from making their websites as user-friendly as possible. One tool in their arsenal is to use real people like you and me – and then ask us to try and complete a task or find a page on their site.

Surprisingly, you can actually get paid for this! Assuming you have an Internet connection, testing websites is something that is super-simple for anyone to do (no technical knowledge required) and great fun too. While there are quite a few user-testing websites that you can sign up with, possibly the most popular of these is User Testing.

Become a VA

In the past, only high-powered executives would have their own personal assistant to book meetings, make phone calls and so on. These days, however, the internet has revolutionized all this. A “virtual assistant” (or VA) helps out business owners from the comfort of their own home.

The tasks that may be assigned to you vary by project but may include anything from carrying out online research, sending emails, uploading blog posts, finding royalty free images or sharing content on social media.

The fact is that being a VA generally doesn’t require too much technical knowledge; most tasks are quite simple in nature, yet the variety of these can make being a VA fun and enjoyable.

Online Tuition

While we mentioned the creation of written and video courses earlier, some students far prefer one-on-one tuition. This is most popular in those learning a language, where a tutor can be worth their weight in gold when providing unique, detailed feedback on a student’s performance.

If you have any experience teaching, or fancy yourself as a personal tutor, you’ll find there are plenty of opportunities available online.

Pet Sitting

Last week I was talking to a new friend who was telling me about a pet sitting business they used to run. Not dogs and cats like you might imagine, but for rabbits and guinea pigs instead. Apparently they used to do a roaring trade, working from home for just a few hours a day of feeding and cleaning.

If you’re an animal lover then pet sitting might just be your perfect work at home business opportunity. You’ll get paid to spend time at home with animals, all while earning an income. Indeed, as most pets require only minimal care, you could even do this alongside another form of business such as starting a blog, allowing you to double your potential income.

Start an Etsy Store

Etsy is an online destination for handmade goods. Anyone can set up an Etsy store of their own and sell anything from handmade earrings to home organization printables. If you have an arty side and love to creatively spend time making beautiful products then consider getting yourself an Etsy storefront to sell them from.

Rent Out Your Room

If you’ve got an unused bedroom in your house, then another way to make money from home is by renting it out.

Whether you opt to rent to a permanent tenant by advertising it on local real estate websites, or you instead advertise the room on a per-night basis with crowdsourcing websites like AirBnB that spare room can quickly turn into an additional source of income for you.

Rent Out Your Drive

If you live in a major town or city then you’ll know just how expensive parking your car can be. Worse, whenever there’s a major event on (such as a sports match) even finding one of these spaces can be difficult enough.

If you have room on your drive, there are now companies that will allow you to rent out your parking space and earn money from it. Depending on your location some spaces can be worth thousands of dollars each year – just to let someone park in a space that you’re not using. Talk about passive income!

Rent Out Excess Storage Space

Before we moved to France recently, we had to decide what to do with our remaining belongings. So as not to inconvenience friends and family we opted to hire a storage unit and fill it with the remnants of our old life. You might be surprised to hear that our unit costs us roughly $150 a month – just to store our junk!

Fortunately, thanks to the sharing economy, there’s a way you can help people like us to save money, while earning a decent income from home yourself. Do you have an empty garage, shed or loft? If so, you can now rent these out to other people lacking storage, and earn rent for the space your “guests” are using.

House Sitting

I’ll admit that house sitting may not be a way to make money in your own home – but you’ll still be at home.

In truth, most house sitting jobs that I have stumbled across don’t pay much – many of them don’t even pay at all. However the opportunity to live rent free in someone else’s house does give you a great opportunity to save money, and of course can also be done alongside other work-at-home business ventures such as starting a blog or creating t-shirts to sell.

Become an Editor

As we’ve already discovered, freelance writing jobs are everywhere right now, and can be done by most of us. In many cases, however, an article will require a “final polish” before publication – and that’s where a freelance editor can come in handy.

If you’ve got a solid knowledge of written English you can make money at home by correcting grammatical errors, improving sentence structure and flow, and ensuring that each piece of content submitted to you meets the exacting standards of the publisher.

Sell Your Photos

If you’re anything like me you’ve got thousands of photographs sat around on your hard drive. What you might not realize is that these very photos could be earning you an income. Websites are always on the lookout for good quality photos to use in their articles, and these are generally brought from stock photo sites.

The obvious question is where these stock photo websites get their images from to begin with – and in many cases it’s from freelance photographers – both professional and amateur. While taking photos for these sites can be rather “hit and miss”, if you’ve already got hundreds of decent-quality photographs sat on your computer, why not spend a few minutes uploading them to see if any websites opt to purchase a copy from you?

As you can see, there are loads of ways to earn extra money at home when you know where to look. Why not try out some of these ideas today, and see just how much extra income you can earn without needing to even leave the comfort of your living room!

What are your favorite ways to make extra money? Why not leave your experiences in the comments section below…

 

Make money at home with these 23+ proven home business ideas. You might be surprised to discover just how many ways there are for you to earn extra money from a side hustle - without having to give up your job. In some cases, these can even grow into full-time businesses - allowing you to earn more money than you might appreciate right now.

Richard

Sun-worshipper and obsessive frugality blogger. For loads more money-saving advice come and join us on Facebook.

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