It doesn’t feel like a huge stretch to say that most of us could use some extra money in our pocket. Maybe you’re a student who’s paying their way through school and living off packs of instant noodles. Or maybe you’re a single parent who’s just lost your job but still need to try to support your household. While there may be options for emergency financial assistance in these instances, having a little extra money to fall back on can be a huge benefit.
But how do you actually go about getting a hold of some extra cash? And what if you don’t have the energy to take on a second job outside of the comfortable confines of your own home? Well, to answer this quandary, we’ve put together this list of ways to make extra money from home!
At first glance, you might think that this would be too difficult for you, too time consuming, or out of your reach in some way or another. The truth is, finding ways to earn money from home doesn’t need to be overly complicated. In this case, you really get what you put into it, so it’s all about defining your goals, calibrating your expectations, and then executing. You don’t need to be making thousands and thousands of extra dollars every month for this to be a worthwhile venture! So, without further ado, let’s dive into six ways to make money from home.
1. Tutor People Online
Do you have an area of expertise or a skill that people covet? If so, there may be a market for you to get paid for instructing other people in these areas online. The first question to answer is what skills do you have that could be a viable thing for you to teach?
If you’re a math or science whiz, you could tutor students in these areas. Or maybe you speak multiple languages and could teach them online. You could even give music lessons if you happen to play an instrument. The list goes on and on.
You can visit sites like Tutor Me and Skooli which provide a platform and some of the necessary resources for people looking to earn money from home by getting into the world of online tutoring. It’s not totally necessary to leverage these platforms, but it may help if you’re looking for a relatively smooth and seamless entry into this realm. Aside from this, you can also browse through freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr to look for online tutoring jobs.
2. Rent Out Your Home or Extra Room
If you’re looking to make extra money from home, why not put your home to work to do it? If you’ve got a spare bedroom or two in your home, you can rent it out to make a little extra cash. While it’s not essential to go through a platform like AirBnB, it may help to facilitate the process of renting your living space.
While renting out a room in your home – or your entire living space itself – can be a good way to earn money from home, there may be some upfront investment needed to get you started. You may have to start by spending some time and/or money on cleaning up your home, replacing any home appliances that aren’t working, and paying service fees for using whatever platforms you’re renting through. If you don’t own your home, you should also make sure to go over your rental agreement beforehand to make sure there aren’t any restrictions on renting out your property.
3. Become an Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketing is essentially a tool used by businesses and individuals to incentivize others to sell their products for them. The way it works is that you partner with a business or a brand and are given an affiliate code or link that’s specific to you. Then, if anyone makes a purchase of that product by going through your unique link, you get paid a commission on that sale.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to enter into the world of selling products online. The main caveat is that you’ll typically need to have some sort of established audience to sell products to, whether it be through your blog or through a social media account. But if you have access to an audience like this, you could end up being fairly successful using this method.
If you do have your own audience, make sure to pick products that align with their interests. So, for example, if you have a travel blog, make sure to look for products that make sense for this audience, like a travel bag or something of that nature. You should also consider the price point of the products you’re picking. Some products may be more expensive, meaning you may not make a huge volume of sales on them but the ones you do make will earn you more money. Some products work in the opposite way.
To find products to become an affiliate for, you can browse through sites like ClickBank which conveniently lists products from all sorts of niches that you could sell.
4. Create an Online Course
Remember those skills and areas of expertise we were talking about in the section on online tutoring? Well, those can be put to use in more ways than one. Instead of teaching people on an individual and real-time basis, you may be able to put together an online course that you can market over the web. These courses can be on things like cooking, writing, gardening, and everything in between. Again, much like tutoring, the list of things you can teach is a long one.
Putting together an online course isn’t necessarily a quick venture. You’ll need to put in some time and effort up front to build it, but once you do, this course can act as a form of passive income that helps you make extra money from home without continued effort.
Once you’ve created your course, you can upload it to a site like Teachable.com. Through this platform, you can post your materials, manage your customers, and take payments. You can also sell your course materials through your own blog or website if you have one.
5. Sell an Ebook
With the advent of ebooks, the process of writing a book can now be done entirely online. This includes the writing, publishing, and marketing stages. You can get your book uploaded onto Amazon, or you can even go through a site like CreateSpace and have a paperback version of your book printed without needing an established publisher.
To get this process started, you’ll need to go through the same steps as any author would. You’ll need to actually write your book, then design a cover or hire someone to do it for you. From there you can upload it to an ebook marketplace, sell your book on your own site if you have one, or make it available for people to sell it for you through a platform like ClickBank.
If you feel like you’re capable of writing a book that people would actually want to spend money on, this can be a great way to make extra money from home. There isn’t a huge fee to get started, and there’s a good chance you have some sort of word processing software already on your computer.
6. Market Your Photography
This is another one where a hobby or a particular area of interest can help you earn money from home. But this time, it’s specific to photography. When you’re flipping through the pages of a magazine or scrolling through an article on your favorite blog, you’ll often stumble on high production value images. Typically, these images are bought from online marketplaces like Shuttershock. These sites can provide a platform for you to sell the photos you take. They’ll generally offer you either a flat rate for each photo, or a percentage of each sale of any of the photos you’ve uploaded.
One reason this is a great way to make extra money from home is that a little can go a long way. If you post one photo that ends up becoming a popular purchase, this single photo can bring money in for an extended period of time without you having to do any additional work.
In order to get started, you’ll need to put together a portfolio and then upload your photos on several different platforms. Generally, the other details of the sales process will be taken care of by the platforms you’re uploading your photos to.
Consider These Ideas to Make Money from Home
Like we mentioned at the beginning, a little extra cash in your pocket wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but sometimes it can be more than just extra padding to your bank account. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, the difference that a few extra hundred dollars at the end of the month can make could be huge. This money could go towards building an emergency fund, paying your bills, or paying off any outstanding debt you may be carrying from installment loans or a line of credit.
Whatever you need the money for, with the methods we’ve listed here, you may be able to give your bank account a little boost and do this from the comfort of your own home!
