This blog post was originally published on The Money Mix and was written for syndication to multiple websites. This is a guest post by Todd Kunsman on The Money Mix.
Now, bare with me for this post. You might read “easy ways to make money from home” and let out a huge sigh at first. I’m with you!
Why?
Most blog posts that talk about easy ways to make money from home, neglect to tell you that many times it’s actually not that easy.
There are some glamorous numbers or claims of the little time it took to make XYZ, but they usually leave out details of why it worked so well for them (if it did). That’s not this post.
And you’ve all seen these keywords usually sprinkled in the title for those articles too:
- Genius
- Legit
- Fast
But 9/10 times, the recommendations are not very clever ways, the info borders being legit (usually just affiliates for the writer), and most do not happen fast.
If these things were all incredibly true, everyone would be rolling on cash in their homes.
Yes, the majority of these options below are pretty easy and can be done from home. But, you’re going to get realistic expectations with each too.
What You What Won’t Find In This List
As I mentioned in the intro, I want to set clear expectations. So before we jump to the list I wanted to share a few quick examples of what is not going to be in this article.
- Make money through surveys: yes you can make a few dollars, but everyone knows these exist and they still feel pretty scammy to me. I also don’t think they are worth your time trying to scrap a few dollars from time to time. It’s easy to do, but just feels disingenuous to mention here. If you are interested, you are more than welcome to try some surveys.
- Creating a blog: I love blogging and it is something you can do from home. But, it is far from easy when it comes to making money. It takes months of consistency, strategy, and determination to make a profit. The work can get easier over time and money can be great, but it won’t happen overnight. If you want to learn about building a WordPress blog that makes money, you can read this in-depth guide.
- Building an online course: selling courses, whether, through your website, blog, or via some of the well-known course sites has potential. But like blogging, is not as easy as those people who write about it make it sound. (Plus, they usually are hocking their own course for you to buy at the same time).
- Cashback apps: look these aren’t bad at all to use to get some cash back on purchases, but why is this included in so many ways to make money at home articles? Oh yeah, tons of affiliates in this category! Not knocking the affiliate marketing game, as I do it too. But hoarding every affiliate in these articles is not adding value to you in my opinion.
Additionally, how I define “easy” on these might be different for you. In the big picture, making money and the ease of getting started is totally there, but everyone operates differently. So certainly keep that in mind.
I think it’s important to note that these are not “get-rich-quick” options or ideas that you’ll make a full-time income from either.
Can you make money pretty fast? Yup! Could you potentially make full-time income from them? Certainly. It’s up to you the level of effort and work you want to put in.
But these are more about ways to make extra money to help your financial goals, pay off some bills or debt, use towards investments, or add to your rainy day fund.
Ready to start making some extra cash from the comfort of your home? Dive in with me below!
Freelance or Consulting
If you have expertise in something specific or a unique skill, there are plenty of freelance and consulting opportunities for you. Most of these you can work from home too!
Since you already have the know-how, the work can be a breeze and can pay well.
I got into freelance marketing a few years back and was charging $25/hour. Then as I got better and more skilled, I charged up to $50/hour.
And you never know, this could lead to a future full-time job where you work for yourself. Many people are full-time freelancers or consultants.
Some of the best way to find work is through networking, LinkedIn, freelance job boards, or reach out to local companies and pitch your services.
Selling items online (eBay, Amazon, Etsy)
Selling stuff on eBay or Amazon has become a pretty lucrative gig, but also crowded.
Yet, even with tons of people selling things, you can still make easy money from home.
I know a few people who are doing this full-time and others who just sell things whenever they have time. But, if you are looking to make some extra cash, selling on one of these platforms is pretty simple.
You can sell things from your home you no longer need, can buy stuff from garage sales and flip them, etc. It takes a few minutes to take some pictures, write a good description, list your item, and send it via mail once someone purchases.
It also may take some time to build traction at first, but if you are looking to make some easy money from your stuff, this is a potential way to go. Get a deeper dive with selling on eBay here.
If you are crafty or artsy, you can also sell your work on Etsy. Again, something you can do right from home. You build your own Etsy page and begin selling your artwork, photography, or crafts.
Bonus
There are two other ways to make money with eBay and Amazon, but it can take a bit more work and is not as easy as listing or flipping items.
You can create a dropshipping business or build an Amazon FBA business. Both can be done from home and the potential income is high, but there is a lot of competition and learning involved.
Virtual Assistant
Many entrepreneurs and small businesses do not always have the money it takes to hire a full-time employee. And not all have full-time work to be done, but do need help to get tasks done.
This is where the demand for virtual assistants (or VA) comes in and is a solid way for you to make easy money from home. You can work anywhere in the world with an internet connection and generally, your tasks won’t be very difficult.
Being a virtual assistant is great if you have a family, you’re in college or taking classes and want to make some money, or you just want to make some extra cash.
As a virtual assistant, you’ll handle all kinds of random projects. This could be things like travel arrangements, event planning, random administrative tasks, and other support services that can be done via e-mail and phone.
What you make as a VA also depends, but according to ZipRecruiter the average is around $19/hour. But, can be lower or higher. Not bad cash for some basic tasks.
Data Entry
Data entry jobs could also be with the freelance section but felt it could be its own section. This is probably the easiest ways to make money from home.
It also can be the most tedious as you are just entering data, cleaning up spreadsheets, etc. It’s not sexy. But it’s a simple way to make some extra cash from the comforts of home.
I will warn that this area does have people scamming others. Do not pay for anything if you find a data entry job requires it as that is a scam.
You know the saying, if it is too good to be true, then it’s probably a scam. You won’t make huge sums of money, so if a job offers that big number, be very skeptical.
The above isn’t to scare you off from doing data entry as there are legit jobs in this area. Many people and businesses don’t want to get bogged down with data entry tasks so they look to others for help.
You can find work in places like Upwork, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Fiverr, and more. The Balance has a good list of data entry job websites to check out as well.
Airbnb
Hosting and list your place, extra room, or whatever cool living area you may have was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to list. But the more I thought about it and the potential, I think it is worth mentioning.
Have an extra room in the house? Try renting it out on Airbnb.com. According to SmartAsset, you can pay up to 81% of your rent by listing one room in a two-bedroom home.
Of course, if you own more than one property, going away for awhile on vacation or business, or have some cool extra space, renting out on Airbnb can be pretty lucrative and easy. Getting started on Airbnb is pretty is and listing everything takes a few minutes.
Back to the SmartAsset article, they also mentioned according to their findings, people average making $20,619 in annual profit. That’s the average expected from renting out a full two-bedroom apartment or house in the 15 cities that SmartAsset examined.
Pending where you live and properties you have, expect anywhere from $10,000-$30,000 per year.
Online Tutor
Have a college degree and knowledge in a particular field? Then one easy way to make money from home is to become an online tutor! Of course, you have to also like teaching others, good internet, and to be comfortable being on video.
Many of the common areas for online tutoring would be math, science, English, or even another language. But this is also expanding as the internet grows.
For example, I work in digital marketing and there are many opportunities to teach my knowledge as well. This is something I’m personally looking into soon.
The pay per hour can vary too, but from what I’ve seen the average is around $14-$16, but can go much higher. Here are some online tutor jobs sites and information on getting started.
Extra Easy Ways To Make Money From Home
The above are ways you’ll have to work in order to make money. Not that they are necessarily hard work, but for most of those you won’t just be able to sit on idle mode and collect cash.
But this is why I separated these other two ways below. Because there is really no work involved at all. You can generate income from home and you don’t have to do much.
Put money in a high yield savings account
For most traditional banks or credit unions, annual percentage yield (APY) is typically quite low. Maybe around 1% or if you are like my bank, it’s a fractional percentage. Yikes!
But there has been an explosion of online banks that yield anywhere from 1.5% – 2.6%! Many offer additional benefits and services that you can use to your advantage. But if you are building your emergency fund and want to get a return on your money by doing nothing, an online bank might be the way to go.
Here are a few of the popular ones:
Other financial companies are getting into the game to like Wealthfront and Personal Capital.
Invest money in your 401k/IRA
Besides putting money in a high-yield savings account, investing money in your 401k or IRA is also another relatively easy way to make money from home.
As you consistently invest for your future, you’ll get returns from employer match (if you have a 401k and company contributes), dividends, and capital gains for example.
You do need to pick low-cost funds and stick to investing for you to reap the benefits, but there is really no work involved. Occasionally you may want to rebalance your assets or make some minor tweaks, but other than that let the money roll in and compound.
Final Thoughts On How To Make Money From Home
If you’ve made it this far, then well done! There was a lot of information above about some easy ways to make money from home.
Many of these can generate more than $1,000 a month and others may be under that. It will depend on your work ethic and how much time you’d like to put into any of the above.
Hopefully, some of these money-making ways will resonate with you and you can stash your pockets with some extra cash from the comforts of your living room.
This post originally appeared on The Money Mix and is republished here with permission.
