So you want to make money from home, eh?
Whether you're a single mom, still in school, retired, or just want to live on your own terms, being able to work from home is an absolute blessing.
I should know... I've been working from home for over ten years. Long before COVID and the rise of remote jobs.
And it's the best decision I ever made.
Do you want to learn how to get paid from anywhere with an internet connection?
I mean real money - not those crappy $2 per hour weird jobs like survey sites or installing invasive tracking apps. If so, here are 15 ways to earn money from home!
Before You Start: What It Means to Make Money From Home
Making money from a remote job or, better yet, being your own boss and owning your own business, is amazing.
If done right, you have the potential for higher earnings and more freedom over your time and location.
In fact, eventually you can earn more money while working fewer hours, if you invest in yourself and your studies. Passive income is a reality for many.
However, owning your own business is NOT for everyone.
There is no legitimate way to "make money online fast". There's a growth curve everyone has to go through.
I'm giving you this warning because it can be difficult. You will probably have to work more hours for less pay, at least in the beginning, to get things up and running.
But it's worth it!
When I started my first business, I gladly worked countless hours without pay because I was determined to live life on my own terms.
I tried and failed several times before I found an online business that worked for me and I wanted to stick with. This is normal!
I experienced a lot of struggles, and you probably will as well. (You can learn more about my story on the Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast with JLD.)
Anyone can work from home. Teens, single parents, couples, elderly.
It doesn't matter who you are or what your background is. As long as you're willing to learn, practice, and get back up after you fail, you will succeed.
As the famous quote goes:
The road to success is paved with failures.
In order to succeed at something, you must first fail. Keep trying, keep failing, and success will follow. With that said, let's dive into the list!
1. Start a Blog
I list this option first because it's my absolute favorite way to make money online. You could make six- and even seven-figures from a blog, all while talking about things you love!
For example:
- My blog, The Wandering RV, earned six-figures for several years.
- Making Sense of Cents, a finance blog, earned over $1.5 million in 2018.
- A blog about yards (yes, yards), Own The Yard also earns five-figures per month.
My point is this: You can blog about almost anything and earn a respectable full time income.
Better yet, you can create many different income streams from blogging. For example, you can:
- Display ads from Google AdSense or an ad partner like Ezoic.
- Sell a physical product or infoproduct (such as an online course).
- Earn commissions from selling other people's products through affiliate marketing, such as Amazon's Affiliate Program.
- Generate leads to sell a service, such as freelance writing or consulting.
- Sell sponsored posts for advertisers to get in front of your audience.
Long story short, blogging is a great way to make a full time income from home and have complete control over your schedule and how much you earn. Better yet, you can use it to create a passive income if you learn about SEO.
Resources to Get Started:
2. Become a Freelancer
Another career path that can earn six- to seven-figures, freelancing is a great option to work from the comfort of your home while doing something you love and being your own boss.
What is a Freelancer, you ask?
A freelancer is someone who is available for hire to do a task, such as blog writing, coding, web design, or social media management. The work they do can be ongoing with their clients, or it can be a one-off task such as writing an ebook.
You can do SO many different kinds of freelance work.
Becoming a freelancer is as simple as deciding on the service you want to offer, then hunting down your first few clients. In fact, I started my career as a freelance writer and eventually turned into a freelance SEO consultant.
I got my start on UpWork. But there are tons of freelance sites out there now, including sites like Fiverr, FreeeUp, SolidGig, and many more. It's one of the best ways to make money online!
Resources to Get Started:
3. Find a Remote Job
If being your own boss and paying your own taxes doesn't sound like your cup of tea, finding a remote, work-from-home job can be a great alternative!
Plenty of companies, like Buffer and Rosetta Stone, offer remote work you can do from home. A lot of the tasks are similar to what you might do as a freelancer, such as writing, editing, posting to social media or sending out emails.
However, there are lots of other remote opportunities as well, such as customer support or making sales calls.
You can also try to convince your current employer to start letting you work from home, as suggested by Tim Ferris in his best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek.
Resources to Get Started:
4. Start a YouTube Channel
YouTubers have a massive earning potential. It's an excellent way to make money.
On the high end, some of the top YouTubers get paid millions. The top 10 YouTubers make between $14.5-22 million per year.
But even small YouTubers can make a living with the platform. If you manage to get to 20,000 views per month (difficult but not that hard), you can make $1,000+ per month.
YouTubers, like bloggers, have multiple ways to generate income. The most common method is through native ads where YouTube pays you directly.
However, you can also earn revenue with sponsored posts through direct partnerships with brands, affiliate marketing where you promote someone else's products and earn a commission on any purchases through your link, and by selling your own products or services.
Resources to Get Started:
5. Stream Video Games on Twitch
If you're a gamer like me, you've probably already heard of the streaming platform Twitch. Maybe you even thought about starting an account, or maybe you started one and it hasn't panned out for you.
Either way, I'm here to tell you: It's absolutely possible to make money playing video games at home full time.
I know because many gamers, including a few I know personally, are making anywhere from $10 to $100 a day or more. At the high end, major Twitch streamers are making millions.
Twitch streamers also have multiple revenue options, including ads, subscriptions or donations from viewers, and sponsorships. Many Twitch streamers I know will utilize both Twitch livestreaming as well as recording their livestreams and uploading them to YouTube for extra exposure (and extra cash)!
Resources to Get Started:
6. Fill Out Online Surveys
Only looking for some pocket change to grab a drink on the weekend? Or maybe you just want something that's easy and doesn't require much learning?
Taking online surveys is a possibility. Albeit not a great one.
While I find it extremely boring and tedious, it is possible to earn around $1,000 per year just by spending your extra time filling out surveys. Of course, this isn't anything to live on and I don't recommend doing it, but it's an option.
Keep in mind that many surveys will pay you in gift cards rather than cash. Gift cards aren't exactly something to live in, but you might be able to go out for dinner on your efforts. Some also pay via PayPal.
To be honest, I only included this section about taking surveys to earn money online to satisfy search engines. Sorry, y'all!
Resources to Get Started:
7. Create an Online Course
Online courses are blowing up in popularity. Skillshare, just one of the many online learning platforms, boasts over five million users alone.
I've personally purchased dozens of online courses and spent tens of thousands of dollars on them. The most I spent on one course was $5,000!
Aside from online course platforms, many people are also creating courses and hosting them on their own websites.
In fact, this method is the best way to maximize your earnings because you can charge a premium compared to the limits set by SkillShare and other platforms. This can be combined with other methods of making money online, like blogging, to get more out of your efforts.
You can teach a course about almost anything. From gardening to history, math to digital marketing, sewing to learning a new language. Hell, there are even courses on how to build your own lego structures or grill the perfect steak!
Chances are, if you have a hobby or knowledge of any kind, you can probably create and teach an online course about it. This is a great option for college students looking to learn more about their field, as well!
Resources to Get Started:
- How to Make Money With an Awesome Online Course
- Create Awesome Online Courses (An Online Course I Took and Recommend)
8. Become a Coach
I once paid a League of Legends coach to train me how to be better at the game. I've also paid a business coach to help me improve my business skills.
If you're good at something, consider doing online coaching as a service. You can coach video games, sports, fitness, nutrition, business, home organization... there are TONS of options.
The only hard part about coaching is finding clients. You can do that through some of the other mediums already mentioned, like blogging or YouTube. But there are also sites like Coach.me where you can offer your service.
Resources to Get Started:
9. Test Websites for a Living
If you have an eye for design and are keen on little details (like broken website links, typos, or site structure), you can make good money testing other people's websites and providing feedback!
The way it works is simple. You create an account on sites like User Testing, submit a sample test recording of yourself reviewing a website, then wait to see if you're accepted.
If you are, you'll be given websites to test and you have to record your voice for 10-20 minutes as you test everything on the site, then submit the recording.
It's entirely possible to make $20-$30 per hour or more with this method!
Resources to Get Started:
10. Become a Virtual Assistant
One way to make money online is doing administrative tasks for a business owner.
A virtual assistant (VA) is someone who assists with tasks like writing, editing or scheduling emails, creating social media posts or blog posts, market research, assisting with data entry, or even booking travel plans.
They're basically a virtual executive assistant. Think of them like a business owner's right hand; they take care of the things the owner doesn't need to be involved in doing to help free up their time to do the things only they can do.
I have hired several virtual assistants over the years and they have been absolute life-savers for me! (In fact, if you think you have what it takes, reach out to me - I'm always looking for talented people to help grow my business!)
If you're looking for a way to earn extra money online, consider becoming a VA. Some VAs can charge up to $50 per hour!
Resources to Get Started:
11. Online Tutoring
If you have a passion for teaching people, private online tutoring might be for you! In fact, I know several former school teachers who moved to the world of online tutoring in order to make more money while simultaneously making better use of their teaching talents that they simply couldn't do as a regular teacher.
Heck, you could even tutor on the side to earn an extra $1,000 per month without much added work! They can earn more than $50 per hour.
The cool thing about tutoring is that you don't need a degree or certifications to do it, although they do help. You can either work as a freelance tutor for hire or you can be employed by a company.
The former requires fewer certifications and gives you more flexibility and earning potential, but also requires more time spent finding clients. The latter of course requires more sophisticated certificates and even college degrees, but you don't need to worry about where your next client is, booking the sessions, or paying your own taxes.
Use a platform like Tutor.com to find online jobs and tutor in your spare time.
Resources to Get Started:
12. Data Entry
If the idea of collecting and organizing data into spreadsheets doing lots of copy-paste work sounds interesting to you, data entry may be your thing!
While a virtual assistant can do data entry, they're typically hired to do a lot more than just that. Data entry specialists do nothing but data entry in spreadsheets.
Typically, data entry is a low-paying job because it doesn't require any specialized knowledge, just a lot of grunt work. However, since it doesn't require any specialized knowledge, it means anyone can do it!
I'll be honest - I hate data entry. I find it mind-numbingly boring. But there are people out there who enjoy it or at least find it tolerable, and I'm extremely grateful for those people! They are desperately needed in the business world.
Which means it's a good way to make money online!
Resources to Get Started:
13. Pet Sitting
Are you an animal lover? If so, you can create a side income by looking after other people's pets - right from the comfort of your own home!
There are many ways to get started taking in people's pets during their vacation, including job marketplaces like Rover, placing flyers at your local coffee shops and restaurants, and telling friends and family to grow through word of mouth.
If you're going to do this method, however, make sure you really love watching over and taking care of animals! Animals, like humans, have many different personality types and needs. Some need more attention, some need special types of food or medications at certain times, some need daily brushing and grooming, and some need more exercise than others.
For example, Australian Shepherds are an extremely high-energy breed that needs daily exercise, even multiple times a day. So you'll need to be comfortable taking the dogs for walks, playing catch, and being outside with them in general!
Resources to Get Started:
14. Open an Online Store
One of my first-ever businesses was an online Shopify store, where I dropshipped products from China straight to my customers.
In case you didn't know, dropshipping means that when a customer buys something from your store, you place an order with your supplier and that supplier sends the products directly to your customer.
This means you don't need to handle any inventory or shipping!
Of course, you can also buy inventory directly and ship it out yourself. But that is a lot more involved than dropshipping, as it requires you to forecast demand, potentially running out of or buying too much supply to meet your customer's needs.
Let me say that I had no experience selling things online before I started. You don't need to know everything before you try this. Like most things, you start where you are and learn as you go. Don't let a lack of experience stop you from working from home and being your own boss!
Resources to Get Started:
15. Sell Things on Etsy, eBay or Amazon
When it comes to selling things online, you have two options:
- Selling your used goods around the house for a one-time profit.
- Working with a supplier to create a legitimate online store for recurring revenue.
Obviously, option 1 is a great way to make a quick buck while simultaneously getting rid of some of the clutter around your house. Ebay is a great way to do that.
But if you want to build an online business that continues to provide you with an income and truly allows you to work from home, you'll need to work with a supplier (or create your own products at home, like people often do with Etsy).
This is different from opening an online store. Etsy gives you the ability to create unique products at home, customize them to your customers needs, then sell and ship them yourself.
Kayla and I started an Etsy store once selling wooden plank with melted down beer bottles and engraved sayings on them that the customers could choose when they purchased. So if you're the creative type, this might be the route for you!
Just make sure you do some research on the item(s) you plan on selling before you start - you might find that there is too much competition or too little demand for that type of item.
Resources to Get Started:
Bonus: How AI Will Affect Remote Work
As I'm sure you're aware by now, AI is taking over everywhere. ChatGPT is making it easier than ever to create long-form (albeit mediocre) content.
But it's not just content creation that AI is affecting.
Some fast food restaurants now have AI operators taking your order at the drive-thru. AI is popping up in virtually every software and will soon be in robots, factories, and pretty much everywhere else you look.
Is this scary? Maybe. But this is good news if you want to get ahead of the competition and carve out your own niche to make money online!
Those who adopt and learn about AI will be the ones making the most money. Those who don't will likely be left behind.
Here are resources to learn more about AI and how it will impact the job market:
- The Neuron (An AI Newsletter)
- How AI may affect the job market
Over to You!
Are you going to start your own online business or convince your boss to let you work from home? Know of another way to make extra money from home that isn't on this list, like becoming a social media expert? Let me know in the comments below!
Whether you want to work remotely part time or full time, whether you want a little extra cash or a full-blown passive income, there's a way to earn cash online.
And if you aren't already, consider subscribing to my newsletter below. I share practical advice on how to make money online, grow your business, and improve your marketing skills.
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