7 proven ways to start making money from home easily
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the proportion of U.S. workers who worked from home at least some of the time was about 25% in 2017 and 2018. In other words, roughly one in four employed Americans works out of a home office.
There’s more. Well over half enjoyed flexible scheduling that allowed them to stop and start work at their discretion. As competition for millennial talent heats up and advancing innovation enables remote work in an ever-widening collection of white-collar (nonproduction) jobs, employers are offering ever more flexible work arrangements that allow many employees to perform their duties from just about anywhere.
But you don’t have to work for a progressive employer to take advantage of the work-from-home trend. Whether your goal is to build a sustainable passive income stream or simply earn a few extra bucks to complement your part- or full-time income, all you need to work from home is a computer, a quiet space, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to follow these straightforward guidelines for working from home more efficiently.
Legitimate Work-From-Home Opportunities
The following are a variety of legitimate ways to earn extra income, get a second job, launch a full-time solo career, or start your own small business – all from the comfort of your own home. Some of these opportunities build upon hobbies that you might already pursue without economic gain; you’ll find many in this article from Top Trends Guide on income-producing pursuits. Just take care to avoid distressingly common work-from-home scams that can actually cost you money.
1. Blogging: Make money from your opinions and experience
Blogs aren’t just venues for bored people to share their thoughts about anything and everything. They can also be a legitimate source of income.
Your blogging journey begins with an idea. This is an early make-or-break decision for your blog – if it’s not entirely unique, your idea must at least be sharper and more compelling than your competitors’. You should know your blog’s subject matter cold – ideally from personal experience or formal training – and have no trouble writing fluently about it. Over time, you’ll tighten up your writing process and produce great content in less time, probably with help from these speed blogging tips.
Next come the nuts and bolts: choosing and buying a Web domain, hosting and designing your site, and planning content. While this is a lot of work to put in before publishing your first post, resist the temptation to cut corners. You’re laying the foundation, hopefully, for a long-term endeavor. Once you’ve created a quality site and built a following, there are plenty of ways to make money from your blog.
2. Virtual Tutoring: Let your knowledge work for you
Virtual tutoring is a more personal way to earn money by sharing your subject matter expertise. Unlike online courses, which are available to dozens or even hundreds of paying customers at a time, tutoring sessions are usually one-on-one affairs. However, you can have as many students as your schedule allows.
As with online teaching, to maximize your chances of success as an online tutor, stick to subjects you know well. Use a reputable and high-visibility venue, structure your sessions sensibly, price your services in line with the market, follow scheduling best practices, and promote yourself enthusiastically (or choose a platform that does so on your behalf).
The best places to find online tutoring jobs are platforms that focus specifically on tutoring, such as Education First, VIPKid, and Chegg. Both pay set hourly or per-session rates based on tutors’ chosen subjects – for instance, computer science tutors generally earn more than English tutors. Chegg starts tutors at $20 per hour and claims prolific tutors can earn upward of $1,000 per month. Before you sign up, make sure your computer meets your chosen platform’s system requirements – you’ll need a reasonably fast processor and real-time video-chatting capabilities. In most cases, you’ll also need to earn a TEFL certification which can be done through Premier TEFL.
3. Storage Space Leasing: Your extra space can earn money for you
Do you have an under-utilized garage, shed, basement, or attic? Are you willing to clean it up? Then you’re a good fit for Neighbour., a P2P platform that connects folks who need extra storage space with those who have it in spades (and aren’t using it themselves).
Neighbor.com advertises rental rates at 50% of the going rate for self-storage units, though you’ll earn a bit less than that after the platform takes its cut. Still, that’s quite a bit of passive income for doing basically nothing at all.
4. Freelance Writing: creative way to earn money
Countless Americans, from high school and college students to retirees, earn extra income from freelance writing. If you have a way with words, writing blog articles and Web copy is an easy and fun way to pad your full-time income.
If you aspire to become a freelance writer, follow these steps:
- Create a Home Office Space. First things first: You need a professional setup that helps, not hinders, your prospecting activities and writing work. If you don’t already have one, set up a home office – anything from a spare bedroom to a corner of your living room – with a comfortable chair, spacious desk, ample lighting, and physical storage space for papers. Buy a reliable laptop with a reputable word processing suite, like Microsoft Word, and video chat capabilities via Skype or a cloud-based phone system. Strongly consider investing in a printer. Upgrade to the fastest consumer Internet package your Internet service provider offers. Purchase a lightweight cloud accounting program such as Quickbooks or sign up for a free version. You’ll need it once you have more than a few clients. Note that many business-related expenses qualify for tax deductions.
- Start With Freelance Copywriting Platforms. When I first started working as a freelance writer, I was shocked to discover just how many freelance writing jobs were available for the taking. You can find work on dozens of reputable websites, from general-purpose freelance platforms like Upwork to writing-only portals such as Textbroker. These gigs don’t pay handsomely – starting writers earn little more than $0.01 per word on Textbroker, for instance. And the writing is often monotonous: lots of product descriptions, ad copy, press releases, and throwaway blog posts. But they’re great for getting your foot in the door, learning what editors expect from freelance writers, and becoming a better writer overall.
- Build a Portfolio. Unless you’re very lucky or a credentialed expert in a sought-after niche, such as law or accounting, your first freelance writing gigs probably won’t come with a byline. But that doesn’t mean you can’t add your early work to your writing portfolio with permission from your clients. The more pieces you produce, the more variety you’ll have to show clients down the line. As your portfolio grows, use a professional website or content marketing platform like Contently to present it publicly.
- Become a Query Machine. Once you’ve gained confidence on freelance copywriting platforms and built a modest portfolio, look for companies that actively advertise for writers – both traditional publications and companies with obvious content needs, such as PR firms. Do some research on crafting and personalizing query letters, which is an art form in itself. Then, start sending out queries to blogs, magazines, dailies, and other content-hungry organizations that fit your writing style and knowledge base. If you’re looking for byline work, each query should include a clear pitch for a single article or article series. For behind-the-scenes gigs, such as ghostwriting ad copy or press releases, condense and communicate your value proposition. Don’t sweat nonresponses. This is a numbers game, and more queries than not will be ignored.
- Be Consistent and Professional. Even if you’re just trying to earn a few extra bucks per week, approach your freelance writing gigs with the same consistency and professionalism you’d apply to a career-track position. Clients respect diligent, reliable writers who do what they say they’ll do, when they say they’ll do it, and regularly produce work that exceeds expectations. If you keep up your end of the bargain, clients should reward you with more work. As you get busier, you can safely leave the ones that don’t appreciate your efforts in the dust.
- Know What to Charge (and When to Charge More). Setting freelance writing rates is notoriously challenging. The value of your work depends on many factors, including your writing style and quality, your niche, your subject matter strengths and professional credentials, your research skills, your production speed, and your ability to work on deadline. As a rule of thumb, licensed professionals (such as lawyers, CPAs, and physicians) can charge more than nonexperts with above-average writing skills. But don’t assume your earning potential is static. As you gain skill and familiarity within your niche or with individual clients’ needs and your professional visibility improves, you’ll become more valuable to current and future clients.
- Protect Yourself With Enforceable Contracts. You don’t have to be a lawyer to draft an enforceable freelance contract. You just need to find a legitimate freelance contract template and modify it for your use. It’s fine to use a client-provided contract as long as you review it thoroughly, ask piercing questions if necessary, and seek an attorney’s advice when in doubt.
5. Pet Sitting: Animal Day Care in Your Home
Fun and rewarding as it can be, pet sitting is a business like any other. Successful pet sitters – those operating legit doggy day cares out of their homes – invest in local marketing, commercial insurance, formal accounting, organized recordkeeping, and perhaps even legal services (to manage contracts and reduce liability).
You can juggle all these obligations yourself, or you can outsource much of the heavy lifting to a pet sitting platform like Rover. Think of Rover as the Airbnb of pet sitting – a scalable platform that handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes work of running a profitable home-based enterprise without micromanaging your work. Rover claims its pet sitters earn up to $1,000 per month, though actual earnings vary by client volume and the amount of time you put into the business.
Fun and rewarding as it can be, pet sitting is a business like any other. Successful pet sitters – those operating legit doggy day cares out of their homes – invest in local marketing, commercial insurance, formal accounting, organized recordkeeping, and perhaps even legal services (to manage contracts and reduce liability).
You can juggle all these obligations yourself, or you can outsource much of the heavy lifting to a pet sitting platform like Rover. Think of Rover as the Airbnb of pet sitting – a scalable platform that handles a lot of the behind-the-scenes work of running a profitable home-based enterprise without micromanaging your work. Rover claims its pet sitters earn up to $1,000 per month, though actual earnings vary by client volume and the amount of time you put into the business.
6. E-books & Audiobooks: Earning beyond simple writing
Even the most diligent freelance writers get bored and disillusioned after a while. If you’re tired of writing Web content or blog posts on a contract basis, or you simply want to expand your horizons, consider tackling long-form projects that exercise your creative muscles and carry substantial passive income potential.
You can make money with audiobooks in a couple of different ways:
- Recording Your Work. If you’ve already written a book, you can leverage an entirely new revenue stream by turning it into an audiobook. It doesn’t have to be your voice on the recording. In fact, unless you have voice acting or radio experience, it’s better to hire a trained voice actor. Reputable platforms like ACX typically have low production costs and innovative royalty-sharing arrangements that maximize rights-holders’ (writers’) income potential. Check Publishers Weekly for a list of platform options.
- Recording Others’ Work. If you’re a trained voice actor or narrator, or you think you have what it takes to break into the niche, you can use ACX and other outlets to find audiobook recording jobs. You’ll need to audition for each role, but once you land a gig, you’ll earn money two ways: at an agreed per-hour rate for the actual job and a shared royalty arrangement with the rights-holder and others involved in the production. If you’re a union actor (SAG-AFTRA), you’re required to charge a minimum fee (variable, but above $200) per finished hour (roughly two studio hours). On a 10-hour audiobook, that’s a minimum payday of $2,000 before royalties.
Though seeing and hearing your name in print is a worthy accomplishment in and of itself, selling audiobooks probably won’t make you rich. In most cases, your royalty-sharing arrangement will amount to just a few dollars per download. A lot depends on the extent to which you promote your audiobook and how visible it is on platforms such as Audible and iTunes. If you’re lucky, a successful audiobook can generate a five-figure annual income stream. More obscure titles might earn just a few hundred bucks per year.
Even the most diligent freelance writers get bored and disillusioned after a while. If you’re tired of writing Web content or blog posts on a contract basis, or you simply want to expand your horizons, consider tackling long-form projects that exercise your creative muscles and carry substantial passive income potential.
You can make money with audiobooks in a couple of different ways:
- Recording Your Work. If you’ve already written a book, you can leverage an entirely new revenue stream by turning it into an audiobook. It doesn’t have to be your voice on the recording. In fact, unless you have voice acting or radio experience, it’s better to hire a trained voice actor. Reputable platforms like ACX typically have low production costs and innovative royalty-sharing arrangements that maximize rights-holders’ (writers’) income potential. Check Publishers Weekly for a list of platform options.
- Recording Others’ Work. If you’re a trained voice actor or narrator, or you think you have what it takes to break into the niche, you can use ACX and other outlets to find audiobook recording jobs. You’ll need to audition for each role, but once you land a gig, you’ll earn money two ways: at an agreed per-hour rate for the actual job and a shared royalty arrangement with the rights-holder and others involved in the production. If you’re a union actor (SAG-AFTRA), you’re required to charge a minimum fee (variable, but above $200) per finished hour (roughly two studio hours). On a 10-hour audiobook, that’s a minimum payday of $2,000 before royalties.
Though seeing and hearing your name in print is a worthy accomplishment in and of itself, selling audiobooks probably won’t make you rich. In most cases, your royalty-sharing arrangement will amount to just a few dollars per download. A lot depends on the extent to which you promote your audiobook and how visible it is on platforms such as Audible and iTunes. If you’re lucky, a successful audiobook can generate a five-figure annual income stream. More obscure titles might earn just a few hundred bucks per year.
7. Technical Support: Sell your technology knowledge
Do you like chatting with people? Do you have above-average technical or troubleshooting skills or the willingness to learn?
If so, you could make a good technical support rep. While many customer service and technical support reps still work in centralized call centers, at-home workers have plenty of opportunities.
At Home Advisors
One of the biggest and best-known at-home tech support employers is Apple, whose At Home Advisor program employs thousands of people at competitive, experience-based salaries. At Home Advisors are part- or full-time employees, not independent contractors, so there’s a measure of security here that’s often missing from work-at-home gigs. The benefits package, including Apple stock, is pretty nice too, and every At Home Advisor gets a free iMac.
The downside is that the hiring process is highly competitive, so you’ll likely need to demonstrate prior experience or make a great impression on the hiring manager. If you’re hired, you’ll need to complete a paid training course that lasts five to seven weeks. And you’ll need to spring for a legit home office, which Apple describes as “a quiet, distraction-free room with a door that can close to keep out ambient noise … a desk, an ergonomic chair, and your own high-speed Internet connection from a reliable provider that meets the minimum requirements of 5 megabits per second download and 1 megabit per second upload.”
Things to Remember
Before looking for at-home tech support jobs, keep a few things in mind:
- Spotting Scams. Lots of at-home voice work is legitimate, but there are plenty of scam artists too. Don’t invest any money upfront without thoroughly checking your prospective employer’s credentials. Start with the Better Business Bureau and cross-reference with first-person testimonials at watchdog sites such as Ripoff Report and career boards such as Indeed.
- Demands on Your Time and Personality. Tech support is a 24/7 business. You’ll likely have some freedom to set your schedule, but you’re virtually assured to have some work shifts that don’t jibe with your lifestyle. You’ll also likely be responsible for some holiday and weekend coverage, though how much varies by employer. Finally, you’ll need to be “on” and personable at all times. If you don’t think you’re capable of maintaining a sunny disposition as you near the end of an eight-hour shift, this might not be the job for you.
- Opportunities for Advancement. Entry-level tech support work usually pays between $10 and $20 per hour, though blue-chip employers like Apple can afford higher wages. If you’d like to do this work long-term, look for gigs that offer opportunities for advancement into the ranks of lower and middle management – preferably without an attendant shift to on-site employment.
https://www.moneycrashers.com/ways-make-money-from-home/
Before looking for at-home tech support jobs, keep a few things in mind:
- Spotting Scams. Lots of at-home voice work is legitimate, but there are plenty of scam artists too. Don’t invest any money upfront without thoroughly checking your prospective employer’s credentials. Start with the Better Business Bureau and cross-reference with first-person testimonials at watchdog sites such as Ripoff Report and career boards such as Indeed.
- Demands on Your Time and Personality. Tech support is a 24/7 business. You’ll likely have some freedom to set your schedule, but you’re virtually assured to have some work shifts that don’t jibe with your lifestyle. You’ll also likely be responsible for some holiday and weekend coverage, though how much varies by employer. Finally, you’ll need to be “on” and personable at all times. If you don’t think you’re capable of maintaining a sunny disposition as you near the end of an eight-hour shift, this might not be the job for you.
- Opportunities for Advancement. Entry-level tech support work usually pays between $10 and $20 per hour, though blue-chip employers like Apple can afford higher wages. If you’d like to do this work long-term, look for gigs that offer opportunities for advancement into the ranks of lower and middle management – preferably without an attendant shift to on-site employment.
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