Money / Side Gigs

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Making money without leaving your house has always been appealing, and as the world continues to change, there are more options now than ever. These options can mean appealing to specific talents and skills you already have, while others can be achieved by just about anyone who might be interested in taking on the task. 

To help navigate the increasingly diverse world of remote work, freelance income, and the gig economy, GOBankingRates talked to a number of experts about what type of income to look for, and where to start looking for it. Here’s what they had to say.

See: These Are the 10 Fastest-Growing Jobs Right Now
Find: Technology Dominates 50 Best Jobs for 2022, According to New Analysis

Recycle Old Electronics

There’s nothing like working from home while helping clean it out in the process. Especially if you’ve got a stash of unused electronics collecting dust. “Making money from home doesn’t have to take up all your time and can be simple and straightforward, plus you’re helping the environment,” Stewart McGrenary, managing director at Freedom Mobile said. 

“While the average person only uses recycling sites to sell their own devices for a bit of cash, this can also be pursued as a lucrative side hustle,” McGrenary added. “There are many companies that will buy old phones, iPads, and other outdated electronic devices. You can make a decent income out of acquiring unwanted stuff from people and selling them this way.”

See: The 26 Highest-Paying Jobs That Let You Work From Home

Sell Your Used Items

Electronics aren’t the only thing that can help bring in cash while you’re at home. Piggybank.ca Marketing Strategist Bonny Albo recommended selling gently-used items on  “websites like VarageSale, thredUP, Poshmark and Kijiji are all great bets. The added bonus here is that “you can have cash in hand later today.”

Take Surveys

For anyone who’s already prone to hanging around at home with their phone or laptop, online surveys can be a lucrative money-maker. “It might sound like a scam, but Swagbucks is a legitimate company with legitimate payouts,” Albo explained. She even cited her own weekly earnings “doing things like answering questions about my PPE equipment and playing games like CandyCrush.”

More Tips: 5 Careers To Pursue To Become Rich Faster

Test New Products

Similar to taking surveys, companies are always on the lookout for consumer input on their new products. And, as Oak View Law Principak Attorney Lyle Soloman pointed out, these new inventions “are usually subjected to numerous rounds of testing,” which could translate to a payday for you. “These stages of testing ensure that every bug is discovered before the product reaches paying customers. Most of the time, brands will offer you to try out new products. Toluna, Nielsen, Vindale Research and Pinecone Research are just a few platforms that might assist you in finding goods to test for extra cash.”

Proofread and Transcribe

For all the grammar enthusiasts out there, there are plenty of transcription and proofreading jobs out that have been outsourced to freelance platforms. Solomon recommended setting up an account on one of these platforms — like Upwork — and start looking for side jobs that best suit your skill set. “Set your ideal hourly wage and take on assignments as needed,” he said.

Good Question: Should You Be Looking To Make a Career Change in 2022?

Monetize Your Hobbies

Any number of hobbies can be turned into some cash on the side. Depending on what you do to pass the time, Albo recommended “sites like Etsy and SoundCloud,” which “offer many opportunities for budding knitters, musicians, photographers and gardeners to make some quick cash online.”

Dog-Walking

While this one technically involves leaving your house, if you’re an animal lover, dog-walking can be a lucrative source of income. Albo called it “a surprisingly lucrative business” that’s easy to get going. “Start with Rover or MindMyHouse, or take out ads on local classifieds sites like Craigslist, and you’ll have cash-in-hand faster than you can bark at it.”

Also: How To Start Upgrading Your Career in a Week

Coding

As technology continues to play a bigger and part of everyday life, there will always be a need for people to help build and maintain the systems that keep things running. “Knowing how to code and build websites is a skill that allows you to work from home at your own pace and on your own schedule,” said Julia Taylor, founder of GeekPack. “It’s not unusual for new coders to make double their salary in the 9-to-5 world in their first month of coding. And while it’s a highly in-demand skill, it’s not difficult to learn, akin to learning a second language, as that’s really what code is like.”

Virtual Assistant 

For those who want to build on their coding skills, virtual assistants are another in-demand profession. “The market is hot for virtual assistants who can build automations for clients, segment email lists and create integrations that every business owner dreams of so they can automate their business to save time and money,” said The OBM Office LLC owner LaToya Russell. “Being an automation specialist gives you the freedom to charge a premium rate as a VA while being able to work from home during the hours you want.”

See: 22 Side Gigs That Can Make You Richer Than a Full-Time Job

Data Entry

Working from home on a computer doesn’t have to involve coding, of course. As Solomon explained, “many businesses require assistance with importing files into databases.” And, like transcription and proofreading, a lot of that outsourced work can be done remotely. “A medical practice, for example, may not have the opportunity to place client papers into the database daily. You may get paid per hour to input data to web platforms in your spare time to assist out.”

More From GOBankingRates

Your new clothing store isn't going to start itself. It's time to take the first step.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, millions of office-based Americans abruptly transitioned to full-time work-from-home arrangements, ostensibly on a temporary basis.

But according to a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, more than half of those who began working from home during the pandemic actually prefer remote employment. More than three-quarters have adequate workspaces and at-home business technology, according to Pew, and more than half enjoy flexible scheduling that allows them to stop and start work at their discretion.

Even before the pandemic, employers were offering ever more flexible work arrangements in a bid to attract younger workers who prefer the freedom to perform their duties from just about anywhere. COVID-19 pushed remote employment into the mainstream, hard. But these days, you don’t even have to have a traditional 9-to-5 job 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 tips for working from home more efficiently.

Legitimate Work-From-Home Opportunities (How to Make Money Working from Home)

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. Just take care to avoid distressingly common work-from-home scams that can actually cost you money.

1. Financial Empowerment Apps: Find New Income Streams

Whether you already have an at-home side hustle (or full-fledged business) or you’re still exploring ways to earn more on your own time, you need Steady — a financial empowerment app that connects you with opportunities to increase and diversity your income.

Steady Members earn more than $5,000 extra each year, according to the app, and Steady has already paid more than $10 million in cash incentives. It’s helped Members earn at least $4 million in emergency cash assistance too.

Steady’s income opportunities are flexible and personalized. After answering a few questions about yourself and completing your personal profile, you’ll receive a regular stream of customized income recommendations and insights from the growing Steady Member community.

Plus, Steady partners with reputable third parties that offer real cash incentives — Income Boosters — when you make smarter financial decisions. And you can keep tabs on how much other Steady members earn in your area — and how much local employers pay too — with detailed community-driven data.

According to Steady, users earn over $5,000 more each year, on average, with the Steady app. That’s serious money. And Steady has paid out over $10 million in cash incentives while facilitating another $4 million in emergency cash assistance (and counting).

2. Online Surveys and Focus Groups: Sell Your Opinions

Your opinions are more valuable than you might think. Countless companies pay handsome sums to learn more about their target audiences’ motivations and preferences.

Online Surveys

You can take online surveys in the comfort of your home whenever you please: during working hours, over lunch or dinner, when you have a free moment in the evening, or in the sleepless wee hours.

Time Investment

Although your answers must be honest and make sense, you don’t need to devote your full attention to online surveys. That’s no doubt music to multitaskers’ ears. And you can invest as much or as little time as you like. Individual surveys can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to 20 or 30 minutes to complete, and you can do as many or as few as you want in one sitting.

Earning Potential

Online surveys will help you make money online, but they won’t make you rich. If you sign up with multiple survey companies and diligently complete your allotted tasks, you can earn a bit more than minimum wage — perhaps $10 an hour. But that’s nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you’re able to accomplish other tasks while you’re logged into your survey accounts.

Reputable Online Survey Options

The online survey landscape is pretty crowded. These are among the most reputable and potentially lucrative opportunities for U.S.-based consumers:

• Branded Surveys. Branded Surveys specializes in consumer surveys from major brands — names you probably encounter in your day-to-day anyway. Its surveys are easy to complete in your spare time, and compensation is fair, delivered via cash and gift cards. With over 2 million existing members, they’ve paid out more than $17 million since 2012. Plus, they have a 4.5 Trustpilot score with 40,000+ reviews.
• Survey Junkie.Survey Junkie is a popular online survey site with lots of survey-taking opportunities. You’ll earn points for each successfully completed survey and can cash out your account balance once it reaches 1,000 points ($10). Learn more about Survey Junkie in our Survey Junkie review.
• American Consumer Opinion.American Consumer Opinion sends users one screening survey per month and roughly one full-length survey per quarter. Screening surveys pay less than full-length surveys — no more than $0.50 apiece. Full-length surveys can pay up to $50 apiece.
• Opinion Outpost. Compared with American Consumer Opinion, there are generally more opportunities onOpinion Outpost. However, the overall earning rate is lower.
• Swagbucks.Swagbucks offers multiple opportunities to earn extra income online, including paid surveys. Narrowly targeted, time-intensive surveys can pay pretty well, but some of the more basic opportunities — which take only a minute or two to complete — pay next to nothing. Learn more about Swagbucks in our Swagbucks review.

Other opportunities abound, but be sure to do your due diligence before signing up. Be wary of companies that require you to pay to join their panels.

Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups are closely related to online surveys, and in some cases, the same companies administer them.

Like in-person focus groups, online focus groups require more time and concentration than online surveys. Configurations vary, but you generally have to join a panel and engage on a certain number of issues per week or month. Online focus groups are often more selective than online surveys — if you don’t meet specific demographic or income criteria, you may not qualify.

The upshot: The pay is much better, as are the opportunities for prizes and free stuff. With effort, you can earn $500 and possibly more per month in cash or in-kind awards.

3. Blogging: Sell Your Insights

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 for aspiring bloggers keen to make money online.

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.

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.

Pro tip: Aspiring bloggers can purchase hosting throughBluehost for less than $5 per month and receive a free domain for the first year.

4. Virtual Tutoring: Sell Your Expertise

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 asEducation First, 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, if you’re teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) online, you’ll also need to earn a TEFL certification; we recommendPremier TEFL.

Do you have an underutilized garage, shed, basement, or attic? Are you willing to clean it up? Then you’re a good fit forNeighbor.com, a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform that connects folks who need extra storage space with those who have it in spades and aren’t using it.

Neighbor.com advertises rental rates at 50% of the going rate for self-storage units, although 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.

6. P2P Lending: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 1)

The sharing economy has created new opportunities for regular people to put their excess capital to work. Two opportunities are worth calling out here:

• Real Estate Crowdfunding. Real estate crowdfunding websites likeGroundfloor allow everyday investors to lend money for real estate projects. Loans return anywhere from 5% to 25%, depending on their risk level. If you’re looking for other ways to invest indirectly in real estate consider a platform like Crowdstreet.
• P2P Lending. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms such as Prosper are reputable outlets for nonaccredited individuals seeking above-average returns on investment — anywhere from 4% to more than 10% annually, after accounting for nonperforming loans and the platforms’ service charges.

A word of warning: Unlike high-yield savings accounts and CDs, P2P loans and real estate crowdfunding opportunities are not FDIC-insured or SIPC-protected. That means they present the very real risk of loss of principal. Don’t lend any funds you can’t afford to lose, and thoroughly read platforms’ prospectuses and disclaimers before participating.

7. Investing: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 2)

Although certain types of securities accounts are SIPC-protected, investing in stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) isn’t without risk. While you should never invest money that you can’t afford to lose, putting your excess capital to work in the market is a great way to beat persistently low savings account interest rates.

Tilt the odds in your favor by consuming as much proprietary research and analytics as you can manage. If you’re not sure where to start, Seeking Alpha is a great resource for beginners and pros alike.

When you’re ready, get started by checking out our roundup of the best brokerage account promotions — Robinhood’s free stock offer is particularly compelling right now.

8. Downsize and Declutter: Sell Your Unwanted Stuff

Before you roll up your sleeves and monetize your personal or professional skills, why not earn some money by cleaning up your space? Selling your unwanted stuff is a great way to downsize and declutter your life while earning some income on the side.

If you’re transitioning to full-time work-at-home status, that income and newfound space could help you create a proper home office or allow you to maintain your lifestyle during lean times.

When it comes to at-home income, selling your unwanted stuff is the definition of low-hanging fruit. Even if you’re intentional in your purchasing habits, you likely have possessions you can do without.

Examples include old kids’ clothing and toys, sporting goods you no longer use, out-of-fashion wardrobe accessories, electronics, watches and jewelry, old furniture, dusty tools and outdoor equipment, and perhaps even big-ticket items like a motorcycle or second car.

There are several ways you can sell your unwanted stuff.

Most prolific sellers rely on digital marketplaces. The most popular online platforms for professional and semi-professional sellers are eBay and Amazon. Both offer an array of tools and capabilities for merchants, though you do have to pay for them — commissions come in at around 10% of the sales price on eBay and between about 6% and 20% of the sales price on Amazon.

Craigslist is a better (and cheaper) fit for occasional sellers, while marketplaces like SellCell,Gazelle, Decluttr, and MaxBack are strong choices for high-margin electronics sellers.

If you prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, you can always sell whatever you can’t or don’t want to offload online from your driveway instead. Follow these tips for a successful garage sale.

9. Freelance Writing: Sell Your Words

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.

Getting your foot in the door as a freelance writer is difficult but doable. Freelance writing jobs abound at the lower end of the pay scale, both on general-purpose freelance platforms like Upwork and writing-only portals such as Textbroker.

While the writing opportunities on these platforms are often monotonous (lots of product descriptions, ad copy, and press releases) and doesn’t pay well at all, it’ll help you learn what editors expect from freelance writers and sharpen your writing skills in the process.

As you gain experience (and confidence) in the freelance writing trenches, stretch out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to ratchet up your freelance writing rates, draft freelance contracts to protect yourself from unscrupulous clients, and send queries to the sorts of publications where you’d be proud to see your byline.

Rejection is a fact of the freelance writing game, no matter how talented you are — but if you’re persistent, you’ll hear “yes” more often than you expect.

10. Freelance Editing and Proofreading: Sell Your Grammatical Skills

Freelance editing and proofreading naturally follow from freelance writing. Although not every writer is a born editor or proofreader, the skills often go hand in hand.

Freelance Editing

Once you’ve worked with a few different editors, you’ll likely get a sense of the skills and duties required for the job. Then, it’s just a matter of finding the right editing gigs.

As a new editor, start small. Look for part-time or project-based copy editing jobs. If possible, leverage existing freelance writing arrangements. For instance, if you know one of your freelance clients uses contract editors to clean up writers’ work, approach them about taking on those responsibilities directly.

Once you’ve outgrown your existing client base, look to online job boards such as Upwork, as well as media-specific platforms such as Mediabistro. Common types of online editing jobs include:

• Copy Editor. Copy editors ensure written copy is polished before their bosses hit “publish” and often serve as the main point of contact with contributing writers. Although it’s not exceptionally well-paid, copy editing is often a springboard to more lucrative editing or production opportunities.
• Assistant Editor. Assistant editors supervise copy editors, photo editors, writers, and other support staff involved in producing digital publications. Larger blogs and online-print hybrids generally have at least one assistant editor on staff. These gigs can be part- or full-time. They’re typically intermediate between copy editing and managing editing jobs.
• Managing Editor. Managing editors supervise and direct editorial teams, including lower-level editors. These jobs are harder to come by and require more of your time, but temporary arrangements look great on your resume. If you lack much formal editing experience, start with smaller blogs and niche publications with modest budgets and limited content needs. Some publications don’t have enough work for a full-time editor, making it feasible to string together a handful of part-time editing gigs or try out a single position to see how it suits you.
• Photo Editor/Web Editor. Photo and Web editors create or edit visuals that appear on websites and other digital media, such as white papers and corporate reports. This line of work is a great way to exercise your visual skills and become more familiar with layout and editing programs such as WordPress and Photoshop. These gigs often require basic to intermediate coding skills, so they’re great for freelancers who want to expand their expertise beyond the written word.
• Manuscript Editor. Looking for a longer-term engagement? The self-publishing boom has created an unprecedented demand for manuscript editors — specialists who help writers organize and sharpen book-length works before publication. Depending on your clients’ budgets, manuscript editing can be lucrative, although it’ll likely take time to build your reputation to the point that you’re working with accomplished writers. Entry-level opportunities abound on reputable freelance platforms and with niche publishing houses.

The prerequisites and best practices that make freelance editors successful are broadly similar to those freelance writers need. A suitable home office is important, as is aggressive networking, a strong work ethic, a clear understanding of your value, and a hunger for self-improvement.

Freelance Proofreading

Freelance proofreaders draw on the same skills and competencies as freelance writers and editors, but their career paths are distinct.

The best way for someone new to the freelance proofreading game to get started (even with prior writing or editing experience) is to invest in a proofreading course to establish credibility with potential employers.Proofread Anywhere is a great example. With free introductory modules, there’s no obligation if you decide the gig isn’t for you.

Although the niche is surprisingly varied, proofreading jobs generally fall into two broad categories: general proofreading and technical proofreading. The former covers nontechnical, relatively unspecialized media like blogs and books. The latter covers transcripts and other technical materials; court reporters, for instance, are seasoned technical proofreaders.

Which you choose depends on your innate strengths as a proofreader and what you’re hoping to get out of the job. Technical proofreading is harder to break into but typically pays better; general proofreading is more competitive but easier to launch.

11. Pet Sitting: Start a Doggy 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 likeRover. Think of Rover as the Airbnb of pet sitting — a 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, although actual earnings vary by client volume and the amount of time you put into the business.

12. Remote Accounting: Launch a Virtual Bookkeeping Business

If you prefer clients who won’t shed all over your house and you have an affinity for spreadsheets, a virtual bookkeeping business could be just what you need to earn a stable income without leaving the house.

Because bookkeeping is a competitive industry that rewards skilled professionals with solid reputations, the surest way to break into the business is to invest in a credentialing course.

For instance,Bookkeepers offers three different tracks (“communities”) for bookkeepers at various stages of learning the trade and building their businesses. Learn the ropes with Bookkeeper Launch, then progress to Bookkeeper Lab and Bookkeeper Elite — if you have what it takes.

13. Retail Arbitrage: Learn How to Buy Low and Sell High

“Buy low, sell high” is an expression more commonly heard in the noisy bullpen of an investment bank or brokerage house than the relative quiet of one’s home office. But there’s one type of arbitrage — the art of selling assets for more than you paid without adding value — that’s perfect for at-home workers.

That would be retail arbitrage, one of the top careers for self-employed introverts.

Practitioners of retail arbitrage buy products for pennies on the dollar at auctions, from online retailers, even at garage and yard sales, and then sell them online at sometimes-substantial markups. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is the most popular platform for U.S. sellers, but other options work too. Learn the FBA ropes with this low-cost Udemy course.

14. E-books and Audiobooks: Take Your Writing (or Acting) Career to the Next Level

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.

Although 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.

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.

15. Political Advocacy: Sell Your Passion for the Issues

Maybe you’re committed to making the world a better place. Maybe you just love a good argument. Either way, you can work as a political organizer and advocate from the comfort of your home.

Advocacy organizations such as DDC Public Affairs recruit and pay outgoing, communications-savvy team members to raise support around political issues championed by their clients — private companies, nonprofits, trade organizations, and lobbying groups. The types of work involved include:

• Coordinating phone and email outreach to constituents
• Organizing letter-writing and call-in campaigns
• Galvanizing responses to public comment periods
• Activating small- and midsized-business constituents

Advocacy organizations generally have full-time core teams that work on-site in state capitals or Washington, D.C. At-home opportunities are typically project-based and may require substantial time commitments — up to and perhaps more than 40 hours per week.

Depending on the nature of the job, the pay can be modest — $10 to $20 per hour. However, if you’re looking to launch a career in political organizing, these gigs can get your foot in the door. Note that they involve advocating for a wide range of causes, so they can potentially put people with deeply held beliefs in awkward positions.

16. Classes and Webinars: Sell Education

Online surveys and focus groups are great for regular folks who want to share their opinions and influence companies’ decision-making processes. But what about folks who have bona fide subject matter expertise — or, at least, above-average skills in a sought-after discipline?

You don’t have to snag an adjunct professorship at your local university to share your knowledge with students and earn some cash in the process. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can cut out the middleman and teach classes directly to lifelong learners without leaving the house.

Here’s what you should keep in mind to begin and maintain a successful at-home teaching enterprise:

Credibility

Selling your expertise works best when you have some credibility. In many verticals, formal credentials are a near-necessity. Students signing up for a class on online tax preparation want to learn from a CPA. Entrepreneurs looking for the inside track on small-business law want to hear from a lawyer or serial entrepreneur.

Venue

When you’re first starting out, choose reputable, high-visibility venues for your classes. Don’t expect students to find their way to your personal or professional website before you’ve built a reputation for yourself.

Udemy is a great option for budding at-home teachers looking to earn real money from their work. YouTube is another viable option, although you can’t directly charge people to watch your YouTube videos. You’ll need to monetize them indirectly.

Topic and Structure

It’s not enough to select a popular vertical. You need a compelling topic and a tight structure for each class. After all, everyone wants to learn how to code, but you can’t teach every popular program language in an hour.

Build your curriculum around interesting, high-demand topics within your niche. Use real-life examples, hands-on exercises, and attractive graphics (whiteboards work well) whenever possible.

Pricing and Deals

As with any professional pursuit, you need to know how much your teaching skills are worth and price them accordingly.

Unfortunately, at-home teaching is a competitive business, so you’re likely to find someone who charges less for similar work. Ways to get around this include multicourse discounts, package deals, and complimentary products or information for early sign-ups.

Promotion

You don’t need to buy digital ads to promote your classes, but it’s definitely worth your while to drum up support by email — sending out targeted blasts to your professional and personal networks — and social media accounts.

As you gain students, reputable platforms like Udemy will boost your visibility, doing some of the hard promotional work for you. However, you must opt into its extensive course marketing network.

17. Question Marketplaces: Sell Answers to People’s Questions

The Internet is full of questions. If you’re knowledgeable and unbiased, you could earn money by answering them.

Online question marketplaces pay verified experts to answer questions posed by community members. If you’re particularly knowledgeable about a specific subject or discipline, you could earn a respectable side income simply by sharing your factual insights.

One of the most reputable and lucrative online question marketplaces is JustAnswer. JustAnswer’s verticals include health, home improvement, cars, law, business, tech, pets, and homework. For most verticals, you need relevant official credentials, such as a law or accounting degree.

Pay varies by vertical but seems to be pretty generous. JustAnswer says you can earn $2,000 to $7,000 per month, depending on your subject of expertise.

Your work volume depends on the quality of your answers and the volume of questions users are asking, so you may not find as much work as you expect at first. Still, JustAnswer is ripe for multitasking, making it a perfect work-from-home opportunity.

Other options include Wonder, which doesn’t require formal credentials. Wonder is cagey about how much it pays, but client pricing starts at about $40 per completed query, so it’s likely contributors see at least half that figure. However, Wonder appears to have lower question volumes than JustAnswer, limiting your income potential.

18. Paid Search: Sell Your Search Queries

You could earn small but meaningful sums from the same online searches you no doubt conduct every day, thanks to a slew of websites and plug-ins that track your searches and pay you for each completed query.

Paid search queries aren’t nearly as lucrative as expert-answer platforms such as JustAnswer. It’s rare to get more than a few cents for a single search. However, because you can complete hundreds of searches in an hour, the income potential is real. Popular, reputable options include:

• InboxDollars.InboxDollars is one of the Internet’s first legitimate at-home money-making websites. Paid search is just one of the many ways to earn a few extra bucks on the side with this site. And InboxDollars pays hard cash, a major advantage over some competitors. Learn more about InboxDollars by reading our InboxDollars review.
• Swagbucks. Swagbucks is an InboxDollars competitor with a slew of online money-making opportunities, including paid search. Searches earn Swagbucks, an on-site loyalty currency you can redeem for gift cards and other items.
• Qmee. Qmee is a browser plug-in that pays you to search for specific partner brands. You get even more via cash-back rebates when you buy stuff from these brands, but there’s no obligation to spend any money.

19. Paid Social Posts: Get Paid to Tweet, Post, Pin, and Share

You don’t need millions of followers to become a social media influencer. You just need to follow the basic rules of social media etiquette and find a reputable platform that pays you to share sponsored content from its clients or promote affiliate products.

If you’re serious about making real, sustainable money on social media, try either of these strategies:

YouTube Partner Program

The YouTube Partner program empowers YouTube channel operators to monetize certain types of videos.

Finding paying advertisers is hard work, and you need a sizable following before you can find companies willing to pay for direct or indirect promotion. Plus, your videos must meet YouTube’s monetization criteria, which ban explicit or copied content.

Pay potential is directly proportional to the size of your channel following and, to a lesser extent, audience demographics.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog or website, but it can also generate income from your social media properties. Many affiliate marketers do both.

ClickBank is a good place to start. Pay is directly proportional to your follower count and audience demographics.

20. Software and Game Reviews: Get Paid to Test Video Games

Getting paid to test new video games and consoles sounds like a dream come true for gamers. But video game testing is a job like any other. It requires significant time and energy commitments. It’s not something you can do with a few spare minutes or with less than your undivided attention.

To get started as a game tester, sign up with a reputable network such as Keywords Studio, whose Global Beta Test Network (GBTN) helps game developers push their products to the limit and ensure they go to market with as few bugs as possible.

GBTN’s tests typically involve dozens to hundreds of testers around the world running simultaneous tests on different aspects of clients’ games. Most tests are time-limited, project-based affairs.

Pay varies but typically ranges from $20 to $50 per hour. Diligent, skilled testers who work part-time can earn $10,000 to $20,000 per year; testers who work at or near full-time can easily exceed $50,000 per year.

Successful game testers have certain capabilities and personality traits in common:

• A Professional-Grade Gaming Setup. If you’re an avid gamer, you probably have this covered. If not, the cost of upgrading your setup in the hopes you’ll be hired as a tester could be prohibitive.
• Unwavering Attention to Detail. Video game testing isn’t like regular gameplay. The whole point is to prod for any bugs and defects that could potentially impact play, no matter how small or unlikely. Your eyes must be peeled for any deviance from expected results.
• Flexible Schedules With Long Blocks of Uninterrupted Time. Simultaneous game tests typically occur at the client’s convenience. If your game’s developer is based overseas, that could mean testing in the middle of the night. For night owls, that’s not a big deal, but 9-to-5 workers may struggle. Also, tests typically take several hours, so this isn’t something you can do for 20 minutes at a time and move on.

21. Website and Product Testing: Sell Your Feedback

Websites and products need testing too. Here’s what to know about each type of gig.

Website Testing

If you’re not much of a gamer, or you can’t spare the long blocks of time and unwavering attention required of professional game testers, consider signing up with UserTesting to try out new websites and mobile apps.

UserTesting’s website testing gigs do require focus and rigor, but they’re far shorter and don’t need to happen simultaneously, making them much easier to fit into your schedule. They don’t pay quite as well as game testing, though.

If you’re diligent, you can reliably earn $20 per hour, although the overall work volume is sometimes thin. You need a decent, relatively new computer or smartphone to complete tests.

Product Testing

If you prefer hands-on testing, consider signing up to test products withToluna, a leading market research firm. You’ll have the opportunity to try real product prototypes and beta versions before they’re released to the general public, and your feedback could meaningfully influence their development.

22. Cash Back and Coupons: Earn When You Shop

Cash back isn’t technically income because you need to buy something to earn it. It’s more like a discount. But when you earn cash back for purchases you’d make anyway, it’s a great way to make a little extra money.

The most common way to earn cash back on purchases is with a cash-back credit card.

But while a credit card is a great tool for building credit, there are many legitimate arguments against using one. If your spotty credit or personal preferences preclude you from applying for a credit card, don’t sweat it. You have plenty of other opportunities to earn cash back on purchases made in the comfort of your own home.

Look into these options:

• Capital One Shopping.Capital One Shopping is a browser extension that helps folks find a lower price on thousands of products when shopping online. Use it whenever you need to buy something without leaving the house.
• GetUpside. GetUpside is a coupon-free cash back app that pays users back for purchases at participating gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants. Online grocery and takeout orders are eligible for cash back where available, making GetUpside a profitable spending aid for at-home hustlers.
• Rakuten.Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is a wildly popular coupon site that offers multiple ways to save online. Cash back accrues immediately, so there’s no need to go through an extra redemption process. You can choose from thousands of partner merchants.
• TopCashback.TopCashback leverages affiliate arrangements with thousands of merchants to deliver a slew of instant discount and cash-back opportunities for U.S.-based shoppers. There’s some friction involved, as you need to click through to specific offers from TopCashback’s website, but the depth of the savings makes this extra step worthwhile.
• Piggy. Piggy is an intelligent coupon plug-in that works in the background as you browse and automatically serves you with the most relevant, up-to-date coupons on your favorite shopping websites. With thousands of merchants in the network, virtually every major brand is here. Savings opportunities range up to 70%.
• Qmee. As a low-friction plug-in, Qmee gives you the option to act on or ignore shopping discount offers. You can cash out in virtually any amount, so it’s worth using even if you’re only a sporadic online shopper.
• Giving Assistant. Giving Assistant puts a charitable spin on online shopping discounts. Functionally, it’s similar to Qmee and Piggy, but users have the option to donate their earnings to their favorite charities. Of course, those who prefer to pocket their cash still can. You can reliably earn 5% cash back with Giving Assistant and more at select merchants.

23. Translation: Sell Your Language Skills

Translation software is getting better all the time, and translator jobs are widely considered vulnerable to automation and artificial intelligence. However, there’s still a lively market for translators, particularly those with above-average wordsmithing skills or fluency in obscure languages.

You can find plenty of translation jobs on general freelance platforms like Upwork, but the quality of opportunities on nonspecialized platforms tends to be uneven.

Earning potential also varies widely. Entry-level, nonspecialized translation work often pays less than $10 per hour, while highly technical jobs can pay more than $50 per hour. Generally speaking, you’ll earn more as you gain experience, improve your fluency, and attain vertical-specific credentials.

To maximize your earning potential as an online translator, sign up with as many of the following as possible:

Gengo

Gengo is a beginner-friendly platform that covers a range of subjects and project types. Pay tends to be on the low side, but payment is frequent and predictable — it comes via PayPal twice per month.

Experienced and prolific translators can become Senior Translators, who command higher pay rates and are responsible for evaluating and editing entry-level translators’ work.

ProTranslating

ProTranslating is a boutique agency with a sophisticated digital presence and an in-house marketing apparatus that adds value to its core services: translation and transcreation — adapting prose into a second language without altering its meaning.

ProTranslating focuses on expert-level content at the upper end of the market, so if you’re a professional translator with verifiable subject matter expertise, you can do very well. Beginners may want to start with Gengo or another entry-level platform before applying here.

One Hour Translation

One Hour Translation is a bulk translation service that’s great for entry-level translators. It pays by the word, with hourly rates working out to $10 to $20, depending on skill and speed. It’s a good option for beginners, and there’s ample room for advancement through the site’s elaborate hierarchy.

Unbabel

Unbabel is another entry-level option. Billed as an originator of “trustworthy large-scale translations,” it pays as little as $8 per hour, but the work is more plentiful and steady than on some competing platforms. If nothing else, it’s a good place to start.

24. Online Boutiques (Online Stores): Sell Your Crafts

The sky’s the limit for at-home crafters. Running a successful at-home crafts business no longer means schlepping your wares to flea markets every weekend or begging for space at your local art gallery. All you need is a reliable Internet connection, a decent camera, and a modest startup fund.

Legitimate places to sell your creations online include:

• Etsy. Selling on Etsy is a fantastic way to monetize your crafting hobby. And with a transaction fee of just 3.5%, it’s a lot cheaper than popular alternatives such as eBay and Amazon.
• E-Commerce Portals. The best way to improve your at-home crafts business’s visibility and credibility is to launch your own website. And the best way to monetize that website is with a turnkey e-commerce portal. Shopify is a relatively cost-effective, feature-rich option for serious sellers — you can build and maintain a decent store for $15 to $20 per month. Volusion and Squarespace are worthy, comparably priced competitors.
• Niche Websites. Depending on what you’re selling, niche websites could be cheaper and more effective than Etsy and on-site e-commerce portals. Check out Handmade Artists, which costs $5 per month or $50 per year and is for handmade goods only, and Zibbet, which costs $5 and up per month and has a handy feature that seamlessly transfers Etsy listing content.

25. Technical Support: Sell Your Troubleshooting Skills

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.”

There are lots of tech support work-at-home opportunities out there. Before looking for at-home tech support jobs, however, keep a few cautions 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 Energy

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.

26. Remote Call Centers: Sell Your Voice

Not confident in your technical support skills or not sure you meet Apple’s stringent standards? If you’re a friendly, persuasive talker, you’ll find plenty of opportunities with remote call center operators.

Although they vary somewhat from company to company, remote call center operators’ technical and equipment requirements are comparable to remote customer support companies’. You need a headset, a fast Internet connection, an above-average desktop or laptop computer, and any proprietary software necessary to do your job.

Remote call center opportunities are more varied than remote technical support gigs. Many call center companies serve as outside sales contractors for companies without internal sales teams of their own. As an at-home operator, you work as an independent contractor charged with selling on the client’s behalf.

If you’re personable, persuasive, and believe in what you’re selling, there’s real money to be made in this niche. However, since independent sales agents are usually commission-based, you may struggle to earn a respectable keep if you’re not a born salesperson.

Other common opportunities include insurance claims processing, roadside assistance routing, and customer assistance for health care consumers.

LiveOps packages all of these functions, plus a healthy dose of inbound sales, under a single roof. Keep in mind that there’s a modest startup cost involved — about $50 for a self-funded background check — and you’re not compensated for training. So LiveOps isn’t suitable for at-home workers who need cash immediately.

27. Virtual Assistant Services: Sell Your Organizational Skills

Busy professionals and small-business owners often lack the resources or office space to employ an on-site assistant. Many choose to hire virtual assistants (VAs) on a part-time or contract basis, getting all the benefits of a trusty assistant while saving the expense and regulatory headaches of a full-time employee.

Virtual assistant duties typically include:

• Screening calls, taking and responding to messages, and directing important information to the client
• Accepting, deflecting, and scheduling requests for the client’s time and attention and maintaining up-to-date calendars
• Basic clerical and organizational tasks
• Compiling and running reports
• Managing, scheduling, and producing content for social media, email marketing, and websites
• Managing e-commerce operations, including fulfillment

Necessary or recommended equipment includes:

• A comfortable desk and workspace
• A standardized and scalable electronic organization system
• A fast Internet connection
• A reliable telephone setup (either a landline or a cloud-based business phone system), preferably with a headset
• A secure means of invoicing and receiving payment, such as FreshBooks or PayPal
• A secure email suite
• Anti-malware protection
• A virtual private network (VPN) fromNordVPN, especially if anonymity is a consideration or you’re working with clients outside your home country
• Permissions and passwords for the principal accounts to which you’re allowed access, such as email and invoicing software

Virtual assistants can work as little as a few hours per week per client, either in a single block of time or spread evenly throughout. Work is plentiful, so it’s not hard to string together multiple gigs and create a full- or near-full-time job.

The virtual assistant workforce is global, which means two things. First, if you’re in the U.S. or another high-cost country, you’ll likely be undercut by English- and Spanish-speaking professionals in cheaper markets.

Second, you’ll need to either stick to clients in or near your time zone or be willing to work odd hours. A reasonable starting wage for North America-based VAs is $10 to $20 per hour, but competent VAs command much higher rates.

Start looking for virtual assistant gigs on general-purpose freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer, but consider launching your own website.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure how to get started, there are online courses available that can provide you with all the information you’ll need.

28. Watching Online Videos and TV: Sell Your Viewing Time

If you’re an avid consumer of online videos, TV programs, or both, you can turn your habit into a legitimate source of side income.

Some opportunities pay better and more reliably than others. Netflix reportedly pays “taggers,” who watch and categorize Netflix shows, at least $10 per hour. Individual shows or production companies occasionally advertise for similar positions, although these opportunities are becoming fewer and farther between. Competition is stiff when positions do open up.

Other opportunities are easier to get but not nearly as lucrative. Many market research companies have video-watching verticals through which participants can earn points for each view.Swagbucks andInboxDollars are two legitimate options that allow users to exchange points for gift cards and occasionally cash.

Hourly rates work out to less than minimum wage in most cases but aren’t bad for a few spare minutes of your time here and there.

29. Tailoring: Sell Your Fashion Skills

Tailoring isn’t exactly a fast track to riches, but it can serve as a valuable source of side income or even a full-fledged cottage industry sufficient to support a two-income family. According to the BLS, the average annual salary for tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers is about $36,000. That works out to more than $15 per hour.

The most common at-home sewing pursuit is clothing alterations, a high-volume niche that’s always in demand.

However, depending on your skills and interests, you can pour yourself into a slew of other opportunities: making custom curtains and draperies, repairing heirloom bedclothes and tapestries, assembling and repairing durable fabrics such as canvas bags and totes, or producing large-scale items such as boat covers.

Before you launch an at-home alteration or custom sewing business, consider the following:

Your Skills

This is a detail-oriented pursuit that requires patience and skill. You need to have above-average sewing skills, and confidence in those skills, to make your mark. Experience is strongly preferred as well.

Advertising and Promotion

You won’t have a huge budget to promote your at-home business, so use cost-effective outreach targeted to your most likely customers, such as fliers in local craft and clothing stores, a basic website (preferably with booking and payment portals), a referral network, and friends and family willing to sing your praises.

Also, consider joining the American Sewing Guild for $50 per year. It’s a reliable way to meet other enthusiasts and get your name out there.

Equipment Costs and Space

At a minimum, you’ll need a work table, a sewing machine, a rack, and storage space for raw materials. You can find a cheap but sturdy table for less than $20, and maybe for free if you’re fortunate.

Used sewing machines start at under $50, but that won’t cut it for a real at-home custom sewing business. You’ll need a heavy-duty piece of equipment, preferably new. Expect to pay $2,000 or more for this. Consider financing with a low-APR credit card if your creditworthiness allows.

Legalities

Confirm with local authorities that your neighborhood is zoned to allow at-home businesses. If it’s not, look into applying for a variance or otherwise coming into compliance. Even if this costs something upfront, it’s better than risking a fine or a cease-and-desist order down the road.

30. Medical Transcription: Sell Your Attention to Detail

If you’re a fast, accurate typist, you can earn significant sums as a medical transcriptionist by transcribing physicians’ spoken notes into legible, accurate text.

Medical transcription is semiskilled work. While you don’t have to be a doctor or nurse, you do need to complete an intensive training course that can last a year or more and cost several thousand dollars. During periods of increased demand, some employers may be willing to finance your training course, or at least partially or fully reimburse you after the fact.

Once you’re employed, you can expect to earn about $16 per hour on average, according to PayScale.

To boost your attractiveness to employers, consider working as an on-site scribe at your local hospital or clinic. Although they pay less, most such jobs require less prior experience than full-fledged transcription jobs.

The upshot: Like reputable tech support jobs, legitimate medical transcription gigs usually don’t require much upfront investment, save for high-speed Internet and a cell or landline phone. Legitimate employers provide any software necessary to complete your duties, and some may even provide or finance the purchase of a business laptop or desktop.

31. Freelance Consulting: Sell Your Professional Acumen

At-home consulting is a great way for new parents who’ve scaled back their hours or sidelined their careers to keep their skills sharp and their names out there. It’s also a great side gig for professionals and digital artisans, like graphic design pros, who’ve grown stifled in their current roles but don’t yet have the confidence or client base to quit their 9-to-5s and strike out on their own.

With time, a consulting side business can easily turn into a full-time job, with all the freedom that entails.

Launching an at-home consulting business means getting comfortable with the idea of marketing yourself. Start by modifying your LinkedIn profile to emphasize your consulting services and relevant professional experience. Set up a website that describes your consulting work in more detail and features testimonials from former colleagues and clients. And create a blog that plays up your expertise.

32. Website Flipping: Buy, Fix, and Sell Undervalued Websites & Domains

Flipping a website is a lot like building and monetizing a personal blog. The key difference is that when you flip, you’re working toward the clearly defined short-term goal of selling the site for a tidy profit. You can and should earn money through advertising and affiliate relationships along the way, but you’re not looking to hold the site over the long term.

Every website flip carries its own unique caveats and considerations. For starters, there are two main types of website flips:

• Buying an unbuilt domain and creating your own website from scratch
• Buying an existing website and increasing its revenue potential

Successful website flippers typically hone in on a niche that’s popular with Internet users (as measured by search interest) and has ample potential to support informative, engaging content. They use low-cost domain warehouses like GoDaddy to find domains that don’t already exist, low-cost hosting services with built-in website building tools, and reasonably priced contract labor for help with site development and content creation.

Once they’ve reached their traffic and monetization goals, they use website brokers like Flippa (a flipper-oriented platform) or FE International (a higher-end agency for more valuable online businesses) to find buyers at the right price.

Before getting too far into the website flipping business, it helps to set your expectations. Every flip is different, and your success or failure will depend to a great degree on factors like your site’s niche and your goals. Plus, it takes a lot of hard work — not to mention a substantial amount of time — to pull off a successful flip.

33. Lodging: Rent Out Space in Your Home

Are you maximizing your home’s income potential? If you have an empty spare bedroom, mother-in-law suite, or duplex unit on the premises, the answer is likely no.

You don’t have to find a long-term tenant to earn income from your home’s unused square footage. Apps likeAirbnb,Vrbo, andHomeAway let you rent out your home to business and leisure travelers on a nightly or weekly basis.

Depending on prevailing rents in your local market and your space’s size, amenities, and privacy, you could earn anywhere from $40 or $50 to $500 or more per night. It’s the ultimate passive income side hustle.

Short-term rental platforms handle most of the thorny logistical considerations that keep regular homeowners from becoming landlords, including payment processing and security deposits.

And after a string of highly public mishaps in their first few years, these platforms are increasingly safety-conscious, so the likelihood is high you’ll be able to verify the identity of every person who crashes at your place.

Not every home is rental-ready, of course. Before listing your place on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, consider these factors:

Stranger Danger

Most importantly, you need to determine whether you and your family members are comfortable with welcoming strangers into your home. If you have a second unit with a separate entrance, this is less of a sticking point, but it still begs careful consideration.

Local Regulations

Municipal governments are increasingly amenable to short-term rentals, but holdouts remain. Surprisingly, tourist towns are sometimes the most vehemently opposed. Keep abreast of regulations in your area. And if your city does allow short-term rentals, make sure you pay all applicable local and state hospitality taxes.

Pets

Dogs and cats complicate short-term rental arrangements. It’s hard to give a visitor free reign over your place when you’re worried about them inadvertently letting Fido or Fluffy out when they come home in the middle of the night.

At a minimum, you should disclose the fact that you have pets, lest an allergic tenant leaves a toxic review on your otherwise pristine online listing.

Cleaning and Damage

Online rental platforms let you charge cleaning fees so that you aren’t financially on the hook for the full cost of a post-tenant professional cleaning. Most cover the cost of renter-caused damage too, provided you properly document and report it.

But financial redress only goes so far. You still have to deal with the inevitable investment of time and energy to fix the damage or clean up the mess.

Hands-On Hosting

While you don’t have to serve as your visitors’ personal tour guide, you do have to be reachable and willing to help if a problem arises.

If you’re not willing to drop what you’re doing — or at least pick up your phone — to help a tenant in need, short-term rental hosting might not be your best bet for at-home income.

34. Car Rentals: Rent Out Your Car

Don’t have a spare bedroom or second unit to rent out on a nightly basis? If you have a personal vehicle, you can rent it out to travelers and people who don’t own their own cars — without getting behind the wheel or even leaving your house.

Car rental apps abound. Before you choose one, read the fine print and make sure it has adequate liability insurance that protects you in the event of a serious accident involving injuries and property damage.

Getaround has a good reputation and a relatively long track record. According to its website, car owners in high-demand cities such as San Francisco can earn up to $10,000 per year.Turo, another reputable option, also advertises potential earnings north of $10,000 per year per car. That’s a pretty impressive passive income stream.

35. Parking Spot Rentals: Rent Out Your Driveway or Street Slot

Another vehicle-related passive income opportunity is your home’s parking space. In crowded cities like Chicago and Boston, parking spaces are valuable commodities. If you’re fortunate enough to own or have guaranteed access to an on- or off-street parking space, you can earn money by renting it out to folks visiting or passing through your neighborhood.

Check outNeighbor.com, an increasingly popular app that connects drivers and parking spot owners in the same way Airbnb connects travelers and homeowners. Neighbor.com won’t make you rich overnight, but it could help you earn a few hundred bucks per month on an in-demand parking spot.

36. Meal Sharing: Sell Your Cooking Skills

Once upon a time, being a professional-grade cook meant squat without startup capital to open a restaurant or launch a food truck business.

Not anymore. Today, you can run a small-scale eatery — and earn a tidy profit in the process — without leaving your home. The secret: a rapidly multiplying cohort of meal-sharing startups that connect budding chefs with hungry diners willing to shell out money for authentic, restaurant-quality home cooking.

But first, a caveat: Meal sharing platforms operate in a legal gray area. The food service industry is heavily regulated, and many jurisdictions make it all but impossible for home cooks to profit from their passions.

At a minimum, you need to make sure you comply with all local health department directives and obtain all applicable licenses before you begin inviting diners into your home.

It’s also worth noting that meal sharing involves hosting strangers for dinner, which can be an even more intimate prospect than allowing them to sleep in your home while you’re away. Every app takes pains to protect host and diner safety, but if you’re reticent to invite people you’ve never met into your home, you may want to think twice.

If you’re comfortable having strangers in your home and confident you’re on the right side of the law, check out these popular meal sharing options. Depending on your platform choice, guest capacity, and local market, you can expect to rake in anywhere from $50 to several hundred dollars per meal after accounting for expenses. Hosting opportunities are more plentiful in major cities.

• Traveling Spoon. The appropriately named Traveling Spoon brokers cooking classes and communal meals in over 150 countries. There are very few restrictions on what you can cook (or teach), and you’re free to set your own prices to ensure a full table — although you’ll want to charge enough to cover your costs and have something left over for yourself.
• ChefsFeed. ChefsFeed is geared toward aspiring and semi-established chefs. Many cooks use it to supplement income earned at real restaurants or food trucks or to break into extremely competitive culinary scenes in places like New York City and San Francisco.
• Eatwith. Eatwith, a European startup, stresses the communal aspect of meal sharing. The vetting process for new chefs is pretty rigorous, but there’s plenty of room for talented cooks to break in.

37. Tech Work: Invest in Your Future

Contrary to popular belief, not all high-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree are dangerous or grueling. Some can be done from the comfort of your home office, with nothing more than a fast Internet connection and a high-end laptop.

And the right skills, of course. Increase your earning potential in fields like UI/UX and data analytics — where full-time salaries for entry-level jobs easily exceed $50,000 per year — with a bootcamp from Springboard, a leading course provider for tech certifications.

Although Springboard isn’t free, it does offer a fallback: If you don’t land a job after actively searching for six months following your graduation, Springboard will refund your course fees. That’s not a bad deal for an investment that could literally alter the course of your career.

Codecademy’s money-back guarantee isn’t as generous, but its course database is far more expansive than Springboard’s. If you’re not sure where to start, take the quiz to learn how your existing skills fit into the wide (and often confusing) world of programming.

Final Word

Many of these work-at-home opportunities involve either passive income or spare-time endeavors — side hustles, really — that aren’t likely to turn into full-time pursuits. But some, such as freelance writing and editing, are readily scalable.

If you’re willing to pound the pavement in search of paying clients and can follow productivity tips for home workers, there’s nothing stopping you from turning your at-home side hustle into a full-fledged career.

As normalization of remote work continues, you can take advantage of a range of ways to make money from home. From selling items online to starting a podcast to offering your services as a virtual assistant, there are lots of opportunities to earn an income without leaving the house. 

If you’re seeking a more traditional job format but still want to work from home, you’re in luck. Remote job postings—which doubled for some online recruitment sites during the pandemic—continue to rise. Regarding the remote positions available, tech jobs are among the most prevalent, but work-from-home opportunities have also risen in therapy, finance, and law.

Where to begin when searching for remote work? “I’d encourage the job seeker to start by reflecting on their interests and career goals,” Indeed Senior Career Coach Jamie Birt told The Balance in an email. 

Next, Birt recommended taking into account the jobs that are commonly performed remotely, such as copywriting, graphic design, and software development. Adding the term “remote” in job search engines can give you an idea of what’s available. 

Last, bridge your career goals with the remote jobs that are available, Birt advised. When you find remote positions you like, take note of your current skill set to identify translatable skills, as well as any gaps where you’d need additional training or upskilling.

We’ll discuss eight remote moneymaking opportunities that can help make working from home a reality.

Sell Your Used and Unwanted Items

Clearing out and tidying up your home will likely leave you with piles of things you no longer need or use. You can bring in some extra cash by selling items online that are in good condition. 

There are lots of virtual marketplaces where shoppers can go to find a variety of things. Ebay is a popular place to sell just about any used item online. Other sites may be more specialized, such as thredUP, which is clothes-specific, or Decluttr, which focuses on cellphones, tech, CDs, DVDs, games, and books.

If you prefer to keep your sales local, you could check out sites like Craigslist, or keep things offline by having a garage sale or taking your items to a consignment store. 

Start a Podcast 

“Podcasting is replacing blogging as the moneymaker for a lot of people working from home,” Joseph Hogue, who runs the site My Work From Home Money, told The Balance in an email. He added that advertising dollars are shifting from text-based to podcast sponsorships. 

While it can take some time to grow an audience for your podcast, there are several ways to make money podcasting, including selling advertising time, adding affiliate marketing links, offering subscriptions, throwing live events, crowdfunding, selling merchandise, doing speaking gigs, or coaching others on how to host a podcast.

Make Money on YouTube

Momentum has been picking up in video monetization, said Hogue from My Work From Home Money. He suspects that vlogging will take over from podcasting once high-speed internet is universal. 

Popular ways to make money on YouTube are monetizing ad views, running paid promotions, and being part of the YouTube Partner Program, among other opportunities. 

Affiliate Marketing

If you have an audience through a website, social media, or other platform, you can generate some extra income by including affiliate links. Affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission on the sale of someone else’s products. A common way is to have a link to another company’s website or product in your own content—if a reader clicks on your link and buys the product, you get a cut of the sale.

The Amazon Associates Program is a well-known affiliate network; you can find other affiliate marketing opportunities on platforms like CJ Affiliate, Rakuten LinkShare, ShareASale, and many more.

Become a Virtual Assistant

As the workforce transitions to remote work, the demand for virtual assistants is expected to continue to increase. Virtual assistants, or VAs, work remotely to help with administrative tasks—they can work for individuals, teams, or companies. The workload of an administrative assistant usually involves tasks such as answering phone calls and taking messages, running social media accounts, scheduling appointments, and doing research, among other duties.

When starting a VA business, it can be challenging to land your first customer. VAs can find clients through social media channels like LinkedIn or Facebook groups, at virtual or in-person networking events, by word of mouth, or on freelancing platforms like Upwork. 

Sell Your Photos Online

Make money online from home by selling your photography, video clips, vectors, and illustrations. Upload your content for individuals and companies to buy for use on their websites, platforms, or other needs. Try listing your work on sites like iStock, Dreamstime, and Adobe Stock.

Offer Your Expertise 

If you’re an expert in something, consider creating resources to teach other people. Once you’ve made the initial effort of putting together the content, it can act as a passive income stream. 

Online courses, webinars, and ebooks are all common ways to share information. You can build and promote the resources on your own or use educational platforms that already have established communities, such as Udemy or Skillshare.

Pick Up Freelance Work 

Platforms such as Fiverr, Freelancer, and Upwork are popular online marketplaces that connect freelancers and clients. You can list your services on these sites and check out the opportunities available. You can do freelance work in a number of different fields—for example, writing and editing, marketing, graphics and design, programming, and translation.

The Bottom Line

Growing your venture takes time, and you’ll likely need to put several different income streams together. Find ways to incorporate different moneymaking aspects into one business model. For example, you may be focused primarily on making money through vlogging, but you also bring in funds with affiliate marketing and an online course you created that teaches others how to build their own YouTube channel. 

There are lots of opportunities to make money from home; don’t be afraid to try out different options to determine the best fit for you.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, millions of office-based Americans abruptly transitioned to full-time make money fast working from home arrangements, ostensibly on a temporary basis.

But make money fast working from home to a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, more than half of those who began working from home during the pandemic actually prefer remote employment. More than three-quarters have adequate workspaces and at-home business technology, according to Pew, and more than half enjoy flexible scheduling that allows them to stop and start work at their discretion.

Even before the pandemic, employers were offering ever more flexible work arrangements in a bid to attract younger workers who prefer the freedom to perform their duties from just about anywhere. COVID-19 pushed remote employment into the mainstream, hard. But these days, you don’t even have to have a traditional 9-to-5 job 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, bitcoin investors forum definition you need to work from home is a computer, a quiet space, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to follow these tips for working from home more efficiently.

Legitimate Make money fast working from home Opportunities (How to Make Money Working from Home)

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. Just take care to avoid distressingly common work-from-home scams that can actually cost you money.

1. Financial Empowerment Apps: Find New Income Streams

Whether you already have an at-home side hustle (or full-fledged business) or you’re still exploring ways to earn more on your own time, you need Steady — a financial empowerment app that connects you with opportunities to increase and diversity your income.

Steady Members earn more than $5,000 extra each year, according to the app, make money fast working from home, and Steady has already paid more than $10 million in cash incentives. It’s helped Members earn at least $4 million in emergency cash assistance too.

Steady’s income opportunities are flexible and personalized. After answering a few questions about yourself and completing your personal profile, you’ll receive a regular stream of customized income recommendations and insights from the growing Steady Member community.

Plus, Steady partners with reputable third parties that offer real cash incentives — Income Boosters — when you make smarter financial decisions. And you can keep tabs on how much other Steady members earn in your area — and how much local employers pay too — with detailed community-driven data.

According to Steady, users earn over $5,000 more each year, on average, with the Steady app. That’s serious money. And Steady has paid out over $10 million in cash incentives while facilitating another $4 million in emergency cash assistance (and counting).

2. Online Surveys and Focus Groups: Sell Your Opinions

Your opinions are more valuable than you might think. Countless companies pay handsome sums to learn more about their target audiences’ motivations and preferences.

Online Surveys

You can take online surveys in the comfort of your home whenever you please: during working hours, over lunch or dinner, when you have a free moment in the evening, or in the sleepless wee hours.

Time Investment

Although your answers must be honest and make sense, you don’t need to devote your full attention to online surveys. That’s no doubt music to multitaskers’ ears. And you can invest as much or as little time as you like. Individual surveys can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to 20 or 30 minutes to complete, and you can do as many or as few as you want in one sitting.

Earning Potential

Online surveys will help you make money online, but they won’t make you rich. If you sign up with multiple survey companies and diligently complete your allotted tasks, you can earn a bit more than minimum wage — perhaps $10 an hour. But that’s nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you’re able to accomplish other tasks while you’re logged into your survey accounts.

Reputable Online Survey Options

The online survey landscape is pretty crowded. These are among the most reputable and potentially lucrative opportunities for U.S.-based consumers:

• Branded Surveys. Branded Surveys specializes in consumer surveys from major brands — names you probably encounter in your day-to-day anyway. Its surveys are easy to complete in your spare time, and compensation is fair, delivered via cash and gift cards. With over 2 million existing members, they’ve paid out more than $17 million since 2012. Plus, they have a 4.5 Trustpilot score with 40,000+ reviews.
• Survey Junkie.Survey Junkie is a popular online survey site with lots of survey-taking opportunities. You’ll earn points for each successfully completed survey and can cash out your account balance once it reaches 1,000 points ($10). Learn more about Survey Junkie in our Survey Junkie review.
• American Consumer Opinion.American Consumer Opinion sends users one screening survey per month and roughly one full-length survey per quarter. Screening surveys pay less than full-length surveys — no more than $0.50 apiece. Full-length surveys can pay up to $50 apiece.
• Opinion Outpost. Compared with American Consumer Opinion, there are generally more opportunities onOpinion Outpost. However, the overall earning rate is lower.
• Swagbucks.Swagbucks offers multiple opportunities to earn extra income online, including paid surveys. Narrowly targeted, time-intensive surveys can pay pretty well, but some of the more basic opportunities — which take only a minute or two to complete — pay next to nothing. Learn more about Swagbucks in our Swagbucks review.

Other opportunities abound, but be sure to do your due diligence before signing up. Be wary of companies that require you to pay to join their panels.

Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups are closely related to online surveys, and in some cases, the same companies administer them.

Like in-person focus groups, online focus groups require more time and concentration than online surveys. Configurations vary, but you generally have to join a panel and engage on a certain number of issues per week or month. Online focus groups are often more selective than online surveys — if you don’t meet specific demographic or income criteria, you may not qualify.

The make money fast working from home The pay is much better, as are the opportunities for prizes and free stuff. With effort, you can earn $500 and possibly more per month in cash or in-kind awards.

3. Blogging: Sell Your Insights

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 for aspiring bloggers keen to make money online.

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.

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 make money fast working from home, there are plenty of ways to make money from your blog.

Pro tip: Aspiring bloggers can purchase hosting throughBluehost for less than $5 per month and receive a free domain for the first year.

4. Virtual Tutoring: Sell Your Expertise

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 asEducation First, 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, if you’re teaching English make money fast working from home a foreign language (TEFL) online, you’ll also need to earn a TEFL certification; we recommendPremier TEFL.

Do you have an underutilized garage, shed, basement, or attic? Are you willing to clean it up? Then you’re a good fit forNeighbor.com, a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform that connects folks who need extra storage space with those who have it in spades and aren’t using it.

Neighbor.com advertises rental rates at 50% of the going earn money today from home for self-storage units, although 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.

6. P2P Lending: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 1)

The sharing economy has created new opportunities for regular people to put their excess capital to work. Two opportunities are worth calling out here:

• Real Estate Crowdfunding. Real estate crowdfunding websites likeGroundfloor allow everyday investors to lend money for real estate projects. Loans return anywhere from 5% to 25%, depending on their risk level. If you’re looking for other ways to invest indirectly in real estate consider a platform like Crowdstreet.
• P2P Lending. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms such as Prosper are reputable outlets for nonaccredited individuals seeking above-average returns on investment — anywhere from 4% to more than 10% annually, after accounting for nonperforming loans and the platforms’ service charges.

A word of warning: Unlike high-yield savings accounts and CDs, P2P loans and make money fast working from home estate crowdfunding opportunities are not FDIC-insured or SIPC-protected. That means they present the very real risk of loss of principal. Don’t lend any funds you can’t afford to lose, and thoroughly read platforms’ prospectuses and disclaimers before participating.

7. Investing: Put Your Excess Capital to Work (Part 2)

Although certain types of securities accounts are SIPC-protected, investing in stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) isn’t without risk. While you should never invest money that you can’t afford to lose, putting your excess capital to work in the market is a great way to beat persistently low savings account interest rates.

Tilt the odds in your favor by consuming as much proprietary research and analytics as you can manage. If you’re not sure where to start, Seeking Alpha is a great resource for beginners and pros alike.

When you’re ready, get started by checking out our roundup of the best brokerage account promotions — Robinhood’s free stock offer is particularly compelling right now.

8. Downsize and Declutter: Sell Your Unwanted Stuff

Before you roll up your sleeves and monetize your personal or professional skills, why not earn some money by cleaning up your space? Selling your unwanted stuff is a great way to downsize and declutter your life while earning some income on the side.

If you’re transitioning to full-time work-at-home status, that income and make money fast working from home space could help you create a proper home office or allow you to maintain your lifestyle during lean times.

When it comes to at-home income, selling your unwanted stuff is the definition of low-hanging fruit. Even if you’re intentional in your purchasing habits, you likely have possessions you can do without.

Examples include old kids’ clothing and toys, sporting goods you no longer use, out-of-fashion wardrobe accessories, electronics, watches and jewelry, old furniture, dusty tools and outdoor equipment, and perhaps even big-ticket items like a motorcycle or second car.

There are several ways you can sell your unwanted stuff.

Most prolific sellers rely on digital marketplaces. The most popular online platforms for professional and semi-professional sellers are eBay and Amazon. Both offer an array of tools and capabilities for make money fast working from home, though you do have to pay for them — commissions come in at around 10% of the sales price on eBay and between about 6% and 20% of the sales price on Amazon.

Craigslist is a better (and cheaper) fit for occasional sellers, make money fast working from home, while marketplaces like SellCell,Gazelle, Decluttr, and MaxBack are strong choices for high-margin electronics sellers.

If you prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, you can always sell whatever you can’t or don’t want to offload online from your driveway instead. Follow these tips for a successful garage sale.

9. Freelance Writing: Sell Your Words

Countless Americans, make money fast working from home, 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.

Getting your foot in the door as a freelance writer is difficult but doable. Freelance writing jobs abound at the lower end of the pay scale, both on general-purpose freelance platforms like Upwork and writing-only portals such as Textbroker.

While the writing opportunities on these platforms are often monotonous (lots of product descriptions, ad copy, and press releases) and doesn’t pay well at all, it’ll help you learn what editors make money fast working from home from freelance writers and sharpen your writing skills in the process.

As you gain experience (and confidence) in the freelance writing trenches, stretch out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to ratchet up your freelance writing rates, draft freelance contracts to protect yourself from unscrupulous clients, and send queries to the sorts of publications where you’d be proud to see your byline.

Rejection is a fact of the freelance writing game, no matter how talented you are — but if you’re persistent, you’ll hear “yes” more often than you expect.

10. Freelance Editing and Proofreading: Sell Your Grammatical Skills

Freelance editing and proofreading naturally follow from freelance writing. Although not every writer is a born editor or proofreader, the skills often go hand in hand.

Freelance Editing

Once you’ve worked with a few different editors, you’ll likely get a sense of the skills and duties required for the job. Then, it’s just a matter of finding the right editing gigs.

As a new editor, start small. Look for part-time or project-based copy editing jobs. If possible, leverage existing freelance writing arrangements, make money fast working from home. For instance, if you know one of your freelance clients uses contract editors to clean up writers’ work, approach them about taking on those responsibilities directly.

Once you’ve outgrown your existing client base, look to online job boards such as Upwork, as well as media-specific platforms such as Mediabistro. Common types of online editing jobs include:

• Copy Editor. Copy editors ensure written copy is polished before their bosses hit “publish” and often serve as the main point of contact with contributing writers. Although it’s not exceptionally well-paid, copy editing is often a springboard to more lucrative editing or production opportunities.
• Assistant Editor. Assistant editors supervise copy editors, photo editors, writers, and other support staff involved in producing digital publications. Larger blogs and online-print hybrids generally have at least one assistant editor on staff. These gigs can be part- or full-time. They’re typically intermediate between copy editing and managing editing jobs.
• Managing Editor. Managing editors supervise and direct editorial teams, including lower-level editors. These jobs are harder to come by and require more of your time, but temporary arrangements look great on your resume. If you lack much formal editing experience, start with smaller blogs and niche publications with modest budgets and limited content needs. Some publications don’t have enough work for a full-time editor, making it feasible to string together a handful of part-time editing gigs or try out a single position to see how it suits you.
• Photo Editor/Web Editor. Photo and Web editors create or edit visuals that appear on websites and other digital media, such as white papers and corporate reports. This line of work is a great way to exercise your visual skills and become more familiar with layout and editing programs such as WordPress and Photoshop, make money fast working from home. These gigs often require basic to intermediate coding skills, so they’re great for freelancers who want to expand their expertise beyond the written word.
• Manuscript Editor. Looking for a longer-term engagement? The self-publishing boom has created an unprecedented demand for manuscript editors — specialists who help writers organize and sharpen book-length works before publication. Depending on your clients’ budgets, manuscript editing can be lucrative, although it’ll likely take time to build your reputation to the point that you’re working with accomplished writers. Entry-level opportunities abound on reputable freelance platforms and with niche publishing houses.

The prerequisites and best practices that make freelance editors successful are broadly similar to those freelance writers need. A suitable home office is important, as is aggressive networking, a strong work ethic, a clear understanding of your value, and a hunger for self-improvement.

Freelance Proofreading

Freelance proofreaders draw on the same skills and competencies as freelance writers and editors, but their career paths are distinct.

The best way for someone new to the freelance proofreading game to get started bitcoin investing for beginners work with prior writing or editing experience) is to invest in a proofreading course to establish credibility with potential employers.Proofread Anywhere is a great example. With free introductory modules, there’s no obligation if you decide the gig isn’t for you.

Although the niche is surprisingly varied, proofreading jobs generally fall into two broad categories: general proofreading and technical proofreading. The former covers nontechnical, relatively unspecialized media like blogs and books. The latter covers transcripts and other technical materials; court reporters, for instance, are seasoned technical proofreaders.

Which you choose depends on your innate strengths as a proofreader and what you’re hoping to get out of the job. Technical proofreading is harder to break into but typically pays better; general proofreading is more competitive but easier to launch.

11. Pet Sitting: Start a Doggy 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 likeRover. Think of Rover as the Airbnb of pet sitting — a 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, although actual earnings vary by client volume and the amount of time you put into the business.

12. Remote Accounting: Launch a Virtual Bookkeeping Business

If you prefer clients who won’t shed all over your house and you have an affinity for spreadsheets, a virtual bookkeeping business could be just what you need to earn a stable income without leaving the house.

Because bookkeeping is a competitive industry that rewards skilled professionals with solid reputations, the surest way to break into the business is to invest in a credentialing course.

For instance,Bookkeepers offers three different tracks (“communities”) for bookkeepers at various stages of learning the trade and building their businesses. Learn the ropes with Bookkeeper Launch, then progress to Bookkeeper Lab and Bookkeeper Elite — if you have what it takes.

13. Retail Arbitrage: Learn How to Buy Low and Sell High

“Buy low, sell high” is an expression more commonly heard in the noisy bullpen of an investment bank or brokerage house than the relative quiet of one’s home office. But there’s one type of arbitrage — the art of selling assets for more than you paid without adding value — that’s perfect for at-home workers.

That would be retail arbitrage, one of the top careers for self-employed introverts.

Practitioners of retail arbitrage buy products for pennies on the dollar at auctions, from online retailers, even at garage and yard sales, and then sell them online at sometimes-substantial markups. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is the most popular platform for U.S. sellers, but other options work too. Learn the FBA ropes with this low-cost Udemy course.

14. E-books and Audiobooks: Take Your Writing (or Acting) Career to the Next Level

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.

Although 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.

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.

15. Political Advocacy: Sell Your Passion for the Issues

Maybe you’re committed to making the world a better place. Maybe you just love a good argument. Either way, you can work as a political organizer and advocate from the comfort of your home.

Advocacy organizations such as DDC Public Affairs recruit and pay outgoing, communications-savvy team members to raise support around political issues championed by their clients — private companies, nonprofits, trade organizations, and lobbying groups. The types of work involved include:

• Coordinating phone and email outreach to constituents
• Organizing letter-writing and call-in campaigns
• Galvanizing responses to public comment periods
• Activating small- and midsized-business constituents

Advocacy organizations generally have full-time core teams that work on-site in state capitals or Washington, D.C. At-home opportunities are typically project-based and may require substantial time commitments — up to and perhaps more than 40 hours per week.

Depending on the nature of the job, the pay can be modest — $10 to $20 per hour. However, if you’re looking to launch a career make money fast working from home political organizing, these gigs can get your foot in the door. Note that they involve advocating for a wide range of causes, so they can potentially put people with deeply held beliefs in awkward positions.

16. Classes and Webinars: Sell Education

Online surveys and focus groups are great for regular folks make money fast working from home want to share their opinions and influence companies’ decision-making processes. But what about folks who have bona fide subject matter expertise — or, at least, above-average skills in a sought-after discipline?

You don’t have to snag an adjunct professorship at your local university to share your knowledge with students and earn some cash in the process. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can cut out the middleman and teach classes directly to lifelong learners without leaving the house.

Here’s what you should keep in mind to begin and maintain a successful at-home teaching enterprise:

Credibility

Selling your expertise works best when you have some credibility. In many verticals, formal credentials are a near-necessity. Students signing up for a class on online tax preparation want to learn from a CPA. Entrepreneurs looking for the inside track on small-business law want to hear from a lawyer or serial entrepreneur.

Venue

When you’re first starting out, choose reputable, high-visibility venues for your classes. Don’t expect students to find their way to your personal or professional website before you’ve built a reputation for yourself.

Udemy is a great option for budding at-home teachers looking to earn real money from their work. YouTube is another viable option, although you can’t directly charge people to watch your YouTube videos. You’ll need to monetize them indirectly.

Topic and Structure

It’s not enough to select a popular vertical, make money fast working from home. You need a compelling topic and a tight structure for each class. After all, everyone wants to learn how to code, but you make money fast working from home teach every popular program language in an hour.

Build your curriculum around interesting, high-demand topics within your niche. Use real-life examples, hands-on exercises, and attractive graphics (whiteboards work well) whenever possible.

Pricing and Deals

As with any professional pursuit, you need to know how much your teaching skills are worth and price them accordingly.

Unfortunately, at-home teaching is a competitive business, so you’re likely to find someone who charges less for similar work. Ways to get around this include multicourse discounts, package deals, and complimentary products or information for early sign-ups.

Promotion

You don’t need to buy digital ads to promote your classes, but it’s definitely worth your while to drum up support by email — sending out targeted blasts to your professional and personal networks — and social media accounts.

As you gain students, reputable platforms like Udemy will boost your visibility, doing some of the hard promotional work for you. However, you must opt into its extensive course marketing network.

17. Question Marketplaces: Sell Answers to People’s Questions

The Internet is full of questions. If you’re knowledgeable and unbiased, you could earn money by answering them.

Online question marketplaces pay verified experts to answer questions posed by community members. If you’re particularly knowledgeable about a specific subject or discipline, you could earn a respectable side income simply by sharing your factual insights.

One of the most reputable and lucrative online question marketplaces is JustAnswer. JustAnswer’s verticals include health, home improvement, cars, law, business, tech, pets, and homework. For most verticals, you need relevant official credentials, such as a law or accounting degree.

Pay varies by vertical but seems to be pretty generous. JustAnswer says you can earn $2,000 to $7,000 per month, depending on your subject of expertise.

Your work volume depends on the quality of your answers and the volume of questions users are asking, so you may not find as much work as you expect at first. Still, JustAnswer is ripe for multitasking, making it a perfect work-from-home opportunity.

Other options include Wonder, which doesn’t require formal credentials. Wonder is cagey about how much it pays, but client pricing starts at about $40 per completed query, make money fast working from home, so it’s likely contributors see at least half that figure. However, Wonder appears to have lower question volumes than JustAnswer, limiting your income potential.

18. Paid Search: Sell Your Search Queries

You could earn small but meaningful sums from the same online searches you no doubt conduct every day, thanks to a slew of websites and plug-ins that track your searches and pay you for each completed query.

Paid search queries aren’t nearly as lucrative as expert-answer platforms such as JustAnswer. It’s rare to get more than a few cents for a single search. However, because you can complete hundreds of searches in an hour, the income potential is real. Popular, reputable options include:

• InboxDollars.InboxDollars is one of the Internet’s first legitimate at-home money-making websites, make money fast working from home. Paid search is just one of the many ways to earn a few extra bucks on the side with this site. And InboxDollars pays hard cash, a major advantage over some competitors. Learn more about InboxDollars by reading our InboxDollars review.
• Swagbucks. Swagbucks is an InboxDollars competitor with a slew of online money-making opportunities, including paid search. Searches earn Swagbucks, an on-site loyalty currency you can redeem make money fast working from home gift cards and other items.
• Qmee. Qmee is a browser plug-in that pays you to search for specific partner brands. You get even more via cash-back rebates when you buy stuff from these brands, but there’s no obligation to spend any money.

19. Paid Social Posts: Get Paid to Tweet, Post, Pin, and Share

You don’t need millions of followers to become a social media influencer. You just need to follow the basic rules of social media etiquette and find a reputable platform that pays you to share sponsored content from its clients or promote affiliate products.

If you’re serious about making real, sustainable money on social media, try either of these strategies:

YouTube Partner Program

The YouTube Partner program empowers YouTube channel operators to monetize certain types of videos.

Finding paying advertisers is hard work, and you need a sizable following before you can find companies willing to pay for direct or indirect promotion. Plus, your videos must meet YouTube’s monetization criteria, which ban explicit or copied content.

Pay potential is directly proportional to the size of your channel following and, to a lesser extent, audience demographics.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog or website, but it can also generate income from your social media properties. Many affiliate marketers do both.

ClickBank is a good place to start. Pay is directly proportional to your follower count and audience demographics.

20. Software and Game Reviews: Get Paid to Test Video Games

Getting paid to test new video games and consoles make money fast working from home like a dream come true for gamers. But video game testing is a job like any other. It requires significant time and energy commitments. It’s not something you can do with a few spare minutes or with less than your undivided attention.

To get started as a game tester, sign up with a reputable network such as Keywords Studio, whose Global Beta Test Network (GBTN) helps game developers push their products to the limit and ensure they go to market with as few bugs as possible.

GBTN’s tests typically involve dozens to hundreds of testers around the world running simultaneous tests on different aspects of clients’ games. Most tests are time-limited, project-based affairs.

Pay varies but typically ranges from $20 to $50 per hour. Diligent, skilled testers who work part-time can earn $10,000 to $20,000 per year; testers who work at or near full-time can easily exceed $50,000 per year.

Successful game testers have certain capabilities and personality traits in common:

• A Professional-Grade Gaming Setup. If you’re an avid gamer, make money fast working from home, you probably have this covered. If not, the cost of upgrading your setup in the hopes you’ll be hired as a tester could be prohibitive.
• Unwavering Attention to Detail. Video game testing isn’t like regular gameplay. The whole point is to prod for any bugs and defects that could potentially impact play, no matter how small or unlikely. Your eyes must be peeled for any deviance from expected results.
• Flexible Schedules With Long Blocks of Uninterrupted Time. Simultaneous game tests typically occur at the client’s convenience. If your game’s developer is based overseas, that could mean testing in the middle of the night. For night owls, that’s not a big deal, but 9-to-5 workers may struggle. Also, tests typically take several hours, so this isn’t something you can do for 20 minutes at a time and move on.

21, make money fast working from home. Website and Product Testing: Sell Your Feedback

Websites and products need testing too. Here’s what to know about each type of gig.

Website Testing

If you’re not much of a gamer, or you can’t spare the long blocks of time and unwavering attention required of professional game testers, consider signing up with UserTesting to try out new websites and mobile apps.

UserTesting’s website testing gigs do require focus and rigor, but they’re far shorter and don’t need to happen simultaneously, making them much easier to fit into your schedule. They don’t pay quite as well as game testing, though.

If you’re diligent, you can reliably earn $20 per hour, although the overall work volume is sometimes thin. You need a decent, relatively new computer or smartphone to complete tests.

Product Testing

If you prefer hands-on testing, consider signing up to test products withToluna, a leading market research firm. You’ll have the opportunity to try real product prototypes and beta versions before they’re released to the general public, and your feedback could meaningfully influence their development.

22. Cash Back and Coupons: Earn When You Shop

Cash back isn’t technically income because you need to buy something to earn it. It’s more like a discount. But when you earn cash back for purchases you’d make anyway, it’s a great way to make a little extra money.

The most common way to earn cash back on purchases is with a cash-back credit card.

But while a credit card is a great tool for building credit, there are many legitimate arguments against using one. If your spotty credit or personal preferences preclude you from applying for a credit card, don’t sweat it. You have plenty of other opportunities to earn cash back on purchases made in the comfort of your own home.

Look into these options:

• Capital One Shopping.Capital One Shopping is a browser extension that helps folks find a lower price on thousands of products when shopping online. Use it whenever you need to buy something without leaving the house.
• GetUpside. GetUpside is a coupon-free cash back app that pays users back for purchases at participating gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants. Online grocery and takeout orders are eligible for cash back where available, making GetUpside a profitable spending aid for at-home hustlers.
• Rakuten.Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is a wildly popular coupon site that offers multiple ways to save online. Cash back accrues immediately, so there’s no need to go through an extra redemption process. You can choose from thousands of partner merchants.
• TopCashback.TopCashback leverages affiliate arrangements with thousands of merchants to deliver a slew of instant discount and cash-back opportunities for U.S.-based shoppers. There’s some friction involved, as you need to click through to specific offers from TopCashback’s website, but the depth of the savings makes this extra step worthwhile.
• Piggy. Piggy is an intelligent coupon plug-in that works in the background as you browse and automatically serves you with the most relevant, up-to-date coupons on your favorite shopping websites. With thousands of merchants in the network, virtually every major brand is here. Savings opportunities range up to 70%.
• Qmee, make money fast working from home. As a low-friction plug-in, Qmee gives you the option to act on or ignore shopping discount offers. You can cash out in virtually any amount, so it’s worth using even if you’re only a sporadic online shopper.
• Giving Assistant. Giving Assistant puts a charitable spin on online shopping discounts. Functionally, it’s similar to Qmee and Piggy, but users have the option to donate their earnings to their make money fast working from home charities. Of course, those who prefer to pocket their cash still can. You can reliably earn 5% cash back with Giving Assistant and more at select merchants.

23. Translation: Sell Your Language Skills

Translation software is getting better all the time, and translator jobs are widely considered vulnerable to automation and artificial intelligence. However, there’s still a lively market how to invest in penny stocks 2022 translators, particularly those with above-average wordsmithing skills or fluency in obscure languages.

You can find plenty of translation jobs on general freelance platforms like Upwork, but the quality of opportunities on nonspecialized platforms tends to be uneven.

Earning potential also varies widely. Entry-level, nonspecialized translation work often pays less than $10 per hour, while highly technical jobs can pay more than $50 per hour. Generally speaking, you’ll earn more as you gain experience, improve your fluency, and attain vertical-specific credentials.

To maximize your earning potential as an online translator, sign up with as many of the following as possible:

Gengo

Gengo is a beginner-friendly platform that covers a range of subjects and project types. Pay tends to be on the low side, but payment is frequent and predictable — it comes via PayPal twice per month.

Experienced and prolific translators can become Senior Translators, who command higher pay rates and are responsible for evaluating and editing entry-level translators’ work.

ProTranslating

ProTranslating is a boutique agency with a sophisticated digital presence and an in-house marketing apparatus that adds value to its core services: translation and transcreation — adapting prose into a second language without altering its meaning.

ProTranslating focuses on expert-level content at the upper end of the market, so if you’re a professional translator with verifiable subject matter expertise, you can do very well. Beginners may want to start with Gengo or another entry-level platform before applying here.

One Hour Translation

One Hour Translation is a bulk translation service that’s great for entry-level translators. It pays by the word, with hourly rates working out to $10 to $20, depending on skill and speed. It’s a good option for beginners, and there’s ample room for advancement through the site’s elaborate hierarchy.

Unbabel

Unbabel is another entry-level option. Billed as an originator of “trustworthy large-scale translations,” it pays as little as $8 per hour, but the work is more plentiful and steady than on some competing platforms. If nothing else, it’s a good place to start.

24. Online Boutiques (Online Stores): Sell Your Crafts

The sky’s the limit for at-home crafters. Running a successful at-home crafts business no longer means schlepping your wares to flea markets every weekend or begging for space at your local art gallery. All you need is a reliable Internet connection, a decent camera, and a modest startup fund.

Legitimate places to sell your creations online include:

• Etsy. Selling on Etsy is a fantastic way to monetize your crafting hobby. And with a transaction fee of just 3.5%, it’s a lot cheaper than popular alternatives such as eBay and Amazon.
• E-Commerce Portals. The best way to improve your at-home crafts business’s visibility and credibility is to launch your own website. And the best way to monetize that website is with a turnkey e-commerce portal. Shopify is a relatively cost-effective, feature-rich option for serious sellers — you can build and maintain a decent store for $15 to $20 per month. Volusion and Squarespace are worthy, comparably priced competitors.
• Niche Websites. Depending on what you’re selling, niche websites could be cheaper and more effective than Etsy and on-site e-commerce make money fast working from home. Check out Handmade Artists, which costs $5 per month or $50 per year and is for handmade goods only, and Zibbet, which costs $5 and up per month and has a handy feature that seamlessly transfers Etsy listing content.

25. Technical Support: Sell Your Troubleshooting Skills

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 make money fast working from home 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.”

There are lots of tech support work-at-home opportunities out there. Before looking for at-home tech support jobs, however, keep a few cautions in mind:

Spotting Scams

Lots of at-home voice work is legitimate, but there are plenty of scam artists too. Don’t make money fast working from home 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 Energy

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.

26. Remote Call Centers: Sell Your Voice

Not confident in your technical support skills or not sure you meet Apple’s stringent standards? If you’re a friendly, persuasive talker, you’ll find plenty of opportunities with remote call center operators.

Although they vary somewhat from company to company, remote call center operators’ technical and equipment requirements are comparable to remote customer support companies’. You need a headset, a fast Internet connection, an above-average desktop or laptop computer, and any proprietary software necessary to do your job.

Remote call center opportunities are more varied than remote technical support gigs. Many call center companies serve as outside sales contractors for companies without internal sales teams of their own. As an at-home operator, you work as an independent contractor charged with selling on the client’s behalf.

If you’re personable, persuasive, and believe in what you’re selling, there’s real money to be made in this niche. However, since independent sales agents are usually commission-based, make money fast working from home, you may struggle to earn a respectable keep if you’re not a born salesperson.

Other common opportunities include insurance claims processing, roadside assistance routing, and customer assistance for health care consumers.

LiveOps packages all of these functions, plus a healthy dose of inbound sales, under a single roof. Keep in mind that there’s a modest startup cost involved — about $50 for a self-funded background check — and you’re not compensated for training. So LiveOps isn’t suitable for at-home workers who need cash immediately.

27. Virtual Assistant Services: Sell Your Organizational Skills

Busy professionals and small-business owners often lack the resources or office space to employ an on-site assistant. Many choose to hire virtual assistants (VAs) on a part-time or contract basis, getting all the benefits of a trusty assistant while saving the expense and regulatory headaches of a full-time employee.

Virtual assistant duties typically include:

• Screening calls, taking and responding to messages, and directing important information to the client
• Accepting, deflecting, and scheduling requests for the client’s time and attention and maintaining up-to-date calendars
• Basic clerical and organizational tasks
• Compiling and running reports
• Managing, scheduling, and producing content for social media, email marketing, and websites
• Managing e-commerce operations, including fulfillment

Necessary or recommended equipment includes:

• A comfortable desk and workspace
• A standardized and scalable electronic organization system
• A fast Internet connection
• A reliable telephone setup (either a landline or a cloud-based business phone system), preferably with a headset
• A secure means of invoicing and receiving payment, such as FreshBooks or PayPal
• A secure email suite
• Anti-malware protection
• A virtual private network (VPN) fromNordVPN, especially if anonymity is a consideration or you’re working with clients outside your home country
• Permissions and passwords for the principal accounts to which you’re allowed access, make money fast working from home, such as email and invoicing software

Virtual assistants can work as little as a few hours per week per client, make money fast working from home, either in a single block of time or spread evenly throughout. Work is plentiful, so it’s not hard to string together multiple gigs and create a full- or near-full-time job.

The virtual assistant workforce is global, which means two things. First, if you’re in the U.S. or another high-cost country, you’ll likely be undercut by English- and Spanish-speaking professionals in cheaper markets.

Second, you’ll need to either stick to clients in or near your time zone or be willing to work odd hours. A reasonable starting wage make money fast working from home North America-based VAs is $10 to $20 per hour, but competent VAs command much higher rates.

Start looking for virtual assistant gigs on general-purpose freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Make money fast working from home, and Freelancer, but consider launching your own website.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure how to get started, there are online courses available that can provide you with all the information you’ll need.

28. Watching Online Videos and TV: Sell Your Viewing Time

If you’re an avid consumer of online videos, TV programs, or both, you can turn your habit into a legitimate source of side income.

Some opportunities pay better and more reliably than others. Netflix reportedly pays “taggers,” who watch and categorize Netflix shows, at least $10 per hour. Individual shows or production companies occasionally advertise for similar positions, although these opportunities are becoming fewer and farther between. Competition is stiff when positions do open up.

Other opportunities are easier to get but not nearly as lucrative. Many market research companies have video-watching verticals through which participants make money fast working from home earn points for each view.Swagbucks andInboxDollars are two legitimate options that allow users to exchange points for gift cards and occasionally cash.

Hourly rates work out to less than minimum wage in most cases but aren’t bad for a few spare minutes of your time here and there.

29. Tailoring: Sell Your Fashion Skills

Tailoring isn’t exactly a fast track to riches, but it can serve as a valuable source of side income or even a full-fledged cottage industry sufficient to support a two-income family. According to the BLS, the average annual salary for tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers is about $36,000. That works out to more than $15 per hour.

The most common at-home sewing pursuit is clothing alterations, a high-volume niche that’s always in demand.

However, depending on your skills and interests, you can pour yourself into a slew of other opportunities: making custom curtains and draperies, repairing heirloom bedclothes and tapestries, assembling and repairing durable fabrics such as canvas bags and totes, or producing large-scale items such as boat covers.

Before you launch an at-home alteration or custom sewing business, consider the following:

Your Skills

This is a detail-oriented pursuit that requires patience and skill. You need to have above-average sewing skills, and confidence in those skills, to make your mark. Experience is strongly preferred as well.

Advertising and Promotion

You won’t have a huge budget to promote your at-home business, so use cost-effective outreach targeted to your most likely customers, such as fliers in local craft and clothing stores, a basic website (preferably with booking and payment portals), a referral network, and friends and family willing to sing your praises.

Also, consider joining the American Sewing Guild for $50 per year. It’s a reliable way to meet other enthusiasts and get your name out there.

Equipment Costs and Space

At a minimum, you’ll need a work table, a sewing machine, a rack, and storage space for raw materials. You can find a cheap but sturdy table for less than $20, and maybe for free if you’re fortunate.

Used sewing machines start at under $50, but that won’t cut it for a real at-home custom sewing business. You’ll need a heavy-duty piece of equipment, preferably new. Expect to pay $2,000 or more for this. Consider financing with a low-APR credit card if your creditworthiness allows.

Legalities

Confirm with local authorities that your neighborhood is zoned to allow at-home businesses. If it’s not, look into applying for a variance or otherwise coming into compliance. Even if this costs something upfront, it’s better than risking a fine or a cease-and-desist order down the road.

30. Medical Transcription: Sell Your Attention to Detail

If you’re a fast, accurate typist, you can earn significant sums as a medical transcriptionist by transcribing physicians’ spoken notes into legible, accurate text.

Medical transcription is semiskilled work. While you don’t have bitcoin investing 2022 machine be a doctor or nurse, make money fast working from home, you do need to complete an intensive training course that can last a year or more and cost several thousand dollars, make money fast working from home. During periods of increased demand, some employers may be make money fast working from home to finance your training course, or at least partially or fully reimburse you after the fact.

Once you’re employed, you can expect to earn about $16 per hour on average, according to PayScale.

To boost your attractiveness to employers, consider working as an on-site scribe at your local hospital or clinic, make money fast working from home. Although they pay less, most such jobs require less prior experience than full-fledged transcription jobs.

The upshot: Like reputable tech support jobs, legitimate medical transcription gigs usually don’t require much upfront investment, save for high-speed Internet and a cell or landline phone. Legitimate employers provide any software necessary to complete your duties, and some may even provide or finance the purchase of a business laptop or desktop.

31. Freelance Consulting: Sell Your Professional Acumen

At-home consulting is a great way for new parents who’ve scaled back their hours or sidelined their careers to keep their skills sharp and their names out there. It’s also a great side gig for professionals and digital artisans, like graphic design pros, who’ve grown stifled in their current roles but don’t yet have the confidence or client base to quit their 9-to-5s and strike out on their own.

With time, a consulting side business can easily turn into a full-time job, with all the freedom that entails.

Launching an at-home consulting business means getting comfortable with the idea of marketing yourself. Start by modifying your LinkedIn profile to emphasize your consulting services and relevant professional experience. Set up a website that describes your consulting work in more detail and features testimonials from former colleagues and clients, make money fast working from home. And create a blog that plays up your expertise.

32. Website Flipping: Buy, Fix, and Sell Undervalued Websites & Domains

Flipping a website is a lot like building and monetizing a personal blog. The key difference is that when you flip, you’re working toward the clearly defined short-term goal of selling the site for a tidy profit. You can and should earn money through advertising and affiliate relationships along the way, but you’re not looking to hold the site make money fast working from home the long term.

Every website flip carries its own unique caveats and considerations. For starters, there are two main types of website flips:

• Buying an unbuilt domain and creating your own website from scratch
• Buying an existing website and increasing its revenue potential

Successful website flippers typically hone in on a niche that’s popular with Internet users (as measured by search interest) and has ample potential to support informative, engaging content. They use low-cost domain warehouses like GoDaddy to find domains that don’t already exist, make money fast working from home, low-cost hosting services with built-in website building tools, and reasonably priced contract labor for help with site development and content creation.

Once they’ve reached their traffic and monetization goals, they use website brokers like Flippa (a flipper-oriented platform) or FE International (a higher-end agency for more valuable online businesses) to find buyers at the right price.

Before getting too far into the website flipping business, make money fast working from home, it helps to set your expectations. Every flip is different, make money fast working from home, and your success or failure will depend to a great degree on factors like your site’s niche and your goals. Plus, make money fast working from home, it takes a lot of hard work — not to mention a substantial amount of time — to pull off a successful flip.

33. Lodging: Rent Out Space in Your Home

Are you maximizing your home’s income potential? If you have an empty spare bedroom, mother-in-law suite, or duplex unit on the premises, the answer is likely no.

You don’t have to find a long-term tenant to earn income from your home’s unused square footage. Apps likeAirbnb,Vrbo, andHomeAway let you rent out your home to business and leisure travelers on a nightly or weekly basis.

Depending on prevailing rents in your local market and your space’s size, amenities, and privacy, you could earn anywhere from $40 or $50 to $500 or more per night. It’s the ultimate passive income side hustle.

Short-term rental platforms handle most of the thorny logistical considerations that keep regular homeowners from becoming landlords, make money fast working from home, including payment processing and security deposits.

And after a string of highly public mishaps in their first few years, these platforms are increasingly safety-conscious, so the likelihood is high you’ll be able to verify the identity of every person who crashes at your place.

Not every home is rental-ready, of course. Before listing your place on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, consider these factors:

Stranger Danger

Most importantly, you need to determine whether you and your family members are comfortable with welcoming strangers into your home. If you have a second unit with a separate entrance, this is less of a sticking point, but it still begs careful consideration.

Local Regulations

Municipal governments are increasingly amenable to short-term rentals, but holdouts remain. Surprisingly, tourist towns are sometimes the most vehemently opposed. Keep abreast of regulations in your area. And if your city does allow short-term rentals, make sure you pay all applicable local and state hospitality taxes.

Pets

Dogs and cats complicate short-term rental arrangements. It’s hard to give a visitor free reign over your place when you’re worried about them inadvertently letting Fido or Fluffy out when they come home in the middle of the night.

At a minimum, you should disclose the fact that you have pets, lest an allergic tenant leaves a toxic review on your otherwise pristine online listing.

Cleaning and Damage

Online rental platforms let you charge cleaning fees so that you aren’t financially on the hook for the full cost of a post-tenant professional cleaning. Most cover the cost of renter-caused damage too, provided you properly document and report it.

But financial redress only goes so far. You still have to deal with the inevitable investment of time and energy to fix the damage or clean up the mess.

Hands-On Hosting

While you don’t have to serve as your visitors’ personal tour guide, you do have to be reachable and willing to help if a problem arises.

If you’re not willing to drop what you’re doing — or at least pick up your phone — to help a tenant in need, short-term rental hosting might not be your best bet for at-home income.

34. Car Rentals: Rent Out Your Car

Don’t have a spare bedroom or second unit to rent out on a nightly basis? If you have a world of tanks grille money maker vehicle, you can rent it out to travelers and people who don’t own their own cars — without getting behind the wheel or even leaving your house.

Car rental apps abound. Before you choose one, read the fine print and make sure it has adequate liability insurance that protects you in the event of a serious accident involving injuries and property damage.

Getaround has a good reputation and a relatively long track record. According to its website, car owners in high-demand cities such as San Francisco can earn up to $10,000 per year.Turo, another reputable option, also advertises potential earnings north of $10,000 per year per car. That’s a pretty impressive passive income stream.

35. Parking Spot Rentals: Rent Out Your Driveway or Street Slot

Another vehicle-related passive income opportunity is your bitcoin investment sites 401k parking space. In crowded cities like Chicago and Boston, parking spaces are valuable commodities. If you’re fortunate enough to own or have guaranteed access to an on- or off-street parking space, you can earn money by renting it out to folks visiting or passing through your neighborhood.

Check outNeighbor.com, an increasingly popular app that connects drivers and parking spot owners in the same way Airbnb connects travelers and homeowners. Neighbor.com won’t make you rich overnight, but it could help you earn a few hundred bucks per month on an in-demand make money fast working from home spot.

36. Meal Sharing: Sell Your Cooking Skills

Once upon a time, being a professional-grade cook meant squat without startup capital to open a restaurant or launch a food truck business.

Not anymore. Today, you can run a small-scale eatery — and earn a tidy profit in the process — without leaving your home. The secret: a rapidly multiplying cohort of meal-sharing startups that connect budding chefs with hungry diners willing to shell out money for authentic, restaurant-quality home cooking.

But first, a caveat: Meal sharing platforms operate in a legal gray area. The food service industry is heavily regulated, and many jurisdictions make it all but impossible for home cooks to profit from their passions.

At a minimum, you need to make sure you comply with all local health department directives and obtain all applicable licenses before you begin inviting diners into your home.

It’s also worth noting that meal sharing involves hosting strangers for dinner, which can be an even more intimate prospect than allowing them to sleep in your home while you’re away. Every app takes pains to protect host and diner safety, but if you’re reticent to invite people you’ve never met into your home, you may want to think twice.

If you’re comfortable having strangers in your home and confident you’re on the right side of the law, check out these popular meal sharing options. Depending on make money fast working from home platform choice, make money fast working from home, guest capacity, and local market, you can expect to rake in anywhere runescape money making guide 2022 afk $50 to several hundred dollars per meal after accounting for expenses. Hosting opportunities are more plentiful in major cities.

• Traveling Spoon. The appropriately named Traveling Spoon brokers cooking classes and communal meals in over 150 countries. There are very few restrictions on what you can cook (or teach), and you’re free to set your own prices to ensure a full table — although you’ll want to charge enough to cover your costs and have something left over for yourself.
• ChefsFeed. ChefsFeed is geared toward aspiring and semi-established chefs. Many cooks use it to supplement income earned at real restaurants or food trucks or to break into extremely competitive culinary scenes in places like New York City and San Francisco.
• Eatwith. Eatwith, make money fast working from home, a European startup, stresses the communal aspect of meal sharing. The vetting process for new chefs is pretty rigorous, but there’s plenty of room for talented cooks to break in.

37. Tech Work: Invest in Your Future

Contrary to popular belief, not all high-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree are dangerous or grueling. Some can be done from the comfort of your home office, with nothing more than a fast Internet connection and a high-end laptop.

And the right skills, of course. Increase your earning potential in fields like UI/UX and data analytics — where full-time salaries for entry-level jobs easily exceed $50,000 per year — with a bootcamp from Springboard, a leading course provider for tech certifications.

Although Springboard isn’t free, it does offer a fallback: If you don’t land a job after actively searching for six months following your graduation, Springboard will refund your course make money fast working from home. That’s not a bad deal for an investment that could literally alter the course of your career.

Codecademy’s money-back guarantee isn’t as generous, but its course database is far more expansive than Springboard’s. If you’re not sure where to start, take the quiz to learn how your existing skills fit into the wide (and often confusing) world of programming.

Final Word

Many of these work-at-home opportunities involve either passive income or spare-time endeavors — side hustles, really — that aren’t likely to turn into full-time pursuits. But some, such as freelance writing and editing, are readily scalable.

If you’re willing to pound the pavement in search of paying clients and can follow productivity tips for home workers, there’s nothing stopping you from turning your at-home side hustle into a full-fledged career.

Happy days are here again – or so you might assume from a recent wave of optimistic reports about the economic outlook and rising consumer confidence, make money fast working from home. But while unemployment is down, the latest labour market figures reveal a surge in part-time jobs as employers remain anxious about long-term recovery prospects, suggesting it may not be time to hang out the bunting just yet.

With more of us working fewer relationship between income consumption investment and saving and with a resulting earnings gap to close, there’s arguably never been a better time to set up a business you can run in your spare time from home. Whether it’s to help make ends meet, or to follow your passion, or maybe even both, we’ve asked the experts to come up with 50 practical and cheap ways to make some extra cash.

Our list may not be exhaustive, nor may it put you on the path to riches and early retirement, but hopefully it will get you thinking. And if you have any better ideas, let us know by emailing .

1 Antiques/collectibles dealing Know your stuff when it comes to certain kinds of collectibles? If so this can be a great way to make money from a hobby. Trading sites such as eBay make it easier than ever to reach your target market, according to Trent Hamm, author of US money-saving blog thesimpledollar.com. “I had some success with this myself in the past, trading cards and video games,” he says.

2 Babysitting If you can spare a few evenings and know any parents desperate to get out, there are few simpler ways to make a few extra pounds.

3 Bed and breakfast Got a spare room? Live near somewhere of interest to tourists, or close to a student area? Note you’ll almost certainly need planning, mortgage lender and health and safety approvals first.

4 Biscuit/sweet making Homemade biscuits and confectionery can be a great seller, make money fast working from home, says Hamm. “Bake and package them well, and try reselling through a local gift shop. People in your social network may buy batches for special occasions.”

5 Cake making/decorating If you enjoy baking and have an artistic touch, making and decorating cakes can be a really satisfying way of earning extra money. “One of my mother’s old friends does this and makes quite a bit on the side,” says Hamm.

6 Car boot sales This is a part-time occupation that increases earnings and broadens horizons as you make sales and get to travel, says Emma Jones, author of Working 5 to 9: How to Start a Successful Business in your Spare Time, and founder of the website enterprisenation.com, make money fast working from home. “Consider selling specialist items and building a reputation for being the go-to person; offering your knowledge and expertise with the product can increase the price you’re paid,” she suggests.

7 Car cleaning/valeting Have a meticulous make money fast working from home for detail and love to get things spotless? This could be a perfect side business for you. “Many people are quite happy to pay well for this service,” points out Hamm.

8 Catering Formal qualifications are not strictly required for catering, which is more about producing and delivering good food. However, the organisational aspects may be easier after some instruction, such as a City & Guilds certificate (NVQ or other) in hospitality and catering.

9 Census distributor Every 10 years a census is held in England and Wales. The next one is in 2011, but you can register now to be considered for a range of related roles in your area, including collection and delivery. See censusjobs.co.uk.

10 Childcare There’s great potential to earn extra money from looking after kids, but you’ll need to adore children (not just your own), have boundless energy and patience and in many cases must satisfy Ofsted criteria.

Any adult who looks after another person’s child for more than two hours on any one day in a location other than the child’s home (so excluding most babysitters and nannies) needs to register with Ofsted – it’s not a particularly complicated process but does include medical, criminal and domestic safety checks. Nannies can look after the children of up to two sets of parents, in one of their home environments, without being Ofsted-registered.

Failing to meet the criteria can land you in court, so check here for the full list of Ofsted restrictions.

11 Computer repairer/troubleshooter Despite the proliferation of technology in our lives, many people still find computers complicated to maintain and terrifying if they go wrong. If you have a reassuring manner and are not fazed by the inner workings of a PC, offer your services locally and let word of mouth do the rest. “I had some success doing this in the past,” says Hamm.

12 Cosmetics sales what is compounding growth of an investment savings account is very much a social business activity so be prepared to spend lots of time meeting and talking to people, make money fast working from home. You’ll be selling mainly by networking and often through parties in other people’s homes, so an outgoing manner and immaculate personal presentation skills are essential.

13 Data entry Perhaps not the most thrilling of part-time pursuits, but data entry can nevertheless offer an extremely steady (not to mention flexible) source of extra income. You generally get paid for the number of entries you make rather than by the hour, which means you can go back and forth to it when you get a spare few minutes.

14 Dinner preparation “I recently met a woman who earned quite a bit of money as a very part-time chef,” says Hamm. “Once a week, she would go to someone’s house and prepare a homemade meal for their family, then do all the dishes and cleaning up. This gives the family plenty of together time, while earning her some cash in hand.” If you love to cook, this can be a great extra earnings opportunity, but be prepared to put some effort into finding your customers.

15 Become a DJ It goes without saying that you need a deep love of music and an extensive collection of tunes before you can even consider DJing, but as much of the work is at evenings and weekends, it could make a perfect side business. Be ready to cater for a range of crowds and musical preferences, not just your passion. Learn the ropes by concentrating first on weddings and birthday parties or by doing roadie work for an established DJ, which will gain you useful contacts.

16 Be a doula Jasmine Birtles, the founder of website moneymagpie.com, says you can make between £12 and £15 an hour or £250-£500 for a birth by being a doula – a birth partner and post-birth partner. “If you’ve had a baby and you make money fast working from home to help new mothers, do a short course with Britishdoulas.co.uk and work locally,” she says. “You do what a grandmother or sister might do for a new mum, such as giving moral support, helping around the house, caring for the baby and supporting the whole family.”

17 Flower arranging Imagine doing what you love and getting paid for it, which is what this idea brings to mind. “The nature of the product means you’re likely to cater to a local audience, so why not impress with a business card and delivery car adorned with flower power,” suggests Jones of enterprisenation.com. “It’ll turn heads and attract new business make money fast working from home you turn corners.”

18 Garage/garden sales “One person I know holds a garage sale at their house almost every weekend during summer,” says Hamm. “They get a lot of regular customers who stop by almost every weekend to see what’s on sale, make money fast working from home. That person then goes to neighbours and friends and offers to sell their stuff for them, splitting the proceeds. People are usually happy to do this since they can get rid of unwanted items and earn a bit of money, too.”

19 Gardening services “I’ve had requests from others for people willing to do this, so the demand is out there,” says Hamm. “To put it simply, some people are willing to pay others to get a vegetable or flower garden started so that they can have access to ultra-fresh produce without doing all the legwork.”

20 Making greetings cards If you’re the kind of person who loves making things, why not try your hand at cards? Ask a local shopkeeper what kind sells best and follow their advice, working to a distinctive style of your own. Then try selling to family, friends and local businesses. Be mindful of material costs and time taken though, as wastage can be expensive in such a low-value product.

21 Handyman services Know your way round a toolbox? Make money fast working from home people know that they can call you for little repair jobs, relatively straightforward DIY tasks such as putting up shelves or assembling flat-pack furniture. “You’d be amazed at the simple things people are willing to pay others to help them with,” says Hamm.

22 Host and teach foreign students “This is a great way of renting your room without getting stuck with the flatshare from hell,” says Birtles. “Foreign students don’t usually stay longer than a couple of months at lets make money greek subtitles time, so if they’re annoying at least you know they’ll go soon.”

Usually the deal is B&B, but sometimes you make money fast working from home to give them an evening meal too. Get in touch with your nearest English language schools and let them know you have a room to rent, Birtles advises. The website idiom.co.uk has a list of schools in the UK. You can make up to £200 a week depending on where you live.

23 House cleaning “This is an idea you can start yourself, or consider being part of a house-cleaning franchise such as Molly Maid where you have the benefit of being your own boss as well as the support of a central team,” says Jones.

24 Ironing/laundry services “Even in these cash-strapped times, some people hate ironing so much they’re willing to pay others to do it (at least in the posh parts of town),” says Birtles of moneymagpie.com, who suggests either registering with domestic agencies such as mrshunts.co.uk or setting up your own local service.

“Check out the competition, see how much they charge, and undercut. Either work for an hourly rate, a fee per item or a fee per lb,” she says. You should get between £8 and £12 per hour, make money fast working from home, between 50p and £1 per item or between 50p and £1 per lb of clothes, depending on where you work.”

25 Jewellery selling Never mind Tupperware – if you have jewellery you no longer wear or want, try organising a party to sell it, says Jones. “Websites that organise these parties, such as ounces2pounds.co.uk, are going great guns in signing up ladies who want to earn extra income in their spare time,” she says.

26 Knitting/alteration/sewing services A big growth area, as more people come to appreciate the value in repairing and patching up clothes. If you’re handy with a sewing machine, there’s serious money to be made. Once you get known locally, word-of-mouth should do the rest.

27 Leaflet distributing make money fast working from home leaflets to people’s houses could be a profitable and healthy way to spend a few spare hours a week. Call into your local shops and restaurants to see if they make money fast working from home help distributing flyers, menus and so on.

28 Market research Get paid for your opinions by signing up with sarosresearch.com and taking part in focus groups, suggests Birtles. “You get between £50-£100 cash, plus food and drink for saying what you think about products or services for a few hours. Or be the one asking the questions. Ipsos Mori offers flexible hours to people willing to do phone interviews or knock on doors to ask people questions. You make between £8-£10 an hour on average.”

29 Musical performance If you can play a musical (especially orchestral) instrument to a high enough standard, know a few choice solo pieces and look presentable, spread make money fast working from home word locally – weddings and other formal functions can be a lucrative source of performance income.

30 Online surveys It’s possible to make pocket money by filling in internet surveys – though moneymagpie.com’s Birtles advises caution, as there are hundreds make money fast working from home bogus companies on the net, make money fast working from home. “Toluna, Ciao!, Lightspeed Panel, and Valued Opinions are all pukka,” she says. “You make between 50p and £5 per survey. Click here for more information and a list of genuine survey companies.

31 Online trading Sites such as eBay and Amazon make it easy for people to dabble in e-commerce. “Start with a clearout of your attic,” suggests Dan Wilson, author of Make Serious Money on eBay. “If you start to sell other goods, focus on things you can get hold of easily, or are passionate about. And have an eye on the Christmas market: think about what will be selling well in a few months’ time.”

32 Personal organiser/assistant If you are good at filing and managing tasks, and know someone who isn’t, why not offer to share your expertise with them for a small consideration? Being organised is a valuable skill, and whether it’s for a small company or a friend there may be more of a market for this than meets the eye. Ask around friends or look on listings websites including gumtree.com.

33 Personal shopping “This is an idea that nicely taps into our desire for personal service,” says Jones. “There’s also potential to niche this business, for example focusing on time-starved ladies. Making it niche brings down marketing costs and increases customer loyalty.”

34 Personal tutoring If you are a part-time teacher or are perhaps taking a career break to look after young children, this can be a great way to make a little money while keeping your syllabus knowledge up to date. Try advertising locally or registering with an agency like Personal Tutors.

35 Pet grooming “Many people loathe bathing their pets and trimming their hair – I know I do,” says Hamm. “Pet groomers can do this for a small fee – a perfect job for a person who loves dogs and cats.”

36 Pet minding/walking “Dog-walking is a fantastic earner if you love animals and enjoy the outdoors,” says Birtles. “On average you can make between £10-£15 per hour, per dog.” Get good and you can be walking two or more at a time. Offer pet-minding as well and you can make a whole business out of it. “You’ll need public liability insurance in case something happens to the dogs or members of the public,” she warns.

37 Online referrals expert There’s money to be made from your email address book: a surprising number of companies will pay you if you can persuade your friends to become their customers. Check out the website refermehappy.com, an online matching service where you can get referral bonuses from companies like Sky, Virgin Media and First Direct.

38 Rent out your stuff You can rent pretty much anything now, make money fast working from home, although space is still the most profitable “item”, says Birtles. “Rent your driveway on parkatmyhouse.com if you live somewhere popular, or your possessions from a baby bath to your lawnmower on sites like rentnotbuy.co.uk and Zilok ,” she advises. “Currently there are more items on offer than requests to lease things, but it’s worth a try.”

39 Slivers of Time OK, this isn’t strictly a business idea, but sliversoftime.com matches people with a few spare hours here and there with part-time work. Register with the site, then put your spare time on the calendar. Your hours are sent to local agencies and businesses who regularly use part-time workers.

40 Selling ad space on a personal blog This is not a big money-earner to start with but could be if you work at it, reckons Birtles. “Set up your own blog (do it for free with blogger.com) and fill it with great writing, photos, videos and anything else you’re passionate about,” she advises. “Get ads automatically through Google Adsense and make money fast working from home a few pence every time someone clicks on an ad.”

Do book reviews and make money selling the books through Amazon’s affiliate programme.

41 Scrapbook making Many people dream of having beautiful scrapbooks, says Hamm. “They collect all the materials they want to go in them, but never follow through on the actual creation. You can step in here – take their ideas and materials and assemble a scrapbook for them.”

42 Selling lost luggage Auction houses round the country routinely sell off lost luggage that the airlines have failed to match with their owners. “For example, Greasby’s in south London sells off BA’s lost items every week,” points out Birtles. “You bid blind on bags that have had the expensive stuff removed (cameras, iPods etc) and then sell the bag and contents on eBay or at a car boot sale. Bags generally go for between £5-£50. Your profit depends on what’s in them!”

43 Translating If you are fluent in a second language, translation services are in demand as UK companies look overseas for new sales. But be warned: it’s a serious business and you’ll need professional qualifications from an accredited body (such as the Institute of Translation and Interpreting or the Chartered Institute of Linguists) and professional indemnity insurance before setting up.

For public service translating work you’ll also need a diploma in public service interpreting law, a licence from the National Register of Public Service Interpreters and to be registered with an approved interpreting body.

“Once qualified, register with translation sites such as lingo24.com and Translation Services 24 and grow from there,” suggests Jones.

44 “Ugly” modelling If you look, shall we say, different,you could make money in ads, photoshoots or appearances through the Ugly model agency. “People with phenomenal tattoos, piercings or just very “interesting” faces can make thousands doing commercials, videos or corporate appearances,” says Birtles.

45 Vegetable growing If you have some suitable garden space and the requisite green fingers, focus on one vegetable and sell the excess to local greengrocers and at farmers’ markets. “My father does this with tomatoes and earns some solid extra money in the summer,” says Hamm.

46 Virtual assistant “Many ultra-busy professionals appreciate having someone who can check and answer their email, organise task lists for them, update their calendars and so on, with minimal interaction,” says Hamm, make money fast working from home. “You can provide this service from home with a good internet connection.”

47 Website designing An increasingly competitive field as the software needed becomes more and more mainstream. However if you have a good eye for design generally and formal training, it can be a profitable side business.

48 Wedding/social photographer You’ll need a website or blog to showcase your work, but if you’re confident that your photography is good enough, there’s no reason why you can’t do wedding/function work professionally. Do your homework though – you’ll need to take charge of arranging people into groups and know all the classic poses expected of the occasion.

49 Wedding planning If you’re one of those people who can’t help but flip through bridal magazines and daydream about nuptial arrangements, this might be perfect for you. “A great way to get started is to develop a website on the topic, get to know people online and offer your services to the community,” says Hamm.

50 Writing letters to magazines You can make between £10-£200 for a good letter or photograph to a weekly magazine such as Take a Break or Pick Make money fast working from home Up, suggests Birtles. “If you have a really juicy story you can make even more, and you don’t even have to write make money fast working from home, she says. Women’s magazines particularly are usually desperate for items for their letters’ pages, and even quite tame stuff often gets in.

Working from home - Whose business is it?

If you’re an employee/mum/student by day and are building a business after hours, Emma Jones highlights the people­ you need to keep in the loop.

The boss So long as you’re not doing anything in competition with your day job, it’s wise to tell your employer. Providing it doesn’t affect your work, most employers should see a side business as a good thing; you’re gaining new skills, while the employer gains the benefits and doesn’t have to pay for the training.

The insurance/mortgage people When starting a business at home, upgrade the insurance policy to include­ business cover and tell your safest place to purchase bitcoin provider, even though this won’t affect payments. You only have to inform the local council if the nature­ of the house is going to change from a home to business premises, which is unlikely.

The taxman You have a duty to inform HMRC of activities within three months of trading. Registration­ is straightforward, with forms depending­ on whether you set up as a sole trader, partnership or limited company. Keep the tax bill as low as possible by claiming business and homeworking expenses.

Friends and family Last but not least – so they can all make money fast working from home start buying from you.

Emma Jones is founder of Enterprise Nation and author of Working 5 to 9. To order a copy for £10.49 (including UK mainland p&p), go to theguardian.com/bookshop