Best Ways To Earn Extra Income At Home (or from a coffee shop)

 

We live in a day and age where it is very possible to make a living from home. If you have access to a computer, some internet, and a little motivation, the sky is the limit.

 

Your need for extra income is normal. We’re surrounded by costs all of the time. Even if we decide to live frugally, that reality is unavoidable (which was proven to me ONCE AGAIN today, when I hopped into my car, turned the key, and heard nothing but clicking… apparently it needs a replacement fuel pump).

 

Maybe you just want more out of life. Money isn’t everything, but slavery to “employment”, and a dependency on a job that steals 40+ hours of your week just to bring in income isn’t the best that life can be. And it’s not the way it has to be.

 

You can actually start a side hustle at home that will eventually allow you to work wherever you want, and live life on your own terms.

 

 

 

 

Who Needs To Work From Home?

 

There are probably a million reasons why someone might need to work from home. You might be in one of these categories, or even dozens of them:

 

– a stay-at-home parent raising young kids

– someone who has been injured, and can’t continue doing a manual job

– someone who is unemployed

– someone who runs an AirBnB, or rental properties

– someone who only has part-time employment

– a freelancer

– someone struggling with mental illness that may make regular employment impossible

– anyone wanting more freedom of time

– people who love traveling, and want to be able to make money on the road

– anyone with the drive to take matters into their own hands

 

Being able to make money anywhere, from your own place with your loved ones, from a coffee shop, a library, from your phone on a bus trip, or anywhere else… is an option.

 

 

 

Best Ways To Earn Extra Income From Home

 

• Internet Marketing
• Starting an internet shop
• Selling on Amazon (and other marketplaces)
• Multi-Level Marketing
• Sell your artwork
• Running an AirBnB
• Driving for Amazon Flex, Uber, or Lyft
• Teaching English as a second language online (some require degree, some don’t)
• Websites and Apps that pay you
• User Testing

 

These are just 10 of the best ways to earn extra income from home. The majority of them are a lot easier than they sound! Some of them will simply add a little spare change to your pocket to give you a little more flexibility with spending. Others can completely erase your need to ever work again, and have the potential to produce 6 or 7 figure profits for the rest of your life.

 

Some are easy. Some are hard. They all pay accordingly.

 

 

 

Internet Marketing (yes, blogs can make you $$$)

 

One of the most potentially lucrative ways of earning extra income from home is starting your own internet marketing business.

 

Now hang on… if you’re not already familiar with marketing, technology, or the way a lot of this stuff works, than this might make you pretty skeptical. It’s a lot simpler than it sounds. Through a process called affiliate marketing, you can essentially turn discussing your passions and sharing your knowledge into an enormous cash flow.

 

Another way of thinking of it is blogging for income. If you haven’t started a blog before, don’t sweat it. Success is really a matter of getting the right education, the right mentors, and the right tools. None of those things are difficult to get.

 

I personally use an all-in-one affiliate marketing resource called Wealthy Affiliate. It takes you by the hand, and walks you through all of the basics of starting a blog, it takes care of the technology parts FOR you, and then it teaches you how to make money. Building a money-making blog was easy after that.

 

It’s one of the cheapest ways to start your own business, requiring the smallest upfront investment, for a high potential return.

 

And you can do it from a cafe, or the comfort of your couch.

 

In a nutshell, once you have a readership, or a good amount of traffic coming to your blog, you can promote or review things for companies (even just anything you find on Amazon), and get paid every time someone clicks through it and purchases something.

 

This is not something that will make you a flow of income right away. And it won’t usually make you a millionaire within the first couple years, but as a long term asset, an affiliate marketing business can bring in thousands and thousands of dollars every month. And once you’re established, you can practically sit back and watch your handiwork pour money into your bank or PayPayl account.

 

 

Starting An Internet Shop (The Revolution of Dropshipping)

 

Do you know anyone who sells some physical products? Or has tried to start up a small business and just couldn’t get it off the ground because of the brutal upfront costs and expenses of starting a business?

 

Entrepreneurship is one of the best ways to work. Instead of your time is going towards building someone else’s wealth, it’s going towards building yours. So why don’t more people start out in their own business?

 

 

Well, until dropshipping and the internet changed the dynamic, the risks of going into your own business were huge. The chances for disaster were all over the place.

 

Dropshippers, like Oberlo, remove a lot of that risk. Instead of buying up tons of inventory and than trying desperately to sell it, market it, and get it in front of people, dropshipping lets you have a whole inventory of products on your webstore, that you don’t need to pay for until orders have been placed. In other words, you only pay for inventory when you’re guaranteed to make your money back AND profit.

 

Starting a webstore is easy now because of Shopify. Owning your own store is affordable, and just a matter of a few clicks. If you’re curious how Shopify works, you can check out a review for it here!

 

With enough consistency and motivation, you can have a physical products store making millions in profits, running it right from your house, or the side of your pool (just keep that tablet away from the water).

 

 

Selling On Amazon (and other marketplaces)

 

So you have some good ideas for physical products to sell (and it can be anything people want – from your own brand of essential oils, to rubber dinosaur masks)… selling on places like Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy is pretty easy!

 

Ultimately, the commissions that Amazon or Ebay takes out of your profit leaves a lot less of the money in your own pocket than if you were making sales through your own Shopify store, but if you’re just starting out in your business, these stores are an easy path to fast profits to get you on your feet.

 

Amazon already has a massive amount of traffic. The vast majority of the internet’s commerce, as a matter of fact. So getting your products out there, and selling, can be done fast and easily by starting there.

 

Selling Your Artwork

 

Along similar lines, if you’re an artist, you can sell your artwork online on T-shirts, mugs, phone cases, backpacks, hoodies, pants, and even canvas prints!

 

Using Print-On-Demand services like Kin Custom, Printful, or Printify, you can print out products using your own scanned designs, and sell them sometimes in massive volume. You can create your own brand.

 

 

Websites like RedBubble and Teepublic, as well as Amazon’s “Merch by Amazon”, can be especially easy when you’re just starting out. The primary marketing is done for you, as is all of the fulfillment/shipping. It’s just up to you to create artwork, and set your profit margins!

 

Multi Level Marketing

 

There’s a lot of skepticism and negativity around multi-level marketing. Even after Robert Kiyasaki’s (Rich Dad Poor Dad author) shining endorsement, calling it the business of the 21st century, MLM can be a pretty abstract idea.

 

I think the skepticism is fair. I’ve been a huge doubter myself, and I’m still not sold that every MLM company is a worthwhile investment of your time.

 

But there’s no doubt that the business structure, with the right company, has the potential to be amazingly lucrative. Essentially, if you have a group of friends that have an interest in entrepreneurship, you can build a team. MLM is 10% about getting people to shop through your webstore and buy the products, 90% about building a team of people that will ALSO get a few people to shop through your collective webstores and buy some of the products.

 

The thing is you get paid bonuses on every friend or partner that signs up onto your team, and gets people to shop. And you could potentially get paid these bonuses endlessly.

 

 

Obviously there are some catches. 1. you need to work with a business that actually has good products that people would have a need or desire for, 2. you need to build a reliable team that shares your drive (depending on who your friends are, this team could either be really easy, or really hard to find), and 3. if you’re constantly trying to recruit all your friends, it can alienate them (so play this tactfully).

 

The profit potential is huge, but the business model is challenging.

 

Some of the best known examples may be: Avon, Mary Kay, Tupperware, Amway, and Young Living.

 

 

Running an AirBnB

If you have some extra space, or a spare bedroom in your house or apartment, running an AirBnB can be an awesome way to work from home.

 

Running your house like a hotel sounds like an exhausting undertaking, but it’s a lot easier than it sounds. Cleaning, laundry, room prep – these things may only require a few hours a week. Booking through the AirBnB app is fairly straightforward. And the profit potential, especially if you live in a popular destination, is pretty significant!

 

At the very least, for someone working from home, an AirBnB can cancel out your mortgage handily.

 

Better yet, running an AirBnB could provide you with a lot of time to work on other business ventures, like the ones mentioned above – and still make money in the meantime!

 

Ultimately, it’s about getting the best use out of the assets already available to you.

 

Driving for Amazon Flex, Uber, or Lyft

 

Ok, so this isn’t exactly working from home. It’s more about working from your own car, but you get to make your own hours, and call your own shots.

 

Amazon Flex would be my favorite option. Download an app from Amazon, and you can pick up delivery gigs throughout the day. Amazon pays between $18 and $25 an hour for each gig (and if you get it done faster, they still give you full credit). Basically, you pick up orders, and provide that same-day-delivery Amazon prides itself on. A work day driving around, jamming out in your car.

 

The biggest downsides: Amazon Flex is only available in a few select cities at this point (May, 2018). And if someone beats you to a driving gig, you’re stuck waiting for the next one. So if you’re desperate for the extra cash, it can be a bit inconsistent.

 

Uber and Lyft or more like taxi services. So you’ll be driving someone around. The good news is they’re available almost everywhere. And if you’re willing to put in some hours on the weekends, or at night, you can really make some good cash.

 

 

Do You Have A Passion For Teaching?

 

Not everyone is a natural teacher, but for those of you who are, and are looking for some ways to make extra income at home, there are some decent opportunities to teach online.

 

It may not be quite as flexible as running your own business, but if you’re stuck at home, and desperate to start making extra income, you can be a great help to organizations teaching english to children.

 

Some of them may require a degree, but others, like VIPkid, will not. They’ll pay between $14 and $22 an hour, you pick your own hours, and you’ll get to do something helpful for others (and probably learn from them a ton too!

 

Learning a language is an act of love. Reaching across cultures is an act of love. It’s a meaningful pursuit.

 

Websites and Apps That Pay You

 

There are actually a ton of websites and apps out there that can make you some extra cash, from the comfort of your couch.

 

None of these will make you anything close to a full time income, but I’ve made hundreds of dollars off of a few simple site and apps. Having some extra spending money, or cutting down your existing costs, is always good, and I’ve managed to save an extra $1,200 every year just by using these sites and apps.

 

These are some of the best ones that you can use:

 

Swagbucks (watch videos, search the web, play trivia games, all for cash) makes me $15-$20 per month

 

Inbox Dollars (similar to Swagbucks. Watch videos, search the internet, open occasional emails, all for cash) makes me $15-$20 per month

 

Product Report Card(do product tests, fill out occasional diaries, surveys) the only survey site I use, makes me almost $30 per month

 

Ibotta (scan grocery receipts and get cash back) pays me about $20 every month

 

Field Agent(gives you random tasks to do while you’re in stores and pays you) easily $20 per month

 

Ebates (gives me cash back on EVERYTHING I ever purchase online) about $100 over the course of a year

 

User Testing

 

User testing can be awesome. This is how it works: a user testing will set you up with a software that you have to install, so that you can video your computer screen as you click through a website. Then all you need to do is go through the website and share your thoughts about it out loud. Basically like a brutally honest, unrefined review.

 

These user tests often actually pay well, for how easy they are! User Testing is one of the best, but there are many companies that do user testing. They usually pay at least $10 for every 20 minutes.

 

The only challenge is getting accepted. Part of the sign up process is that you have to make a sample video, and they’re not always easy to qualify for.

 

But if you qualify, this is some easy cash, and it’s pretty fun on top of it!

 

What About You?

 

You just need to take action. These opportunities are some of the best ways to make extra cash online, and I’ve found a lot of success through them. You can do it too!

 

So how about you guys – what are some of the best ways you’ve found to earn extra income from home?

 

Please share your thoughts below!