Top 10 Ways To Make Money Without A Job: Some Honest Ways To Make Money From Home

March 22, 2018 Jordan Meola 2 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read My Disclosure for more info.

 

“Get a job”. That’s the rhetoric that most of us are fed for most of our lives.

 

 

The desire to work and be productive is REALLY good, don’t get me wrong. But there are a lot of sacrifices that come with signing over your valuable time to the ultimate benefit of someone else’s wallet. “Making a job” instead of “getting one”, is often frowned on because it takes more innovation, motivation, and a little risk.

 

 

But the rewards are greater.

 

 

That’s why I researched the top 10 ways to make money without a job. And I like what I found.

 

 

There are lots of people that find this idea appealing. The idea of being independent, free, in control of what you do with every one of your days – these are all ideas we tend to like. Waking up to dive into the pursuits that inspire us, instead of waking up glaring at an alarm clock, to go make someone else the majority of the day’s profits.

 

 

Many of us are looking for some ways to make money without a job because we just LOST our job, or can’t seem to get one that will adequately pay our bills. Many of us have been knocked flat on our backs by the rat race, or the fight for survival.

 

 


 

Whatever your reasons are, please don’t buy into the lie that there’s only one way of doing things. Pursuing a 9-5 grind until you can get one that pays, and then slaving away in it until you can finally retire, is only one option.

 

 

There is not only one way.

 

 

 

Here’s A List of The Top 10 Ways To Make Money Without A Job

 

 

I will list the TOP choices for making money from home at the BOTTOM of this list. And start off with some ways that are simple, quick, and easy at the beginning.

 

1. Flip Phones (or anything)

 

You may not realize this, but you can make a lot of money by buying people’s old phones cheap, and selling them for profit.

 

 

Simply post an ad on Craigslist, or another localized social source, and offer to start buying people’s old or broken phones. You may even want to start with your own! You may be surprised how eager people are to just get rid of their old phones and get a few bucks for it.

 

 

You will need to research Ebay, LetGo, or Amazon to see what you can sell the phones for, and purchase them for a much lower price. Even cracked screens or dead phones can be sold for parts on Ebay, often for decent amounts of money.

 

 

This can be especially effective in more affluent suburban or urban areas. Meet people in safe, public places, take their driver’s license info and make sure the phone is what they promised. Then make them an offer. You will often find people who have expensive phones, that got damaged, and have the budget to just get rid of it and buy a new phone.

 

 

That’s a gold mine.

 

 

There’s slightly more to it, of course (like making sure your listings on Ebay and Amazon are top results), and you can ask me in the comments for more details, but I think you get the idea here.

 

 

And this can work with a lot more than just phones!

 

Inbox Dollars, SwagBucks, and App Referring

 

 

You’ve likely heard of this before, but there are a TON of phone apps out there that can make you money!

 

 

Two that I’ve found to be reasonably effective are Inbox Dollars, and Swagbucks. These are two completely free sites/apps that offer a bunch of options for making a little side money.

 

 

You need to be careful with these, okay? Because they can often become a waste of time, and there are only select uses within them that are actually worth it.

 

 

Inbox Dollars allows me to play video ads on my phone that it will pay me pocket change for. I plug it into an outlet, hit play, mute, minimize, and leave my phone playing the ads whenever I’m not using it. You can also leave it running in the background while you’re on the computer. Swagbucks has a similar feature.

 

 

It can add up, and it’s passive! That’s a screenshot of my most recent earnings from them.

 

 


 

It’s obviously not a legitimate source of full time income, but an extra $25 each month from Inbox Dollars is nice money to cover a date night, a dinner out, coffee, or even just to offset some simple expenses.

 

 

Whatever you do, please do NOT do the surveys on Inbox Dollars and Swagbucks. These are a waste of your valuable time.

 

 

A more lucrative use for money making apps, believe it or not, is referring them to people!

 

 

There are a good number of apps out there that can help people save a lot of money, I personally chip about $1,000 a year off my expenses just by using them. And the best part is, many of them will also pay you to recommend them!

 

 

Dosh is an app that you can link to a credit card, that will then give you money back from many local restaurants, hotels, and airlines. It will pay you $5-$15 every time someone joins through your referral

 

 

Ebates is a free website/app that will give you money back from almost any shopping you do online, like on Amazon. You can join it, and then make $15-$25 per person that you refer.

 

 

Ibotta is an app that will give you money back on your grocery shopping. You can make $5-$10 per person that you refer! Read about it HERE.

 

 

Recommend the Chase Freedom credit card (which will pay you 1%-5% back on your purchases), and get $150 every time.

 

 

If you want to do this with a lot of volume, you’ll need to get a little clever by recommending it through things like Facebook groups (try Facebook groups about shopping, or saving money) and may be able to get hundreds of referrals per month. Just make sure you’re describing its actual value, not just blanket posting your referral code.

 

 

For the best free money making apps to join, download, and refer to your friends, check out THIS LIST.

 

User Testing

 


 

This is another cool one. There are a bunch of websites out there that will pay you to video yourself reviewing various websites.

 

 

They’ll set you up with software that can video your screen (it usually records what’s on your screen, not your face – good news for the shy people). Then just record yourself going through their site, and talking about your experience with it.

 

 

Talk as if you were talking to yourself. Critique it. Say what you like and what you don’t like.

 

 

These sites will generally pay around $10 for every 10 to 20 minute video. Ostensibly, you could make around $25/hour doing that.

 

 

The only catches? Well 1. they’re not super easy to get into. You’ll need to apply first, with a sample video. If you get in, GREAT, but if you don’t there’s no reason to feel bad. 2. They don’t have projects available all the time, so while you can make decent side-money with it, there won’t be enough work to replace a full-time job.

 

 

User Testing and TryMyUi are two of the most popular.

 

Flipping Domains

 


 

A website domain (the .com, .edu, .net, .org) is like a little piece of online real estate.

 

 

And believe it or not, a catchy sounding one with a good keyword can actually be worth money!

 

 

It’s not terribly difficult to buy a good domain name for under $10 (sometimes even under $2), and if you’re the owner of a domain with a good sounding name, you can often sell it for a much higher price tag!

 

 

Someone apparently thought the domain name Insurance.com was worth $35 million. And so did the people who bought VacationRentals.com…. the things people will do to be the top result in Google. But hey, that usually pays off!

 

 

So while you won’t likely get a hold of a .com for $1.99 that will sell for $35,000,000 (though not impossible), you can often turn a decent profit just flipping domains this way.

 

 

 

AirBnB (renting out your spare space)

 

 


 

If you’ve ever tried to travel the world on a tight budget, you’ve probably at least heard of AirBnB.

 

 

Basically, AirBnB is a social marketplace and hosting service where people can rent out an extra bedroom, a spare apartment, or some other sleeping space for short-term guests.

 

 

The AirBnB app and service has over 150 million users, so if you live in an area where people like to travel, you could potentially book an insanely lucrative line of business just by using your own space. (Take note recent empty-nesters!)

 

 

And by the way, if you’re thinking about signing up for AirBnB make sure you do it through Inbox Dollars! They’ll pay you an extra $100 when you welcome your first guest!

 

 

Drive with Uber or Lyft

 

 

Uber and Lyft follow along the same lines as AirBnB, except they offer transportation.

 

 

These are essentially taxi services, where you can offer to drive people around your area. You’ll get a notification through the app that someone in your area is requesting a ride, and you can transport them for pay, derived from fares and tips.

 

 

It’s a perfect opportunity for someone living in a metropolitan area, where you could reasonably make over $1,000 a week. Your chance for profits will be even better if you’re willing to drive at night, during surge hours.

 

 

Uber and Lyft offer a perfect solution to a need for part-time work, a lucrative side-gig, or a flexible full-time opportunity.

 

 

Like AirBnB, make sure you sign up through Inbox Dollars. If you sign up for Lyft, for example, Inbox Dollars will pay you $100 just for taking your first paid passenger (and Lyft is currently offering an extra $300 if you take 100 passengers in the first month).

 

 

Selling Insurance

 

If you have any people skills, it may be EXTREMELY worth your while to get licensed to independently sell insurance.

 

 

Instead of getting a job at an insurance company, you could sell insurance independently on your own. More of the marketing and leads generating will be in your hands, but the money and flexibility is much greater.

 

 

The strongest value to insurance sales is the residual income. If you sell 100 home insurance policies (around 2 a week) your first year, you should make between $10,000 and $15,000. That’s too small to match the cost of living, right? But if you manage to make that, you will get paid that same $10,000-$15,000 every year your client keeps the policy! This means that if you sell 100 policies per year, you will be passively adding at least $10,000/year to your income.

 

 

That’s a good raise.

 

 

10 years of selling home insurance on the side and you could be passively making over $100,000/year, without working a day.

 


There are also far more lucrative forms of insurance to sell. There are life insurance policies that can make extremely effective retirement investments. I have business associates who have made single commissions of over $250,000 on single sales. While the residuals are lower on these high ticket sales, just 1 or 2 sales like this each year could set you up very well.

 

 

Like most other businesses, doing well as an independent insurance agent in your spare time will really depend on making the right friends.

 

 

Do you have a friend in real estate? I was lucky to have a friend who owned an agency. Befriend a realtor whose willing to refer you and you may find home insurance sales in spades.

 

 

Do you sell high ticket life insurance? Partner with a certified public accountant, and offer him 20% if he’ll refer his clients to you.

 

 

Strategy is everything. And insurance may be one of the best paying things you can do without getting a job. Just make sure you have a stop-gap to survive the early days.

 

Trading Penny Stocks and Cryptocurrencies

 

Trading penny stocks can be a risky business. It can also turn investments of just a few dollars into retirement fortunes.

 

 

The idea is to find tiny companies, with stocks for $5.00 or less, where you can buy hundreds of shares with relatively small investments, and to try finding the ones with the best potential.

 

 

Here’s the thing: there’s a lot of strategy involved in making a lot of money with this. And no, it’s not the strategy of finding the next Amazon or Google. It’s not the strategy of finding the next BitCoin. It’s not the strategy of holding a penny stock waiting for it to shoot to the moon.

 

 

While this has an appeal, and the best case scenario has some pretty awesome rewards, the truth is most of these penny stocks are rotten, and are not worth holding onto.

 

 

So how can you make money with them?

 

 

If enough people THINK that a penny stock is going to be the next Amazon, you can often ride the wave of people that are briefly obsessed with a stock. Buy into it when it costs mere pennies, but when it launches upward, instead of holding it, cut off your greed and sell.

 

 

Instead of riding the roller coaster, or waiting for it to peak, you can simply ride each upward peak.

 

 

This, for example, is a screenshot of a stock I was able to purchase for about $1.00 per share. The upward and downward movements are very extreme. Buying into this stock when it was $0.50 (possibly a week ago) could have resulted in a 50% gain.

 

 

Employing better strategy here, I could land fairly consistent gains by just waiting for each upward and spike, and selling fast.

 

 


 

Obviously, there’s a fair amount of risk involved in this, even with decent strategy, so you’ll need to make sure you develop a set of rules for yourself.

 

 

– Never trade with large amounts of money, unless you can afford to

– Cut losses quickly (don’t be proud and hold on if you know it’s a bad buy)

– Always use a trailing stop loss sell order, to prevent you from losing more than 5% on a stock

– Do your research

 

 

If you’re starting out, and want a trading option that’s both 100% free and easy to use, I would highly recommend using the Robinhood app. Reply in the comments for more details!

 

Start an Affiliate Marketing Blog

 

 


 

For more detailed content on how this all works you can read about HOW IT IS, and 5 Simple Steps For How It Works.

 

 

Affiliate marketing through a blog is one of the last things on my list, but also one of the best.

 

 

Essentially, you can create a blogging website, where you write helpful content about something that you’re interested in. With enough consistency and effort you can create a blog that gets a lot of traffic.

 

 

Recommend different products and services to your readers, through your blog, and you can make a full-time income through commissions the companies will pay you.

 

 

This has the potential to be a 6-figure side gig, and eventually a complete source of income that totally displaces your need for a job.

 

 

You might be hesitant, especially if you have no experience in marketing and website design, but this can be accomplished WAY easier than you might expect!

 

 

I was educated on the whole process of marketing and designing a lucrative blog by a company called Wealthy Affiliate. Not only is it an entire series of courses that will teach you how to make money with blogging, but it will build your website for you, host your website, and give you access to a community of peers and mentors to advise you.

 

 

join Wealthy Affiliate
 

You can get started, build the website, and learn a ton of the method for FREE. The entire course, advanced hosting, and full access is only $360 per year, (or $49 per month, though it’s less economical to pay monthly).

 

 

Read my review of it HERE, and it will explain more how it works. And you can read HERE about why it’s the most economical way to start a business.

 

 

 

Open Your Own eCommerce Webstore

 

 

Last but definitely not least, you can open up your own business online.

 

 

Opening a webstore is one of the most affordable, lucrative, and effective ways of starting a successful business that exists today.

 

 

The power of the internet, and its 3.75 billion users, is that selling products through a webstore can be reach a LOT of people. And with the right tools, strategy, and branding, you could reach millions of customers.

 

 

I can explain more about the power of branding right HERE, and more about the affordability of starting an online business right HERE.

 

 

If you have a good idea for a product, and the will to create a business, and work for yourself, there is nothing that can stop you. The tools available today make this possible for basically anyone.

 

 

A Shopify store is something that make it possible for anyone – even a fledgling entrepreneur just starting out in life – to build an extremely professional webstore. Check out the review.

 

 

 

 

 

With the future of eCommerce as bright as it is, you could effectively run a multi-million dollar business from your living room, a coffee shop, or anywhere else that isn’t “on the clock”.

 

 

The Future Will Be Different

 

But not on its own. You have to make the first move.

 

2 People reacted on this

  1. Hi Jordan,

    My name is Derek and I’m with Survey Junkie. I saw you promoted InboxDollars and Swagbucks and I wanted to reach out and inquire about getting Survey Junkie on your site.

    How it works is people can sign up (free to sign up) and complete online surveys and other market research opportunities (product testing, focus groups, etc) for money. We have a highly rated affiliate program, where you can earn money for everybody that signs up through Survey Junkie from your site. It’s an easy way to monetize your audience!

    – We only accept traffic from the US, Canada, and Australia. General population, 13+.

    – Payout: We start all new partners off at $1.50 per conversion. A conversion is an email submit, single opt-in.

    – We can increase the payout over time depending on the quality and volume of the leads.

    Thanks!

    1. Thanks for reaching out! I’ve been hearing some good things about Survey Junkie lately, I’m going to need to check it out. I’ll sign up now and test it out for my readers.

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