4 Effective And Legitimate Ways To Earn Money From Home

Today, workplaces offer flexibility and convenience, allowing you to work remotely, set own schedule, or take a sabbatical to explore your interests and passions. But sometimes, even this proves to be too little.

Many of us opt to skip the office routine and stay at home. This could be due to several reasons: caring for young children or aging family members, treating illness or disability, which makes it impossible to continue working, or training and preparing oneself for a career change. All these reasons prompt people to take a break from work.

If you are in a similar situation, you will possibly like to explore avenues for earning a little extra income. It will be helpful to know that for each genuine and rewarding opportunity, there are at least 61 scam offers out there. So, the first thing you need to do is keep your eyes open for potential online scams and avoid falling for them.

Here are a few ways in which you can put your spare time at home to good use and earn handy dollars:

1. Start a Blog

The blogosphere is populated with thousands of bloggers, many of whom are earning six-figure incomes from their blogs. Though this sounds lucrative and easy to accomplish, it is not necessarily so.

Firstly, you are entering a vastly over-populated niche. There are more than 300 million blogs on Tumblr alone. It is estimated that a new blog is created somewhere in the world every half a second. So, it will take a lot of creativity, perseverance and skill to succeed in this field.

If quick financial returns are not a priority, you can consider investing time and effort in a blog. Real-time, in-depth, expert, accurate and original content on any subject is always appreciated. If you feel that you have excellent knowledge and interest in a particular niche, you can consider blogging on it.

Successful fashion, food, technology, lifestyle, personal finance, and parenting blogs offer high earning potential. Ensure you keep your content fresh, relevant, personal and interesting. Over time, you will learn to engage with your audience better, improve your writing skills, build loyal following, and discover aspects of blogging that interest you the most. Once your blog picks up regular and growing traffic, you will be able to monetize your blog and attract advertising.

2. Start an Online Business

Online businesses are fairly easy to set up. You can establish clientele, take new orders and grow the business at your own pace.

There are several small business success stories that you can refer for inspiration. Most of them began on a tiny scale and locally. Popularity is garnered primarily through word-of-mouth advertising and customer referrals.

Online businesses must learn to use social media to their advantage because that is where they can catch most of their potential customers. Sevenly, Uniqlo and Plated are businesses that have taken off solely due to their brilliant social media campaigns.

If you can bake, craft, sew or DIY, let the world know.

• Bake

You can sell your baked goodies online. Put out a few ads in the local media, upload high-quality pictures of delicious cupcakes you have made, and yes, do blog about your journey or invest in YouTube videos. With time, you will grow your client base making your venture a viable and profit-making business. Or you can follow Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams and come out with a blockbuster cookbook and become a household name.

• Craft, Sew, DIY

There is a huge market for everything hand-crafted, including jewelry, bags, home décor items, shoes, gift items, kid’s clothing, and party decorations.

If you are an avid crafter, why not turn your artistic inclination into a small business?

There are several online sellers who focus on bringing hand-crafted stuff to buyers. You can sign up with them or set up a Facebook page to take in the initial orders.

Other than the ever-popular Etsy you can consider selling on platforms like aftcra, Artfire, ArtYah and Bonanza. You can easily set up a sellers account and start selling your wares. Most online marketplaces support their community members by offering coupons, freebies and promotions, and drive social media campaigns and pay-per-click advertising.

If you are not sure of your crafting skills, you can sign up for online classes at sites like creativelive.com that teach students crafting skills. Classes are given on a variety of topics including screen-printing, chalk-lettering, jewelry-making, sewing and needlework, and also, many classes are offered free. Try your hand at any of the crafts to see whether you have the skills to make money out of them.

3. Be an Online Tutor

Good-quality online tutors are in demand the world over. The private tutoring market is estimated to touch a massive $102 billion by 2018. Native (or non-native) English speakers can sign up with sites like Italki, VerbalPlanet, ispeakuspeak, openenglish, Chegg Tutors or Tutor.com to start sharing knowledge with students.

You can also teach other subjects like science, math or social studies, provided you have relevant qualifications and experience. For some courses, a college degree is a must.

4. Try Dropping a Few Pounds

Now that you are at home, sticking to a healthy diet should not be that difficult (ideally). And if you manage to lose weight along the way, you will get paid for it! Yes, though it sounds too good to be true, HealthyWage pays users up to $10,000 for achieving their goal weight within stipulated time.

Sign up with HealthyWage and wager on your commitment to reach a defined goal weight within a particular time period. You can place bets ranging between $20 and $500 per month. The more you are willing to risk, the higher is your potential to earn.

Conclusion

There are several ways to earn money sitting at home. Once you get into the groove and discover the many smart means open to you, earning a few hundred dollars every month will become quite easy.