Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2017; it was later updated, so some items have aged: Google+ Hangouts lessons (Google+ closed in 2019), the Conduit platform and Fiverr jobs from $5. Amounts such as survey pay and plasma donation earnings are from 2017 or earlier.
There are many ways to make extra money from home, and most of them require no investment. Some are more elaborate, others are easier or quicker money, and others need more patience. We go over ideas for generating extra income when you need it and finding a job is hard. These ways of making money have been used by different people at certain stages of their lives, and the vast majority can be started with no investment or with very little money.
In a previous article we also gave some ideas for making money online.
First of all, it’s worth saying that anyone today can earn extra income from the comfort of their home. But we can’t start out with the wrong expectations, thinking it will be a lot of money and fast, because the most profitable ways of doing it are, without doubt, a process that requires a lot of perseverance.
Even so, if you have a very clear talent, you can quite likely offer what you know how to do and start making money from day one. Over time, some of these ways of making money could even become your main income or a large share of your recurring income. Let’s begin.
How can you make extra money from home?
1. Make money selling your own crafts
This way of making money may seem complicated at first, but if you’re good at making some kind of craft that appeals to customers, the idea can be very profitable. Once again, take the example of the young woman who started making personalised figures for babies at home, advertised them on Facebook, and has now turned it into her main business: BUBU Decoración Infantil.
Other people manage to make money from other kinds of crafts, or by selling all sorts of handmade or homemade products, such as woollen hats or gloves.
It’s certainly a way to create a small business and earn money from home. If demand grows over time, you’ll be on your way to having a decent company.
2. Paid surveys
You certainly won’t get rich this way, but it can be very useful for people who aren’t yet sure what they want to do or can do. It’s a simple, quick way to make money, but it won’t be much. Some surveys pay 50 cents, others 5 euros, and some pay as much as 15 euros. But as we said, it won’t be easy, because the surveys that pay a decent amount usually take a lot of time.
On top of that, not every company offering money for surveys can be trusted. That’s why in one article we listed 3 companies that we know do formally pay users for completing surveys.
3. Make money from home as a freelancer on TrabajoFreelance
By signing up on this site, you can earn money creating designs and logos, doing SEO, repairing computers and so on. TrabajoFreelance.es is one of the sites for micro-jobs and freelance work in Spain. Look for sites like this in your own country, and if there aren’t any, you’ve got yourself an excellent business idea (create one).
4. Private lessons
Whether in person or online, if you have specific knowledge and on the other side there’s a person (or student) who needs it, you have an excellent opportunity to earn extra money. And thanks to technology, you can even give your private lessons to groups: with a Google+ Hangout you can have more than 10 students connected. You set the price.
5. Buying and selling second-hand goods
Some people visit second-hand shops looking for undervalued items they can sell for more on eBay. Others simply buy things for next to nothing to sell online. And if you also have technical skills, as Juan from Granada does, there’s more: when a scanner or printer breaks down, it often costs more to repair it than to buy a new one, so he makes money buying old broken scanners or printers for 1 or 2 euros, repairing them and putting them up for sale.
See also: 6 small business ideas for young entrepreneurs
6. Write a book
Today you can self-publish your book, and there are several ways to do it:
- You can write one or more short books and publish them on Kindle.
- Self-publish your book and sell it on your own website.
- You can also partner with platforms and sell to their audience.
- Register the digital edition with affiliate programmes, so that bloggers who want to offer your book to their readers can do so and earn a commission.
- Make an audiobook and sell it on Audible.
- Or you can go to a big publisher, although that route will take you a bit more work.
More than a way to generate income from home, what this idea could achieve is to create an asset that earns us passive income.
7. Painting house fronts
Many people probably don’t want to spend money on painting the front of their house, but… what if you knock on their door and tell them you’re trying to save for university and that for €10 you’ll give their house front a fresh coat of paint?
This idea occurred to Dani, an 18-year-old from Jaén, who says you can make €40 a day if you work hard, since by his account he did an average of four house fronts a day at €10 each. Of course, he didn’t sell himself as a professional painter, but the house fronts looked better than they had before, and his customers were grateful.
8. Donating blood plasma
Many people in the United States are turning to this way of making money: by donating blood plasma twice a week (or as often as is allowed), some earn 250 to 300 dollars a month. It’s a matter of checking whether this is possible in your country.
9. Making small pieces of furniture and objects from recycled materials (and don’t forget crafts)
If you’re handy and creative, you can build all kinds of objects from all kinds of pieces you come across. People are paying between 150 and 500 dollars for objects like these. Lisa Frick, who makes them, earns about 250 dollars a week selling her products made from recycled materials.
More ways to make money from home with no investment at all
10. Managing Twitter and Facebook accounts
This is about making money by helping small businesses or self-employed people who don’t have much time to gain visibility online or build a sizeable following.
It would be like the work of a community manager, but aimed at people who don’t know what that term means. We sometimes forget that many small business owners know absolutely nothing about technology, so they wouldn’t even know how to set up a Facebook page for their business. For a modest fee, I’m sure they would leave it in your hands.
11. Earn some money by taking part in medical studies
Many laboratories and universities often need people for a study and pay around €50. Some laboratories also want to test a drug’s side effects, and they usually pay somewhat more for the days the study lasts. As long as it doesn’t pose a risk to your health, it’s a good way to earn money while helping science.
12. Create an app
If you have the skills, you can create an app for iPhone and Android. If your app is a big hit, maybe someone will buy it for a billion dollars, although if you end up with just 150 or 300 euros a month of extra income, that wouldn’t be bad either while you think up that other million-euro app. Strictly speaking, though, this isn’t a way to make money on the side. Rather, an app could lead you to build a very lucrative business.
13. Sell your photos to stock photo agencies
There are many stock photo sites that pay you every time someone downloads or uses your photo. This isn’t a fast way to make money, since it may take a while to sell your photos, but it’s one more option. One of the biggest stock photo agencies is Getty Images. Of course, you need to know the pros and cons of doing this very well. On this blog, the author gives an excellent summary from his own experience of how to sell your photos on Getty Images.
14. Sell online courses
If you’re good at explaining a particular subject, you can make your own videos teaching others how to do what you know about, whether that’s the stock market, making a chair, programming or anything else. You can sell these courses on platforms like Udemy. If your course is good and covers a subject that’s in fashion at the time, just remember the case of the young man who made more than $120,000 in a few months selling his course on Udemy.
15. Photographer for individuals, businesses and personal ads
Is photography your thing? There are businesses that want a professional portfolio of their company, and individuals who at some point want a photo album made. Likewise, as we’ve mentioned before, working as a photographer for personal ads can be very profitable: some women and men who advertise on personal ad sites need professional photos, suitably retouched.
16. Wedding videos shot like a film
Since people want to feel like the stars of their wedding day, why not make them a real film? A title, a soundtrack, credits and dialogue in the style of a film could mark a turning point in the wedding video business. All it takes is strong video editing skills. If you’re good at this, you’ll have a recurring extra income.
17. Dropshipping: more than a way to make extra money, it can become a good business
Selling products without having to stock them. We’re just the intermediary. The customer buys a product from a company through us, and once the purchase is made, the company itself ships the product to the customer’s home.
We take a commission for it, without investing in buying or shipping products. I’ve been asked more than once about reliable dropshipping sites for selling products from China.
On ForoBeta they put together a list of 70 Chinese sites you can work with in dropshipping mode. I don’t know how reliable each and every one of them is. We’ve written about this business before, with cases of people who have literally made millions with this business idea. In this article we explained step by step how to set up this business using AliExpress.
18. Selling home-cooked (organic) food for children
Many mothers don’t have time to cook a proper meal for their children because of work, so your kitchen could become the supplier of quality home-cooked food for your building or neighbourhood. That’s how Big Dipper was born, and today it’s a big company.
19. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn money part time or full time
If you have an Instagram account with a large number of followers, a blog with lots of visitors or a Facebook page with plenty of fans, you can start choosing products from companies that let you earn money on the sales made by users who buy through your link. There are many companies with affiliate programmes, including Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, ClickBank and so on.
More small business ideas to make extra money in your free time or at weekends
20. Personal trainer
At your home or the client’s, you can make money with personalised training for someone who needs to lose weight or get fit. Some say personal trainers in Spain aren’t well paid, but that’s not true: there are some who earn nothing, some who earn little, and some who earn a great deal of money.
The difference between them? The same as in any profession: personal image and the value each one adds for the client. It’s up to you whether it’s just a way to earn some extra income or a very lucrative business.
21. Yoga classes
Yoga is fashionable and increasingly in demand, so if you have space in your living room and the necessary knowledge, you can make money from it in a few hours a week. The same goes for other disciplines and teachings, even reiki, which is very fashionable today. You can make money from home with this idea.
22. Coaching
Whether as a personal or a professional coach, a big market can open up today for anyone who is good at what they do and knows how to get known. The profession has grown to the point where if you kick a stone, 100 coaches come out from under it, but the truth is that some are really good and some are really mediocre. If you’re one of the good ones, you’ll certainly do better. I know, that’s stating the obvious.
23. Blogs and websites
We’re not talking about building an online store (which takes a lot of work), but building a company’s blog or website can take very little time and pays well. And if they also want our services for SEO or social media management, and it’s within our skills to offer them, go for it.
24. A YouTube channel
This way of making money may be more elaborate than the previous ones, since it requires building a loyal audience, and luck may play a part too. You can create a channel on a subject you’re good at (cooking, finance…) or even a comedy channel, where you can be very successful if you’re creative. But from my own experience and that of others, I’ll warn you now that making money with a YouTube channel can be a very long and tedious process. So much so that many people get frustrated before they receive their first payment. Even so, if there’s a subject in which you can stand out, go for it.
25. Making podcasts
If you’re passionate about a subject and think you have something to say that could interest thousands or millions of people, you can start making podcasts and earn money from them, either by selling them or by offering them for free and earning from the advertising your listeners generate. Without doubt, an excellent way to make money.
26. Making money with Conduit
Conduit is a platform where you can create custom apps and toolbars. Every time someone downloads an app or installs a toolbar you’ve created, Conduit pays you.
27. Dumpster diving
Let’s not call it “rummaging through rubbish”, because that sounds bad, but Rosa and Pedro from Córdoba say that five years ago, when they were university students, they lived in a student area and took advantage of the end of the academic year, when students moved out of their flats, to search the bins for what many people didn’t take with them.
Shelves, clothes, books and all kinds of school supplies, and sometimes even televisions and computers that didn’t work and just needed fixing. They sold all of it both in second-hand shops and on eBay. They say they made as much as €2,500 selling many of the things students left behind when they moved.
28. Low-cost jobs
If there’s something you know how to do in 10 minutes that would take someone else an hour or two, there’s a business in it. For example, someone who knows nothing about websites and blogs and needs to install a plugin or a simple share button. For €5, I at least wouldn’t think twice. Some bloggers are already starting to offer these services from 25 euros per job.
29. Virtual assistant
From your own home you can help, collaborate or work with different companies. In some cases they’ll turn to you for one-off tasks when they have too much work. In others they might offer you their customer service, which is probably the service companies most often want when they hire a virtual assistant. Of course, you’ll need to know how to sell yourself for this kind of work, but once you manage it, it can be very rewarding.
30. Selling woollen goods and handicrafts made at home
I don’t mean to fall into sexism, but this way of making money is chosen mainly by women who know how to make gloves, woollen hats, handmade jumpers and so on. It’s certainly a popular choice among unemployed women, housewives and retired women looking to generate some extra income.
31. Express clothing alterations
Tomorrow, Sunday, I have a wedding, and today, Saturday, I don’t know who can take up the hems on my suit trousers. This service can be offered from a shop or from your own home. Sewing enthusiasts just need to advertise properly on a local classified ads site or on Facebook. If people know what you do, they’ll very likely get in touch.
32. Childcare, elderly care or pet care
Especially when caring for the elderly and children, the secret is trust. So by building excellent references and advertising properly, even working with companies that are constantly looking for nannies or carers, it’s an excellent way to earn money occasionally or regularly. Pet care is also spreading as the number of people with pets grows, from walking the dog to looking after it for a few days during business trips or holidays.
33. A premium errand service
There will always be elderly people and people who are short of time. Picking up suits from the dry cleaner’s, taking a parcel to the post office, bringing an elderly woman’s shopping home from the supermarket so she doesn’t have to carry it… In fact, some entrepreneurs have even managed to build a company around errands. If I remember correctly, I think there’s even an app for it already.
34. Freelance writer
Although it’s one of the usual ideas people suggest, the truth is that if you like writing, know about a subject and have your own distinctive style, you shouldn’t have trouble finding sites looking for writers. And this small job can launch you towards other excellent ways of making money.
35. Data entry, part time or full time
The millions of websites on the internet aren’t made of HTML alone. They sometimes need a lot of content, so the job of a data entry clerk, among other things, is usually loading data into forms and databases.
You can also offer your services to type up reports and documents in any format. People who can touch-type and write a considerable number of words per minute are usually in demand. You either charge by the hour or by the page.
36. Design logos
If you’re creative, the logo design market moves a lot of money today. There are many sites where a company explains what it wants to achieve with a logo, and designers compete to win the sale. Where can you offer your services as a logo designer straight away to earn extra money?
On 99designs.es, a company can request a logo, and as a designer you can sign up by following the tab at the bottom of the page.
37. Offer your services on Fiverr
Fiverr is probably the biggest freelance marketplace in the world, where all kinds of services are requested. Although most of the offers are in English, there is growing demand for Spanish speakers. Jobs start at 5 dollars, and from there, depending on the job, you can find interesting amounts.
38. Sell your music on Envato
Envato is just one of many sites where, if you’re good at making music and background tracks for videos, you can make money selling your music, as well as other things you can sell.
See also: 18 ways to make money at Christmas
Featured image: Olliss fomaolea, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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