There are tons of different ways to make extra income. If you’re lucky enough to still have a job in this recession then you should be thankful you still have a steady stream of income coming in, but for those who are laid off now or have been in the past or even for people who still have a job but are having a tough time making ends meet it may be time to start looking for some sources of extra income you can make. I hope this helps at least one other person in this world.
1. Mystery Shopping (Including Watching Movies): Although there are several scams out there I’m sure, mystery shopping is a legitimate business where you can make real money for evaluating services at many different places like restaurants, movie theaters, banks, video stores and retail stores. You can even get paid a decent amount for watching movie trailers or full length movies. If you ask me that’s an awesome part time / side job, to get paid to watch a movie is any movie lovers dream. I know someone who has participated in mystery shopping for a while now, so I know this is no scam. If you find the right companies they will reimburse you for the money you spend to go to the theater plus pay you for your time and it’s a decent amount too. One company that I’ve been found is called Certified Reports, Inc. Here’s the link to check them out if you want to get started in mystery shopping:
http://www.certifiedreports.com/fieldworkeroverview.asp and another company that I was personally referred to was Certified Field Associate: https://www.certifiedfieldassociate.com/
2. Fill out Surveys: Companies want to know your opinion and some will pay for it. This is another venue that you must be careful with however because there are a lot of scams out there that claim to pay you for your time to fill out surveys, but never do. Some sites only allow you to earn points instead or real money and then you can use the points for prizes, so just be mindful and read up on whichever company you choose to give your opinion to. Here’s a good list of legitimate online surveys: http://www.surveybounty.com/free_surveys/verified.html
I have used Ipsos I-Say USA, they only pay in points, but they offer regular survey opportunities and you can earn enough points to enter to win prizes or keep your points and purchase prizes when you have earned enough. I recently signed up for Global Test Market. I have heard good things about them, like they pay real money and offer many survey opportunities.
3. Write Articles: This one is a no-brainer for most of the people here on Factoidz already. You can make money from writing articles online and trust me there are a ton of places that accept writers and articles, some better than others. Here’s a list of some of the best places to write articles for money on the web: Ehow.com, AssociatedContent.com, Toptenz.net, Brighthub.com, Bukisa.com, Constantcontent.com, Triond.com, Helium.com, Writebite.com and tons of others. You can also become a topic or subject expert for article sites like About.com and Suite101.com. If you are able to become a subject expert in a topic that they have that’s open, you can make a very good income off of your writing with them. Many of these sites allow you to make passive income as well, which is the best income to make. Passive income means you write the article once and keep making money off of it for page views. Some sites pay you for the article up front and allow you to make passive income as well; these are the best sites to make the most from your articles because you get the initial amount for the article itself and then continue earning money on it.
4. Freelance: There are many different things you can do as a freelancer. Ask yourself what you are talented at or know a lot about? Freelance writing jobs can be found at sites like guru.com, scriptlance.com, elance.com and sologig.com. There are many other opportunities for people who work with creating or designing websites as well.
5. Watch your Change: Any coins or bills that you get could potentially be worth a lot more than their face value. If you are a coin or money collector already then you know that you can find coins that are in circulation that are worth more money to collectors and coin shops. You have to know what to look for though. There are even some people who go to the bank and buy rolls of change just to look through them to see if they can find a coin that has a lot of value to sell to a shop or collector. This could be easy and profitable with some knowledge of what to look for.
6. Sell your Stuff: Go through all your stuff. Everyone usually has things they don’t need, use or want anymore. Think of items like books, clothing, jewelry, purses, electronics or anything of value you don’t want or need anymore. There are tons of ways to sell your stuff nowadays. You can do it the old fashioned way with a yard sale first. Then you can go on Craigslist, Ebay or Amazon. Many people sell stuff and make a decent amount back on their items which are just lying around their house. Turn your unused stuff into money by selling it. There are also companies online that you can sell books too. You ship them the books and they mail you a check once they receive them.
7. Sell your photos: That’s right, you can sell your photos to a couple of different companies online that will pay you every time your photo is used. Do you have beautiful pictures of when you went on vacation somewhere or what about nice pictures of scenery like beaches, mountains, waterfalls, volcanoes? You can submit any picture you want and if they accept it you get paid every time someone uses your picture! Here’s one site where you can sell your photos: http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
I’m sure there are other sites like this as well if you look for more.
8. Design or Make Stuff: You could design web sites or build a whole web site for someone and charge them a fee for the service. If you’re crafty you could design a t-shirt for threadless.com or make jewelry or other crafts and sell on etsy.com, you could design and make a whole lot of different stuff to sell on cafepress.com. Also, you could consider selling your stuff that you make on Ebay or make your own personal web site to sell stuff from your own site.
9. Publish a Blog: Create a web site or blog and make money off of advertising, affiliates and many other different ways. There are tons of ways to make money off of your own web site or blog. This could generate a passive income as well, as long as you take advantage of everything offered and keep your site up to date and viewed by many. You can use Google Adsense, Payperpost, and get affiliates on your site like Barnes & Noble, Petco and Amazon. Some blog web sites pay you per post and for how many visits your blog gets each month. One site that pays you to blog is Today.com.
10. Do Odd Jobs: Clean houses, mow lawns, babysit, house / pet sit, teach someone something you know, cut down a tree, painting, house repair like fix someone’s computer / washer / dryer / toilet, car repairs or maintenance or anything else that may need to be fixed if you know how. Build something or offer a service for people who need something. You could build small things like sheds, dog houses, fences, and a small greenhouse. You could offer beauty services like haircuts, hair styling, manicure/pedicure, massage, makeup and beauty instruction. There are tons of odd jobs out there all over the place. Go on Craigslist to check your local odd jobs or look in the paper and you’ll find lots of odd job opportunities. Of course, along with doing odd jobs there is the option to just get a regular part time job doing something like waitressing, bartending or working as a cashier, receptionist or any other type of part time gig you can find on the side, stocking shelves, working at a hotel, fast food restaurant or gas station.
11. Sell Avon: For a very small start up fee you can start selling Avon and become an Avon representative. You would be surprised at how many people still buy Avon and the brand power it continues to have. Avon offers fairly inexpensive stuff like makeup, clothing, and jewelry and beauty products like shampoo, lotion, perfume and deodorant targeted mostly towards women. They also have a young teen to twenties line targeted towards younger women called Mark. Selling Avon is a very lucrative side business where you can make a steady part time income. It is not hard to make money selling Avon because many customers will come to you and you can also market yourself and products through your own Avon web site and by throwing parties or handing out booklets all over the place. With some determination you can profit from your sales.
12. Write E-Books: Instead of writing articles or along with writing articles you can try your hand at writing short e-books. Most e-books are instructional and how-to’s right now, but that may be changing in the not so distant future. More people are beginning to publish fiction and poetry in e-books now. You can sell your e-book a couple of different ways. You could make your own web site and offer it for sale on your site or you could sell it on web sites like clickbank.com.
13. Use Search to Win Sites to Earn Points to Redeem on Prizes / Gift Cards: While you may not be earning real money on search to win sites, you can earn enough points to redeem for stuff or for gift cards, which translates into real money in the end, once you’ve earned enough to redeem your points for something. The best search to win sites is swagbucks.com, winzy.com and blingo.com. Swagbucks is one of the best, you can redeem points for many different things ranging from books, music, fan stuff from various singers/groups, electronics and games and gift cards to many different stores.
14. Use Amazon Mechanical Turk: Amazon Mechanical Turk is an online marketplace for work. You can make money by working on human intelligence tasks that computers cannot do. Requesters, the human beings that write these programs, are able to pose tasks known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), such as choosing the best among several photographs of a storefront, writing product descriptions, or identifying performers on music CDs. Workers (called Providers in Mechanical Turk’s Terms of Service) can then browse among existing tasks and complete them for a monetary payment set by the Requester. Requesters can ask that Workers fulfill Qualifications before engaging a task, and they can set up a test in order to verify the Qualification. They can also accept or reject the result sent by the Worker, which reflects on the Worker’s reputation. Currently, a Requester has to have a U.S. address, but Workers can be anywhere in the world. Payments for completing tasks can be redeemed on Amazon.com via gift certificate or be later transferred to a Worker’s U.S. bank account. Requesters, which are typically corporations, pay 10 percent over the price of successfully completed HITs (or more for extremely cheap HITs) to Amazon. Amazon Mechanical Turk can be found at this address: https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
15. Help People Find Answers: You can help people find the answer they’re looking for online by working for sites like Chacha.com (a search engine that uses human guides to help find what you are looking for) or KGB.com (if you have a question you can text it to them and they have “special agents” who find the answer for you). Or, you could become an oracle for Praxias.com which pays people to answer more in depth questions and give advice.
There are many more ways to make extra money out there, you just have to be willing to find the jobs that are out there and do them. There is something out there for everyone!
References:
http://frugalliving.about.com/od/makingmoney/tp/Ways_to_Earn_Extra_Money.htm
http://www.alwaysfrugal.com/makemoney2.html
http://www.destroydebt.com/articles/101-ways-to-make-money-online.html
