I often hear people saying that they’d like to start making some extra money to complement their full time job, but they don’t know what to do.
I know there are a lot of things one can do, especially with basic computer skills, so I sat down and wrote a list of activities I could do to make some money right now.
Many of these tips will certainly not make you rich, while other have some great potential. The goal of this list is to inspire you to act and do something right now. It’s better to start with something small than to not start at all. I hope you enjoy.
- Sell used stuff on ebay. Chances are that you have lot of stuff you no longer use in your home. Why not making a list of all the stuff you have in excess and then selling it on ebay?
- Compile online surveys. Online surveys are a quick way to make some money. Keep in mind that most websites only works for US residents.
- Put adsense on your website. Adsense is the fastest way to make money from your website. And if you don’t have a website, you can always start one.
- Post your resume. Wherever you are a writer, blogger, designer, programmer, etc, there are many websites like elance.com where you can find some part time work. Give it a try and post your resume.
- Write for ehow.com. Ehow is a how to articles directory. You can write as many articles as you want and receive money when someone visits your articles and clicks the ads.
- Teach English via skype. If you are a native speaker, you may find someone who’s willing to pay you for simply having some conversation over skype. Just do a quick search on google to get an idea.
- Post your photos on istockphoto. Stock photo websites like istockphoto can bring you a lot of money. Some people are even making a high 6 figures income from it.
- Search for free adwords/yahoo/msn coupons and use them to make money through affiliate marketing. I recently received an adwords coupon from google, so the first thing I did was to run a campaign and link to an affiliate website with my referral id. Quick money, zero risk.
- Coach or teach others. Do a list of your top skills (hint: you have many) and teach them to other people. If you are good at something, there’s always someone else that wants to learn it, so take the opportunity to make some money and to learn something new at the same time.
- Submit your design to sites like 99designs.com or zooppa.com. If you are a good designer or video maker, the ways you can make money online are infinite. Using websites like 99designs or zooppa you can submit your work and earn some real money.
- Sell your own product. You can follow the step by step process described in the four hour work week and start your online business in no time.
- Do baby sitting. If hanging around with a baby is no problem for you, consider doing baby sitting.
- Offer to do some errands for your neighborhoods. Everyone’s busy, but you are can alleviate their days by doing some errands for them like going to the groceries store in the afternoon.
- If you know a foreign language, offer to do translations. There are many companies who would benefit from a native speaker for doing some translations. Often you can get a serious work from this, so do some research to see what’s available.
- Make money with clickbank.com. Create an account at clickbank.com and find a genuine product to promote through your website, or build a dedicated website if you are good with SEO (you can always learn).
- Petsitting. Offer to take care of your neighborhood pets when they go on vacation, or take their dogs for a walk while they are at work.
- Offer computer assistance. You may be surprised by how many people don’t know how to do basic stuff like setting up an email account or uploading a video on youtube. Offer them your help for a small fee.
- Build websites for small companies. You don’t have to be a programmer to make websites. There are excellent content managers and templates you can buy for making small websites. You can also outsource the complete process of course.
- Write a book. This is huge, but it may be worth it. Write about something you really care about, and then knock every door until you find some publisher who’s willing to publish your work.
- Start a blog. If you have something to say, start a blog. It might take a while before you start to see some serious money, but they’ll eventually come if you do things right.
- Sell a blog. Of course you can also sell a blog. Blogs are sold every day and many people make and sell blogs as a part of their day job.
- Work in a bar. If you like clubs, bar and night life, consider working in one of it in the weekend.
- Sell your gold. Maybe you have an old bracelet that you really have never used. That could be a quick way to make some bucks.
- Gardening. If you are not afraid of doing manual work, you could take care of someone else’s garden.
- Clean house. If you don’t like gardening, you can always clean homes.
- Sell your old books and DVDs. Are you really going to real all those books again (I would)? If not, consider selling them on ebay or craig list.
- Cook for others. Your job would be to buy, cook and freeze food for others to enjoy. Only do this if you are a good cook.
- Direct selling. Many companies will be more than happy to give you part of their revenues if you refer to them new clients. You could give presentations of a product to your friends or go door to door.
- Personal shopper. If you have good taste and you love shopping, there’s nothing better than being a personal shopper.
- Deliver pizza. This is an old school way of making money. Be sure you are not afraid of driving fast if you want to do it.
- Waiter. Try to get a part time job as a waiter and you’ll likely get nice tips from customers if you are working in a nice place.
- Rewrite ads. If your grammar is good, take a look at ebay ads and if you notice one that sucks, offer its owner a rewrite for a 1% or 2% fee. Only target big items of course.
- Rent your car. If you don’t use your car every day, you could rent it to some friend.
- Drive people to the airport or station. Same as before, there’s always someone who needs a drive to the airport.
- Take a look at craiglist for job ideas. There’s always some odd job you could do on craiglist. Take a look at your city’s listings every once in a while and catch every opportunity you can.
- Have a garage sale. If you are moving to a new house, do a garage sale to get rid of your old stuff.
- Sell umbrellas on rainy days. Be the right man in the right place at the right moment ;)
- Buy and sell tickets. If your country laws permit it, you can buy tickets in advance and then resell them on ebay once they are sold out.
- Forex trading. I’m not a forex expert but you may want to take a look at it if you want to make some extra dollars per month trading currencies.
- Tutoring. If you are good at math, english or something else, you can tutor kids during weekends or summers.
- Market research. Many market research agencies are paying people for conducting market research. This is also a great way to brainstorm new business ideas.
- Do a part time job. A part time job is often the easiest way for making some extra money.
- Ask for them. If what you really want is more money, perhaps you could simply ask for a raise?
