While many people start a home business to create or replace a full-time income, some people simply want to generate a little extra money to pay a debt, save for a rainy day, or use as mad money for small expenses, emergencies, or impulse purchases. In the past, those who wished to make extra money needed to find a second job. Fortunately, times have changed. You can use the assets you have, whether it’s skills, knowledge, or unused items around the home, to make money from home, often without leaving your house.
If you’re looking to make extra money from home, here are eight ideas to consider:
Sell Your Used and Unwanted Items
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eBay is a popular resource for selling various used and unwanted items. However, you have additional options for selling specific used items, such as books, jewelry, wedding dresses, and electronics, where you may have greater success over eBay.
To maximize earnings from these selling sites, it’s important to take a great photo of the item and write a compelling, honest description.
Places to sell used items online include:
Amazon: Sell just about anything
eBay: Sell just about anything
BookFinder: Books and textbooks
ThreadUp: Clothes
Decluttr: DVDs, CDs, and games
Gazelle: Electronics
RubyLane: Vintage, antiques, and collectibles
NearlyNewlyWed: Wedding dresses and accessories
Places to sell items online in your local area include:
5miles
Carousell
Craigslist
LetGo
Listia
OfferUp
Don’t forget about selling items offline, too; you can have a garage sale or visit a local consignment shop.
Get Paid to Do Tasks as a Microworker
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There is a growing number of opportunities to lend your skills as a freelancer in what is now coined the “gig economy.” Instead of hiring employees, many businesses of all sizes are hiring project-based freelancers to perform tasks, such as research, website updates, transcription, data entry, and graphic creation.
Microwork sites, sometimes called crowdsourcing, connect freelancers who can perform these time-limited tasks with the businesses that need them. While microwork projects are short-term and often don’t pay much, there are people who make $1,000 or more a month moonlighting as a microworker.
Microwork sites advertising freelance jobs include:
MechanicalTurk
Clickworker
Microworkers
QuickTate (transcription)
RapidWorkers
TaskRabbit
Make Money With Your Smartphone
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It’s amazing the perks you can get from your smartphone, including discounts, coupons, and even cash or points that can be redeemed for gift cards for your favorite retailers and restaurants. While you won’t make a living using these cool phone apps, you can save and earn money using your phone.
A few money-making apps are:
EasyShift
Field Agent
Gigwalk
Ibotta
Paribus
Receipt Hog
Shopkick
Swagbucks
Viggle (watching TV)
Sell Your Photos Online
Credit: Thais Lima De Sousa/EyeEm/Getty Images
In an increasingly visual internet, website owners, bloggers, e-publishers, video makers, and others need quality photos for their content. However, you don’t need to be a professional photographer to make money from your pictures. Quality photos from your smartphone are often good enough to sell online.
Most stock photo sites pay 15% to 60% of the sale of your photo, usually through PayPal.
Places to sell your photos and graphics include:
123RF
Adobe Stock (formally Fotolia)
Bigstock
DepositPhotos
Dreamstime
FreeDigitalPhotos.net
iStock
Make Money With Your Car
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There are several ways to make money from your car, such as taxiing people, renting out your car, or advertising businesses.
Run the numbers before using your car to make money, especially if you’re driving more than usual because it might cost more than you earn to use your car as a money-maker. Factor in depreciation, wear and tear, and gas expenses when you decide if driving is a cost-effective way to make extra money.
Resources that will pay you to drive your car include:
MyFreeCar
BrandYourCar
Uber
Lyft
Turo
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