Not so long ago, finding legit ways to make money from home was kinda hard. You had to be on the constant lookout for scams and the competition for actual opportunities to make money from home was overwhelming. Nowadays, you still have to look out for scams—because scammers aren't going away any time soon—but every day there seems to be more and more real opportunities for people who want to make money from home and we want to share some of them with you.
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Before we share some great options for how you can stay home and make some money, we do want to caution you to always be careful. Please do your research and make sure that you are dealing with a legitimate organization. If you are being asked to hand over personal information or pay for opportunities, please beware. Just practice good common sense and remember that if it seems to good to be true, then it probably is because otherwise we'd all be rich. OK, now that we've gotten that out of the way, check out some ways you can get paid while staying at home.
Answer surveys online.
One of the simplest ways to make money online is by taking surveys to advise brands. Our favorite is the MomLife Panel, which allows parents to opt into specific discussion forums tailored around topics that matter to you (such as Dealing with Kids and Aging Parents; Kids’ Mental Health and Self-Esteem, Food, Health and Wellness; Latina Moms; LGBTQ+ Families; Military Families; Moms and Money; Moms' Self-care, etc).
Through it all, you'll find links inviting you into fun, exciting research opportunities (from surveys to video focus groups to online journal projects and more) where you will earn money for your time. The amount of money you will be able to earn will depend on the opportunity — from a couple of dollars per survey to $100 or more for video interviews or diary projects.
Become a freelance writer.
Believe it or not, you don't have to have any professional training or certification to be a paid writer. You just have to be good at writing. Good enough that other people will read what you have to write. To find work, you can pitch relevant story ideas to editors at websites that you would like to write for, you can also look for jobs on websites like Upwork and Textbroker.
If you speak more than one language fluently, you could be a translator.
Are you biliterate or multiliterate? Use your language skills to get some translating work that you can do at home. You can sign up for multiple platforms that offer translation opportunities. Some to consider are Gengo, ProTranslating, One Hour Translation, and Unbabel.
Sell your creations on Etsy.
Are you crafty? Do you knit, crotchet, paint, or make jewelry? Are your friends always complimenting you on your creations and telling you to sell them? Go for it. Set up a store on Etsy and start selling your wares.
Monetize your Instagram account.
You don't have to have a huge following on Instagram to monetize your Instagram account. What you do need to have is a business or creator account that is public and has an engaged audience. To find clients to pay you per post, you can sign up on various influencer platforms like Social Native.
Do you have good proofreading skills?
Some people have an eagle eye when it comes to spotting errors in written text. Are you one of those people? If so, get paid to proofread text. You'll want to be familiar with different with both the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style. You can look for proofreading jobs on websites like Indeed.
Be an online tutor.
Tutor someone in a subject that you are great at—be it math, Spanish, history, or literature. To find online tutoring jobs, explore websites like Varsity Tutors, VIPKid, and Chegg. You can also offer up your services to your child's school community. Plenty of parents would love to have a parent they know tutor their child.
Become a virtual assistant.
Are you great at staying on task and being organized? Consider hiring yourself out as a virtual assistant to make someone else's business run smoothly. Virtual assistants can have more than one client at time. To find work as a virtual assistant look for opportunities on Upwork or Freelancer.
You could be an editor.
There are many different kinds of editing jobs. There are copy editors, photo editors, video editors, and manuscript editors, to name a few. If you have experience in any of these fields, you can most certainly offer up your services. Mediabistro is a great website to look for editing jobs.
Create an online course or webinar.
What can you do that other people would like to learn to do? Ask yourself that and then you can create an online course, class, or webinar around that and no, it doesn't have to be something technical. Do you know how to make pan dulce? Do you know how to knit? Do you know how to cook healthy dinners? Other people will pay you to teach them. To get your class or webinar in front of others, you can use a platform like Udemy.
Sell your photographs.
You don't have to be a professionally trained photographer to sell your photos. You don't even have to own a professional camera. You can sell photos that you take on your smartphone. How? You can upload your photos to a stock photo website like Twenty20 and get paid whenever someone wants to use your photos.
Sell your used clothing, shoes, or accessories online.
You could sell your family's gently worn or used items online. Or if you really, really love to go thrift store shopping, you could flip items you buy at a thrift store. You'll need to take well-lit photos of each item for sale from multiple angles and write accurate descriptions. You can sell them on sites like Poshmark or eBay.
Be a remote customer service or tech service rep.
Did you know that Apple hires At Home Advisors? Its website says, "When people contact us for help, an At Home Advisor is often the one who responds. From your own home, you’ll be their human connection to Apple: friendly, thoughtful, and real. You’ll answer questions about our products and services, enriching customers’ lives by helping them access the wonder they’ve come to expect from Apple. And every time you save someone’s day, you’ll be amazed by what it does for yours." It's not the only company that offers these kinds of jobs, so look around.
Test apps and websites from home.
Do you have a good computer or a smartphone that you can use for work? Then you can sign up at UserTesting to test out websites and apps. According to its website, all you have to do is sign up, takes tests, and you'll get paid $10 for every 20-minute test that you complete.
Transcribe audio into text.
You'll need a good internet connection, a computer, a headset, and mad typing skills if you want to get paid to translate audio into text. Slow typers are not good candidates for this kind of work because you do not get paid by how long it takes you to do the transcription. You usually get paid per audio minute that you transcribe, so if it takes you 20 minutes to transcribe one minute of audio, you're not going to make much money. You can look for transcription gigs at sites like Rev.
