Posted on 07/16/2017 7:34:04 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The monthly bills are due again, and it seems you are getting further and further behind. You’ve scrimped and cut costs as much as you possibly can, there’s no change left in the couch cushions or the car seats, and it looks like another month of Ramen noodles and raising/lowering the thermostat to cut down on energy bills. How about turning things around and looking at this from the income side instead of only cutting expenses?
You may already be working two jobs to make ends meet, but there are legitimate ways to make side money online that don’t involve illegal or morally questionable activities. Depending on your skill level and available time, you may be able to make enough to supplement your budget and start chopping away at debt.
The opportunities fall into a few basic categories.
Marketing Tasks and Surveys – There are dozens of online sites and apps that pay participants simply to take surveys, from Harris and Nielsen polls to sites like SwagBucks and SendEarnings. You can also join focus groups to give marketing feedback on websites’ products and services — assuming you are comfortable with the terms of the site and how your information is to be used. Read the terms carefully before signing up.
Small Odd Jobs – Can you teach crafts or tutor? Try Udemy. Do you like extremely simple and quick odd jobs? Try Amazon Mechanical Turk. Other sites will pay you to do various forms of testing on their sites, such as search engine reliability. You can even propose your own odd job and promote your skills on Fiverr.
Selling/Renting Things You Own – Consider eBay and similar sites as the garage sales of the Internet, just waiting for you to post your wares. Look around the house for things that you are not using or using sparingly — old appliances, books, clothing items, or knick-knacks you don’t care about anymore. Set up a PayPal account and place your unused items on auction sites for sale — but do some homework first on postage and shipping rates so you know how to set shipping costs and maintain a profit.
How about renting out your house straightaway? That’s a possibility as well, thanks to Airbnb. We suggest looking over Airbnb and their tips for homeowners. You do not want to come home to find party residuals, farm animals, or a meth lab in your living room.
Selling Things You Make – Do you like to knit or create special craft items? You might be amazed how much they would bring on Etsy or similar craft sites. Look the sites over for inspiration, as well as an idea of how much you can charge for your creations.
Sale items are not just for traditional hobby store crafts. If you are handy with wood or metal crafts, there are plenty of opportunities to make and sell anything from handcrafted knick-knacks to furniture and accessories. Again, it’s important to set your shipping/delivery policies and costs properly.
Another possibility is selling photos to stock photo houses such as Foap. You can even sell smartphone photos if they are high enough quality.
Why not take advantage of all the opportunities you have to make money? You may not get rich, but you may be able to put a dent in your debt and stash some cash away for a rainy day or a special future purchase. At worst, you can crank up the heat or air conditioning a bit and add some toppings to your Ramen.
No silly, it goes in the basement! (If not there, in a mobile home with really good ventilation!)
Bookmark
Maybe I could start a Trump/Russia collusion blog?
I get emails about joining marketing surveys and when I try it, all I get is a survey that lasts twenty screens and I finally get fed up. Then they have my contact info and they hound me for more, but there’s no money in it.
Photocopier, lithograph, colored pencils, and what else...
Oh, probably! I didn’t have a name for them.
With the crocheted edges. They are indestructible unless they get burnt!
Number 7 would probably work for me. Almost every time I go to the veteran’s clinic (often once a week) someone tries to buy my meal for me ... in a BUILDING FULL OF VETERANS!! How pathetic looking am I?
That has been my “Money @ Home” experience too.
After you finally say enough, and leave the website, you’ll get an automated response “Our records show that you left without completing the entire survey. Did we do something wrong?”. I never respond at that point.
They have already gotten my individual consumer opinion about any number of products, services or general topics. I’m not going to feed them more data they can troll me with in the future.
The ESTY website sounds interesting. I would like to sell some drawings online. If I can figure out the general pattern of joining, posting my work, responding to an interested customer and getting paid, I may have a viable plan to supplement my earnings at my own pace and for quite a while. So far I like that the ESTY site doesn’t bombard the viewer with unrequested ads.
Custom grave urination. Let me bless those folks you didn’t like in life - politicians, bosses, ex spouses... by piddling on them in purgatory. Pick your grave, pick your date. I’ll be there with a gallon of sweet tea for a small fee.
Don’t laugh- #7 will easily get you a hundred bucks a day, tax free. More if you bring a puppy.
It’s ETSY not esty. :)
Oh, thanks.
Start with spending less, cut back on nonessential expenses,
“A penny saved is a penny earned” is a smart saying.
“The people who really make money on EBay are those who own Ebay.”
Just a comment about listing on e-bay: I have some old Corvette parts that I’ve tried to list on e-bay. I just have been unable to attach pictures, so I get frustrated and give up and stash the parts back where I had them. I’ll try again in a couple years. I’m too much of a computer illiterate I guess. I would think it could be made easier to attach photos.
Some years before that I had access to a color copier that gave resolution that could not be detected.
I tested, but did not further reproduce.
Didn’t Fred require an elaborate system of trusses and support hose to maneuver his substantial rig?
When Obama started filling the White House, he hired three “calligraphers”. Little did we know they simply wrote Arab writing.
The Russian ruble was so valueless as a currency, Russians preferred to trade in counterfeit US dollars.
It was only when Iran started counterfeiting, that the U.S. Treasury stepped in.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.