How To Make Money Online - 20 Ideas To Help You Start Earning More Money

Thanks to the internet, there is an endless number of ways to make money online. Here are just 20 ways you can make some extra money on the side.

Making more money could likely solve a lot of your problems. In the past, we’ve talked about how teens can make money, but for those of us who are a little older, we need something a little more sophisticated than the $10 that comes from mowing lawns.

Luckily, in the age of the internet, making extra money (or your whole paycheck) online is incredibly easy if you know where to look.

Here are 21 ways to make (and save money) online:

Virtual assistants can make up to $16 an hour. You can work part time or full time, and your schedule can be relatively flexible, as long as it lines up with whomever you’re working for.

What you need to be a virtual assistant:

Laptop
Head set or cell phone
Good communication skills
Flexible schedule

This could mean selling a few things here and there on Ebay, running a full-fledged online store, or renting out your home (okay, so that’s not entirely online, but it starts out there).

Ebay

Ebay may seem old school, what with Amazon and Etsy, but selling stuff you don’t need is a great way to make extra cash.

You can make a free account, but you’ll be limited to how much you can sell. If you want to sell more than 50 items a month online, you’ll need to sign-up for one of Ebay’s subscriptions.

Starter: $4.95/ mo with annual subscription
Basic: $21.95/ mo with annual subscription
Premium: $59.95/ mo with annual subscription
Anchor: $299.95/ mo with annual subscription
Enterprise: $2,999.95/ mo with annual subscription

Each comes with different selling caps, and the higher the subscription, the lower the fees.

Etsy

Etsy’s setup is a lot more satisfying than Ebay and even Amazon. But, just like Ebay and Amazon, Etsy does have some fees to consider if you’re planning on just casually selling. The fee schedule goes as follows:

$0.20 USD for each item that you list for sale
When you make a sale you’ll be charged a transaction fee of 3.5 percent of the price you display for each listing

Craigslist

If you want to go real old-school, you can sell your items on Craigslist. While there’s a lot that can go wrong on Craigslist, it’s still one of the most used sites—mostly because it’s free.

Sell your text books

Textbooks are expensive—too expensive for most. So, if you have old textbooks you’re never going to look at again—or never looked at in the first place—selling them can make you back some of the money you had to spend.

If you buy your books from Barnes and Noble, they make it easy to sell them back at the end of the year!

Rent your home on Airbnb

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Airbnb. If you have an extra room, or even a whole house you’re willing to rent out, you could earn a hefty side income.

There’s a cost when it comes to listing on Airbnb, You’ll be charged three percent of the booking total. Since you can set prices, however, you’ll still have quite a bit of control over how much you can make as an Airbnb host.

If you have a talent, chances are, you can sell your skill. Whether you’re a writer, artist, graphic designer, photographer, etc., there’s a freelance gig for you. Let’s cover a few possible freelance angles for you to take.

Freelance writing

It’s easier than ever to become a freelance writer (all of our writers at Money Under 30 are freelancers). With that being said, if you’re just starting out it can be difficult to find a writing job that will pay you more than pennies.

We have advice here, on how to actually get hired for a freelance job. Also, a good place to start looking is Fiverr. It’s called Fiverr, because most people would charge just $5 for their services—some people still do that, others charge a lot more.

Teach online

If you like to teach and have some free time, consider teaching English as a second language. VIPkid is an excellent service that connects North American teachers and tutors with students around the world for one-on-one English lessons.

The application process is rigorous, but you could make between $14 and $22 an hour—not necessarily the most competitive, but still decent.

Do small tasks

If you’re not prone to creativity, you can still make money online by offering your handyman (or woman) services on TaskRabbit.

Many of the tasks advertised on TaskRabbit involve tasks such as:

Putting furniture together
Moving
Running errands
Picking up groceries

Search the gigs section of Craigslist

Along with TaskRabbit, you can search the “gigs” section on Craigslist. Many of the gigs are hoaxes, but there are some that are legit. There are gigs that involve computer skills, writing skills, general labor, cleaning, etc.

Applying online for a cash back credit card is great way to earn money on purchases you already plan on making.

There are many credit cards to choose from—here are just a few we recommend. Let’s dig a little deeper into our favorites.

Investing in real estate online is a great form of passive income if you’re open to a little risk.

Real estate crowdfunding involves many investors investing small amounts of money into real estate ventures.

One company on the rise when it comes to real estate crowdfunding— EquityMultiple. You can invest with them for $5,000.

Read our EquityMultiple review.

While taking online surveys won’t make you rich by any means, a few minutes of your time can earn you a few extra dollars.

There are a number of websites that will pay you to take surveys:

If you already shop online, downloading money-making apps can earn you cash every time you shop. Let’s take a look at some of the best apps.

Drop

We like Drop because it’s easy-to-use and lets you earn gift cards for the money you’re already spending.

All you have to do is sign-up using the Drop app, or online and link a debit or credit card. Then you pick five of your favorite brands from a list Drop provides. Make sure you choose carefully, because you can’t change these once you’ve picked.

Now, all you do is shop at those places and your points will start adding up.

Here’s our thorough review of Drop!

If you can create a niche audience for your blog, you can make an entire paycheck—just ask our founder.

To start earning money by blogging, you’ll need to use certain advertising tactics, the best for start-up blogs is:

Advertising and affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing makes it possible for small blogs to stay in business. Rather than getting paid per 1,000 page views or per click—which is the traditional middle—affiliate advertising involves an advertiser paying an affiliate publisher (your blog) when it refers a paying customer.

Opening an online savings and checking account can earn you a much higher interest rate than at traditional banks. Our favorite banks are below:

Discover Bank Online Savings Account

The Discover Online Savings account earns you a 2.00 percent APY—that’s $100 in interest annually for every $5,000 you deposit. There’s also no minimum balance required to keep your account open.

Read our review.

Aspiration Summit Checking

The Aspiration Summit Checking account lets you earn up to two percent. To get the full two percent, you’ll need to have a balance of $10,000+.

In addition, the Aspiration Summit Checking account has no minimum balance requirements, no monthly services fees, no minimum monthly deposit, and no ATM fees.

Read our review.

Making money online is easy, but spending money online is even easier. It’s incredibly easy to sign-up for a service, put it on auto-pay, and forget about it.

Luckily, there’s a service that will go through all your old subscriptions and ask you which ones you want to cancel. This service is Trim.

Trim can even negotiate some of your bills for you! That makes it perfect for millennials who have an aversion to phone calls.

Blogs and podcasts are two of the top side-hustles these days. You can make money doing a podcast similarly to how you make money running a blog. Find a niche topic. This makes it easier to narrow down your audience and affiliate market.

Once you have a dedicated audience (which could take a while), you can start reaching out to advertisers who’s products would make sense to mention. Here are a few other ways to monetize your podcast.

If you’re good at talking in front of a camera and have an idea/product you want to discuss, YouTube could be the perfect platform for you. You can earn money on YouTube in a variety of ways:

Become a YouTube partner

The big money on YouTube is if you meet the requirements to become a partner. This year,YouTube changed the requirements to become a partner. You need to have a channel that has reached 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and 1,000 subscribers.

When you’re a partner, you start earning by how many views you receive. Here’s how it works: “YouTube takes around a 45 percent slice of advertising revenue, although the CPM (cost per thousand) that advertisers are charged varies. Most partners earn anywhere between $0.30 to $2.50 CPM.”

Connect to Google AdSense

Once you become a Youtube partner, you can connect to Google AdSense, their advertising system. You’ll be paid based on the number of “impressions” your videos get. That’s when someone clicks on or watches an ad.

Product placement

If you can get companies to sponsor your videos, or place their products in their videos, you can generate even more income. But you’ll need to inform YouTube of these product placements, or they may pull your partnership.

If you have a specific area you’re especially knowledgeable in, creating an online coursecan make you some decent money. This could be a course in just about anything: Cooking skills, massage therapy, how to play the guitar, etc.

You’ll want to start by creating a course outline—show it to a couple people, have them tell you if they think they’ll actually learn whatever it is you’re trying to teach. Next, it’s time to make your course. Most of them are done through video, with worksheets included.

When it’s time to sell your course, you can sell to places like Zippy Courses.

Writing an e-book and selling it is a lot like making courses online. Again, if you have a topic you want to write about—it could be as simple as the hobbies you like—writing about it should be easy, and if you can find a site willing to buy your book you can rake in a little extra cash.

You can go through Amazon Kindle Publishing—they’ll charge you a commission each time you get a sale, but their reach is huge, so you’re more likely to sell more copies.

If you’re hobby is photography, or you’re looking to become a professional photographer, there are a couple ways you can get started and make some money online.

First, you can sell your photos to stock photo companies. Some of those companies include:

Or, if the only camera you have access to is your smartphone, you can sell your pictures you take with your phone. Apps and companies you can sell to include:

Most people shop online these days—and for good reason. It can actually save you money.

If you use coupon sites, you can save money on things you’ll already spend on. Some of these sites include:

Using a food delivery service can’t necessarily earn you money, but it can help you save you money if you constantly find yourself throwing out half the food you buy. Food delivery services send a box of food every week with new, sometimes unique vegetables, meat, fruit, and so on. If you don’t have time to shop and want simple meal-prep that leads to a good meal, a food subscription service may be perfect for you.

Most of the services offer similar foods, it just depends on the price range you want. Our recommended food services are: Blue Apron, Home Chef, Plated, Hello Fresh, and Freshly.

While filing your taxes online isn’t a constant source of income, it can help you get your tax return sooner. Here’s three of the best tax softwares that make filing easy!

TurboTax

TurboTax is likely the tax software you’ve heard the most about, and for good reason! If you file a 1040-EZ, 1040, or 1040A you could file your federal return for free, plus, the guided format explains the tax filing process clearly, so you can be done filing in a matter of minutes.

Plus, if you’re self-employed, TurboTax has a Self-Employed product that can save you from having to hire a costly tax expert. It costs $114.99 for the software.

H&R Block

H&R Block has evolved past its brick and mortar beginnings and offers online products that compete with the best of them. If you’ve used past tax software products, you can upload a PDF of last year’s return from any other tax prep service.

H&R Block works like many of the other softwares—H&R Block Online guides you through your tax return to make sure you haven’t missed anything. All along, the Refund Reveal feature shows your estimated refund or balance due in the upper left corner.

TaxAct

TaxAct is one of the cheapest tax software programs, but it still offers a lot. Like TurboTax, it offers a free filing for forms 1040EZ and 1040A. Their Premium services are also cheaper, starting at just $37 for more complicated tax situations.

While TaxAct might not look as fancy as the other tax softwares, it offers many of the same products for a lower cost.

A graphic designer creates digital art for their clients. And it’s actually a lot easier to make money as a graphic designer than some might think—it just takes a little persistence.

First, you’ll need to create a portfolio. After that, you can find direct clients to work with by using sites like Fiverr, where you can sell your talents. You can also post videos of you teaching graphic design—with product placement—and get clients that way.

Robo-advisors are diversified investment accounts that are automatically managed by a computer algorithm (as opposed to a human money manager). If you want to invest, but don’t have the money, or don’t want to invest with a money manager, robo-advisors are for you! Robo-advisors make investing easier—and cheaper—so they’re perfect for new investors.

Here are a couple of our favorite robo-advisors!

Betterment

Betterment is a simple investing platform. You can easily open sub-accounts that use different portfolios for reaching multiple goals. It’s also surprisingly inexpensive! Betterment’s Digital plan charges 0.25 percent annually. You’ll have access to a full suite of services as well as mobile messaging to an advisor

Check out our full Betterment review.

Acorns

Acorns is an robo-investing app. You can invest as little as $5, making it perfect for young, inexperienced investors.

Acorns charges 0.25 percent a year on accounts over $5,000. The fee on accounts under $5,000 is $1 a month.

Check out our full Acorns review.

Wealthfront

Like Betterment, Wealthfront has a lot to offer investors. Perhaps it’s most important quality, Wealthfront doesn’t charge management fees on balances under $10,000. They requires a $500 minimum investment and its fee is 0.25 percent fixed a year on portfolios over $10,000—one of the more quite competitive fees.

Check out our full Wealthfront review.

Making money online is becoming easier and easier. As long as you have some technological know-how, you can make a little extra cash on the side. We have just 21 ideas above, but there are an endless amount of things you can do to make money if you get creative.

Thank you.

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