Ways To Make Money From Home Online

With the U.S. economy heading toward a recession and with huge layoffs in the tech industry, health care, and the federal government, many people are currently looking for jobs. For a variety of reasons, many of them are turning away from the traditional 9-to-5 job and toward ways to make money from home.

Unsurprisingly, you can’t go online for more than a few minutes without seeing ads for get-rich-quick schemes or influencers peddling their 30-day online courses. In this sea of clickbait, grifters, and bots, it can be difficult to get enough accurate information to make an informed decision, let alone actually find a job that works for you.

If you’re looking for practical and realistic ways to make money from home, here’s an assessment of the online job market from our perspective.

Remote work

It probably won’t shock anyone to discover that the best jobs are just … jobs. Just filter your searches to look for online positions. Traditional career paths come with stability, benefits, and decent pay, but are usually less flexible in terms of work hours.

Of course, if you’re just starting out or trying to switch careers, there are some pretty big barriers to entry. An online office job also requires the same experience as an in-person job, so you can’t just decide on a whim to try your luck as an accountant or a data engineer.

Fortunately, there are some fields where you’re more likely to find entry-level online jobs or other positions that don’t require experience, but these have their own pros and cons.

Find out more about Remote Work

Freelancing

Finding work as a freelancer is often easier and more flexible than securing a full-time job, but it can be much harder to earn a decent living. Freelancers not only have to spend time doing their actual work, but also finding new clients.

The one thing that all freelance work has in common is that you’re on your own. That means handling your own medical insurance, using your own computer, setting up your own home network, and filing your own taxes. And, of course, it means having a good internet connection.

If you’re considering going freelance, it’s a good idea to find someone who does the job you’re considering and see if the schedule and the pay would work for your situation.

Find out more about Freelancing

Selling products online

Selling physical products is a much more complicated way to work from home, but it is an option that suits some people better. The only thing you need is an internet connection and the actual product you’re trying to sell.

If you’re creative, industrious, and don’t mind cranking out a hundred copies of your most popular items, sites like Etsy allow you to sell your handmade products like clothing, plushies, enamel pins, or quilts.

If you’re better with a mouse than a sewing machine, you could try selling digital products.

For the less crafty, there’s dropshipping, where you serve as a middleman between the customer and a massive wholesaler like AliExpress. Though a favorite of get-rich-quick scammers, dropshipping can work for some people.

Find out more about Selling Products Online

Content creation

For many who grew up in the age of social media, working as a full-time content creator is the Holy Grail of online careers. What could be better than starting a blog, a YouTube channel, or a podcast about your favorite interests and getting paid to do it?

Well, the challenge is the “getting paid” part. While most social media platforms have some form of sharing ad revenue with creators, this isn’t enough to live off of, even for popular creators with hundreds of thousands of followers. That’s why most content creators rely on affiliate marketing and sponsorships.

Dealing with sponsors and stores can be a bit of a minefield. Regardless of what route you choose to monetize your content, it’s important to vet the companies you’re endorsing. This is especially true for paid sponsorships because, in a few years, the scammers will probably be long gone, but there’ll be a clip of you endorsing their shady business practices floating around on the internet forever.

Find out more about being a Content Creator

Dangers of the gig economy

Over the last 15 years, the gig economy has exploded as tech companies disrupt traditional industries. On the one hand, this has made it much easier to make money from home, but it can also trap people in exploitative situations. Before you take any online job or part-time gig, it’s important to look at the investment you put into it, the reward you get out of it, and its long-term sustainability.

What you put in

Every job, whether in an office, a warehouse, or at home, requires an investment of time and effort. Sometimes, they also require an investment of money or resources, which is much more common in less traditional jobs.

Be especially wary of any sort of online business venture that costs money. Working from home might have some up-front costs like upgrading your computer or buying a good video camera, but don’t fall for any business models that seem to have a pay-to-play or multilevel marketing format.  If some marketing guru is requiring you to sign up for his paid course or buy a bunch of inventory before you take a job, don’t take it.

What you get out

It’s important to know what you need from a gig before you put any effort into it. A side hustle has more flexibility than something you’re making your full-time job.

It’s important to factor in all your expenses, time constraints, and other obligations when determining if a job is worth your time and effort. When I was an unemployed, single parent, I had several friends who paid the bills by working for rideshare companies like Lyft and Uber. In my case, however, once I factored in expenses like childcare and gas, I realized that I would actually be losing money for every hour I spent driving, even if I had rides scheduled back-to-back all night long.

There are always ways to make money on the internet, but that doesn’t mean you should take them. “Easy money,” like being paid to take surveys or play mobile games, might sound easy until you’re frantically tapping your phone 14 hours a day just to pay rent.

Sustainability

While a bit of extra cash here and there isn’t bad for a side hustle, you need something more sustainable if you’re looking to earn your primary income at home.

You also have to consider your work-life balance in the long-term, which can be especially difficult when home and work are the same place. Managing both is stressful, and you have to find a balance.

Even exciting jobs need to consider their long-term sustainability. There’s nothing worse than finally getting to the point where you can quit your day job and focus your efforts on doing something that you really love, only for you to burn yourself out in a couple of months. Make sure that you plan out your schedule and budget in advance. Your dream job might have to start out as a side hustle, but if you’re patient and consistent with realistic expectations, you’ll get there eventually.

It’s not the internet of the 2000s anymore

Working from home has never been more accessible, but it’s also not quite the gold rush it was back when all the things we take for granted were still new. I had a friend who had a good side hustle selling sewing patterns online because no one had thought to do that before. When the original iPhone was first released, I met a guy who made thousands of dollars in the App Store selling a 99-cent tip calculator—a calculator that just multiplied everything by 15%.

At this point, all those veins of internet gold have been very thoroughly mined. There are still plenty of get-rich-quick schemes online, but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. As with most things in life, you get rewarded for the value you put in. The internet is a big place, so if you can find a niche where your skills and talents pay off, you can still make a living at home over the internet.