So, you’re hoping you kind ways to make money with no money online…?
I understand that, I was in the same position when I started to look for ways to make money online!
It general, it often feels like, you NEED money in order to MAKE MONEY?
But what if you’re totally broke and barely scraping by on your salary……
Well then it just feels like you have zero chance of ever getting out of that rut.
Maybe you’re in a job you hate, have lost your job, or are just hoping for a way to reduce your debts.
There could be any number of reasons that you need to start making money, without having any, (or much) money to invest.
The good news is, some of the best make-money ideas that you can start with no money, (or limited money) are online!
Which of course means, you can start doing them from the comfort of your own home, or even from your bed… If you want. 😉
However, I don’t meant to suggest that any of these ways are going to be EASY… Because they won’t be!
With every single option, all will take a fair amount of intense and consistent dedication on your part.
If you’re not prepared to put in much effort, you could always try out some of the extra income ideas, that I link to at the end of this post!
So, here we go…..
1. Affiliate Marketing – WITHOUT A Blog.
If you’re familiar with my site at all, I will constantly explain how having a blog or website, is one of the best investments you can make.
While you can easily set up a free website, I’d always recommend you have a domain that you own instead, which is actually really cheap anyway.
But what if you don’t have the money to set up a website, WELL.. it is actually possible to do affiliate marketing without one.
What is Affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is where you link someone to a product or service and, if that person makes a purchase, you get a commission.
You need to have signed up to affiliate programs first of course.
Many affiliate programs require you to have a website, but some do not!
Both Magiclinks and Clickbank do not require you to have a website.
Even Amazon now has a influencer program, where you can sign up with them if you have a large social media following.
Where Should You Start?
Pinterest now allows affiliate marketing on the platform and this can be a great place to get started.
Unlike Facebook or Twitter, one single Pin on Pinterest can last for years and be repinned thousands of times.
I recently wrote a post about how you could start affiliate marketing on Pinterest here.
The post gives a really detailed explanation for how you can get started on Pinterest.
The great thing is, you can start it completely free. If you want a helping hand though, I recommend this low-cost course.
If you’re scratching your head and generally unsure what affiliate marketing even is, there is a 10-part course here (free) that will explain it.
Some other places that you could post your affiliate links for free are:
- Ebooks – create your own ebooks for free, but you can put affiliate links inside of them.
- YouTube – of course you can start your own YouTube channel for free and can add affiliate links in your description.
- Facebook – Start up a Facebook fan page in a particular niche and you could also share affiliate links with your audience.
- Forums – Such as Quora. However, be careful, you need to disclose affiliate links on Quora and make sure your answers are not purely self-promotional and provide helpful answers.
PIN ME FOR LATER! 🙂
2. Affiliate Marketing – WITH a Blog:
Well, since I have a website myself, I can’t really leave this one out can I?
Starting your own website, while not FREE, (if you have your own domain) is one of the lowest cost business ventures you can enter into.
Plus, with a website, you can earn in so many different additional ways as you grow.
Such as with paid advertising, sponsored posts, your own products and so much more.
I won’t bore you with the details of how to start a blog, because I wrote an extremely in-depth guide right here.
If you want to make an investment into your future, this is a very good way to do it and ultimately a way to create passive income over time.
However, if you do want to start with a free website, you can transfer to a domain that you own down the line.
Worth getting started somewhere, rather than not at all!
3. Print On Demand:
A print on demand business involves you creating designs, ready to be printed on to different items.
Most popular being T-shirts, but it can also be various different items of clothing, stationary, home decor items and even mugs and accessories!
You don’t do any of the printing – there are various companies that can do this for you. They also do the postage and packaging.
With many print on demand platforms, you do need to drive traffic to your products.
However, some platforms already have their own traffic sources.
The most popular being, Merch By Amazon, Etsy, Or Redbubble.
With Etsy, you do need to pay a small amount per item uploaded, but you can make this back when you start making sales.
This is a great option if you’re a creative type, as you can literally start this with ZERO money.
It can take a while to make any sales though, especially if you don’t want to invest in advertising.
One way to get your designs noticed, is to create Pinterest accounts in certain niches and pin your design items on to relevant boards.
Another way would be to create a Facebook fan page matching particular, grow your audience and share your designs with people already interested in your niche.
I keep talking about niches here, but many designers will go into multiple niches with their designs and you can also build several Pinterest accounts/Facebook pages to match.
Just don’t spread yourself too thin, only create accounts that you can actually handle and consistently post to.
Pinterest requires long-term and sustained dedication, which is why using a scheduler like Tailwind makes things a lot easier.
You can schedule hundreds of pins in advance, which means you can literally set it and forget it it, (although I still recommend doing some manual pinning on top!).
4. Dropshipping:
Dropshipping is another way you can make money with no money, (although you’d make sales a lot more quickly if you DID have a little money to start out!).
What is Dropshipping?
- Customer makes order with you,
- You make order with the dropshipping company,
- The dropshipping company ships your order, to your customer.
With this business model, you don’t hold any inventory and you don’t deal with postage or packaging,
Every time you make a sale, you will purchase it somewhere like Aliexpress – at a much lower price than you sell it for.
Aliexpress will then ship the product to your customer. Although, there is generally quite a wait, sometimes several weeks, before your customer receives their item.
However, the great thing about this model, is you don’t have to buy in bulk – you can purchase each product individually.
So, you’re never left with a bunch of product that you can’t shift.
While the typical route to making sales would be via paid advertising – you can also attract visitors for free using methods.
These methods could include thins such as bogging, creating fan pages and using social media.
Potentially you could start on a free platform like WordPress and with a free plugin, like Woocommerce.
Woocommerce allows you to create your dropshipping store on your website very easily.
However, if you have zero knowledge about how to set up WordPress and plugins, you would struggle trying to learn everything initially.
As a total beginner, you’re better off going with something like Shopify, which is really simple to set up and has plenty of step-by-step training.
However, there are some costs involved with Shopify, (although it’s still low-cost!).
The brilliant video below, shows you how you can make $100 with dropshipping, by using free SEO techniques.
5. Freelance Writing:
Freelance writing is often talked about as being one of the quickest and low-cost ways that you can start making money online.
There are many different websites and blog posts written about Freelance writing and writing online in general…. Here are a couple posts that could help you get started:
- 10 legit ways to make money writing.
- 6 ways to make money writing product reviews.
If you don’t have any experience yet, it can be difficult to get your first paid writing job.
One way around this, is to offer to write posts for bloggers for free, until you build up your portfolio.
Once you have a portfolio of a few jobs, you can feel more confident contacting clients directly.
Rather than writing about a how mesh of different topics, it’s best to niche down and become an expert in a particular field.
If you really don’t think you could be confident approaching clients directly, you may want to pitch for jobs on platforms like Upwork or Freelancer.
If you’d rather be more anonymous at first, you could even test the water first in a content mill, (although the pay is low!).
6. Selling Your Stuff:
Yes, this is an obvious one, but often too overlooked.
Take a look around your home… are there not things you’re just keeping because you don’t know what else to do?
Maybe you’re hoarding a load of stuff that you just don’t need.
The first step, is selling as much of your junk as possible on places like Ebay, or Amazon.
But from there, you could consider buying AND then selling.
So, use the profit you made selling your stuff, and reinvest it back into buying things at garage sales or thrift stores and reselling at a higher price.
There are also people making quite a lot of money just selling used books on Amazon!
Many people are also selling their old books, DVDs and even Lego on platforms such as; music magpie!
However, you will get a lot more money if you list your items for sale by yourself.
You would probably be surprised at some of the weird stuff people sell on Ebay, for example!
7. Selling Weird Gigs (and the not so weird…):
People will overlook selling a service online, because they don’t feel experienced enough.
However, if you’re not super skilled in a certain area, like content writing or SEO skills – you can STILL sell something on certain platforms.
The platform I’m talking about specifically here… Is Fiverr.com!
If you do have some actual skills, then there is plenty available for you too!
Either way, you should check it out.
Unique Fiverr gigs include, things like….
- Online lessons in things such as Guitar,
- Selling arts/crafts, paintings, drawings,
- Astrology/tarot readings,
- Spiritual readings/spells, healing,
- Celebrity impersonations,
- A message written or expressed in unique ways.
While the original concept of the platform, was that you could buy anything for $5 – there are now many upsells you can do, to make considerably more.
You can check out all these Gigs and more, over at Fiverr.com
8. Gaming Online:
This isn’t something you can just walk into, but if you have a passion for gaming, an entertaining personality and some gaming talent, there is potential!
If you’re into gaming, you’ve no doubt heard of a platform called Twitch and you can make money from advertising and fan donations.
You may be supised to hear to know that some fans have donated thousands of dollars to their favorite gamers!
Many gamers also have YouTube videos and earn in a variety of other ways there, including sponsorship deals, paid Ads and affiliate marketing.
Does that sound like something you’d be interested in? Read more about it here.
9. Create A Course On Udemy:
The great thing about this platform, is that anyone can create a course.
If you have some knowledge in a particular area, you may be interested in looking into creating online coursesand selling them on Udemy!
You may be thinking that Udemy must be all about business courses, but there are courses in a large number of categories you may not expect!
Some of these include:
- Personal development, (stress management, productivity, happiness, parenting, self-esteem).
- Health & fitness,
- Photography,
- Music,
- Lifestyle… and much more.
If you’re learning in how you can become an instructor on Udemy, you can find out all the info you need here.
10. Enter Competitons/Sweepstakes Online:
This may SEEM unrealistic, but this is actually THE WAY I first made money online years ago!!
The secret is: You’re not going to win simply by entering a few competitions a month.
At one time, I was entering anything up to 200 competitions/sweepstakes per DAY!
You might think that’s an insane amount, (and it is) but if you have a good system, you can get through a lot in a short space of time.
It’s not unusual for compers to sell prizes they win, (some don’t like this, but I don’t see a problem with it!).
I won every gadget you can think of, several ipads, game consoles, several widescreen TV’s, trips away, gift cards and cash….
However, I could go weeks sometimes barely winning anything of value!
I still feel like it’s worth dedicating some time to, as you can win money-can’t-buy and life changing prizes.
One of my dream wins would still be to go to the Oscars or the BAFTAs, (they actually have these prizes out there!).
However, a word of warning:
Many websites posing as competition sites are either scams, or a complete waste of time!
There are sweepstakes running, (for example) that will be running across many different sites and run for months, so that your chance of winning are next to none.
Many of these types of competitions, are also a real SPAM trap. You give out your information and are suddenly bombarded by email and mobile spam.
I personally recommend you join forums, where people share the info freely.
Many of these people are clued up on which competitions and companies, are going to lead to SPAM and also inform others about potential scams.
You can also find a lot competitions running on Facebook, by following other people that do it and share them.
If you’re interested in knowing more about how I entered competitions, I wrote a post here explaining it.
Also…. You Could Join Some Extra Income Sites.
Doing online surveys and getting cashback isn’t going to pay the bills, but it can help you make or save little bit extra each month, if you’re consistent.
These methods are only going to make you a small amount of extra money, so I wouldn’t dedicate much time to them, if you’re seriously looking to make money.
Some popular extra income sites include:
- Swagbucks: Do paid surveys, cashback, surf web, get cash offers and more, $5 bonus to sign up.
- Pincone Research: A long established panel that pays $3 a sign up.
- User Testing: Earn $10 a time to test websites.
- Prolific.ac :The only survey panel I’ve found that never screens out – take part in academic research and get paid better than most survey panels.
These further posts will also help you find some additional ones too…
- My Top 10 USA Survey Panels & My Top 10 UK Panels.
- My Top 6 Extra Income Sites.
- 40+ Ways To Start Making Money Online.
Is Making Money With NO Money Possible?
While it’s definitely possible to make money online with no investment, it’s a better idea to have SOMETHING to get started with in most cases.
Having at least some money to invest, can usually just get you to where you need to be faster and more efficiently.
Plus, let’s be honest, how much of us spend money all the time that we really don’t need to?
By cutting back on unnecessary expenses, you could use the money to help fund starting your own online business.
The most important thing though… Is simply getting started at all!
From there, it’s being motivated enough to take consistent action…
Because an idea can seem exciting in the beginning, but can start to get difficult over time if you’re struggling to get results.
It’s important to acknowledge from the offset, that whatever route you choose will take dedication & work and it’s unlikely to all be smooth sailing!
Don’t be put off by the odd stumbling block, these are the situations that can help us to grow, learn, improve… and eventually succeed!
If you have any questions, or just want to share any experience you have…. Leave me a comment below! 😉
All the best,
