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Earning a full-time income from home might be something that you’re working towards right now, bright eyed and bushy tailed, or it might seem like a bit of an impossibility. Back in 2010, I waltzed right out of a ‘good job’ in the corporate world, with absolutely no idea of what I was going to do next, but quite fancying having a go at being my own boss. Some of my friends back then made it quite clear that they thought the whole idea was ridiculous and irresponsible, and I’d be lying if I didn’t secretly wonder that myself a few times.
All things considered? It’s worked out pretty bloody well. I replaced my salary within around 6 weeks. I’ve gone on to consistently earn around £4,000 a month. And I’m endlessly grateful to be able to do work I love, without a boss and on my own terms.
(Quick disclaimer? I wouldn’t recommend just leaving your job in the way I did. Back then I was lucky enough to have no mortgage yet, no real responsibilities, and a bit of cash in savings as a safety net. I went to the extreme, and there were no guarantees that it would work out. If you’re reading this though, it’s likely to be because you want to know how you can make a full-time income online. This is how I’ve done exactly that).
There are so many promises out there about making a ton of money overnight without having to lift a finger, and I can categorically say that most of them are false promises at best, or outright scams at worst. If there’s a way to make your millions while sipping a co*cktail on a beach? I sure as hell don’t know about it.
I’ve learned a lot on this journey though, and I’ve created a list of five of my personally tried, tested, and legitimate ways to make a full-time income online. These are all methods that I’ve used myself, and I’m going to tell you the pros, the cons, and the earning potential.
1. SELLING YOUR TIME AS A FREELANCER
There are tons of businesses – from massive corporate organisations, to one-man bands – who need work doing for them on a flexible basis. They don’t want or need to hire a permanent employee, so they’re happy to pay individuals by the hour or by the project for their help.
The beauty of it is that you can do this work from home – so you could even be on the other side of the world to your clients. Whatever skills you’ve got, there’s someone out there who’ll pay you for them. A few examples include being a virtual assistant, writing articles and content for websites, proofreading, transcribing audio files, and web and graphic design.
To get the lowdown on how to get started, check out my 5-step guide to getting your first freelance client – even if you have no experience, no contacts, and no clue!
THE PROS: It costs you nothing to start freelancing, and it’s easier than you might think to find people who need the kind of skills that you can offer. Sites like PeoplePerHour and Upwork are great places to get started. There are tons of projects that you can apply for, and it’s just a case of telling businesses why they should choose you, and what you can offer them.
That might sound a bit scary, but you quickly find your feet with it. I got my first paid project in about a week, and back then, I had zero credentials, zero experience, and zero clue of how it all really worked.
THE CONS: Freelancing is time consuming. Pitching for jobs, doing the work, and sorting out your own admin can turn into a full-time job. It’s also true that you can’t really ‘scale’ this kind of work. That means that you only have so many hours in the day, so there’s a limit to the amount of money you can earn.
But you know what that’s also true for? AN ACTUAL FULL TIME, SOUL SUCKING JOB, WORKING FOR SOMEONE ELSE. If you want to get started with making money online, I’d definitely recommend freelancing.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN?:As is the case for most things I’ll cover here, it depends on the amount of time and commitment you’re going to put into it. But for context, I was earning around £1,500 a month from freelancing within a month or two. Now that I’ve diversified my income, I dip in and out of freelance projects, but I typically make between £1,000 and £4,000 per month from freelance copywriting.
2. MATCHED BETTING
When I first discovered matched betting, I almost threw it in the ‘DEFINITE SCAM, TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE’ bucket. After some intensive research though, and chatting with a ‘real life’ friend who does this full-time, I realised that it’s completely legit.
The basic premise is that bookies offer free bets to attract new customers to their sites, and by taking advantage of these whilst also betting on ANY given outcome on a particular game, you can make guaranteed, risk-free profit.
It’s really important to note here that this isn’t gambling in the traditional sense, and as long as you follow the instructions from a site like Profit Accumulator, your cash is never at risk.
THE PROS: The money you earn from matched betting is tax free, and once you get into the swing of things, it’s also pretty straightforward. I’ll be honest here… At first, the whole process seemed massively complicated and I wasn’t fully convinced that I was going to be able to get my head round it. I know nothing about sports, and bar the occasional annual flutter on the Grand National, I’d never placed a bet before. But I quickly made sense of it all, and it really is just a case of following the instructions.
THE CONS:You’ll need to get started with a little pot of cash so you can place your initial bets. Though that money is never at risk, it does temporarily get tied up with the bookies while you’re waiting for your match to play. You can start out with as little as around £50, though the bigger your pot, the quicker you’ll be able to work your way through the offers.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN?: It’s possible and realistic to earn between £1,000 and £2,000 per month, risk free and tax free, from matched betting. You can see why I initially thought this was too good to be true, right?
I made over £400 in my first month of matched betting, committing less than an hour a day, and six months into my journey, I’m making similar amounts each month.
Got questions about how it all works, and how you can get started? Check out my 15 FAQs about making money with matched betting.
3. SELLING AN ONLINE COURSE OR MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMME
This one is almost the natural progression from freelancing. Instead of offering your one-to-one services, you can create an online course or guide that walks people right through the process that you use to achieve the desired outcome. So if you were in the business of designing websites, let’s just say, then instead of actually building a website for a client, you’d create a course that showed them how to do it themselves.
I’ve done this in a few different ways… I’ve got an ongoing membership programme teaching business owners in a very specific niche how to get more clients through their online content, and my members pay a monthly fee. I also occasionally run my 6-week copywriting course for female entrepreneurs, which is a one-time payment for my students.
THE PROS: On the surface at least, this is the HOLY GRAIL of making money online. You create your solution just once, and then you can potentially sell it over and over again. There’s no cap to your earnings, and it also gives you some freedom from constantly working with clients on a one-to-one basis. No matter how much you love your clients and the work you do, you absolutely WILL want a break from it after a while.
THE CONS:Loads of so-called gurus will happily sell you the dream of earning a passive income online, but that’s not really the full picture. I now spend about 2 days a month maintaining these two solutions that I’ve got – including general admin, and creating the materials. That seems pretty damn reasonable for the returns that I get, but I’ve ploughed A LOT of time into them over the years. A good earner, but also a slow burner.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN?: Anything from a few quid, to millions. But that’s not particularly helpful as a benchmark. On average (because it varies a fair bit throughout the year), I earn around £1,500 a month from my two online programmes.
If you want to sell online courses or memberships, check out my post on 8 dark truths about human psychology that will explode your sales.
4. RESELLING ON EBAY
You can sell almost anything that you can think of on eBay, from clothes and jewellery to toys and electronics. Clearing out your own belongings to free up some space at home and earn a bit of pocket money is a far as most people go, but you can actually turn selling on eBay into a real business opportunity. You pick up items for low prices from places like charity shops and car boot sales, and you ‘flip’ them for a profit.
Getting started with a particular niche is a good way to find your feet and really deepen your knowledge of what’s profitable and what’s not. I almost exclusively sell women’s clothing, purely because it’s something that I’m personally interested in, and I’ve built up a good understanding of what to look out for when it comes to really maximising my profits.
THE PROS: You can get started with reselling for a fairly modest investment. If you’ve got a spare £50, then that’s more than enough to get your eBay venture off the ground and start bringing in some cash fairly quickly. I LOVE my reselling business, and I’ve even written a post about why it’s one of my favourite ways to make money online.
THE CONS:This is another method that can be pretty intensive. Sourcing stock, listing it, and posting your sales all take time. You’ll pay a small fee to eBay for listing your items, and you’ll also typically pay eBay around 10% of the selling price in fees, plus 3.4% + 20p to PayPal for each payment you receive. Really though? These are tiny prices to pay when you consider that you’re getting access to millions of potential buyers. You just need to make sure that you’re factoring these costs into your profit calculations.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN?: There are plenty of people earning agenerous full-time income selling on eBay, but it’s largely going to come down to how much time you have available, and how committed you are to really growing your sales. I’m still relatively new to reselling, and I’m not giving it a full-time commitment at the moment, but my short term goal is to take home £500 in profit each month.
Want to find out more about eBay reselling? Check out these posts:
- Four Reasons Why Your Stuff Isn’t Selling On eBay (And How To Fix It)
- Your Complete Guide To Buying Wholesale Vintage To Sell On eBay
5. SELLING YOUR EXPERTISE AS A GUEST EXPERT
We’ve already talked about creating your own courses and online programmes. This one’s similar, but works in a slightly different way. There are people out there who already have clients and audiences who are learning from them, but they’re don’t necessarily have the exact kind of knowledge that you have. If their clients need what you can do? You could get paid to appear as a guest expert inside their online courses and solutions.
So you’d get paid to deliver a one-off training session, or even run Q&As inside their private groups. If you’ve already created your own course? You could give access to their members for a flat fee.
THE PROS: In this instance, your client has already done the hard work in terms of attracting buyers, and all the fiddly behind-the-scenes work that can go hand in hand with creating any kind of online membership. Your work here is relatively straightforward – you just deliver your knowledge to that audience.
THE CONS: It’s very rare that you’ll find work like this advertised. Instead,you’re going to need to have created some relationships with people whoknowyou’re good at what you do, and have the need for this kind of service.Bestway to do that? Freelancing. It’s the best way I know to bring in moneyquickly, and also open up doors to more income streams for the future.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN?: I typically offer this kind of service as a bolt-on for my long-term copywriting clients. Depending on the level of support you’re going to give and how much time that’s going to take you, plus the value of your ownmaterials thatyou’regiving access to, your fee could vary massively.
Looking for more inspiration for online income streams? Thrifty Mum has a great post detailing 27 ways to make money online.
DO YOU REALLY NEED TO USE FIVE OR MORE DIFFERENT METHODS TO MAKE A FULL-TIME INCOME ONLINE?
In short, no. You don’t.
There’s this theory that often does the rounds online that millionaires have an average of seven income streams. Maybe that’s true. You’ll notice from the examples here that some of these methods on their own generate what many people would consider to be a full-time income, and some of them are top-up amounts that are just one part of a bigger income pie.
For me, it’s really important to have several sources of income at any one time. This way, if something unexpected happens, it’s not the end of the world, and you still have cash coming through the door. Still though… Trying to set ALL of these up at the same time would probably lead to you spreading yourself far too thin, and not really doing any of them effectively.
I earned a full-time income from freelancing long before I started to diversify. My advice if you want to leave your job and make a full-time income online? Pick just one thing, and concentrate on making that work for you before you start spreading your wings.
