How to Make $4000 a Month From Home (or ANYWHERE) (2024)

How much money do you want to make? What do you think is fair, and why?

Let’s put aside all of the median and average income statistics for a moment and talk about one that isn’t pleasant.

According to The Washington Post, over 20% of American workers earn less than $15 an hour.

That’s 1 in 5 people.

That’s not right.

And that’s also why I’ve written this guide.

In it, we’ll cover how to make $4000 a month from home (or anywhere in the world) with 10 realistic strategies.

I’ve personally used a combination of these methods to build a five-figure per month income, and I’ve met people having success in every one of these methods.

Let’s dive in.

How to make $4000 a month from home (10 strategies)

It’s easy to tell people how to make $4000 a month theoretically.

It’s a lot harder in reality — when you’re already struggling to make ends meet, hustling away without much time or energy to spare.

I hope these tips and tricks make that grind a bit easier.

1. Blogging

Blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme. But it is a model that can pay off big time over the long run.

Once you get things off the ground, it can lead to the ultimate freedom. Plus, for the right type of person, it can just be plain FUN.

It’s your own special creation. Like a garden, you plant the seeds, water regularly, and eventually, it grows (as long as you’re following a proven plan).

How to make $4000 a month blogging

Blogging is a lot of things. But fast money, it is not.

It’s going to take some time to set up your website to your liking. And even longer for readers to actually start trickling in.

But keep at it, and you’ll be rewarded.

There are loads of ways to monetize a blog — ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored content, selling products (digital or physical), freelancing, and leveraging your audience into other business ideas.

Let’s keep it simple and focus on ads and affiliates.

Ads: If you earn an average of $15 per 1,000 pageviews, you’d need 133,333 page views to make $2,000 a month. That gets you halfway to your goal.

Affiliates: You can promote high-volume low-commission products, or low volume high-commission products (or any combination of the two). Say you promote a handful of expensive products that earn you a $100 commission every time you refer a sale. To make that remaining $2,000, you’d need 20 sales.

As you can see, this ends up being fairly passive once you get up in running. If readers land on your articles every day — and those articles have ads and affiliate links — you can continue earning from something you wrote forever (theoretically).

Every new piece of content you publish is like a mini money-making machine that you send out into the world.

To give you an idea of the potential, the creator of the blogging system I follow has built a portfolio of sites that earns over $50,000 per MONTH.

If you’re interested, check out my full review of his course here.

Why blogging rocks

Unless you have a fat savings account, you can’t just quit your job to start a blog. It doesn’t work that way. It takes too long to ramp up.

However, blogging is something you can do on the side while you maintain your job, whether that be a day job or a freelancing job (more on those later).

The coin is going to roll in slowly at first. A few bucks here and a little bit there.

But eventually, once you get enough of those mini money-making machines out into the world, things can start to snowball.

Once you get the passive income rolling and blogging doesn’t eat up as much of your free time, you can move on to other side-hustles to diversify your income streams even further.

WARNING: Set realistic expectations. It will take you at least a year of hard work to get to this point. And that’s if you’re following a plan that works, not wasting any time. Some people do it faster, but they usually either (1) have enough free time to grind away full-time every day for several months on end or (2) have tens of thousands of dollars to invest.

Most “normal” people won’t have that much time or money to invest, so the process takes longer.

2. Photography

Being a photographer is something many creatives dream of doing professionally.

The benefits speak for themselves:

✔️ It’s one of the best creative outlets
✔️ Easy to maneuver into different specialties
✔️ Easy to diversify your income streams
✔️ The networking potential is phenomenal

A strong network will make it much easier to get off the ground.

For example, if you start by learning how to take senior pictures, think of how much easier it’d be to land gigs if you’re tapped into the school network or have kids in high school.

But that’s not your only option.

Sometimes, you have to think outside the box.

For example, while traveling in Cambodia, I met a couple of girls who were funding their adventure by selling feet pics online. No joke. They took photos of their feet, people bought them, and they traveled the world.

I am by no means promoting such a venture, but it might not be as weird as it seems (or maybe it is. Who am I to say? I’m just the passer of potentially useful information).

How to make $4000 a month taking photos

This all depends on the type of photos you take, and how well you take them.

Wedding photographers regularly charge $1000 to $3000 (or more) per wedding. You’d only need to do a couple per month.

You could also make passive income by uploading your photos to stock photo sites.

Or perhaps you’re a traveler. What if you just hung around for a day at top tourist destinations offering to take professional photos for people. For example, if people paid $5 for a snazzy photo at the Eiffel Tower, and you took 10 photos per hour, that’s 50 buckeroos per hour. Do that full-time for two weeks, and you’re at four grand.

Lastly, I’d be remiss not to mention feet pics, which can potentially bring in big bucks — up to $25 per photo. If you sold the same photo to 10 different people, you’d only need to take 16 feet pics per month.

Why photography rocks

Building photography skills opens up several income opportunities.

You have tons of potential niches to cover — wedding, family photos, senior pics, baby photos, real estate, travel — the options are endless.

You could also offer freelance photo editing services. Or create filter presets — a popular digital product to sell on Etsy for passive income.

You could even start a blog, Youtube channel, or social media channel that teaches others about photography (although this is another competitive niche).

3. Virtual Assistant

If you don’t have any idea what you want to do, then become a virtual assistant.

You can earn from skills you already have, and if you’re willing to specialize, there is plenty of room to grow.

It’s also extremely flexible. VA jobs come in all shapes and sizes. You can work full time. You can find a client who just needs a few hours a week. And if you need variety, you can find gigs offering various services.

One day you’ll be editing blog content. The next day you’ll be working on your client’s schedule. The day after that you’ll be talking on the phone all day.

You can mold your work to fit your lifestyle and needs.

How to make $4000 a month from home as a virtual assistant

Entry-level virtual assistants make $10 to $25 per hour, depending on the service you offer.

If you’re looking for jobs that make $1000 a week — or $4000 per month — at $25 per hour, you’d need to work 40 hours per week.

For example, you might find four “mini clients” who each need 10 hours of work per week.

If that sounds stressful, you can (1) find one client who needs full-time help, and (2) specialize with higher-value skills (here are some awesome ideas).

VAs who specialize can charge more, so you won’t need as many clients to meet your goals. You may only need one or two depending on the services you offer.

If you’re interested in becoming a VA, here’s where I’d start (free). Here are some other top virtual assistant training programs that’ll speed up your earning (free & paid).

Why virtual assistant-ing is awesome

We’ve already covered the amazing flexibility that comes with being a VA. And since you most likely have the skills to become a general VA (managing email, formatting documents, etc.), it’s one of the easiest jobs to start.

There’s also several ways to boost your income.

The most obvious is to specialize in higher-level skills.

But you can also create a blog or Youtube channel to talk about your virtual assistant career. This is a great way to expand your reach, find new clients, and diversify your income streams.

4. Internet Scoping

A scopist takes a court reporter’s messy transcript, cleans it up, and creates a perfect final copy.

It’s essentially a mix between a freelance proofreader and a legal transcriptionist.

Most people have never heard of internet scoping before, which means you’ll have fewer people to compete with for jobs.

How to earn $4000 per month as a scopist

Scoping is so under the radar that big sites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter don’t even have salary data for it. But according to ISS — one of the most popular online scoping schools — full-time entry-level scopists earn roughly $30,000 a year, while experienced scopists can earn $60,000.

To make $4000 dollars a month online as a scopist, you’ll need to grind full-time. The faster you can edit transcripts, the higher your hourly rate, and the faster you’ll reach your goal.

Internet scoping isn’t something you can start willy nilly. It requires training on the legal system and different scoping software. To learn more, check out this free scoping class.

Why scoping rocks

Once you master your scopist skills and build relationships with court reporters, you should have no shortage of freelance work.

And if you ever find yourself in a freelancing “famine” cycle, your scoping skills automatically qualify you to branch out into freelance proofreading and transcription — making you a triple threat.

5. Teach English

Are you a native English speaker?

If so, you can make some solid coin teaching English as a second language.

Heck, even if you’re not a native English speaker, it’s possible to earn a side income tutoring English.

Some online English teaching platforms have practically zero requirements other than a strong grasp of the language.

You basically get paid to chat in English.

Other companies, especially those that pay more, require a degree or TEFL certification.

Fortunately, TEFL certifications don’t have to be expensive (or time-consuming). You certainly get what you pay for, but here’s a great budget option.

That said, if you’re serious about making this your thing, at least for the next several years, I’d recommend a more comprehensive program (here’s the one I took). It’ll make you a much better teacher, which leads to a better experience for both you and your students.

How to make $4000 per month teaching English

Entry-level jobs start in the $10 to $20 per hour range. In most cases, companies with the fewest requirements pay on the low end of the range, while the companies that require TEFL pay on the higher end.

Once you’ve got some experience under your belt, you can boost your income even further by finding your own private students. This is especially true if you find private clients with deep pockets. I once met an ESL teacher who charged $70 for private lessons.

At $20 per hour, you’d need to teach 50-hour weeks to hit $4000 per month. This is not realistic. It’s not easy to keep a jam-packed schedule. And even if you do, students miss class from time to time.

To realistically reach $4000, you’d need to pick up a few private students off-platform.

Why teaching English rocks

Teaching one-on-one is great. But what if you could teach 24/7 to thousands of people, even while you sleep?

That’s exactly what some people are doing by creating their own Learn English online courses. This is much easier if you have a large following of non-English speakers.

For example, we stumbled on a bilingual guy who started a Youtube channel in Colombia. Now that he has over a million Spanish-speaking subscribers, he created his own English course.

Another way to scale would be to create your own ESL agency or language institute.

That said, if teaching isn’t your jam, there are plenty of other ways to make money chatting online.

6. Freelance Your Skills

Freelancing is one of the best options for people who want to work from home.

This is a broad term. Here are some of the skills that fall under the term:

Freelancing a skill you already have (or one that’s easy to learn) is one of the fastest ways to start earning from home.

Unlike other slow-to-grow strategies (e.g., blogging), you could potentially start earning as a freelancer today.

The trick is landing those first few clients.

How to earn $4000 a month from home as a freelancer

Freelance incomes are all across the board. They depend on your skill, the value it provides to your client, your ability to market yourself, and most importantly, whether you know what you’re worth.

For example, a freelance video editor is probably going to earn more than a Fiverr freelance selling logo designs made with Canva.

And remember, this guide focuses on ways you can earn strictly online. But you can also branch out into in-person freelance work.

To calculate how much you’d need to work to earn $4000, research pay ranges in your field.

And if you’re specifically interested in freelance writing (like me 🤓), I created a detailed roadmap that teaches how to earn your first $1k. It’s FREE, so grab it below.

Why freelancing rocks

Freelancing is all about working for yourself and experiencing the freedom that comes with it.

You work whenever you want from wherever you want, giving you the ultimate flexibility. This makes it the perfect job for long-term travelers, like me.

Freelancing is also awesome because you are the master of your rates. Unlike a “normal” job, where you might receive a 5% raise per year, freelancers can charge as much as their clients are willing to pay. And if they aren’t willing to pay more, you can just find another client who is.

This is how I’ve been able to essentially double my salary overnight. More than once.

Now, all of this assumes you offer a valuable service. If you don’t, there’s nothing stopping you from learning one. The power to earn more rests on your shoulders.

7. Amazon

Have you ever bought something on Amazon? Trick question. Everyone buys stuff on Amazon.

But just because you bought something on Amazon doesn’t mean you bought it from Amazon.

Fulfillment by Amazon is a program that uses third-party sellers to move merchandise. You send your merchandise to their warehouse, and they receive orders, pack it, and ship it for you.

If you find a product that sells well, all you have to do is keep it in stock.

Now, obviously this is an oversimplification. It’s easier said than done. And many aspiring Amazon sellers crash and burn (including myself, 5 years ago when I was young and naive).

Some may even wonder if Amazon FBA is still worth it.

Only one thing is for sure — to succeed in today’s competitive market, you need to follow a proven plan. Fortunately, this free Amazon FBA masterclass gives you just that.

If an Amazon business looks interesting to you, do yourself a favor and check out my Marketplace Superheroes review. I give an inside look at a training program (and software) that literally guarantees your success.

How to make $4000 a month with Amazon FBA

As an Amazon seller, calculating your potential earnings is fairly straightforward.

Make a list of all your expenses. Things like inventory cost, shipping, Amazon FBA fees, and advertising fees.

Then figure out your profit margin for each unit of product you sell at a particular price point.

For example, if you sold yoga mats for $25 each and $15 of those dollars go toward expenses, you’re left with $10 per unit.

To make $4000, you’d need to sell 400 units per month, or 13.3 per day.

If you sold a second product with the same margins — say, a laptop stand — you’d only need to sell 6.6 units of each of your products per day.

With three or four similar products, you’d only need a few sales of each per day to hit your mark.

The trick is finding those hidden gem products.

Why Amazon FBA rocks

Amazon FBA is a completely different beast than content creation and freelancing jobs. But it can offer just as much freedom and flexibility.

The hard part is picking the right products, finding and negotiating with a supplier, and figuring out shipping and logistics.

But once you have a system in place, it becomes relatively passive. Amazon does all the dirty work. You just need to keep your product in stock (and outdo your competition).

HOLD UP. Why settle for $4000 per month? Don’t sell yourself short. Here’s how to make $5000 a month.

8. Rent Out Your Stuff

Take a look around your house or your garage. Think about all of the stuff just sitting around. You paid for it. Now you’re not using it.

Why not make money with it?

How to make $4k a month renting out your stuff

Turo claims people who rent out cars through their app earn roughly $500 a month. If you want to make 4,000 dollars a month this way, you’d need eight cars. This is quite the fleet but it is doable.

The average U.S. Airbnb host pulls in close to $1,000 a month per property (this would be less if you’re just renting a room). So you’d need about four average-performing properties…or a lot of rooms.

That said, you can mix and match all these renting strategies together to maximize profits. And even if you don’t quite hit $4,000 per month, it’s a fairly easy way to complement other strategies on this list.

Why renting out your stuff rocks

If your stuff is just sitting around gathering dust, it’s an easy way to put it to use for some passive-ish income.

It’s also scalable.

If you find something that rents particularly well, you can buy more of that thing to rent out.

For example, if you earn $500 per month per car on Turo, you could theoretically buy a fleet of cars with car payments under $500 per month. You have positive cash flow, and when the loans are finally paid off, you’re left with a fleet of cars.

9. Real Estate

The wide world of real estate offers much more than just being a Realtor.

Depending on your state, you may need a real estate license for some of these ideas. But licensing yourself can open up many opportunities. Think of it as an investment in yourself.

Here are some out of the box ideas that may work:

✔️ Airbnb property manager. If you don’t have the cash to get into rental properties, offer to manage properties and learn the business.
✔️ Showing agent. According to Glassdoor, an average full-time showing agent makes nearly $60,000 a year.
✔️ Referral agent. If you’re well-connected, you can earn referral fees for helping out agents in your area.
✔️ Investment property owner. Buy properties. Rent them. Avoid bad tenants. Prosper.
✔️ Realtor. Working as a realtor requires hustle, but it ranks high for job satisfaction.

Realtors are typically independent contractors. They work under brokers, but they aren’t usually employees, per se. Brokers act as middlemen who soak up liability, entitling them to a portion of an agent’s commission.

Many of these real estate jobs can be done remotely, but you will probably have to leave your house.

How to make $4,000 a month from real estate

Most of these jobs have the potential to earn at least $4,000 per month once you get up and running. This doesn’t happen overnight though.

The cool thing is, you can start with active earning, and slowly transition into passive income (like rental properties) as your money grows.

For example, you might start out as a full-time Realtor, grinding away and saving up for your first rental property. Once you build equity in that property, you could cash-out refinance for a second rental. And so on.

Eventually, you’ll have multiple income streams and won’t be forced to hustle as hard at your day job.

Why real estate rocks

All markets fluctuate. There’s always risk involved. But real estate is typically more stable than stocking picking or aping into the latest meme coin. You trade your money for a physical asset that you can touch with your hands — a physical asset that tends to appreciate in value over time.

Just like other side hustles on this list, you can document your journey with a blog or Youtube channel.

This gives you a creative outlet. And if it takes off, it can open doors and turn into a hefty side income.

10. Crypto

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. It is for educational purposes only. Always do your own research.

There. Now that we’ve got that annoying disclaimer out of the way, you’re probably wondering…

How can I possibly make consistent money in the crypto markets given their volatility?

This is a perfectly reasonable question. Luckily for you, I have the answer.

Stablecoins.

These are virtual currencies that are based on fiat money. There are several out there, but let’s use USDC, also known as the USD coin. (Hey, no one ever said tech nerds had imagination…)

Anywho, USDC is always 1:1 with the US dollar. To keep this coin…stable, it pays a high-interest rate to entice people to buy and hold it. During strong markets, this rate sat at around 8% depending on your exchange of choice.

If you’re willing to dive into the world of decentralized finance (defi) — which has a bit more of a learning curve — you can buy USD-pegged stablecoins like TerraUSD (UST) and park them in protocols like Anchor Earn, which is basically a defi savings account.

Anchor Earn currently offers an annual yield of ~20%. That’s over 300 times more than interest rates offered in normal bank savings accounts.

UPDATE: LUNA, UST, and Anchor Earn have collapsed. It was fun while it lasted. Then…it wasn’t.

How to make $4000 a month with crypto

Even though it’s no longer a thing, let’s take Anchor Earn for example.(Maybe someday another opportunity will come along that’s more stable).

To earn $4000 per month with crypto, you’d need to deposit 240,000 UST (~$240,000) into an Anchor Earn account.

This is completely passive, hence the huge amount of money you’ll need to plop down upfront.

That said, there is no minimum to start. So even if you just have $1000 hidden under your bed, you could still start earning that 20%.

Again, not financial advice, always should do your own research. Anchor and UST ended up tanking, but in the future, there might be better options.

Why crypto rocks

You don’t need to start with over half a million dollars.

You can start with whatever you have and start squirreling it away. If you’re afraid of bad things happening, there are now companies that insure your deposits for an extra fee.

Every protocol and account works a bit differently. But some compound every second, and you can withdraw whenever you want. Do your research though (watching a random Youtube video doesn’t count!).

If crypto sounds too intimidating and you want to take a more traditional approach to investing, I will point you to The Boglehead’s Guide to Investing. This book flipped my view of investing upside down.

Frequently asked questions

Mitch's Travel Recommendations:
Travel Planning Resources - Everything you need to plan your trip on one convenient page.
Going Cheap Flights Newsletter - Get flight deals from your airport up to 90% off sent straight to your inbox.
Safetywing Insurance - This cheap travel insurance has saved me over $15,000 in medical bills.
Booking.com - Book accommodation without adding your credit card (in case you need to cancel).
Trusted House Sitters - Take care of pets in exchange for free (sometimes luxury) accommodation.
Flexjobs - Find remote jobs without having to sift through crappy ones.
Skillshare - Free trial to take unlimited classes that teach digital nomad skills.
Wise - Send and receive money abroad cheaply (great for freelancers).