Even though I’ve been a stay at home mom my entire married life, I’ve always found a way to bring in a little extra income for our family. When my kids were little I used to sell hand-painted furniture and hooked rugs to local shops and on ebay.
These days, you have to look no further than your computer and you’ll find so many opportunities to make money from home. Here are just a few ideas. Feel free to share more ideas in the comments below or let us know if you’ve been successfully earning money from home while doing any of these things:
Make Money While You Shop:
We have to buy things. Regardless of whether you hate shopping {me!} or love it {most of my female friends}, we all need things. Why not get paid to buy things you were already gonna buy anyway or simply surf the net? You heard me. People PAY YOU to shop. Sign me up!
Ebates: Ebates offers cash back from over 1,500 stores any time you start your shopping trip at Ebates.com. There are no points to redeem, no forms to mail in, and no fees.
Favado: Amobile savings app that helps you save time and money by discovering the best deals in more than 65,000 grocery and drugstores nationwide. The Favado app uses real-time couponing data to provide access to exclusive matching deals (coupons plus in-store promotions) for ultimate savings.
Ibotta:Ibotta allows you to earn cash each time you shop. Here’s how:Before shopping, choose your offers by completing tasks in the Ibotta Product Gallery. Once you complete at least one task per product offer, the product offer is automatically added to your shopping list on the Ibotta app so you can earn money for purchasing the item.
SwagBucks: Sign up for Swagbucks and earn money just for searching the web and shopping at your favorite retailers.
Inbox Dollars: Get paid to read emails. Seriously! Plus you get $5 just for signing up!
Nielsen Home Scan Consumer Panel: You report on what you buy, they reward you with all sorts of points you can exchange for electronics, household goods, etc.
Make Money For Your Opinion:
There are so many options when it comes to survey/opinion companies. You simply take their surveys and give your opinions on products and services and they pay you. Many research companies pay well but rarely have qualifying offers, many have daily offers but pay nearly nothing. Here are the ones I’ve heard the most positive things about:
Pinecone Research: Pinecone has by far the best reputation among survey companies. You evaluate new product ideas in the comfort of your own home and earn points for each survey, which can then be exchanged for cash!
Toluna: Not only can you earn money by taking surveys, but you can also test products before they become available on the market.
Valued Opinion: Their slogan is “Don’t give your opinions away, get paid for them.” And get paid you will!
Opinion Outpost: Not only can you earn cash when you take their surveys, but you can get Amazon gift cards or even donate to your favorite charities! How awesome is that!
CashCrate:Do you know that companies are paying top-dollar to have users like you try their products and services for free? CashCrate passes that money on to you. Simply complete the free offers and get paid without spending a dime!
Make Money on Your Money:
Credit Cards: Sign up for a credit card that pays you back or offers rewards. This is not a wise option if you don’t have the control or the means to pay the balance off monthly, because the interest would counteract the cash back earned.
CapitalOne360: No fees, nominimumsand get a $50 bonus when you sign up for a checking or savings account.
Mint.com: By simply taking a hard look at your budget, you can take control of your finances and save potentially hundreds a month. Mint.com is a free budgeting software that I love. You can see an overview of all your accounts and monthly budgets with the click of 1 button and tighten the purse straps if needed.
Credit Sesame: Keeping tabs on your credit report and score can really help save you money. Seems silly, but your score directly affects the lending rates you get on all sorts of things. Cleaning up your credit starts by knowing what you’re dealing with. Credit Sesame not only does that for free, but they give you credit alerts as well so if some shady criminal is trying to fake being you and steal your identity, you’ll know!
Turbo Tax, Tax Slayer or H&R Block: Make sure you’re getting the most from your tax return. Might just be once a year, but using these programs can potentially earn you thousands more in missed deductions and much higher returns. Certainly an easy way to make a little extra cash!
Make Money on Your Stuff:
I suspect if Etsy existed when I was hand-painting furniture and hooking rugs I would have probably made a ton more money! The internet is awesome like that. If you’re crafty or even if you’re not, selling your stuff just got a whole lot easier.
Ebay: If you have stuff lying around your house, throw is on Ebay and make some money off of it. Clothes, books, whatevers. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure!
Etsy: If you make stuff, sell it! Hairbows? Camera straps? Muumuus? Get your crafty self in gear and open an Etsy shop and start making money on your talents! I don’t think there’s an affiliate link for Etsy but it’s a good idea.
Sell your produce/eggs: If you have an excess in your garden or chickens that are laying like crazy, set up a stand on the corner or place an ad on Craig’s List and turn that into cash. I’ve done a simple stand in my driveway and have seen great results!
And those are just a few of the ways to make money from home. How have you earned extra income from home? I know I missed a ton of great ideas so I want to hear it. What have you succeeded at? Failed at? Talk to me!
~Mavis
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