Last week the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate had crept its way back up to 8.3 percent. It seems like no job is secure anymore, so being able to have multiple sources of income has never been more important.
Whether you are fully employed and looking for a side job, unemployed or a stay-at-home mom then there is a good chance you have looked into work at home jobs. With so many options to choose from and quite a few work from home scams it can be a little overwhelming. Below I have listed five easy ways to make money from home.
6 Easy Ways to Make Money From Home
1. Set up Shop at a Farmer’s Market
My wife and I love to go to our local farmer’s market each Saturday. I like buying all the fruits and vegetables that I don’t grow in my own garden. There are also vendors that sell everything from ceramics to jewelry, and even homemade pasta.
If you have something special that you produce from the comforts of your own home, whether it’s from your kitchen or from your crafting table, there is likely a market for it. Before taking the plunge into this new opportunity make sure that there is not an over saturation of the product you’re wanting to provide. You will also want to make sure there are no special city permits that you will be required to possess. This could cut into your profits.
2. Sell products on Amazon
You might have heard about entrepreneurs setting up on Amazon and making a fortune very quickly. Seems too good to be true? Nope, it is very possible to make a 6, 7 and even an 8 figure salary selling on Amazon.
Amazon FBA (fulfillment by Amazon), makes it even easier to get started. You don’t need to store, pack or ship your stock, Amazon does all of that for you. Of course, there is a lot of competition from other sellers but there is still a lot of opportunity for wholesale or private label products. Some entrepreneurs even use Amazon to bring a completely new product to market.
The simplest way to get started is to become a reseller. You buy popular products on wholesale and then resell at a higher price, pocketing the profit. If you choose to go down this route the key to finding success early on is using the right tools which help you find the most profitable products. Prime Seller is one of the best tools for finding profitable products, use the bulk analyzer to easily identify which products to resell. You can also check out their blog for lots of great info about building a profitable Amazon business from scratch.
3. Become a Virtual Assistant
Another easy way to make money from home is by becoming a virtual assistant. You have the freedom of working from your own home office taking care of administrative, technical and other business support services.
The best part is you can pick what hours you work. Most employers will give you specific tasks to complete during a day or week. This gives you the opportunity to do your job when you’re free and still enjoy all the other activities in your life.
Most small business employers love to hire virtual assistants because they tend to be cheaper than a full-time employee. While virtual assistants can have a higher hourly rate, they usually don’t have any benefits. If you are interested in finding a virtual assistant job check out VirtualAssistant.org.
4. Become a Freelance Writer
If you have a love for writing then you might want to try to profit off that love. Gone are the days where there were only writing opportunities for print publications. Now you have an endless supply of websites that are looking for quality writers to provide the content. Depending on your skill and experience, it is completely possible to make a full time living from your writing.
There are numerous ways that you can go about finding freelance writing jobs. You can pick the niche you want to write for and then make a list of some of the top blogs/websites. Most of them will have a link on their website if they have open writing positions. You can also check out online job boards such as Elance, Freelancer or ProBlogger.
5. Sell Beauty Products
Several different beauty product companies such as Mary Kay or Avon hire independent reps to sell their products. These jobs allow you to set your own hours and work from your home when you’re not out making sales.
These are great opportunities for people who have big social circles or have developed a blog that they can use to sell their makeup.
6. Sell Your Garage Sale Finds
If you are anything like me, when you head to a garage sale you wonder how much most things are really worth. Well, let me tell you there are a lot of items worth much more than they are being sold before. The reason for this is because there is always a market for everything. As the saying goes, “one man’s trash, is another man’s treasure.”
A lot of times you can find books, DVD’s and other items that you can end up selling for a higher price than you paid. Try selling your goods on Amazon.com or eBay.
If the work from home lifestyle is better suited for your family’s needs then the opportunities are out there. There are a lot of get rich quick and work from home scams, so you need to be careful. Make sure you follow the general rule, “if it seems too good to be true then it probably is.”
Great ideas Sean! I think setting up shop at a Farmer’s Market is a lot more lucrative then many people would think. If a person is crafty or a really good cook or has a product that is low cost and popular, then the famer’s market is the way to make money. I know people that actually travel to different towns throughout the week to sell their stuff and they love it.
We used to regularly do the garage sale hustle, finding gems and spinning them off on ebay. We have been meaning to get back into it..
jefferson
These are some great options; there are also a lot of companies these days that will allow you field phone calls from home. The hours wouldn’t be as flexible but it’s always considering. I like the farmer’s market idea a lot because if your items are good enough you could look to sell them on Amazon, Ebay, or Etsy as well.
I’ve been hemming and hawing for a long time about setting up shop in a farmer’s market to sell prints of my photography. The biggest obstacle right now is the up-front capital costs involved in printing all the work that I would want to sell. As you said, a lot of markets also require you pay a table fee to set up a table/booth, which could make it not worthwhile. But its definitely something I’m keen to look into.
You forgot blogging! You can make some cash blogging! I’m down the freelancing idea also. I’ve been noticing a lot of the other bloggers really making a killing at that.
Bloggingggg!! Although its not for everyone and not everyone can make money from it.
Blogging can indeed make you money, but if you are just putting out content for the sake of putting out content and adding a few Adwords links you should not even waste your time.
CF does a lot of freelance writing, especially for science and health publications. If you’re good at it, it pays very well. She gets 40 cents a word for original work and $5-$15 per article for copy editing.