4 Ways To Earn Money At Home
Sure, your full-time job covers enough for you to live decently. Every morning you wake up, slave over traffic, work for 8 hours or more, go home and sleep. If you’re lucky your boss will overlook the minor mistake you’ve made in your report and congratulate you on your efforts. But it’s more likely that you’ll receive nitpicks worse than a patient under a surgeon’s knife. Lunch gives you little respite, until you realize you’ve ordered the same meal for months because, well, it’s what’s available nearby, and what you can afford.
Perhaps you’ve often wondered how life can be different if you can earn a living at the comfort of your home. No traffic, no boss to hound behind your shoulder every hour or so, (and cooked meals from your wife!). Lo and behold, the internet has made this much easier. While home-based jobs isn’t all dandy as it would seem, the internet certainly has evolved into a treasure trove of opportunities for anyone who knows how to Google.
Whether you’re the head of household providing for a growing family, a housewife who wants to earn on the side while waiting for the clothes to dry, an employee tired of wasting time on the daily commute, or someone who wants some extra cash — because who doesn’t — here are some ideas on how you can earn money at home.
1. Freelance online
No matter your specialization, there’s a wide selection of jobs available when you have a decent internet connection. Sites like Upwork (formerly Elance oDesk), Toptal, and Freelancer matches freelancers with clients looking for people to work on small tasks or big projects. You can offer writing, graphic design, photography, transcription, customer service, administrative, accounting, web, mobile and software development, engineering, legal services and more online.
Depending on your client and the type of project you’re working on, freelancing may allow you the flexibility of working at your own time. However, if you do decide to turn your gig full-time, doing freelance work won’t have same the benefits normally enjoyed by employees. In addition, you need to file your taxes, SSS, PagIBIG, and PhilHealth on your own.
How much you earn will be equivalent to the type and amount of work you’ve rendered, which can range from a P100 to P10,000 or more.
2. Peddle your work
If you’re amazing with your hands, you can capitalize on your skill to make accessories, bags, pottery, and other knick knacks and sell these online. Starting and managing an online store is much cheaper than opening a physical shop where you have to pay extra for rent, utilities and labor.
Sites like Etsy and Amazon Handmade allows you to showcase your crafts to buyers around the globe. Artists can also see their prints in bags, phone cases and other clothing by selling them through Red Bubble.
If you can’t think of a particular talent you can sell stuff lying around your house or buy items for cheap and sell them over at OLX or eBay for some extra cash. Social media sites, such as Facebook or Instagram, are also great places to sell or resell your stuff.
Just remember when you’re selling an actual item, don’t forget the cost of shipping, especially to international destinations. Also beware of scams and if you’re going the social media route, make sure to establish a safe mode of payment terms for your clients’ and yours.
3. Share your knowledge
Friends call you a fanatic or a know-it-all. They run to you first when they need advice, perhaps on baking, on applying make-up, on building their resume, or cleaning the toilet because you have the answers they need. Well, you can also earn from that skill and share your inner geek to the world. If you’ve got grammar and writing skills to match, general knowledge sites like About.com pay experts about P30,000 a month for writing guides (on almost everything). They’re still looking for experts on X-Men, molecular gastronomy, and breakups, which you might want to check out.
For a different approach, another guide site Udemy, lets you build a series of lectures on a specific topic and sell these as courses. One course can sell an average of P5,000, and popular courses can have hundreds of students enrolled.
4. Sell your photos
Are you a shutterbug and an Instagram star who gets a gazillion likes on your uploads because of your well-composed and well-timed photographs? Earn from your hobby and sell these shots online at stock photography sites like iStockphoto, Shutterstock, Alamy and Fotolia.
Take note of royalty, (that’s the percentage of how much of you’ll earn per photo) as well as the payment terms. Some sites may may need you to hit a certain amount before you’ll get paid. You can earn as much as P200 per photo on certain sites.
Do take note!
The internet is still evolving. It is breaking traditional business models and has been migrating products and services online to reach a global audience. If you’re ever planning on trading your nine to five job for a comfortable position at home, make sure to cover all your bases.
Making the internet the main source of your bread and butter makes it necessary for you ensure you have a stable internet connection. Browse for plans that offer you maximum flexiblity, such as Globe’s myBiz Surf which gives startups and small-and-medium enterprises access to the internet at the same time landline, with a phone and tablet to boot.
In addition, Philippine law requires you to declare your sources of income and settle proper taxes. And should you decide to recruit more members to your one-man team, make sure to complete all necessary documents and registrations.
And finally, without an employer it’s up to you to sort out health insurance (for you and your family), pay for SSS, PagIBIG and PhilHealth, among other things. This may also mean there may not always be a stable flow of money coming in, unlike the regular payouts given by employers. So you need to be more strict in handling your budget, make sure there’s always food at the table and all that jazz.
But once you get the ball rolling, you’ll find that online jobs could be as or even more rewarding than any job — you’d need two hours of commute to get to — can give.
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