In the last couple of years it seems that the cost of living has gone up, by quite a lot. Housing cost, food costs, petrol and electricity prices, prices have gone up across the board. Wage rises, not so much. Add to this the economic (and psychological) impact of COVID as well as the Russian/Ukraine crisis, it’s not likely to get better any time soon. Looking at the recent U.S inflation numbers, this is currently at an annualised rate of 7.9%, the highest in over 40 years!
Housing affordability in the Western world is at record highs, energy and food prices have and will go up as a result of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and pay rises (if any) aren’t keeping up with inflation and don’t look to be catching up any time soon.
So what can you do about it? Aside from improving your chances of getting a pay rise or taking a higher paying job elsewhere (or a second job if you have the time), let’s look at ways you can make money from home. Who knows this could become a nice earning side hustle in no time at all!
1. Selling unused or unwanted items
This is pretty simple, search through your house, garden shed or garage, go through your closets to look for decent items that you no longer need or use and look to sell these. Depending on your country of residence, there are a multitude of platforms that you can sell these items. You can use a general platform like ebay, craigslist, gumtree or even facebook to sell these items or alternatively you can use a specific website to sell your items such as thredUP for clothes, Luxe.it.Fwd for handbags, StockX or for shoes, Chairish for furniture, decluttr for electronics, just to name a few.
This is a great way of making some good money while clearing your house from unwanted clutter.
2. Rent out house or your car (and other household items)
One of the major benefits of the internet is that it has made it easy to connect directly to others for a wide range of goods and services. Not only has this increased your access to the amount of goods and services available to you, it has enabled the rise of the ‘sharing economy’, an alternative way of making money that wasn’t previously available. element of flexibility such as in the sharing marketplace.
Many of you are familiar with the company Airbnb which enables you to rent out your house or apartment to other or short term stays. Let’s say you are heading interstate to stay with relatives for a few weeks you might be looking to take advantage of a company like Airbnb to rent out your property for this period and earn a nice amount of income for this time in which your property wasn’t being used by you.
For some people they might not like strangers using their house and this option is a non starter however for most this is a great option to make some side money. Always make sure you do your investigations before entering into any agreement and always make sure that you are allowed to do this in your location and that you are covered with your insurance for this.
Traditionally most car purchases are a depriciating asset however using a car sharing exchange can turn your depricating asset into one that is your next passive income stream. There are some entreprenial minded people who have a whole fleet of cars that they offer for flexible rent making some decent income.
For example you may own a nice relatively new car that you hardly ever drive during the week and you usually take public transport to work. You could use a marketplace such as Turo or Getaround. Aside from earning an income from your car there may also be other benefits such as claiming some of your expenses as tax deductions (speak to your accountant if this is available to you).
Yes there will be an increase in the wear and tear of your car, there will probably be an increase in your insurance (should you rent out or ‘share’ your car check with your insurance company that you are covered for this) and in all likehood your car may depriaciate in value quicker than if you were the only driver, however with the amount of income available for renting out quality later model cars this is something definitely worth investigating further.
Other examples of the ‘sharing economy’ that you can use is renting out your tools, your clothes, even your swimming pool.
3. Offer your services as a virtual assistant or writer
Previously we mentioned the rise of the ‘sharing economy’, below we touch on the ‘gig economy’. Essentially this allows people to offer their services as a contractor to earn money, or become freelancers. The most popular offerings in this space is as drivers through companies such as Uber or Lyft or delivering goods such as Doordash or Deliveroo.
This gig economy also offers flexible work for people who have an in demand skill. You might have a graphic design background, or a website design background or even be highly proficient in various popular software such as excel or powerpoint. Even if you don’t have a specific skill you could offer your services as a virtual assistant or even as a data entry operator.
There are many online marketplaces that have a large amount of job listings such as Fiverr, Freelancer or Airtasker which will enable you to build up some nice side earnings. This may also allow you to dip your toes into going into full time work for yourself in your chosen area.
4. Teach a skill (virtually)
Another way to earn an income from your home is via teaching. This could be as simple as advertising your service through facebook and signing up people willing to learn from you. This could be teaching students how to learn a musically instrument, you could offer tutoring in an area you are proficient in, you could teach
This could be a musical instrument, cooking, organising, education, software, social media, the list is endless
You can do this one on one, in a group, you could even build a brand or course around this once demand for your services builds. You can produce any relevant course content via PDF or powerpoint and you can connect with students using software such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom.
After teaching students individually you can scale up to offer group sessions (higher income generated for similar work to the individual lessons) and finally you can scale up to your own online business offering courses around your particular skill or topic which can not only enable a more focused and deliberate learning experience (where students can progress at their own pace and return to sections they want to review) this is also a great way to earn passive income.
Examples of sites that enable you to create and sell a course include Teachable, Thinkific and Udemy
5. Create a side hustle/Build an online business
Extending the above point 4 discussion further, the demand for your teaching skills may have grown exponentially where demand is for you to create a course or two around your skill. You can build an online business around this. From point 3 above your introduction to freelancing could grow from side hustle to legit and successful online business.
If we look at the example of teaching a musical instrument, you would traditionally start your side hustle by building up potential students who take up your teaching service via a half hour or hour session. Word spreads about how great your teaching skills, demand increases and your individual lessons become group lessons where you have expanded your income and earnings however demand continues to grow where your students are now asking for a course from you. Before you know if you have created your own online business.
Or you might have some mad crazy creative skills that people rave about. You can turn this into creating some awesome pieces to sell on a site like Etsy or Ebay or you can even set up your own website through WordPress or Shopify to sell your wares.
If you don’t have a talent or a skill to teach you can create your own online business by selling an item online either through sourcing this yourself through a website like Alibaba and selling this via Amazon Dropshipping or you can create your own affiliate website or even buy or create your own niche website and earn money via advertising to your website traffic.
There are many ways you can boost your household income, doing it online is just another potentially lucrative option. The level to which you want to grow this income is up to you, the sky is the limit. However you need to take action and make that leap! Who knows, that small online side hustle that is bring you a few hundred dollars a month extra could scale to an online business that is turning over 6 or 7 figures and you are pinching yourself about this amazing life you now have. Even if you are ‘only’ earning an extra few hundred a month this will go some way towards paying the bills. Let us know if you have any ideas that you are going to take up to earn income online.