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Working from home has become more common than ever, making it possible to earn a pretty great income without leaving the house. But what if you’re looking to make extra money while working from home? Maybe you’ve had to learn some tough money lessons and are struggling to get by on a single income. Luckily, there are plenty of options for earning extra money while working remotely. If you’re wondering how to make $500 a week from home, here are 23 legitimate ways to do so:
In this post
Check for unclaimed money
The absolute first thing to do if you want to earn extra cash from home is to find out if you’re owed money. We’re not talking about your deadbeat friends or that family member who is always “borrowing” extra cash. We’re talking about money owed by businesses and even the government. For example, your old insurance company may owe you a few extra bucks after you cancel your policy. Or perhaps you have an abandoned credit card with a negative balance.
In both of these cases, you are probably owed money and it’s up to you to ask for it. Your secretary of state website has this information, but you can also head to Unclaimed.org to find out.
Related: How I paid off $112,000 worth of debt last year
Sell your stuff online
Let’s start with the obvious. We all have too much stuff and Marie Kondo has taught us anything, it’s that getting rid of some of it will bring us joy. In this case, it can also bring you money. Whether it’s clothes you haven’t worn in months, a generic piece of art cluttering your walls or even an uncomfortable office chair – you can probably make $500 in a week selling all of your unwanted stuff.
Craigslist is the best option since most items can be listed free of charge. Poshmark is a great option for clothing, though you will sometimes get spammed with lowball offers. Whatever platform you choose, you can make extra cash selling your stuff without leaving the house.
Related: How to buy a town like Schitt’s Creek
Get crafty on Etsy
Etsy is a great platform for creative types looking to sell homemade crafts. Whether you have a knack for making flower pens or whimsical face masks, you can sell these items on Etsy. Keep in mind that you’ll pay a 5% transaction fee per item sold, which is significantly lower than what you’ll pay on sites like eBay.
If you really want to make money without leaving home, then consider selling items on Etsy that don’t require shipping or trips to the craft store. I’m walking about selling Etsy printables. Tons of people out there are making thousands of dollars selling Etsy printables. Some of these people aren’t even design professionals. In fact, Millennial Boss documents her journey to 1,000 Etsy printable sales after putting in just a few weeks of work.
By properly marketing your products, you can totally earn $500 a week selling Etsy printables from home.
Related: What happened to Britney Spears’ $350 million fortune?
Convert DVD’s to MP4 format
Everyone has old VHS tapes of weddings and important family events. These tapes deteriorate in quality over time and most people don’t have VHS players anymore. Solution? Start a service converting people’s DVD’s into MP4 format. All you need is a VHS player and a simple tool like the VIDBOX Video Conversion Suite, which costs as little as $69 on Amazon.
This requires little physical effort and you can drop the MP4 file into DropBox or some cloud-sharing platform where clients can download them. Companies like LegacyBoxcharge as much as $25 per tape. I’d drop it down to $10 and offer additional discounts for bigger orders. Converting 50 VHS tapes to MP4 is an easy way to earn an extra $500 a week from home.
Airbnb your place
With so many people looking for a change in scenery after months of quarantine, there is a high demand for Airbnb rentals. Why not take advantage by renting out your property? Depending on where you live and the type of property you have, you may easily get at least $100 per night renting out your place.
Teach English to Chinese students
There are lots of companies out there that will pay around $20 per hour for virtual English teachers. These sessions are usually 45-60 minutes long and you’ll be provided with all the tools you need to carry out your lessons effectively. A popular platform for teaching English to Chinese students is VIPKid.
Related: The 10 highest-paying jobs in America
Rent your car out on Turo
If you’re probably spending the majority of your time in quarantine, chances are you’re not getting much use of your car. The good news is that demand for rental cars is high these days, especially for folks looking to escape the house on weekends. You can capitalize on this by renting your car out on Turo. In fact, Turo claims that the average car owner on the platform earns about $706 per month on 12 rental days. That’s an average of $55 per day.
While you won’t quite get to $500 per week, this is a good way to make some extra cash and cover those insurance premiums and car payments. You can even set mileage limits to ensure minimal wear and tear on your vehicle.
Related: 7 tough money lessons I learned in my 20’s
Create a site for passive income
Don’t consume – create. If you’re browsing the web these days to entertain or educate yourself on a subject, chances are millions of other people are too. So why not start a niche site for passive income? Income School is a great resource for getting started. They provide great SEO advice and even have a page where they list niche site ideas – complete with domain names!
Browse the page and see if any sites pique your interest. Below the list, there are success stories of sites making well over $2,000 per month. Imagine raking that kind of income from home by doing strategic keyword research.
Make Youtube videos
Making Youtube videos is going to take a lot of time and effort, but can turn into a nice side hustle if you do it successfully. Youtube pays out about $5 per 1,000 views, so you’d need to get at least 100,000 views a week to make $500.
Successful YouTubers earn well over this amount thanks to ad revenue and brand partnerships. In fact, the highest-earning YouTuber, Ryan Kaji, earns $26 million a year.
Get a cash back credit card
If you have good credit, applying for a cash back card can be a great way to earn some extra money. Many cash back cards come with sign-up bonuses. All you have to do is meet the spending requirement and you’ll get a cash bonus.
- Savor® Rewards from Capital One® – $300 cash bonus once you spend $3,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening
- Navy Federal Credit Union® More Rewards American Express® Credit Card – 30,000 bonus points (a $300 value) when you spend $3,000 within 90 days of account opening.
- Chase Freedom® credit card – $200 bonus plus 5% cash back at grocery store offer after you spend $500 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
While the spending requirements may seem high, you can meet them by charging your household bills to the card.
Manufactured spending
Here’s an interesting way to make some extra cash once you’ve burned through your credit card sign-up bonus: It’s called manufactured spending. Basically, what you do is use a cash back card to buy a bunch of Visa gift cards, then use those to buy money orders. Deposit the money orders into your bank account and pay off your credit card.
With a 2% cash back card, you can make about a $130 profit for every $10,000 spent. Some cards offer up to 6% cash back at grocery stores, capped at $6,000. So you can max this out and earn $360. You can even buy merchant gift cards on sale through a cash back portal and resell them for a small profit.
Related: Are money market accounts FDIC insured?
Open a checking account
A passive way to make some extra cash from home is to open a new checking account. Many banks offer big bonuses for opening new accounts. Right now, you can earn up to $700 cash by opening a new checking account. These bonuses are subject to certain deposit amounts, but there are plenty of viable options if you’re looking to earn some fast cash from home.
Write for a profitable niche
There is tons of content on the internet these days catering to every possible niche. If you’re a halfway decent writer, you can capitalize on this by becoming a freelance writer. You can typically earn $0.50 per word writing for a finance site. Start by building a small portfolio or write up a few spec pieces.
Send these to publications you’re interested in writing for and you may turn this into a pretty nice side hustle. At my best, I managed to earn well over $2,500 a week as a freelance writer. By writing 1-2 pieces of 1,000 words or more, you can easily earn $500 a week from home.
A great starting point is Contently’s freelance rate database. Use this to get a good sense of the best publications you should be targeting and go from there.
Build websites
Building a website on WordPress is about as simple as it gets. Yet, there are plenty of small businesses and even professional associations that struggle with this task. If you can familiarize yourself with the basics of good site architecture and SEO, you may be able to make a good living building WordPress websites for these businesses.
Be sure to set up an account with a reliable host like Bluehost, which specializes in WordPress hosting plans. Then choose a clean, professional theme and start building out the site. You can probably get a small business site up and running in a matter of days. And yes, you can absolutely earn $500 or more on projects like this without leaving the house.
Become a social media manager
Are you hooked on social media? If you know how to grow a presence online, you may be able to start a business as a social media manager. There are lots of free resources online for getting started, including courses and tools.
The great thing about being a social media manager is that you can plan much of it ahead of time, allowing you to manage multiple clients at once. Start with a local business and market yourself with your local business association. Maybe even give a few talks at events. Even with one client, you can easily make $500 per week working from home.
Related: Britney Spears’ childhood home is for sale in Kentwood (with one giant caveat)
Become an online tutor
With online education becoming the norm, busy parents are having a hard time working from home while also educating their kids. Enter online tutors. Through a service like Tutor.com, you can get paid to tutor kids on a variety of subjects. You can easily earn at least per hour, with some subjects earning up to $50 per hour. If you’re good at explaining subjects and enjoy working with kids, online tutoring can be a legit way to earn $500 per week working from home.
Sign up for a virtual jury
No one likes jury duty and we all know it pays nothing. But did you know that attorneys often hire test juries to prepare for trial? You can get paid to join one of these virtual test juries on http://www.ejury.com.
Sell products via Amazon FBA
Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) has become a wildly popular way to generate passive income from home. I know people who earn well over $1,000 per day through Amazon FBA. While there are lots of expensive courses out there promising to help you hit it big, I’ve found plenty of free resources that were just as helpful.
For example, Start-up Bros has a great list of browser extensions that can help you scout products for Amazon reselling. Side hustle Nation has a very handy guide to FBA for those just getting started.
Flip merchandise
Flipping merchandise from discount retailers like Nordstrom Rack can be very lucrative. The best part? You can do it mostly from home by purchasing designer merchandise online. In fact, you may even be able to ship the merchandise directly to the buyer, marking it as a gift so the receipt is left out.
Simply search these discount retailer websites for popular brands. Handbags and wallets tend to sell well, along with sunglasses and perfume. The smaller items are also easy to package and ship, so I recommend you aim for those whenever possible. You can even earn extra cash back by making your purchases through a cash back portal.
Related: Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray’s Wilmington house is for sale
Test websites and apps
We all browse the web and use apps, so why not get paid to provide feedback on the experience? Several websites will pay you $10 or more per hour for following test prompts and providing feedback. You’ll help improve the user experience on a new web product and earn money from home. Win-win!
Teach something
Once you’ve mastered one of the above side hustles, you may be ready to help others on their journey to earn money from home. Set up your own online course on a site like Teachable and start earning extra income every week by helping others. The best part is that you can do this remotely and there is definitely potential to earn $500 per week.
Remote customer service jobs
With so many companies going remote, there are plenty of customer service jobs up for grabs. A simple search on a job site like Indeed will turn up plenty of options. In fact, at the moment even Tesla is hiring Energy Customer Support Specialists for remote positions. Wayfair is on a well-documented hiring spree as people around the country are spending quarantine redecorating their homes.
Roles like these typically pay around $15 per hour, meaning you’d have to work closer to full time to earn $500 a week.
Related: How to be a successful Instacart shopper
Make a career change
If all else fails, go back to basics and ask your current employer for a raise. Chances are you won’t be able to demand an extra $500 per week for the work you do, but perhaps you can get on track for a higher-paying job. Share your desire for more responsibility and a bigger leadership role. Suggest tasks you can take on to prove your worth and be seen as a contender for not only a higher position but a corresponding raise.
(Photo courtesy of Canva)
