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| Image by Lou16 |
Let's review a few ways that you can earn money that aren't talked about by your careers adviser in school. The wonderful contributors on this website have embraced several different ways of earning money and if you have similar talents then you may wish to embrace some of their methods.
So what ideas shall we discuss? Writing, photography, craft, recommendations, graphic design and even singing to cats!
You have probably heard the saying that if you do something you love you'll never work a day in your life. My late (offline) boss used to love this saying and he lived it too as he was at the office every day until his final two weeks (a month shy of his 90th birthday), he was even still studying a few months earlier! A few people who's articles you may have enjoyed on this site also seem to have taken these words to heart such as Mbg Photo & Wednesday Elf ...
Photography, Graphic Designs & Art
Mbg photo loves both photography and lighthouses so how to combine two loves and earn money at the same time? You sell your photographs of lighthouses on different products that people can purchase online. This is done with the aid of a number of print on demand sites, a popular one of these sites is Zazzle and you can see some wonderful lighthouses at Mgb Photo's Zazzle store - Lighthouse Gifts and Photos.
Zazzle is a great site to upload your own photography on, but you don't have to stop there. Other popular ways to earn with Zazzle include typographical designs, in fact I had two very popular t-shirt designs that were just word based! If you have a graphic design background or are an artist you could do well on this site.
Crocheting and Other Crafts
Wednesday Elf enjoys crocheting and she can utilize her talents by selling some of her amazing crocheted plush animals (and other goodies) in her very own Etsy store - Coastal Crochet Crafts. There are a number of different crafts that you can make and put for sale on Etsy. So if you enjoy crochet, knitting, jewelry making or even creating butterfly wings for costumes then you can sell your goods on Etsy.
Writing
When it comes to writing there are several different ways to earn money - writing a blog about things you love, reviewing products or even writing a book! Sylvestermouse loves Christmas and plans for it throughout the year which is why she runs a couple of different sites around the holidays including Christmas Time Treasures.
BarbRad (like many of us) is a self-confessed bookworm and amongst her many book related blogs she reviews books at Bookworm Buffet (an awesome name for a book review site in my opinion!).
Anyone can set up their own website these days whether it's on the blogger platform, wordpress or even a site like weebly. If that idea is too daunting for you then you could start writing on content sites such as hubpages or wizzley - earning money on these sites takes a while, but it's a good place to ease into the world of online writing.
Writing a book has become a lot easier with the internet because you can publish ebooks yourself. It takes a lot more discipline to write a book in my opinion though. One of our wonderful contributors has done this, however, with not just one, but two books - Bev Owen's cozy mysteries can be brought through Amazon.
Uber, Airbnb & Airtasker
Other ways of making money include the ride sharing economy such as Uber - simply use your car (provided it meets the requirements), download the app and you can choose your own hours for making money as a driver. I know people who do this as a full time income as well as people who do it around other jobs.
Airbnb is a very popular way to cash in on extra room at home that can also lead you to meeting a variety of people. Friends of ours do very well with this source of income which enables one of them to stay home and look after the children full time.
Airtasker is one way to earn money that I haven't used and nor do I know anyone who has. I have heard interesting things about it though and it certainly seems like an interesting way to offer up any skills you have to earn money. I was watching a segment on our local news program where they interviewed the head of airtasker in Australia and he said that the most unusual way someone had made money in the past year was by singing to a pet cat for an hour a day!
Recommendations
Recommending things is a great way to earn money and this can be done in a number of different ways. One way is to write reviews (as we mentioned under writing) and in this way we can earn advertising income on a blog or we can earn via affiliate marketing.
With affiliate marketing we get a commission on any sales we make when we recommend things so you could look at one of Treasures by Brenda's sites which is called Movie Treasures by Brenda. This site reviews movies and if you click on the movie and purchase it Brenda can receive a commision.
Recommendations are very powerful you've only got to see how many Facebook recommendations you see in a day. People just can't seem to resist giving recommendations (usually for free). You don't have to write an article or blog post to earn money with recommendations you could try social marketing (previously called network marketing).
I actually belong to a social marketing company called Arbonne and basically I love the products so recommend them to people and then they buy them through me and I make a commission. If they start recommending them to other people then I let them know that they could become a consultant themselves and make the commission for themselves instead of sending me clients!
The company I work for provide us with a website so the business can be wholly conducted online, but face to face recommendations works really well and I would recommend a combination of the two to be really successful.
There are a number of social marketing companies around, but my (albeit biased) opinion is that Arbonne is the best so if you are interested in finding out more please send me a message via my Facebook business page or via instagram.
Even More Ways to Make Money
Other ideas for making money is by offering to be a social media manager for small local businesses, setting up and/or looking after websites for local businesses.
Then of course there's always going back to basics and offering handyman services, shopping services, dog walking services.
The list really is endless, whether it's a local task or a global task there really seems as though there's nothing you can't make money from if you think outside of the office cubicle!
Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”
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