Do you want to earn $100, $1000 — or even more — on the side? You can start earning extra income today with the help of this list of ideas I’ve put together. Spend an hour or two each day working on items that are practical for you, and you can build alternative income sources to help you improve your financial situation While many of the items on this list are passive income ideas, not all of them are. Some items require you to actively work for success.
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While compiling this list, I did my best to avoid scams, and stick with practical ideas that work. I have tried many (but not all) of these ideas. Some of these helped me earned a few dollars here and there, but there are some that helped me earn extra money on the side every single day — and some are still providing me with revenue! Note that not all ideas will fit your skills and abilities. What works for you depends on your abilities and your current financial situation.
Passive income involves ideas or methods that, once you set in motion, require minimal maintenance work. The following money making ideas are mostly passive, and are proven to work.
One of the easiest ways to increase your passive income is to shift your savings to a bank that pays a higher yield on your savings — for example, Discover Bank and EverBank pay almost 1% for your money. Although it doesn’t sound like much (especially in this low interest environment), little things do add up and eventually interest rates will rise.
For a slightly higher yield, build a CD ladder. Break your money into smaller chunks and buy a series of 1-year high yield certificates of deposit. To learn more about this, take a look at How to Create a CD Ladder.
Lending Club is a platform where you can lend your money to other people. You’re the bank. Each note is only $25, so you can invest $1,000 and lend money to 40 people. There are many grades of loan (from safest to riskiest) and investors earn, on average, between 5% and 7% annualized returns. For more information, check out Investing and Making Money with Lending Club Peer-to-Peer Lending and my real money Lending Club Portfolio.
If you’re looking for current income, investing in the dividend paying stocks (or dividend funds) is a good way to earn money regularly. Pay particular attention to the S&P Dividend Aristocrats; these are companies that have long histories of increasing their dividend payouts each year.
You buy stuff every day: Why not make the most of your purchases? Take a look at these credit cards that pay 5% cash back on your purchases. When you make your day-to-day purchases, use a rewards card and get money back. My family receives several hundred dollars a year from using these cards.
When you shop online, go through Ebates. This web site provides you with extra cash back (on top of your credit card cash back) when you buy through them. Install the browser toolbar for even better results.
You probably do a couple of web searches each day. If you do all your web searches through Swagbucks.com (instead of Google or Bing), you can collect points called SwagBucks. Trade your SwagBucks for a variety of prizes, including gift cards for Amazon.com, Walmart, PayPal, and more.
This is mostly passive once you have it all set up, but it does take a lot of work at the beginning. Real estate investing also requires occasional maintenance. Currently, we invest in a couple of rental properties and earn about $500 profit from each per month. You can read more about my rental properties at MoneySmartLife.com: How and Why I Became a Landlord.
If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, you can gain exposure to real estate investing through Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). REITs invest in real estate and mortgage, and pay out 90% of the taxable income to shareholders annually.
In addition to the passive income ideas listed above and other broad income generation ideas such as starting a business, getting a second job, and learning how to invest, here are specific money making ideas you can try. Most of these items require ongoing work to maintain the income.
If you like this article, be sure to check out my Extra Income Guide.
Awesome list i love working from home every opportunity provided
Best of luck in your journey, we started using a few of those tips and it really helps.
I started off as a ghostwriter after high school. It was my combined knack of writing and coming up with crazy money-saving ideas for my family that actually led me to write finance blogs. I must say that I had made substantial bucks doing that!
I like the way you have listed the ways to earn extra income and was quite surprise that you did not make mention of network marketing, which is a way to make extra income without quitting your regular, though most people view mlm as a pyramid scheme but the real pyramid scheme is a regular 9 to 5, because you can only have one president of a company at any given time and network marketing business model to promote product that can be used is really cheap to join and can offer a substantial extra income or what do you think?
I am always looking for new ways to earn passive income. Real estate has really worked for us. We find houses in great areas that are either in need of renos or undervalued. So far we have done quite well. Thanks for the insight.
Love this list! So many new ways 🙂 In the past I have done typing transcription for medical practices too – at the end of the day, they email voice files, that I type up into documents, and email back to them by morning. Easy way to keep my typing skills going, after the kids are in bed 🙂
Hi Sarah,
I saw your comments in this page and i was looking for a similar typing jobs. Thought of checking with you on where can I find such jobs. Would you be able to help me with that info?
Damn, this is a really good post. Very informative.
Very informative and insightful. Helped me out big time.
Swagbucks is an awesome site, check it out,
Thanks for the great article…although I have to point out many of the items listed are not passive but active, such as selling bodily fluids, writing blogs or resumes, and collecting bottles and cans. To be truly passive, the income source must require no effort on your part (after initial setup). Real estate, dividends, P2P lending…these are truly passive income sources.
Hey Rob,
could you help me to understand about P2P lending ?
All of this is interesting trying to read some of that I haven’t heard of.
I have liked your ideas and I request to always send me those documents.thank you.
There is definitely money to be made online, to the point people no longer use it as a side income but as a main income.
Investing money made online or elsewhere in to some of your first suggestions would keep your money working for you. Great suggestions here.
Excellent blog post . Lots of ideas . I have earned $1,400 passive income in the past 12 months by an accommodation affiliate website . I am researching ways to earn $300-$500 per month . Your website has given me lots of ideas. Thankyou .
Very Extensive list thanks
Don’t forget about the ever popular: selling your body to science by participating in research studies.
What great ideas to be investigated and inspired by an older 35 year career individual recently a victim of having been terminated due to a “reduction in force”. Thanks and keep the info coming!
As a landlord myself, I definitely agree with your thoughts on Real Estate Investing. It’s one of the best ways to earn passive income, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
Thank for this extensive work. When you make extra money you need to think simple. First thing you should consider is whatever you do must be safe enough that you don’t lose your initial investment as well. Also, look at the ways you can reduce your costs. This could be car insurance savings or paying back expensive loans or card balances. Saving is making money as well.
Saving is making money. Making money is saving!
And furthermore, the Rain in Spain is always on the Plain!
I think we’ve got it!
Some good writing here! I am a realtor myself and frequently get in touch with clients that consider buying a realty estate a conservative of investing. I once heard of a transport company in Vienna, Austria, which focused their entire profit on buying eventually every house available in the downtown for about 80 years. That must be some of a passive income!
Great post, very good information here. I am particularly interested in peer to peer lending and plan on doing some of this in 2014, plan on starting small and seeing how it progresses. Thanks for the insight!
These are all interesting ways to make extra income without necessarily changing much of your daily life. Cash back reward credit cards are a great way to get money back for the purchases you make.
Wow – that’s a lot of ways! I’ll be experimenting with several ways to earn money online over the next 12 months. I haven’t been through all of the other sources, but I’m looking for some really odd ones to write about… fun+money, you know…