When looking to make the extra dollar, it can seem needlessly daunting. Anyone whose thumbed through a help-wanted section of a newspaper and gone through the pages of online job listings has probably felt a bit frazzled.

So why not focus on making Money from your own home?

Today, I want to broadly discuss some of the avenues you can take to make the most out of working from your own home.

At Frugal for Less, we will help you forgo dealing with the extra effort of applying for possibly no return. These routes can help you start making money from home without waiting on that return call from an employer.

When we discuss ways to make money from home, surveys sustain themselves as the number one method to help anyone make that low-investment income.

To be a survey taker, all you have to do is fit the profile, take the provided surveys, and work with different online services until you start making what you want per month. Linked above is an earlier review to some of the best survey sites that I’ve encountered online with full-details at a glance.

If you just want a list just to shorthand investigate with:

1. Survey Junkie
2. Vindale Research
3. Ipsos i-Say
4. Pinecone Research
5. YouGov
6. Toluna Opinions
7. MySurvey
8. Swagbucks
9. Panda Research
10. Springboard America

As you can tell by the professional-sounding name, these facilities are all backed and time-tested in terms of income. You can expect to earn anywhere from $5 to $20 per hour depending on the site and survey that you’re taking.

If you can just set aside a small amount of time extra per month then it can be an excellent work-at-home strategy to meet a bill or two.

2. Selling Used Items: Sell! Sell! Get Rid of the Excess

When it comes to bleeding money in our lives, an accompanying factor can be sustaining those extra items in our lives.

Whether it’s more storage for the items that are taking up extra space (those dust collecting movies or game consoles), a bad habit of spending more money than necessary to support a purchase (i.e. coffee pods, sparkling water carbonation systems, etc.), or just out-growing your past purchases, you can always stop before the hoarding becomes too much. Just by taking the time to clean house, you can have a side-job in wait.

If you want to take care of this in person without any interaction with a delivery service or your local post office, there are some avenues you can take.

The days of posting signs for your local garage sale at home are very much alive. Especially in this generation of bargain hunters, it’s become increasingly common to find people willing to dig through and visit.

For those that are even sign averse, Craigslist remains an ever-effective option. Once you’ve taken some nice photos of what you intend to sell, it’s as simple as writing a simple description of what you’re selling along with setting your price. With the ability to set contact by email, phone call, or text you can deal easily with getting your file price or accepting bids to clean out your home.

Finally, there’s always the option to sell online. It’s very easy to specialize and price compare with what you’ll get back for the least amount of effort on your end. I’ve included a small list of the following sites:

1. Amazon Trade-in – You can sell basically anything that you own.
2. eBay – You can sell almost literally everything you own.
3. Bonanza – You have an eBay competitor that accomplishes the same.
4. sell.com – You can also sell everything you own if you don’t like the above options.
5. BookFinder – You can sell back those piling books and textbooks in your life.
6. ThreadUp – You can sell your name brand clothes, jewelry, sunglasses, and shoes.
7. Decluttr – You can sell your tech products with their price guarantee while also selling books and Legos.
8. Gazelle – You can sell your cell phone, tablets, and select laptops.

Whatever route you decide to go with your selling, there’s a multitude of options to clean out. Start out with a small list of what you want to get rid of, and you’ll be on your way to that extra cash. Plus, you’ll save time on your next spring-cleaning.

3. Store Ads: Flipping Through Paper and Online Deals

Although not always thought of as a way to make money, you can easily make money while saving on your grocery budget by checking the weekly circulars for the stores that you frequent.

If you’ve ever experienced the feeling of going from one store to the next and seeing the same item you just bought priced cheaper, you know how frustrating that entire affair can be. This method will allow you to minimize the pain of overspending.

There are many different ways to go about this with options to receive paper advertisements or browsing online.

Sites such as Southern Savers provide the collective online versions of grocery stores, national stores, and drug stores and their advertisements along with unlisted deals that pop up once the stores are scoured.

If you spend too much time in front of a computer, consider the relaxation of turning through a paper advertisement to circle the relevant deals, and, if you never have a moment to spare, peak in at some of the offers during a quick moment via your computer or smartphone.

If neither option works for you, you needn’t worry. Many stores will provide their own ads, so you can thumb through while in the store to find the best deals for you. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to keep the paper ad on hand as well when stores just happen to forget what deals they have on sale.

Whatever route you decide upon, taking a moment to look for deals and savings will help save you countless dollars. By figuring out what to purchase when and where, it can also save time on the scramble in person.

Both methods will save you and provide you with further opportunities to make even more money by not having to worry about tightening the budget after one too expensive grocery trip (everyone has had at least one where their receipt shocks them).

4. Rebate Time: Further Grocery Savings via Apps

In tandem with your weekly circulars, there are a competing number of cash back apps that have entered the fray. If you’re interested in savings on top of Coupons, earning freebies, and earning bonuses while shopping then some of these apps will definitely be for you. Consider looking at the following:

1. Coupons.com – You can use these application to avoid printing off your coupons (they do not allow double-stacking) from the website, and you’ll even get freebies on produce, bread, or other items up to a certain amount. Additionally, you can add the coupons directly to certain store loyalty cards.
2. Ibotta – Ibotta functions as the most well-known of the rebate apps with multiple sets of offers occurring throughout the week, incremental free items, and it allows coupons on top of its cash back offers to often make for free items. There’s a $10 sign-up bonus for new users when you use promo code qFTVA and scan your first receipt.
3. SavingStar – As Coupons.com doesn’t allow for double stacking, SavingStar can help out on this a lot since it tends to have a lot of overlap on items discounted here. Additionally, there are a few non-standard items always in the mix. If you’re unsure about using this app, you can always check week-to-week on what offers are available.
4. Checkout51 – Checkout51 is another supplemental app that pairs well with the Coupons.com and SavingStar family. It always lists what offers are available, and you’re able to earn bonuses similar to Ibotta on top of the offers within the app.
5. BerryCart – The first of two specialized health-centric coupon applications that offer rebates. There are always less offers, but they are always listed in full online for ease of review.
6. Makeena – The second health-centric rebate app that focuses on organic food. This particular application targets fresh produce lovers and bulk bin shoppers. Application updates also keep you updated now when new products are offered since offer rotation can be slightly slow. If you stick with specific brands in the long term, you can also earn loyalty awards over time for additional cash back or other bonuses.

Even if you choose to use only one of these applications, it can easily set you up for success with the lump savings to your grocery bill.

Check right before you go shopping, make your list, and collect the rewards! Now the person in your family stuck with the grocery list can confidently proclaim that they have an extra job.

5. Clipping Coupons: The Untold Savings of Printing off Coupons

As we have already discussed looking at your local sales ads, it’s important to once again repeat how much you can save by acquiring a steady flow of coupons to support your typical product buys.

Sometimes individuals stop at digital coupons via the rebate apps, but if you do so you’re not even touching on all the savings that can occur even while at the store. Always, always make sure to stack both print coupons and rebate coupons as much as possible.

Of course, the question here is where are the main places to acquire these print coupons. If you’re already using Coupons.com as an app, they hard cap you at two coupons whereas you are often able to print more directly via your printer and local computer.

The other useful site to keep in mind most commonly is Mambo Sprouts.

Once you’ve exhausted the generic routes, it’s best to start scouting out if your products have coupons listened on the main company websites.

If they don’t, you can request coupons by mail via the company’s Facebook Messenger account, Instagram, or email usually if they have any available. You can sometimes request coupons monthly or bi-monthly but a 4 to 5 month wait is most common with mailed out coupons.

The coupons you receive in the mail (unlike online) sometimes offer free products, and their expiration date tends to give you a solid three to six months to work with.

This will allow you to stockpile this virtual money for your household easily over time. I always recommend that at the start of every month, you contact a few companies and do this weekly until you have a solidly full coupon book.

As I typically save $11-12 on average for a shopping trip fit for one to two people and can see savings up into the thirty or forty dollar range, it’s always good to keep your eye on the lookout when deals are happening and if they coincide with the offers available via the digital rebate apps.

The method may seem time consuming, but it will quickly become second hand nature as you start casually glancing through all the available resources on a week-to-week basis.

So contact your favorite companies and brands. There are always different promotional methods going on, so even if there are no coupons available at this time, you can always request more when they come back in stock.

6. Start Your Own Blog: Monetizing from Home

While you may have never considered yourself a writer, an introduction to blogging can make a sudden U-turn in many stay-at-home lives.

As long as you can write on a frequent basis and have an area you’re passionate about that can affect others, you can have the potential to be a blogger earning ad revenue. While there are many options to shift through for first time starters, the most popular start-ups still stem from WordPress and Blogger.

Once you’ve picked an avenue to start blogging on, focus on one area you’re passionate about and start writing away.

Once you have enough of a growing audience, you’ll be able to apply for Google AdSense (Blogger has this option contained within as does WordPress.org with some tweaking) to start earning money for your traffic.

Rather than spend your time journaling or sharing solely on social media, consider this as a monetized option to help you connect across the world.

While this method can induce some costs compared to other methods listed above especially when dealing with domains, hosting, and monetization, you’ll not be as heavily dependent on a third party to offer fiscal opportunities.

Consider this as an option if you’re already heavily invested, or if you just want to share and learn more about a passionate topic. You can use this for your own fulfillment while generating some extra income.

In order to get started with a blog, you’ll need a host and a domain. We recommend using Bluehost to get started – it only costs $3.95 per month (under $50 per year) and you get a free domain your first year.

7. Create Your Own Channel: Monetizing YouTube

In this day and time, YouTube has become a staple media source for almost everyone. With the staunch familiarity, there’s an even greater calling to create new media channels and outreaches.

Personalizing YouTube has become a very stable career choice for many people wishing to share themselves with the world as a personality or otherwise just create engaging content.

As with a blog, you’ll be able to monetize your content via Google AdSense as long as you generate long-enough videos (10 minute videos tends to be the golden hallmark for ad placement) and have a decent following.

You won’t have to worry about hosting costs, but you’ll have some costs and equipment needs to improve your content (cameras and microphones, for instance). You may also need to get better at editing your video content or potentially sink in some costs to a video editor.

Still, with the option to start from your everyday life even and just invite people in, it can be incredibly easier than starting a blog and drawing in engagement.

If you’re at all open to this prospect of video cataloguing a passion, topic, or a day in your life then you may be able to draw in some extra cash. You can always try making a few videos and seeing how the feeling of a steadily growing view count works for you.

It shouldn’t take you very long to see whether the prospects of ad revenue will work for you as you refine your content.

8. Gaming Aficionado: Get your Start on Twitch

Have you ever considered your passion for video games to be a driving source of your life? Even if you’re not exceptionally talented, but you have a great desire to be informative or entertain while playing, you may be the type of individual that Twitch is looking for.

Twitch functions on earning money from advertising the latest and most popular games, and you can help in that quest by playing through and entertaining with the same games that you love.

As with the prior two methods, you’ll be using ads to make your revenue primarily. If you do gain a sizable following, however, you can apply for Twitch’s partnership program. The following requirement details as outlined between smartasset and Twitch are as follows:

“According to the Twitch partnership application page, the basic requirements for partnership are:

If you do manage to join the partnership program, you’ll be able to have users subscribe to your channel via payment or through a free Amazon prime allowance.

This will unlock special chat privileges, emotes, and access to any video archives of your content. If you continue to grow influence in this manner, you may begin to have access to sponsorship opportunities for equipment and potentially further payment.

In review, Twitch functions a lot like blogging and YouTube with an extra layer of monetization options for if you’re unable to get by on pure ad revenue to your liking and want to solidify more of a career.

If you’re fully able to commit to this, there can be serious financial gains with your equipment upkeep potentially provided by sponsorship. As with the other two methods, do give it some time to try and see if it’s the right fit for you.

9. Source Your Talent: Apply Your Skills as a Freelancer

If you have ever wanted to showcase your talent, then you may have considered the financial gains that could occur from it.

Whether you have amazing writing, artistic, or physical skills there are countless opportunities out there to pitch yourself to multiple potential employers. The only requirement comes in having the confidence and an example of what you can do.

Once you have your portfolio ready or some other means to showcase your talent, you can begin looking via Facebook, Reddit, or directly pitching yourself to clients on what you can offer.

Whether you’re ready to start your own negotiations or waiting for a post to request your talent, you can take advantage of these opportunities to both practice and develop your own abilities further. There will often be bidding wars, so you may consider contacting your client directly to showcase why you are the best talent for the position.

As a route, this avenue can be done by anyone who has experience. If you’re not a true creator, there are many jobs simply requiring developed talents as typing accurately and with fast WPM (words per minute). Consider, data entry as another possible entry point.

The main item to remember when freelancing is considering every skill that you have as marketable. If you utilize this confidence in yourself, you’ll be able to meet potential employers from home in a variety of positions and ways. Diversity is the greatest asset with this money from home route.

10. Create and Sell: Tending Your Own Etsy Store

When discussing form home creations, Etsy comes to mind foremost as the unique, personalized sales creation haven.

With Etsy selling from jewelry, accessories, clothing, shoes, toys, home, party, wedding, arts, crafts, and even customized electronics the options are endless. Much like Ebay, you can sell basically anything as long as it has a unique personalized creative touch to it.

However, unlike Ebay you’re not going to be competing against hundreds with the same item. You may be in the same field, but you can really sell your personalized creation in limited doses without worrying about constantly being crushed underfoot.

Etsy is a way to get creative, test a target audience’s interest, and go lightly in on experiencing some profits from your own creations.

If the online store does well, you take the experience and move on towards potentially bigger avenues such as wholesale and pitching your items to stores.

Or you may take the route and avenue of exploring conventions and selling your goods in their artist alleys or dealer rooms. Neither are necessary routes, and there are many small businesses that run exclusively through Etsy; it’s important to note it’s a great avenue to experience many different pathways from.

Give Etsy a shot at making some small cash from home on your hobbies, passions, and creations. Hosting costs you pennies, and you save yourself the headache and cost of maintaining a website domain for you own private store.

Consider this if you don’t have a lot to sell or just want to make a small sum of money.

A Closing Note On Home Money Ideas

While it seems like we discussed a lot today, I wanted to mostly touch on a very set few of interconnected routes that truly keep you most at home while earning revenue.

Many of these methods can be broken down even further. If you’re interested in any in particular, it’s always a wise strategy to investigate on what more can be done.

As long as you’re motivated and open to new avenues to make money, it’s not unlikely that these same practices will lead you towards an equally, new beneficial route that someone thought would work well for others.

Some of these ideas take very little investment during your week whereas others might be far more encompassing. When trying to make money, it’s always important to figure out realistically what your goals are and how much you want to make.

All of these routes do allow you to back out if the trial doesn’t go well for you, so you don’t have to feel like you’ve committed wastefully.

It is my hope that these discussed moneymaking strategies and patterns will make you more passionate about finding ways to better improve your finances. There are countless ways to be frugal and earn online, and we’ll keep providing routes for you to do so.

Just keep in mind that even if they don’t come across as the simplest or worthwhile at first, these avenues will eventually lead to even further financial security and benefit.