In a pinch and need a little extra cash? Looking for ways to make money at home?

You are not alone.

In fact, Google logs nearly 250,000,000 (that’s 250 million) searches each year by people just like you.

Whether you’re a broke college student who needs a little extra spending cash, or you’re actually an adult now and looking to eliminate credit card debt or increase savings, most of us could benefit from a little more take home pay each month.

And whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, our financial situations have an enormous impact on almost every facet of our lives. The misuse of money can have devastating effects on our collective mental, social and emotional health.

Being short on cash often means being late on a utility bill, foregoing holiday gifts for a loved one, or missing out on activities with friends.

Worse yet, some of us continue to spend and rack up debt.

Even a few hundred dollars is often the difference between making it till the end of the month…and falling flat on your face.

If you feel like you are a part of this group, there is good news – we live in a pretty incredible age.

The rise of the Internet makes earning Money from home a legitimate option for those of us who could use a little extra cash. From getting paid to do online surveys, to opening an online store, to becoming a freelance writer, there are hundreds of ways to make money at home.

Below I’ll share with you 10 easy ways to make money at home (including my own personal experience and a pivotal lesson that I learned along the way).

10 Ways To Make An Extra $1,000 Each Month

1. Earn cash from paid online surveys

Until a few months ago, I had never heard of paid surveys. Sure enough, they are real…and they can net you hundreds of dollars each month.

Users are usually notified by email when a qualifying survey is available. Because of that, I recommend signing up for multiple survey sites so you’re eligible for as many surveys as possible.

You won’t get rich from it, as most surveys pay less than $5, but you can easily earn upwards of $100/month or more just from filling out some surveys in your spare time (like when you’re watching Netflix). Some sites even give you a free $5 (or more) just for signing up — it’s hard to beat that!

There are dozens of other survey sites out there. These just happen to be the more well-known ones that have a reputation for paying out in a timely manner/not having impossible standards for cashing out. As always, be careful with your personal information. I recommend using an entirely separate email address for survey sites so you don’t clutter your inbox.

2. Use Ebate (and Swagbucks) to get cashback on everyday purchases

If you’re going to shop, why not get money for doing it? Well technically you’re not getting money, but you’re getting money back (cashback) on purchases you would have made anyways. Cool thing is, this is on top of any discounts/coupon codes you already have.

There is no reason not to do this. This is probably the single easiest way to make money at home. You need an email address to sign up. That’s it. Even if its $100-$200/year, why are you throwing money away for no reason?

That’s stupid. Don’t be stupid.

Sign up for Ebates for FREE.

Sign up for Swagbucks for FREE.

3. List an extra room in your house on Airbnb

Have an extra room in your house? Going to be gone for a week and are looking to make some serious dough?

Literally make money from your home.

Believe it or not this is seriously the easiest way ever to pull in hundreds (even thousands) of extra dollars per month. Most of it involves very little or no work on your end and there is almost 0 overhead to get started.

This is something that not nearly enough people are taking advantage of. If you own a home, consider putting a room (or the whole place) on Airbnb.

4. Install a few cell phone apps…or allow ads on your phone

Yes, companies will pay you to install apps (or place ads) on your cell phone and leave them there. These apps often run in the background and track your spending/purchasing habits but if you’re not one to really care who knows what groceries you’re buying that week then this is seriously the easiest way to make upwards of $300+/year for no reason.

Nielson Computer and Mobile Panel – Want a shot at $10,000 plus in addition to regular usage rewards? Sign up and you can score a serious pay day just for keep an app installed on your phone.

Ibotta – Taking grocery shoppers by surprise everywhere, Ibotta is the hottest new app that lets savvy consumers save big on all the biggest brands (especially on groceries). I’ve wracked up exactly $541.00 in savings over the last year if that gives you any idea how much you’re leaving on the table.

They pay users $10 just for signing up and they offer an additional $10 for each user you refer.

Bonus:  Refer 3 users and they’ll credit you with $100.00.

5. Become a freelance writer (or proofreader)

Along the same lines as starting your own blog, if you haven’t gathered by now, writing quality content for viewers is worth a lot of money. To the tune of several hundred dollars for a 3-4 page article.

If you’re still reading this article, odds are someone would have paid you over $100 for something of similar (or hopefully better) quality.

The better you are at writing, the more your content is worth. Even part time freelance work can add thousands to your monthly income. Holly Johnson from Club Thrifty makes over $200,000 a year from freelance writing! And she has a course that teaches others how to do the same.

Businesses such as Hubstaff Talent make it super easy to score lucrative freelancing gigs. If your skills include general writing, blogging, copyrighting, editing or proofreading, you can join 30,000+ other freelancers working from home. Create a profile, set your rates and upload your resume/portfolio and get instant access to thousands of companies looking to hire qualified freelancers.

If writing isn’t your thing, do what Caitlin Pyle did:

In 2014, Caitlin made over $43,000 by working as a freelance proofreadproofer…part time. When she wasn’t working, she even had time to go on several fun vacations.  After she had a ton of success doing that, she decided she wanted to teach others how to do the same thing, so she started up Proofread Anywhere.  Sign up for one of her free workshops to learn more about how to make money from home as a proofreader.

6. Start investing

Have thousands in a savings account earning you .000257% interest?

You are lazy…and I am calling you on it.

Part of being fiscally responsible is showing that you care about your money. Even if you do not know enough about investing (its easier than you think), there is absolutely no reason that you cant take 20 minutes out of your day and move your savings to an account that at least gets you 1-2% each year. On $10,000 in savings, that is $100-200 each year, for free. Make your money work for you.

Discover offers one such high-yield savings account. It typically averages around 1% APR which is likely far better than what you’re earning now.

Open a new account here: Discover High-Yield Savings Accounts

1-2% APR is just the beginning though. Depending on your age, you should be netting around 7% year with a balanced portfolio. Have $50,000 in savings? That is $3,500 dollars PER YEAR that you are throwing in the trash if you’re not investing. Sound like its way too good to be true? It’s not. Its exactly what we teach you to do here at DollarSprout and you can get started in mere minutes.

7. Rent out things you’re not currently using

You know that super nice Nikon DSLR that’s sitting in your closet collecting dust (that you can’t bring yourself to sell because you still use it from time to time)?

Or that Trek mountain bike that goes unused 300 days out of the year that’s just sitting in your garage?

We all have something like that just laying around that could actually be passively earning us money through a super neat service known as Fat Lama.

Link of Fat Lama like Airbnb, except you list everyday items for rent, instead of your house. Some users are earning upwards of $10,000/month renting out a wide variety of things — from TV’s and high-end sound systems, to simple things like bikes and scooters, you can list just about anything and turn a profit.

Better yet, they even offer comprehensive lenders insurance. If an item is lost, damaged and/or for some reason never returned, they’ll cover the full value of the item. It’s an insanely easy way to passively make money at home and have someone basically pay off your item for you.

Renting out items isn’t the only way you can earn, too. New users automatically get a $25 bonus applied to their account and you can an earn additional $25 for each member that you refer than ends up placing a rental order.

8. Start a blog

Like I said earlier- do something you love. If you happen to be even a half-decent writer (you can’t be as bad as me), you can do what you love and make money simply by writing about it. DollarSproiut uses a blog as a way to spread information about money and saving topics. You can be a source of information as well (or simply amusement) for just about anything that interests you.

And you can make money by doing it.

A lot of money. We make over $17,500 each month from our blog and we started less than 3 years ago.

You can start a blog and write about it. Turn your passion into a business and run with it.

Pick a niche that interests you. Whether it be a lifestyle oriented blog where you talk about home decor, the newest trends in dress, celebrity gossip, a sports forum, or even a place to share your love for cooking.

Seriously, check out these bloggers that are all pulling in over $20,000 each month (some more than $100,000 a month!).

• Michelle @ Making Sense of Cents – over $241,000 in March alone!
• Pat @ Smart Passive Income – over $167,000 in his last report!
• Rosemarie @ The Busy Budgeter – over $100,000 in her most recent report!

How? Because they’re motivated entrepreneurs who let nothing get in their way of learning how to make money at home.

Completely new to blogging but want to get started? I recommend starting a WordPress blog (like this one) with HostGator. Use the coupon code BTOP60 for 60% off (less than $3/month to start!). Here’s a great step by step tutorial for getting started.

9. Help Google and make money at home

Want $110/year for changing literally nothing about your life?

Insert Google’s Screenwise app here.

Well, technically not here, but on your computer at home. It works essentially the same way as the phone apps do above. If you don’t care to let Google know what you do on a daily basis, you can make money from home by letting them monitor your Internet usage. They use the information they gather to help them market/increase the functionality of their advertising programs when targeting users that are similar to you.

10. Put your digits to use

Not your phone number. Your fingers. You can earn up to $24/hr simply by transcribing audio to text. Speechpad pays speedy typists to make written versions of audio and/or video clips.

At up to $.40/minute, you can seriously rack up some dough for those insanely fast typing skills you never thought would come in handy.

Choosing Where to Start

I wasn’t kidding when I said there are hundreds of ways to make money at home.

Some more bizarre than others — think selling your hair for hundreds of dollars.

But if I were to make just one recommendation for you to take to heart, it would be to get involved in something you love.

Something you’re passionate about doing.

If you’re going to be doing something to make money at home on top of your 9-5, when you’re already tired from a day’s work, it had better something you really enjoy.s

I speak from experience because I was straight broke during my early years in college. Being poor was all the motivation I needed to start looking into ways to make money at home (or a dorm room).

Enjoying What You Do Matters

It was fairly sobering to watch the nearly $20,000 I had saved from working all the way through high school (I was a savings beast), disappear nearly overnight when it came to paying for my degree from Virginia Tech.

As an irrational twenty-something at the time, I turned to online poker as a way to make money at home – specifically, Texas Hold’em. As foolish as that may have been then, it worked out for me.

I would not recommend this avenue to anyone now.

Having been gifted an analytical mind, I spent over 7 years learning how to approach the game from a logic/math based skill-set.

I was fortunate enough to amass earnings just shy of 6-figures and all that ultimately helped me pay off much of my student loans and start building my savings (modest when compared to many professional players but still a big deal to me at the time).

The reason it worked for me is because I loved studying it.

And that’s it. Point is, with some hustle and dedication, you can easily start to make money at home. Some of you can easily add an additional $1,000 in income to your take home pay each month. And this isn’t a comprehensive list by any means.

Other Resources to Help You Make Money at Home:

• 15+ Fast Ways to Make Money Online
• How I Grew from $0 to $50k+ Per Month with My Blog
• Learn How You Can Get Paid to Watch Netflix

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