10 Real Ways To Earn Money From Home – Without Investment Or Paying A Fee

If you look for help online on the subject of how to earn some money online or from home, you will get results in millions. SO why do I feel the need to add another page to that? Here’s why.

Making a ‘substantial’ income on a regular basis

Most the methods and means that I read about ways to make money, do not really make that much sense, especially if you want to make a good amount of money, which, frankly, everyone does. 

If I am looking for ways to earn money from home, I do not want to read how I can do that my selling my old books, CDs and other things. I think anyone who does a search engine query for earning money is trying to find a way of making a substantial and regular income. If I wanted to sell my old books for pennies, I would probably search for ‘how to sell old books’ instead.

Home based business ideas also work

Other ideas include things like vending machines, walking a pet, becoming a baby-sitter etc. It should be mentioned that baby sitting business is a very real opportunity and need. There are companies devoted to hiring and providing people with baby sitters.

However, not all adults will feel like they fit the profile for this job. Same goes for pet sitters and walkers. No doubt they are very useful services to provide. And it’s not a bad idea to start one as a business rather than a job, if you live in busy metro.

Starting a business, however, requires preparation, investing some seed money, and taking on the risk for the success of the venture, which are the factors that differentiate between a job and a business.

You can make a decent income walking pets, as long as you approach it like a business and aim for growth, where you eventually have multiple clients, and even other people working for you in the future.

Starting a formal business like a vending machine business means you have to start finding locations to put the machines along with getting the permission, filing paperwork, arranging a maintenance schedule etc.. If that is the route you want to take, kudos to you and I wish you all the best.

In this article, I only want to speak about methods of making money that really apply to most people. They are real ways of making a substantial amount of money every week, every month and every year. It is the kind of income that will make a difference to you and it is something that you CAN do.

You need just the one thing that works

Remember, just one of the methods of earning money has to speak to you. Just one. So even if 9 out 10 seem ludicrous to you, that’s alright. Because 1 method in 10 works for you, and that’s all you need.

Lastly, before beginning the list of these curated methods of making an income, I want to add that I know that it is frustrating and elusive to look for ways to create an income and time and time again end up with information that cannot be acted upon.

You tell yourself “Surely, there must be a way I can make some money working from home or working online!”. But you cannot find anything concrete. But you are right. There ARE legitimate and very viable ways you can do this.

I hope this article will be helpful in that direction.

No thing such as easy money 

This is very important to understand. You will be surprised at the number of people who still believe that there is easy money to be made online. That idea is not completely wrong because you see people doing it all the time. But that depends on your definition of easy. 

Lets see some examples. Someone creates an app and becomes a millionaire. Another person gets a million followers on social media and becomes a wealthy influencer. Yes, all this is possible. If you think you an get a hundred thousands followers on social media, definitely go for it. Most youngsters today, who are avid users of Instagram etc., harbour this fantasy at some point of their lives.

Same goes for a great app idea.

Another example is starting a blog or an e-commerce store. Both are great ideas to work online and if it’s something that clicks, you are looking at a sustainable and substantial full-time income. As more and more people spend their time online, and as more services become available online, the potential to work and make money online also increases.

But there is work involved. There is expertise involved. Be ready for that. Above all, avoid money making scams online. 

Understand Passive Vs Active Income

I am going to talk about the two different kinds of income you can set up for yourself. Active income is what you get paid for doing something once, then and there, as a final payment. You only earn once for an effort made or a job done. Passive income, on the other hand, is when you earn repeatedly and many times over for a single effort.

An example of active income is a transcription job. You transcribe a file for someone and you get paid for it when you are done, once and for all. To make more money with transcription work, you will have to pick up more projects.

An example of a passive income is self-publishing a book on Kindle. You make the effort once to write the book, but then continue to enjoy a recurring income from it for a long time in the future, every time the book sells. It’s called passive income because you are no longer making the same effort that you did initially, but still continue to enjoy financial returns from that effort.

Which one do you prefer? It is very possible to set up a passive income for yourself that eventually runs on almost auto-pilot, but before that happens, many hours of hard work have to happen.

So let’s start with the most practical choices and then explore all the others one by one. So I am going to start with.

10 opportunities to work from home and online

1. Data entry work – Low entry barrier

Pretty much everyone looking for work online has heard about this work. It is nothing more than typing out data. This work doesn’t require any special qualifications but will need you to be good with using computers, any word processing software like MS Word and doing other basic on it like browsing, sending emails etc. 

Avoid the bad offers

Now for those of you who have been around the internet for a long time, will remember that a few years back there were numerous work at home scams involving high paying data entry jobs. Since this work can be done by anyone who is willing to type with accuracy, it was an effective way to target a lot of gullible people online, who ended up paying hefty fees to join these websites that promised to make them rich.

All online jobs pay commensurate with your time and skill 

Many got taken in with these offers that promised thousands of dollars every month for some mysterious online typing jobs. They defied logic and prudence, but played on the mindset of people, who either believed that they had stumbled upon an online ‘secret’ or just got tempted with the prospect of easy money. That ruse still works till today. 

Anyway, just hope everyone knows better now. Remember that all online jobs require you to make an effort and the pay is commensurate with that effort, your time, your expertise and your knowledge.

However, there are real and genuine offers for data entry work online. They are probably going to pay you in the realms of $15 per hour. Some may pay more if the work is more technical. Some also pay per words or keystroke.

Brush up your typing skills

Some places where you can look for data entry jobs are as follows. We haven’t mentioned Craigslist, but many jobs get posted there as well. Don’t forget to search on the usual job sites like Indeed.com. This work has a low entrance barrier, can be done by mostly all people but at the same time can tend to get mundane.

Also, you will find the need to brush up your typing accuracy and speed if they are not up to par. Otherwise you will take too much time and may feel that you are not making enough money. Some websites may even test your typing speed and accuracy.

8 places to find data entry jobs online

1. Freelancer.com
2. Amazon Mechanical Turk
3. Upwork
4. The Smart Crowd
5. Fiverr
6. Working Solutions
7. Clickworker, 
8. Microworkers

2. Online transcription Jobs

Do you know what transcription jobs are? It is work that involves converting audio content or hand-written notes into typed content. You need to listen to the audio file or read the hand written notes and type them out. This is what transcription jobs is and it pays around $60 / hour of transcription. 

It is not an interesting job, but it is something that you most people can do, unless you abilities with typing are very limited. Even if you are slow with the keyboard, you can do some practise and bring it up to speed.

Different kinds of transcription jobs

There are even different categories for transcription jobs. There is general transcription, medical transcription, legal transcription etc. Specialised transcription jobs are more difficult than general transcription jobs but also pay more.

How to apply – taking the tests

You do not need to pay any fee for joining, but you do need to pass a small online test that will test how well you comprehend and understand the audio files and how accurate you are with transcribing what you hear. These are some lies that offer transcribing jobs to people. It may take a couple of weeks for them to get back to you after you apply.

Do remember that even though the tests might seem simple, take them very carefully. Take your time and be as accurate as you can be. The rate of rejections is high and is usually for common errors like spellings, skipping words, not following simple guidelines etc.

You can avoid all these errors if you pay careful attention to your work. The initial application can take time, but do not loose patience. Beside, patience is something you are going to need if you are going to do this work.

Once approved, you can choose your own hours, your own projects and make money typing and working from home.

7 websites to find transcription jobs

1. rev.com
2. transcribeme.com
3. quicktate.com
4. tigerfish.com
5. crowdsurfwork.com
6. Go Transcript and 
7. UpWork.

If this work picks up for you and you feel this is something where you would like to grow, get into specialised transcription jobs. You will also want to invest in more hardware and software, like foot pedals for quickly pausing and rewinding audio, for these advanced jobs  

3. Writing – Find them online

For me, writing comes up pretty high on the list of making an earning online, or working from home. But it’s not for everyone and if this doesn’t interest you, then move on to the next options. Like I said before, you have to click with just one good way of earring an income, which is commonly based on your abilities and interest.

Wide scope for work & stiff competition

There are so many things you can do with writing skills. You can freelance as a writer so many different kinds of projects. You can start your own blog. There is really a wide variety of jobs you can do.

Find freelance assignments out of the thousands of such jobs posted online everyday. The only thing is that competition can be fierce. Like any other job worth doing, this too takes certain preparation and effort from you.

Practise and build a portfolio

It’s good to start writing before you actually apply for these jobs, so that you have something to show for as a sample of what you can do. Believe me, this is important. Whenever I look for a writer on Fiverr.com, I always ask for sample work because without that it is very hard to judge is the person can do justice to what you have in mind.

You can start a free blog on Blogger.com. You can simple sign with an existing Gmail email id, or create one. Believe me, even if you have not done this before, starting a blog on Blogger.com will not take you more than 15 – 30 mins. It’s that simple and no more difficult than opening an email account. 

By the way, if you find  this step difficult, then working online is definitely not for you. 🙂 

These are some of the common and popular work sites where you can look for freelance writing jobs. You will be able to search, post as well put up your work portfolio.

15 websites to find writing jobs online

1. FlexJobs. Features writing job in many categories.
2. Freelanced – a freelancer social network.
3. FreelanceWritingGigs – This is a particularly great website for writing jobs. It post fresh leads everyday and has writing jobs for all levels. It’s less intimidating that some of the freelance jobs websites.
4. S: American Copy Editor Society – The advantage is of quality over quantity. Besides it must be understood that it is only a matter of getting the right opportunity once. Hence you should not ignore any resource for a home based freelance writing job no matter how small it is.
5. Freelance Writing Gigs – This website surprised me the first time I saw it. It actually has a lot of freelance jobs getting posted by the Admins every other day. The posting of freelance writing opportunity from home are aggressive and you can see see a lot of leads.
6. Morning Coffee – The great thing about Morning Coffee is that it can be delivered right to your inbox- a great reminder to get on the job hunt.
7. Poets & Writers – The website of this great magazine boasts an area with a few quality leads. 
8. Publishers Marketplace – As the description on the site reads “ The definitive source for jobs in publishing. For job seekers we offer a free search for the most, best, and most recently posted publishing jobs in the industry.”
9. Sunoasis Jobs
10. IB Publishing – Internet Brands operates a portfolio of over 100 niche websites reaching an audience of over 100 million people every month. 
11. Write Jobs – Write Jobs is a combination of full time and project/freelance jobs, with additions popping up about once per week. 
12. Problogger – ProBlogger is a very popular resource for finding online writing jobs. 
13. Blogging Pro – Brings you all kinds of blogging jobs from all over the world, big and small assignments. 
14. FlexJobs – Writing – Editing – Journalism Jobs
15. The Write LIfe – Find Freelance Writing Jobs