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How to make money from home? Here are 11 real-world work from home ideas you can start!
Thanks to the internet and other communications technology advancement, making money from the comforts of your own home is no longer a myth. What once was just a pipe dream for most is now a reality for many.
If you ever found yourself asking the very question, how to make money from home, you may be looking for other avenues to generate income without trading off time away from home or maybe you’re just dissatisfied with your current job.
There are a lot of career options that will enable you to start making money from home and I’ll try to cover as many of them as possible in this article.
Making money from home does not necessarily mean, making money online or being a business owner as a lot of companies nowadays will let your work from the comforts of your own home.
Uhmm… if you’re looking for get paid to click and paid surveys, this isn’t the article for you, this article is about real home-based careers that can earn you real full time income from the comforts of your home.
Now, I’m not sure as to what your work background or profession is or if whether you’re looking for a work from home opportunity or you’re open to starting your own home based business.
As for me, I’ve started as a self-employed financial professional five years ago out of our then apartment and I never looked back.
Depending on your situation, choosing between making money from home as a self-employed professional or business owner and as a home-based 9 – 5 employee all depends on your need.
The pros and cons, of course are obvious… if you need a monthly cash flow right away, working at a real job from home is by far the better option but if you’re not in a rush and you are willing to invest time and effort for future rewards, starting a home-based business on a part time basis may serve you well.
Table of Contents
Work at Home Jobs that Helps you Make Money from Home
There exists real companies nowadays that will hire you to work from home yet pay you real world rates that you could actually make a living from.
Here are some of the jobs that you can work at and make money from home:
Customer Service Representative
In the spirit of cost-cutting, a lot of customer service organization allow their employees to work from home. Yes, you can become a full-time customer service representative right from the comforts of your home!
Depending on where you are, you can find both phone and chat support job opportunities online that pays you a full time living from home.
Companies that hire people for home-based customer service positions are telecommunications companies, call centers and BPOs.
Where I’m based at (Canada), I’ve met a couple of people who actually work full time for companies like Rogers and Telus as customer support representatives from their homes.
Freelance Writer
If you’re some kind of a wordsmith and you actually love doing it, what better way to use that skill that by actually working as a freelance writer.
The beauty of a writing career is that you don’t actually have to be in an office to work your craft. You just write your piece and submit them electronically.
The best way to make money from home as a freelance writer is by joining a handful of freelance websites like upwork.com, iwriter.com, hirewriters and many more.
Bookkeeper
Like customer support representatives and freelance writers, bookkeepers need not go to a specific work or office location to do their jobs. Most small businesses actually outsource their bookkeeping needs to home-based bookkeepers from around the world.
Having a reliable laptop or desktop computer in your room can get you started on your bookkeeping career.
Depending on how you want to run your business, you may or may not need an internet connection… hmm, scratch that… you will definitely need one, for receiving scanned copies of receipts and invoices as well as in sending your financial reports to your client(s) or boss.
The next concern that may come in mind is on how you can land your first bookkeeping client.
With this, you technically two options, either you start local or go global. The easiest way is of course to hit the streets, locally.
Remember that mom and pop store you love shopping from? How about your local dentist? and that local diner that your mom goes to every Sunday after church? The list could go on and on, and all these local small businesses need a dedicated bookkeeper to look after their accounting books.
Now, do you need to be a CPA to offer bookkeeping services?
The short answer is no but… yes, but you have to know what you’re doing just as you should if you were to offer plumbing services!
Graphic Designer
If you’re graphically-inclined, there’s no doubt that there are a lot of opportunities for graphic design artists to make money from home.
I hear ya, there are a lot of graphic designers out there and you may be thinking that competition is fierce in the graphic design industry but you wouldn’t call yourself a graphic designer for nothing would you?
In a competitive world, you have to be ready to stand out and if you’re considering a career in graphic design you have to be at least good at it.
To make money from home as a graphic design artist, you can start by offering your services at freelance job boards and the best way to land clients is to feature your best work in your portfolio.
If you’re going to work for multiple clients as a self-employed home-based graphic artist, you need to build a website to showcase your best work.
I’m not talking about a plain 4 or 5 pager portfolio website here, I’m talking about a content-rich website that delivers valuable content to your target market.
Of course, a niche-site of this caliber doesn’t come to existence overnight so you have to think long term.
You may also want to consider throwing in Pinterest and Instagram accounts into this mix.
As a home-based graphic designer, you can work from home by signing an employment contract with a graphic design company or operating as a freelancer.
The advantage of working for a company is that you will always have jobs lined up (hopefully) for you, the disadvantage is that you’re going to be trapped on a fixed income scheme.
As a self-employed freelancer, you will have more control over your schedule and time, you can accept as much or as little work as you want, which commensurate to your income.
The drawback of being a self-employed graphic designer is that you may have to constantly look for new clients. The trick here is to try and land clients who are in continuous need of graphic designs.
Virtual Assistant
When you talk about a home-based job, most people would relate it to Virtual Assistant.
Being a virtual assistant is perhaps the most common of all home-based jobs position in South East Asia but you could also be in North America and start a Virtual Assistant career.
I’ve met a lady who works from home as a virtual assistant and she resides in Canada.
If you have some computer and administration skills, becoming a virtual assistant may be the easiest career to start from home.
Your services can range from one to all of the following:
- Data Entry
- Transcription
- Basic Bookkeeping
- Online Research
- Social Media Postings
- Video Editing
- Basic Graphic Design
- Reading, sorting and responding to emails.
- Calendar Management
- Appointment Setting
- Creating PowerPoint Presentations
- Managing your boss’ calendar
- Online shopping
- Anything else that your boss intructs you to do that can be done online.
As a virtual assistant, you’re going to wear multiple hats to support your boss’ personal or work activities.
Often times you’ll be dealing with work you’ll usually do as an administrative assistant in an office setting, you’re only doing all your functions offsite.
Blogging / Publishing
Blogging is perhaps one of the best work from home ideas that will give you the highest ROI over-time. I did say over-time as you will need to build your blog to become an authority on your chosen niche before you can expect to make a living out of it.
Not a lot of people have the patience to keep on publishing blog content when their blog isn’t making money yet and unlike most work from home ideas herein, blogging will not pay you right away and if it will, the income is generally immaterial.
But think of a blog as more of a long-term business than a job as it will pay you more on a semi-passive basis if you keep at it long term. Blogging is actually a work from home business rather than a work from home job. It’s technically a publishing business so if you have a knack for writing. Starting a blog on the side isn’t a bad idea at all for it will reward you a thousand fold in the future.
Youtube Publishing / Youtuber
Youtube is the second largest search engine next to Google and a lot of people frequent the platform for research and entertainment.
If you’re confident or are interested to learn and master publishing video-content; you can make a good and rewarding career out of filming and publishing videos on Youtube.
Like a blog, Youtube publishing isn’t a job but more of a business. You can make money from the Youtube partner program through Google adsense and other forms of advertising. You can also make money from affiliate programs, company sponsorship and product sales.
Home Based Online English Teacher
With the internet, the world is at your fingertips and potential English language students may hire you from around the world.
There are a lot of online teaching platforms that you can use. There are also online English training websites that hire online English teachers to teach their students.
You can do this on your own as a freelancer or you can work as an employee with companies offering the same service. Either way, you can work from the comforts of your home.
Remote Transcriber
Know how to transcribe? Working as a transcriber, generally don’t require you to be in a physical office location. You just need an internet connection and a computer and you’re in business.
Like any of the work from home ideas suggested here, you can work as a remote transcriber by your own as a self-employed transcriber or you can work with a transcribing services company.
Obviously, you will make more money in the future if you start your own transcribing business but if you need the money right away, working for someone else, at least in the meantime, may not be a bad idea. Either way, you can work as a transcriber from your home office, bed, or the living room!
Financial Advisor / Consultant
Personally, I found my work from home niche in the financial services industry and I’ve been running my own financial advisory services business in the last five years successfully.
As a struggling Canadian immigrant, I didn’t find much luck in the 9 – 5 field as my education from my home country was not recognized but unlike most immigrants, I refused to settle with just what the societal system was offering.
I knew for myself that I have the brains, education and experience to achieve more than simply working at jobs I don’t like.
In mid 2013, I was introduced to financial services, got my license and worked my butt out, with the motivation of never going back to a 9 – 5 job. Fast forward today, I now lead a team of independent financial professionals all working out of my office.
Of course, you don’t have to work out of an office, when starting out as a financial advisor as you can run your business from your home but you do have to meet clients face to face, to make this work.
If you’re in Canada, drop me a line and I can help you get set up in this career and business. If not, you can look for a reputable brokerage to work with in your locality.
Only work with a reputable company and always focus on client benefits over your own if you want long term success in the financial services industry.
Realtor / Real Estate Broker
When I first came to Canada, I really wanted to become a realtor but I spoke to five realtors who instead of motivating me to pursue the profession, told me otherwise.
A Real estate sales career is something you can start out of your own home though you are tied to a broker, you will be holding out yourself as an independent, self-employed real estate sales professional.
Your job as a realtor is two part, one is in helping home-owners sell their homes and the other, helping home-buyers buy their homes.
Just like any other independent profession, you have to be a duly-licensed realtor to hold yourself out as a realtor in any state or province, wherever in the world you may be.
To get started as a realtor, research your local real estate board as the process on getting a real estate license differ.
Good real estate salespeople make good money, those who are not so good, make little money.
Whatever career home-based career path you take, your success will entirely depend on you. One important knowledge you should arm yourself with when starting out as a self-employed professional or business owner is that in the world of the “independent”, there’s no such thing as “passing the bucket”.
Your success or failure will entirely depend on you and you will only have yourself to blame or credit either way.
