Are you looking for ways to earn money from the comfort of your own home? Well, you’ve come to the right place! As parents, we understand that making money while caring for your kids is not easy, especially during these unprecedented times. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back!
We’ve compiled a list of 40 easy and innovative ways to make money from home in 2024.
With these tips, you can finally ditch the 8-5 grind and live on your terms. Whether you want to start a side hustle just to make some extra cash or create a full-time business, these ideas will help you achieve your financial goals.
These money making ideas range from gigs to supplement the family income, to start up business ideas that could provide the financial freedom for your family to live it’s best life!
In today’s world, where working from home has become an option for millions of workers, turning your passion into profit is more achievable than ever before. With the rise of technology, the internet and fast fibre connections, making money from home is so much more accessible.
If you’re looking for ways to make money fast from home, you might need to get out of debt fast, or be looking to build a cash pile quickly, then check out our article How to make money fast first.
But if you’re looking to build a more sustainable income, then here’s 40 innovative ideas and strategies you can use to turn your passion into a sustainable source of income.
1. Become a virtual assistant
A virtual assistant (VA) works remotely, like from a home office, to help clients with administrative tasks. They take care of a wide range of functions for their clients, like planning meetings and trips, doing research online, and checking emails and managing calendars.
The work can be diverse and rewarding, although you’ll need to be super organised and good at self-managing your time. Many VA’s use an online job marketplace to source their clients. The main websites VA’s use to find clients include Upwork, Zirtual, Virtalent, VirtualEmployee.com (India) and OnlineJobs.ph (Philippines).
You can usually work around your own family commitments, you can take on as few or as many clients to suit your working week, and you can basically work from anywhere in the world that has a fast internet connection.
2. Buy and sell things online
One of the quickest ways to make money online is to sell items you no longer use. You know the usual advice, look around your house for things you no longer use, like furniture, clothes, books, electronics, and toys your kids have outgrown, then, sell them on a second-hand marketplace like eBay, Craigslist, or Trade Me.
But did you know people have created entire businesses out of buying second hand goods, then reselling them online?
The easiest way to do this is to ‘buy low, sell high’, in the industry this is called arbitrage. You’ll need to do some online research to find out how much similar items sell for, then you just need to source items under that price to resell them for a profit. The other option is to use your skills to fix broken goods, or add value to second-hand items (perhaps by upcycling), and resell them for more than buy them for.
In either business model you can ‘niche down’ by becoming an expert in a niche area that’s hot (such as ‘baseball cards from the 50s’ or ‘upcycled mid-century modern furniture’), or go broad and buy and sell common household items, or children’s clothes for instance.
3. Become an e-Tutor
During the pandemic, working from home and online tutoring became very important. Many teachers started using video calling apps like TrueConf, Zoom, and Meet to connect with their students. This has given teachers and guides a new way to help students learn and teach.
If you know much about a particular subject, why not tell others? Find your valuable tutoring niche, whether it’s in maths, writing, or a foreign language, and even instruments like keyboards or ukelele, and get ready to share it with eager students around the world.
And if you’re not sure if you can bring in students yourself to teach. There are lots of really good online tutor services that work to match you with a student, and take care of all the business transaction stuff. Try out Chegg Study, Learn to Be and Preply in the US, Revision Centre and TutorHouse in the UK, or Cluely Learning in Australia.
4. Start a blog
As you can imagine, we’re pretty biased about blogging as a career at Kiwi Families, seeing as how we’re an online publishing company! But make no mistakes, blogging in 2024 is just as legit a way to make money from home as it was in 2002!
According to a Hubspot Report in 2023, blogging is still the second highest form of media used in content strategies. And if marketers are still investing in blogging, you know it’s still making money:
If there’s a subject you’re passionate about, or even just interested in, you could start a blog about it and spread it on social media to reach people who want to know more about it. It takes time, sometimes up to a year, and a lot of dedicated work, to build up your traffic. But once you get there, you could be earning over $100k a year from your blog.
5. Sell online services
There are many websites where experts offer their skills on a per-project or per-contract basis. You could do graphic design, website design, link building, programming, animation, or video creation, among other things.
If you have any sort of digital skills like the above you could make a full time career online. There are literally hundreds of thousands of businesses that you can sell your skills to. Online service marketplaces bring businesses and skilled people together, making it easier for you to find work. They’ll usually take some sort of commission on the contract.
Perhaps the most famous marketplaces where you can sell your services online are fivver.com, freelancer.com, upwork.com and 99designs.com.
6. Start a business taking care of kids
If you love children, another way to make money from home is to set up a daycare from your home. Referrals from people you know are a great way to start a childcare business. You can also use several free websites to advertise your services. Or, you can sign up with a childcare agency who will find parents for you. They either take a commission, or pay you directly based on the number of kids you can care for.
You’ll need to make sure your house is very child-safe. And you’ll need some space. Ideally an outside play area, and a space indoors set aside for your daycare activities. You’ll also need to create your own activity timetables, so the children are engaged and learning during the day.
7. Test websites
Spend a lot of time aimlessly scrolling online? Did you know you can also make money from home by using sites that pay you to tell them how well a website works. Most of the time, you must pass a test to be accepted; each test you do after that will pay you.
For some sites after you finish the website testing, you can potentially earn extra money by video chatting with the customer.
The payments certainly aren’t huge, but the work is straightforward, and it could be a nice little side-hustle. The most popular sites to sign up with are UserTesting.com, testerwork.com and Userlytics.com.
8. Get paid to write
If you like to write, consider becoming an freelance writer who works from home. Magazines, online publishers, and companies of all shapes and sizes are looking for high-quality material. It might be news articles, content to improve their search engine rankings or information for their customers. If you can write well, this might be a path to consider.
You will need to get a portfolio of your written writing online, perhaps you can offer to write a few articles for blogs, or your local newspaper for free. Once you have a portfolio, you can begin pitching for work. Newspapers and magazines will usually pay a set rate per article of around $50 to $200 for freelancers. Companies will often contract on a per word basis, and you can earn anywhere from $0.10 to $1 per word, depending on your skills!
9. Get paid to read
If you like to read, consider becoming an independent proofreader who works from home. You’ll need to learn the trade of editing, but if you have good grammar skills this should come naturally, you could also take a proofreading course to show possible clients you are reliable.
You can offer your editing skills independently, through a number of websites, or look for companies that need full-time proofreaders who work from home. You’ll usually work for an hourly rate and proof-readers can earn anywhere from $5 to $50 per hour plus.
10. Get paid to fill out online surveys
Online surveys have to be one of the easiest ways to make a little extra money from home. Before putting out a new product, many businesses do a market study to determine consumers’ thoughts. They usually outsource the study to an online survey company, who pay you to take the survey.
This method will make you only a little money. And you’ll be screened for each survey, so you can’t complete them all.
Consider it more if you need to make a little extra money on the side, since a single poll rarely pays more than $5. Also, businesses sometimes give people gift cards or other similar rewards instead. And some companies will send you free products to review in lieu of any payment.
Online ‘brokers’ like Robinhood, TD Ameritrade and Betterment have made buying and selling shares online cheap and easy. Many online platforms also offer lots of investor education, so you can learn as you go. This has really opened up the world of stock market investing to everyone. They also make it really easy to just invest small amounts of money at a time.
And that’s all you need, time. With a little bit of money, and a lot of time, the magic of compound interest could see you grow a nest egg of hundreds of thousands.
But this is not a get rich quickly idea and you need to invest a lot of time learning how the stock market works. You can also loose money in the stock market, so keep that in mind.
12. Make art and sell it
Are you an artist who works independently and wants to make money from home? Artists can make money for their work, especially by selling to fans and taking commissions online. And the traditional gallery route is still very viable for many artists too. Some artists even turn parts of their homes into open studios and sell direct to the public.
Whether it be fine or modern art, sculpture of pottery, or even tattoo art. If you have artistic talent, this could be for you.
This is probably also a get rich slowly idea, as it can take a long time to build up a name for yourself. But with a loyal following, and something that sets you apart from the crowd, selling art from home could be a very lucrative side-hustle.
13. Start a photography business
You’ll need to invest some funds upfront for this business idea. But if you’re good at photography and photo editing, why not turn part of your home into a photography studio? People will literally come to your home, and pay you for your skills!
At a minimum you’ll need a high quality SLR type camera, with a number of lenses, a tripod and flood light, and photo editing software. You may also need a backdrop and props.
The obvious niche here would be baby photography, parents can’t get enough of staring at their bubs! But the traditional family portrait is as popular now as it ever was. If you can provide different types of costumes and photo props, this would be a good selling point. Another popular photography option is pet portraits. Many pet owners are crazy over their furbabies and will pay good money for a great photo!
14. Sell coffee from your home
According to NewsDirect.com an astonishing 79% of Americans drink coffee every day! But don’t you have to own a cafe to sell coffee?
No, not at all. As long as your home is in a populous area, especially if it’s on a main arterial route, coffee lovers will actively seek you out.
You will need to invest in a high-end commercial coffee machine, which is a big investment. And you’ll need some barista skills to make a great blend that customers will rave about. But the upside is that the mark up on coffee is incredible, easily up to 80% or more on every single cup! And you have the option of diversifying by selling your own coffee bean blends, you could even start an online coffee business.
15. Give print-on-demand a try
Print-on-demand (POD) is another popular way to make money online. Think custom printed baseball caps, t-shirts, school bags, pencil cases, cushions, lunchboxes, so many ideas! Customised goods are hot items currently, so cash in on this growing consumer trend.
Print-on-demand is like dropshipping; you don’t have to keep goods in stock or ship them to customers. A third-party company does this for you. You just have to source the customers through an eye-catching website, and maybe a great social media strategy.
16. Think about working on your own
The best way to make money from home is to do your standard 8-to-5 job from home as a contractor. For example, suppose you are a writer, administrative assistant, graphic designer, teacher, developer, etc. You can sell these skills to prospective employers as a contractor.
You give up the ‘security’ and benefits of a regular job. But you get to call all the shots. Choose you’re own hourly rate, choose your own hours, work around your family, and take on contracts from different clients at the same time.
Some employees even go contracting, and end up contracting to the same company they were working for… except at much higher rates!
17. Make a phone app
If you’re not a developer, you’ll need to hire someone who knows how to code to make an app for you. Sites like Toptal.com can put you in touch with many app developers willing to work with you to make your ideas come to life.
Sure, there are thousands of apps out there already. But there are still many, many problems waiting for solutions. If you have a solution to someone else’s problem, then you have a business idea. If you have the creative skills to imagine that solution into something interactive and visually appealing, then you have an app idea!
18. Do translation work online
Do you speak more than one language fluently? The translation market is a pretty under-served niche, meaning there is less competition in this field than in other niche markets. You must speak at least two languages well to take advantage of this idea. But many companies, non-profits and even government departments will pay big bucks for accurate and fast translation work.
You can seek out clients on your own, or sign on with one of the many online marketplaces, such as Gengo.com.
19. Make money gaming on Twitch
Do you love gaming? Do you wish someone would pay you to just sit about and game all day? Did you know the average Twitch gaming streamer earns between $3 and $5,000 per month!
Twitch started as a place to watch and talk about gaming, but it is quickly expanding to include other gaming industries such as the lucrative eSports industry. Streaming on Twitch is becoming a popular way to make money online for many gamers. You’ll need to game regularly, and build up an loyal fanbase, but the more your audience grows, the money you’ll earn!
20. Become an extreme couponer
Coupons can help you save when money is tight. You can also make money online by giving freebies to other people. Coupon Chief, for example, has a program called ‘Pays to Share’, which lets customers get a cut of the sales from deals they share with their friends on the site.
You’ll need to coupon like crazy to save a lot of money. But you might even save a lot of money just by stopping and thinking about how you shop, so a win-win?
21. Put a room in your house up for rent
Do you have a spare room available in your home that you could rent out? Or, do you have room on your section for a small portable studio? If so, you may be able to rent a single room to a border. If you’re handy, you could even line and waterproof your garage and let it. This could be a very easy way to earn an extra $1-200 a week.
If you’re renting, you may need to check the terms of your tenancy. This is technically called subletting and isn’t always allowed by landlords. And if you own your home, then you may need to check with your local council bylaws. There may be some restrictions.
22. Make a lesson available online
One of the best ways to make money online is by selling a course. You only need to create the course once, then you can sell it over, and over again.
If you know a lot about a popular subject, you can make money by creating online classes. There are online teaching platforms such as Udemy that help you create a course, and help market it to potential learners. Or you could create a course on your own website and build your own audience, for potentially even more profit. Some entrepreneurs can make as much as $5,000 or more monthly with online courses.
23. Develop your own boardgame or card game
If you love playing boardgames, and you have a creative bent, then developing your own boardgame, or card game could be a great side hustle.
There are some truly runaway success stories in this niche, such as the card game Exploding Kittens that raised almost $9 million on Kickstarter. But there are thousands more modest success stories, such as Cat Macnaughtan who made 6 figures with the Getting Lost game.
24. Get a job as an intern online
Contact professionals about online internships to get a head start on your future work. Go to internet career fairs, or reach out to people in your professional network, or on LinkedIn to find jobs.
Internships are only short term contracts, usually 3-6 months. But you don’t need to be highly skilled, as you’ll be trained on the job. All you need is the right attitude. You can make some extra money, and it’s a great way to build your resume toward that dream job.
25. Virtual Bookkeeper
Are you good with numbers? You will need to get a certification if you want to become a tax agent. But once you’re certified you can build a business one client at a time.
Virtual bookkeepers work remotely for their clients using online accounting software to provide services and video calls for meetings. You get to serve more clients than you’d normally find in your town, while clients generally get great value because your costs of doing business are lower. If you’re interested in this idea check out Xero’s article on becoming a bookkeeper.
26. Become a designer or digital illustrator
Suppose you have a good eye for graphic design and know how to use Adobe Creative Cloud programs like InDesign, Illustrator, or Photoshop. In that case, there is definitely a market for you.
Illustrators work in all sorts of fields, from logo design, to magazine illustration, to designing labels for consumer goods. Graphic design is everywhere. You’ll need to build up a resume of work, but some illustrators work for the same clients for many years, and the pay can be very good.
27. Become a delivery rider or driver
Yes, this one isn’t technically working from home! But you use your home as your business base, and all you need is a car or a scooter. And you get to choose your own hours, and be your own boss. Sign up with delivery companies like Deliveroo, which is always looking for new drivers. They give you the freedom to work whenever you want and bring food from places to people’s homes.
28. Take part in contests
There are no promises when you enter a contest, but you don’t have to invest anything for this side hustle, so you have nothing to lose and a chance to win a lot of money or prizes. A growing group called ‘compers’ or semi-professional competitors build communities on Facebook. They share new competitions, and help each other enter.
There are many different kinds of contests. From free products and gift cards given away online to big-money TV game shows. And any product prizes you win can be sold on auction sites for cash.
29. Create and sell course materials
If you’re an expert in a certain niche, and you have a few creative skills, you might be able to create your own course materials and sell them online.
Online marketplaces help you to sell your course materials to teachers. One such site TeachersPayTeachers.com is a community of millions of educators who come together to share their work, insights, and inspiration with one another. Some creators are earning tens of thousands per month!
30. Complete micro jobs
One of the easiest ways to make money online is to do small chores. But small jobs pay very little, so this is really a spare change opportunity. With a site like Swagbucks, you can make a few dollars a month by watching videos, playing games, and searching with the Swagbucks search engine. Other micro job sites pay people to review material, check data, or test websites and apps. You won’t earn a lot, but you will have fun trying.
31. Set up dates for people
Are you great with people and a romantic at heart? You could become a matchmaker. A site like Tawkify matches people looking for love online based on their shared values, hobbies, and other dating preferences. As a matchmaker, you’ll work one-on-one with clients to set up their following dates with carefully chosen matches based on these factors.
32. Become a voice actor
Voice-over artists use their voices in games, ads, cartoons, and other professional audio work. This could be a simple way to make money online if you have a good voice for radio. Voice-over work can be found on freelance sites like Fiverr or specialised sites like Voices.com. If you have previous acting experience, you can even sign on with an agent who will find you work in the industry.
33. Sell your favourite recipes online
Selling your favourite recipes is an easy way to make money from home. Compile your best dishes into an eBook or digital cookbook, offer a subscription service or maybe even sell meal plans. If you can create a website you could even build a loyal community and start a blog business based around recipes. With some creativity, you can turn your cooking passion into a monthly income source.
Nikki Girard did just that. What started as an attempt to improve her recipe for Haitian patties turned into a part-time business that brings in $2,000 a month. Check out the Food Blogger Pro website and find out if you can do it: 18 Ways to Make Money From Your Food Blog in 2023.
34. Make money as a fitness instructor
If you love to work out, and to show others how they can become fitter and stronger too, you can teach yoga and fitness lessons All you need is a dedicated space such as your garage, a spare bedroom, or a living room, and your clients will come to you. You’ll need to run a number of classes per week to make really good money from this idea. But if you love working out, this side hustle may not even feel like work.
35. Sell online printables
If you’re artistic, selling printables online can be a great way to make money from home. Printables are digital files that customers can download and print. They can be wall art, planners, calendars, homework, and more. To make this idea work you’ll need to get some good customer reviews on an online marketplace. Or you’ll need to build your own ecommerce site to sell them on.
36. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a popular way to run a business because it lets you sell goods without ever having to keep them in stock. The idea is simple: set up an online shop and list what you want to sell from a dropshipper. When a customer buys something, you order it from the dropshipper, who then sends it straight to the customer. Dropshipping is a great way to start an online business from home because you don’t have to buy or store stock. You might want to focus in a particular niche that you’re interested in.
37. Helping out search engines
Evaluation of search engines is a really easy way to make money from home without spending any money.
It means looking at search engine results to make them more accurate and useful. As a search engine evaluator, you’ll be offered specific search queries and asked to judge the results’ quality based on several factors.
38. Become a coach
Online coaching is a great way to make money from home if you are an expert in a particular area. You can give coaching services in many different areas, such as business, fitness, career, relationships, personal development, and more.
Online coaching is flexible and profitable because you can set your own hours, work from home, and reach people worldwide. There are many coaching courses you can take to learn to be a great coach.
39. Give music lessons
If you know how to play a musical instrument, and you like teaching, you can make money by teaching other people what you know. You can give music lessons directly to people in your home, or you can also teach students online over Zoom.
This work easily fits into busy plans because each session might only last 30 minutes to an hour. And you can schedule students around your own family commitments.
40. Make and sell cosmetics from home
It’s now quite easy to source and make a whole range of cosmetics from home. Most of the ingredients in many cosmetics can be easily purchased in bulk online. From there you can mix and match and perfect your own line of speciality cosmetics from a space in your home. One of the keys to cosmetics is finding a niche solution and knowing how to brand and market the concept.
What most definitely is not easy, or guaranteed, is the path to making an income. But if you can find the right ingredients, a good story, and you know how to hustle for sales this business, the markup on cosmetics is eye-watering, and you successful people have made extraordinary amounts of money. Did you know that Estée Lauder learnt the trade from her Uncle who began making cosmetic creams from their kitchen? It’s now a worldwide 50 billion dollar company! Check out the story and score a 10% discount while you’re there: Estee Lauder NZ – Sign up to Estée Lauder and receive 10% off your first purchase.
Making money from home certainly has its challenges. But with so many online opportunities, there is something for everyone. The possibilities are endless and really just require your imagination, from taking surveys and testing websites to selling handmade goods and providing virtual services.
We hope our list of 39 easy ways to make money from home in 2024 has inspired you to explore the options available and start earning money from the comfort of your home. For more inspiration, check out our side hustle series.
Remember, the key to success is taking action. Start exploring your options today and see where your skills and interests can take you. Good luck on your journey to making money from home!
