Ways to Earn Money Working from Home
You can make money online but some people see working from home is a get rich quick scheme. Working from home is ideal if you are tied to the home for any reason. It is also great if you do not need to or want to work full time. It is great for those who are reclusive, or disabled or looking after children or relatives. It is great for those with no transport or where it is difficult or impossible to get to a job. But it is not a way to do less work and have less hassle and expense for more money. I can speak with a voice of authority on this as I have been successfully working from home for over thirty years, earning more than many who work longer hours and go to work. I ended up employing people to work for me, so I do know how to make sure it works.
Look at the skills and interests you have. One of the things that many people do wrong is to assume that if they are keen on a subject they can somehow make sure they get paid lots of money for it. If they enjoy writing they assume they can get paid a lot of money to do what they enjoy and assume they can get paid to write. Yet they may not have enough skill. Life is not that convenient or easy. You have to look at things from the other person's point of view.
Think of where there is a gap in the market or a service or product that is not being offered that can be. It might mean offering a service that you are not so keen on. For example, you may love making birthday cards. But there is no money in it. It might take an hour to make one card and then you would be lucky to get ten cents profit on the cost of the materials. So that would be fine if you accepted it is only a hobby, but to say it will be some sort of cottage industry is ludicrous. Nobody in their right mind works for ten pence an hour, and there are expenses to take off of that. You would end up working at a loss.
You also need to speculate to accumulate. This may mean learning skills, getting an education, getting qualifications, having more knowledge or paying to set up a business of some sort. It may mean that you pay for products that you re sell or pay for advertising. You cannot simply say that you will earn money from home, you only get out of it what you put into it. If you want to do something that does not cost you a penny to do then you must stick to the simple things like writing for websites or completing surveys. Things that require no particular education or expense, but they do not pay well.
Buying a camera, taking photos and uploading them to sell on websites is a better way to make money because although you have the initial investment of the camera once you have bought that, and they are quite cheap now, you will be making good money without any more expense. You can get a good camera for £40, one which is good enough for this, you do not need all the fancy features. And most people want a camera anyway and would think they ought to have one for outings and family gatherings, so it is hardly a luxury. You do need to be organised and it is wise to think carefully about which photos you take and try to sell. It is no good trying to sell photos of your grandparents sitting on a chair, who would want that? If you have a playful kitten taking photos of that is more likely to sell.
For men and women there is the opportunity of working online for Excel Telelmedia and such services as a text operator. I know a lady who is nearly 80 who does this while she is online writing to her penfriends and doing her grocery shopping. If a text pops up she replies to it and gets paid per reply. Yes they are sex texts, men would not be paying to text about the weather or their visit to the hospital. She does not mind, she thinks it is quite funny. At the end of the day she has earned some much needed money to supplement her pension. She is in complete control. She tells them she is 20 years of age, they do not know her address or location or real name, they cannot contact her at all unless it is through the service. On it's own it would not earn her much but put together with other things it could earn you enough to live on. It is ideal for anyone who sits at their computer for long hours anyway.
To earn real money you have to set up a proper business.
Buying and selling on Ebay and similar sites is the best way if you have no qualifications, but it does mean paying for the goods to start with and maybe investing in an Ebay shop. Amazon.com is another way. You can rent a shop from them for just under £30 a month. Alternatively you can do your own website and have a shop online for less.
If you are skilled, educated or qualified or do not mind investing time and money into becoming so then you can work from home as a professional person. This is what I did for many years, working as a therapist, life coach and relationship expert from home, on the phone. I never left my office which was in my house. But it did mean studying, learning, having knowledge, being good with people and it tooks years of hard work and investing a lot of money before it brought in a reasonable income. The biggest expense then was paying for advertisements. In those days you had to advertise in magazines and newspapers and it used to cost me about £4000 a week. A great deal of money. Nowadays with the internet things would be very different. As I worked very hard I now own a string of houses and apartments and have been officially retired for twelve years. That proves it is possible to do well by working from home self employed.
You must choose how much time and money you want to invest in your ideas and whether or not they are things that others would pay for. The more you put into it the more you will get back. Working from home can be lonely so make sure that you have chats on the phone with family and friends and set aside time to leave the home and meet up or have visitors. The other thing about working from home is that you must be disciplined. If the television or bed or sitting and chatting with friends is very strong and you keep neglecting work then you are not cut out to work from home, or be self employed.