In a world such
as today’s, where inflation is on the rise while salaries remain the same, every extra penny can be a
blessing. Self-dependence is considered as the ideal situation to be in,
especially among the younger generation. Because of the ever rising cost of
living commodities and luxuries, more and more people are finding themselves
working over-time for some extra salary, looking for better jobs, working
part-time to cover their expenses, and so on. Hence, people want to look for
alternate or parallel sources of income. And as they say, "where there’s a will, there’s a way".
Indeed, there is not one, but many ways you can earn a few extra bucks. Many of
these involve working online, meaning you can increase your income while working in the comfort
of your living room!
Most of my
blogger friends would know how they can earn money online through their blogs
via monetizing them. But not everyone has a blog, even though creating a blog
is as easy as creating a Facebook profile. Maintaining a blog, however, is not
as easy. Hence, for such people, there are various other ways through which
they could earn an income.
Freelancing
I
hope you most of you know what freelancing is. It is basically working for
someone else online and getting paid for it. By far, this has proven to be the
most popular and most paying alternative to a regular office job. And in many
ways, freelancing is better than regular jobs. Firstly, you get to do the work
that you choose, so that you have some interest in it. Secondly,
there's a wide range of stuff you can do. You can write articles, translate
papers, do programming assignments for somebody, or take up large corporate
projects as a team. The upside to this is that, you earn good bucks. The
downside is, yo have to abide by deadlines.
Freelancing
is great. It's your own way of saying out to the world; hey! I
am independent! I don't need a job! I have a life too! Although technically,
you do have a job. But at this job, you can take a nap at anytime
and do whatever you want, so long as you do your work.
Online Surveys
There
are many websites out there that are looking for people who would help them in
their research and fill out surveys for them. Their aim is to get feedback and
do market research on a product. There are website that are dedicated to
finding out surveys available for you. One good example is SurveyScout
Write Articles
Freelance
writing is another great way of earning online. If you like writing, or if you
are good at it, then you should consider this. Writing quality articles can
earn you thousands of dollars per month. All you need to have is the right
focus and of course, a good publishing platform where you can submit your
articles
As
far as publishing is concerned, you can either self-publish, or submit your
article to an article directory. You can either create a blog for
self-publishing, or use Squidoo or Hubpages. Click to learn more about earning
money through Squidoo.
If you don't want to self-publish, you can submit your articles to the top
sites that will pay you for them. This is one of the best ways of earning
online. Be sure never to plagiarize, however. Unique content is
appreciated, while plagiarism might result in a ban on you. So be
original, and you will be fine.
Data Entry
Data
Entry is another popular money earning technique used by many people. But I
must admit, it is a boring and time-intensive work. There are a lot of
companies that want you to do their laborious tasks for them, without hiring a
professional for the job. Usually, these tasks are simple. Entering one form of
data into a form, organizing data, removing mistakes and errors, and so on.
Surfing and searching
Did
you know that you can get paid to search on the internet? No kidding! Since the
major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc are monopolizing the
industry, other smaller engines are left out. So to keep themselves going, they
invite net searchers to use their engines, and offer rewards in return. One
such company is Swagbucks, that gives you the chance to earn up to $5
per search! It's a neat little trick and I know some people who have started
doing this to earn money. Another is InteradMedia, that pays $0.001 per
minute of active search. The money isn't very substantial, but what's the
harm in getting a few extra bucks every now and then?
There's
another alternative way! Some website pay you to surf them! SurfBounty is
a good one. All you need to do is stay on that site for a few seconds to
register a "surf". Sit back as the dollars add up! Sounds great huh?
Earn Through Skype
About
a month ago, I wrote a post in length about earning money through Skype. You
can follow it here: Earn Money through skype. But the bottom-line is, with
Skype, you can provide services such as tuitions to other people, and
charge them for the call through Skype Prime.
Q&A Websites
Some
Q&A websites will pay you to answer questions! Q&A websites are all
about question that people ask. People ask all sorts of questions on such
websites. So the websites hire people to answer those questions. So if you have
a good general knowledge, why not give it a shot?
Play games to earn money!
Every
app developer needs beta testers, who have nothing to do with the development
of the apps. This helps them remove bugs and errors. With games, this is even
harder.It requires a lot of man hours to test a game. So there are many
companies that pay people to play their games, and provide feedback. That way,
they can know if the project would be a fail or a success.
Ebay
Ebay
is an advertising website where people put up classifieds for for things they
want to sell, and then buyers contact the seller to purchase that item. If you
are good at bargaining, you can take a shot at this. Buy products at a
reasonable price, and then sell them again for a profit! This is how real
estate works, except in that case, they are dealing with lands and houses and
large property. This was an essence of some of the things that I have learned.
