How To Make Money At Home When Blogging Doesn’t Cut It
Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human that she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! To stay up to date on all of her shenanigans, please subscribe to her email list! (psst…there’s a free gift involved)
When I left my job on July 31, 2019, I knew that I was going into the world of blogging.
I left knowing that my days ahead were going to be consumed with writing and researching. My time would be utilized learning SEO and marketing.
And I knew that I would make very little from doing it all.
Probably for quite some time.
Bloggers don’t just start writing and make money from their ventures. It takes a very long time to build up to that. Ad revenue, affiliate links, sponsored posts are not things that just start accumulating and paying off right from the get-go.
I knew that to make money I would need to find alternate sources to turn to. Maybe for a few months, maybe for a few years. Some bloggers start turning a profit sooner than others, but there’s really no way of knowing how long it will take.
I needed to figure out how to make money at home.
I do not want to be stuck in the house every day. Especially due to having a lack of funds to go anywhere or do anything. For my children, I want them to be able to do special things like gymnastics and swimming. School fundraisers are always coming around and I don’t want to have to immediately throw them in the trash because of not being able to afford to participate.
So I did some research on how to make money at home and found a few different gigs to help close the financial gaps.
Also during this time I started learning that “gig economy” is a thing. More and more people are turning to short-term, temporary jobs to have freedom and flexibility in their lives and to also be able to provide for themselves. Contract workers are at a high right now because of people choosing to have better work-life balance and the ability to pursue their interests.
Pretty cool huh?
So anyway, some of the gigs that I participate in.
UserTesting: I love UserTesting. This is doing recorded verbal usage of a company’s product or website. Each takes about ten minutes and you get compensation of $10 each time. That averages out to about $1 a minute. I’ve done some for places like Chuck E. Cheese, Marriott, Ancestry, car manufacturers, Expedia. It’s actually a lot of fun trying out new prototypes and giving your feedback. In the month of January 2020 alone I made $250 doing this. For just around ten minutes a day!
Do keep in mind that you have to have your very first test graded by UserTesting before being able to move on to others. This takes roughly a week. Following that, you will complete screener questions to see if you are a good fit for the test available. If you fit the criteria, you get an offer for the test. I keep my volume up and a tab open with their dashboard and when I hear a ding I know that a new test is available. I will then go to that tab and fill out the screener questions to see if I am a match.
They also have live sessions that you can participate in if you are qualified, that pay between $30-$60 each. Payment is seven days from the exact time you complete a test. If completion is at 1:47PM on Tuesday, payment is via Paypal at 1:47PM the following Tuesday.
This income is non-taxable as well, meaning that you do not have to claim it as income, per the UserTesting website.
Trendsource: These are actually audits of different companies, or inspections for some. I started out just doing unrevealed visits to certain stores or restaurant chains and then got certified to do on-site inspections for insurance companies and authorizing organizations. Now I am also certified to do employment I-9’s. I stay quite busy doing these and make up to several hundred dollars per month doing just a few per week.
Do know that your first five jobs will have you at the mercy of the company as to whether they approve your request or not. After you successfully complete five you will have the ability to self-assign, which is a game changer. Also, they will email you throughout the day with opportunities that come up. At times they will up the price if nobody has claimed them and it’s time sensitive. Once I was offered $50 for 15 minutes of work. Definitely worth it.
After you earn $600 through Trendsource, they have you fill out tax documentation. At that point your earnings are taxable. This also means that you can write off mileage. Mileage is not part of the compensation that you receive from the company. Also know that I am not a tax expert in any way, I’m just stating what I believe is true in this case.
Swagbucks: Full disclosure, I don’t like Swagbucks. I have been screwed over by them in the past more than once. The only thing I do now is print off coupons daily through their site (but actually I save them as PDF because ink is expensive). After a while I redeem for a $10 gift card once I have enough points. It takes me about 30 seconds a day. I used to be much more active with them, but with the other stuff I found to do, Swagbucks proved to not be worth my while any longer.
Swagbucks is non-taxable, per their website.
Rakuten: I have actually used this for years. Because I have an intense love for online shopping, it’s a no-brainer to use this. I have it as an extension on my Chrome browser and it pops up whenever I’m at a site that offers cash back. I’ve gotten money back on hotels that we use for vacations, clothing purchases, Christmas gifts, etc. It’s not normally too much but is a nice surprise when it’s deposited every few months.
To my knowledge, Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is not taxable. However, I have not earned anywhere near enough to matter anyway.
UpWork: This is a freelance writing platform that I get a lot of jobs through. Mine are writing focused, obviously. But there are job opportunities of all types on there. Just recently I received an invitation to interview from a consumer research company. They had interest in me applying for a position they had. The job was for me to be personally interviewed by a travel company. They wanted to talk to people who had recently booked a vacation to learn all the steps one goes through in planning one. They then utilized that information to redesign their own travel sites and services to accommodate what a customer looks for. And you know how much I received as payment? $65. For a one hour video chat. And it was fun too, so totally worth it.
Upwork is taxable income, as you work as a contracted employee.
Beachbody Coach: This is brand new to me and is much more of a loss than a profit gain as I’ve spent tons of money with them but earned exactly $0. In all honesty I signed up to get the coach discounts on the products that I was already using. However, a friend of mine and myself are working on a collaboration project that will implement my new coach status, so stay tuned…and many others make great incomes with this option as well.
And yes, this will definitely be taxable income. If I ever make money from it and not just spend.
Assurance: This isn’t one that I personally participate in, but my son does. And he is killing it. Most days he can average about $50 an hour with this job. His role is as a “Guide Representative” and he uses an online auto-dialing platform to call interested applicants to confirm the customers information and transfer them to a licensed agent. If he is able to connect them to an agent successfully, he receives payment. If they stay on the phone with the agent past the four minute mark, he gets a higher amount.
Being that he’s very social and talkative, this job is a great match for him. I don’t utilize this option because I have a young child at home and they don’t allow any type of background noise or distraction. But if you are a stay at home mom who wants to be a nap time work warrior, this could be a great fit.
This is also a taxable position. You are a contracted employee of the company.
As my blog is building up, which is happening much more quickly than I thought, these are incredibly helpful. Last month I made nearly $700 combined from the above sources. This doesn’t include any ad revenue or products that I have sold. This is strictly side hustle income. I paid for all of our gifts at Christmas time, every school activity, clothes and shoes for the kids, initial expenses when we got a new puppy, our Thanksgiving trip to Chicago and more. I’ve been able to create a lot of memories with this additional income every month.
Are there any other work from home companies that you have tried out? How do you like them?
*some links are personalized urls and may allow compensation to the writer or her family at no cost to the reader
Did you get your free vision board template from last week’s blog? NO?!?! Well here it is again!
