Some people would argue that there’s no better way to chase boredom away than by filling those seemingly blank time spaces with money-making opportunities.
And thankfully, if you have some extra time on your hands, there are plenty of ways you can do just that on your own schedule, from the comfort of your own home.
Let’s take look at 12 popular ways to earn some extra cash in your spare time.
They are:
- Create a blog
- Complete tasks on Fiverr
- Write a book
- Teach online
- Participate in online surveys
- Become a virtual assistant
- Get creative
- Do some transcription
- Become a proofreader
- Research things online
- Become a freelance writer
- Sell your clutter
Let’s take a look at each of these in a little more detail to get a better idea of how they all work.
1. Create a blog
Creating a blog is a great way to fight your boredom that doubles as a creative outlet.
You can blog about virtually anything that you enjoy and it’s not too hard to get one started.
The first thing you will need to do is find a niche that you’ll write about.
To do this, find something you genuinely enjoy – something you like to talk about. And don’t be too quick to discount your ideas, some people even make money talking about things like sports or gift-giving.
So if you have an interest, chances are there are others in the world with the same, or similar interest, and with the right knowledge (and a bit of effort) you can learn how to make money with it.
Once you know what you want to write about, then you can start building your website. This can be done easily and without coding or programming experience with a website development system like WordPress.
The next thing would be to start driving traffic to your site. This can take a bit of time, but it’s definitely worth it!
Things like picking out the right keywords are going to be super important here, and there’s a great article that details this step (and all the others) more in-depth.
Then, once you have all of that in place, you’ll need to choose your method for income from the blog. This can be anything from ad monetization to affiliate marketing to requiring a paid subscription for your content.
And once you start churning out articles – and assuming you have everything else in place – you just have to be patient and keep at it.
Blogging is something that can make anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to over $10,000 a month – talk about a lucrative pastime!
2. Complete tasks on Fiverr
Fiverr is an Israeli marketplace for freelance services and is a name that most people have probably heard of.
In order to make money with Fiverr, you’ll need to create a seller account and, of course, actually choose what tasks you’ll offer to people.
On Fiverr, you can offer almost anything as a service: website design, songwriting, whatever talent you might have.
With Fiverr, you get to set the price you’re charging for your services.
One tip to get more clients is to be aware of the competition you have, and base your prices partially off of that, partially off of the amount of experience you have.
The more experience, the higher you can charge and still have people likely to pay, but you never want to be charging significantly more than someone else whose work is comparable to you.
Another thing to note is that Fiverr takes 20% of whatever you charge, meaning you’ll only pocket 80% of what you earn. So, keep that in mind when setting your prices!
3. Write a book
With the amount of time it takes to write a book, you probably think this option is for those who are really bored most of the time.
But actually, you can earn money from a variety of different books, such as:
- Full-length novels
- Novellas
- eBooks
- Short stories
- How-to Manuals
Of course, a full-length fiction novel (which is around 60,000-80,000 words on average) might take you a few months to complete, but shorter novellas can act as a boredom-killing creative outlet that takes far less time and can still be sold.
If you’re going the book route, you’ll need to decide which is best: self-publishing or traditional publishing.
Self-publishing takes more work, but can be more profitable if you know how to market yourself. Traditional publishing can pay you more upfront with less work involved, but your chances of getting selected to be published are lower.
And if you’re looking for something to only ease your boredom for a day or two, you could write short stories.
Certain websites and magazines will run story contests and will generally offer a monetary prize for the winner.
No matter how bored you are, what your style of writing is, or what your niche is, there’s an option in this category for you.
4. Teach online
There are a variety of different websites where you can teach online, as well as a diversity of subjects to choose from.
To give you an idea, a popular example is if you’re a native English speaker, you can earn money teaching English to non-English speakers in China, called TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages).
A big website that does this is called VIPKid, which you can read a full review for here. But here’s a quick summary:
To become a teacher through VIPKid, all you need to do is sign up on their website.
However, before you do this you will want to make sure you meet their three big requirements, which are:
- Have the right to work in the U.S. or Canada
- Hold a bachelor’s degree or higher
- Have one year’s experience (minimum) working with/teaching kids
You do not have to have any teaching qualifications, but if not, then you’ll be required to take a TESOL foundation course.
VIPKid is a great option because there are no work minimums. You get to work as much or as little as you want, and you get to set your own schedule.
With VIPKid, you can make a decent amount with classes starting at a base rate of $7 to $9 per class. This equates to $14 to $18 an hour because each class is 30 minutes long.
On top of this, you can also earn incentive pay. This can vary based on your tier, which is dependent on how many classes you have completed since starting with VIPKid. But some people can earn upwards of $22 per hour.
5. Participate in online surveys
Completing surveys online – more properly called “get-paid-to” sites – is a popular option and is one you’ve probably stumbled across before.
Some of the more popular ones are:
- Swagbucks
- Inbox Dollars
- ySense
- Valued Opinions
- Survey Time
- PrizeRebel
The benefit of these is that you don’t have to just focus on surveys, you can complete online tasks and offers as well.
And sites like Valued Opinions uses your profile to only send you surveys you are qualified for, which means there’s less of a chance of you wasting your time filling out a survey just to find out that you aren’t qualified.
These sites are extremely simple to sign up for – in most cases you just go to their website, fill out some basic information, complete your profile, and you are ready to start completing surveys!
Some sites, like Valued Opinions, will email you when you have a survey available, which will tell you how long the survey will take to complete and the deadline.
Most surveys take between 15 to 20 minutes and you can earn up to $5 per survey.
With the rewards systems these sites offer, you can only cash out your balance if you have above $10, but some are as low as $3, it just depends on the site.
Some sites allow you to earn cash via PayPal, but others only allow for gift card options to places like Amazon.
6. Become a virtual assistant
A virtual assistant can do anything from making calls for somebody to scheduling an appointment and everything in between!
One website that will allow you to do this is called Fancy Hands. To apply for a job there, you’ll need to visit their website and go through the application process.
The two tech requirements are that you have a computer with a reliable internet connection and an audio headset with a microphone.
Pay for each task is dependent on the difficulty of the task, how quickly it is completed, and what time of day it is.
Each task, however, can range from $3.00 to $7.00 – which is a lot when you realize that calling and making a reservation for someone could take just a few minutes of your time.
7. Get creative
If you’re artistic and like creating crafts or designing new things, then this could be a great opportunity to earn some extra cash while doing what you love.
With e-commerce sites abounding, you can let your creativity run free and make virtually anything you feel like, then turn around and sell it!
You can start with something small, like making bath bombs, or make something on a much larger scale, like custom furniture.
You could always create your own website to sell your handmade goods, but the easiest way is by going on sites like Etsy, which we’ll use as an example.
To sign up, you’ll have to create a shop on their site, and fill in the minor details such as location, currency, payment options, etc.
How much you make on Etsy really depends on what you’re selling – you’ll obviously make more for a dining room table than a handmade coffee mug. And you could even use reclaimed wood to reduce costs and further boost your profits!
Either way, you’ll have to pay Etsy a 5% fee on the transaction and, if you accept payments through Etsy Payments, they’ll also take another 3% plus $0.25 processing fee.
8. Do some transcription
Transcription is the process of turning audio to text. If you can listen and type, then you can probably do some transcription, even if it starts off a little slow.
With sites like Rev.com, you don’t need to get a full-blown transcription job to be able to type a little on the side.
Rev.com is an online service that hires transcriptionists, captioners, and foreign subtitlers to work on audios from large companies such as:
- Amazon
- CBS
- U.S. Department of Justice.
And although there are multiple different sites that offer transcription opportunities, we’ll just take Rev as our example, as the process is similar for all of them.
To become a transcriptionist through Rev.com, you’ll need to go through the application process on their website.
You’ll have to fill out some basic information, such as your name and address, and then you will have to take a quiz and complete a test transcription file.
Read: Can You Make Money as a Freelance Transcriptionist?
Once this is done, it can take 2-3 weeks to hear back from Rev, but if you get approved, then you can get started as soon as you get the news.
With sites like Rev, you don’t have to make a minimum commitment. So, as long as work is available, you can complete however much (or little) you want.
With this work, you will be able to make anywhere from $.30 to $1.10 per audio minute transcribed. This is dependent on the difficulty of the audio.
And to give you an idea, the experienced transcriber can type one hour of audio in three hours. So, if you were earning $1.10 per audio minute, you’d be earning $22 per hour.
9. Become a proofreader
Proofreading is the process of reading a manuscript or online publication and marking down any errors that need to be corrected – specifically spelling and grammatical errors.
Many would think you need some English degree for this, but there are plenty of websites that will hire you to do proofreading without a degree like that. Some examples are:
- Editor Live
- Gramlee
- Polished Paper
- Prompt
Companies like them have full-time, part-time, and freelance positions available. Generally, an application will include a sample proofreading and English test.
If you’re hired, you can earn anywhere from $19 to $46 per hour, depending on the turnaround time.
You also have the flexibility of working whenever you want, from wherever you want, and you might even get to read some interesting manuscripts!
If you want to know more, check out this full how-to article!
10. Research things online
Researching things online is something most people do on a daily basis, so why not get paid for it?
With companies like Ask Wonder, you actually can. Ask Wonder is an online research site that gives a lot of flexibility with regards to your schedule, and the application process is as easy as the rest of them.
Related: Ask Wonder Review
All you have to do is fill out some standard information – such as your name, email, and a password – and then complete a test research assignment.
With Ask Wonder, you would be researching everything from landscaping prices in a certain area to different statistics about various topics. A lot of these things can go very quick (especially if you know what keywords to search for).
Depending on the difficulty of the assignment, you can get paid anywhere from $8 per task all the way up to $35 for the more difficult ones.
11. Become a freelance writer
Being a freelance writer is honestly one of the best side gigs out there in my opinion (I might be a little biased).
If you love writing and have a knack for researching, this is literally the crème de la crème when it comes to earning money on your spare time.
And sure, you can join a freelance marketplace like Upwork or Fiverr, but (speaking from experience) the best way to go is look for listings on sites like ProBlogger and apply for individual positions.
There are tons of niche websites out there searching for people to outsource their blog posts to, so you can easily find some topics you’re interested in.
Related: Can You Make Money Writing For Verblio?
You’ll need a resume and some sample articles. New at this and don’t have any? Write a sample blog post in the category you’re looking for as a way to showcase your abilities.
A lot of these jobs are highly competitive, with some people getting over a hundred applicants per position.
Even for experienced writers, getting work can be difficult, so don’t give up, but check listing sites every day for new opportunities and keep applying – eventually you’ll get the opportunity to do a test article and really demonstrate your literary prowess!
Related: Textbroker Review (Legit Way to Make Money Online?)
With this, you get to set your own prices (as you’ll be your own boss), but unless you have a lot of experience under your belt and are applying to high-end positions, you’ll probably charge somewhere between $.01-$.05 per word.
An experienced writer can pump out a (well-researched and publish-ready) 1,500-word article within about two hours from start to finish – equivalent to $7.50-$37.50 per hour.
The only potential downfall is that there will most likely be some form of minimum work commitment, so it will function more like a part-time job as opposed to a completely schedule-free side hustle.
12. Sell your clutter
Something that you could do to turn your boredom into cash is clean up the clutter of your house and sell some things on online marketplaces like Craigslist or eBay.
If you have stuff that you are looking to get rid of, don’t be so quick to just throw it away – even if you think it’s trash.
The saying one man’s trash is another’s man’s treasure is not false.
That couch you see as a dirty, old, and worn down? Someone else sees an affordable option to get some extra seating.
Last season’s designer jacket? Someone else’s warm winter coat.
You get the picture – unless it’s literal garbage, someone might buy it (and even then, you can even sell toilet paper rolls and earn a few bucks!).
Or you could even make money selling stuff like firewood, old bottles, scrap metal, or aluminum cans for example.
And if you don’t own it yourself, you might be surprised at where you could find some of this stuff for free. Some people literally turn cash into trash by doing dumpster diving or just by picking up trash. The latter of which also helps the environment!
With some sites, like Craigslist, you won’t have to pay a fee to list and sell your items – but more often than not you’re limited to people within your general area.
Sites like eBay, however, might take a small fee, but you open yourself up to a wide range of potential customers from all over the country, or even the world!
Conclusion
So, next time you are bothered with boredom, remember that there are many options to get rid it while earning some extra cash. And if nothing on this page excites you, check out these income ideas!
Who knows, maybe you could try out one of these options and find out that you want to pursue it as a full-time job.
Whatever the case may be, from having a cluttered home that needs cleaning to becoming a virtual assistant, there are many ways to turn your boredom into cash online, and hopefully, this article helped you out!
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