50 Legitimate Ways to Make Money from Home

By Scott Alan Turner | scottalanturner.com

Whether you are a busy mother, a stay at home father, a college student, or just want to earn some extra money – doing some extra work can help you make money from home.

A quick internet search can reveal much work from home scams. They charge you upfront fees and lure you to work with them. But actually, they are just cheating you out of your hard-earned money.

I know you want to find some legitimate work from home jobs that are not rip-offs. So, I have scoured through hundreds of ways to work at home, and came up with the 50 legitimate ways to make money from home.

Some will just make you a few bucks a month, but others can become powerful moneymakers depending on the time you have to invest in them.

Read on to find out about some of the exciting ways to make money from home. You may even find something you’ve never heard of before.

Good luck!

Make money online and from home

Don’t have any hidden talents? Don’t worry! We’ve got something for you as well.

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. – Albert Einstein

My wife Katie is not crafty so instead planned a local 5K run.

We bought our chickens from a woman who raises chicks to sell for $25/each (read on if you don’t want to raise and sell chickens).

1. Take part in surveys to make an extra $250+ a month

Simply answer online surveys or product tests and make money from home. You can easily make an extra $250 a month while watching T.V.

Take a look at some paid survey websites listed below. At all of these websites, you not only earn some extra cash but also get rewarded through gift vouchers, prize drawings, free products, etc. All of these sites are free to sign up and use. Heads up: If any survey site asks you to pay, they are probably scams.

Swagbucks
Survey Junkie
InboxDollars
OneOpinion
American Consumer Opinion
Pinecone Research

2. Get Money Back Instantly For Stuff You’ve Already Bought

Do you love getting refunds? How cool would it be to get money back on stuff you’ve already bought without having to do a thing? Paribus is an app that lets you find out if stores you’ve shopped at online owe you a refund.  It’s free to sign up. Paribus connects to your email account and checks your receipts.  If they find out a retailer has dropped their price they file a price adjustment claim for you automatically.  Try out Paribus.

Paribus works with a huge number of merchants that you probably already shop at, including Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Best Buy, Target, Apple, Kohl’s, and more!

3. Get a free $10 Amazon gift card

Sign up for MyPoints and get a free $10 Amazon gift card.  It’s easy to get started:

1. Join MyPoints here for free.
2. Shop over 1,900 top online retailers (including Amazon, Walmart, and Target) through MyPoints and earn points for your purchases.
3. Redeem your points for gift cards, travel miles and more from over 75 top retail, restaurant and travel partners.

4. Start a blog or online business

Online business is how I’ve made a living since 2003 and what has helped me retire early.  I make over $40,000 a month through my blog. You can create your own blog here with my easy 15-minute step-by-step tutorial.  You can start a blog for as little as $2.95 a month (less than a cup of coffee!).  Create a blog and leverage it into affiliate sales or product endorsement deals. Consider topics like:

• Travel
• Cooking
• Health
• Technology
• Personal finance
• Just about anything else

Check out my free guide with step-by-step instructions on how to make money blogging.

5. Watch movie previews, YouTube, and like videos

Do you like watching videos in your free time? Now, you can get paid for watching videos including movie previews, news, celebrity videos, and all kinds of other videos.

Sites like Swagbucks ask you to watch certain videos and like them. You have to watch for a certain number of minutes which you’ll be told ahead of time. You could earn over $200 a month (earnings vary).  You’ll earn Swagbucks for watching (points that can be redeemed for gift cards or Paypal).  You can get $5 just for signing up!

6. Download and install these apps

A lot of companies – including Google – pay you for installing their apps. Moreover, you get paid for each month the apps are installed on your phone. Some of these sites include:

• ShopTracker – Answer a few questions then launch the app on your device, and you’ll earn $3.00 instantly.  Keep the app on your phone to earn money each month and help companies understand what people are buying online.
• Nielsen Mobile Panel – From the people that run Nielsen TV ratings, the Nielsen mobile app rewards you for using your mobile device. You can earn up to $50 a year.
• MobileXpression – Install this app and you’ll be eligible to win prizes each week. You get to play an instant rewards game by participating in market research.

7. Sign up for free gift cards

Ebates will give you a $10 gift card when you sign up and earn your first cashback rebate.  It’s great for online shoppers.  Ebates is free to use.

You just visit the Ebates website and click through to the store you want to shop at. If you buy from the store Ebates gets a commission that they split with you.  It’s an easy way to save. Click here to sign up for Ebates.

8. Test websites for $30 an hour

Ever visit a website and you thought about how bad or how great it was? Now you can get paid to share your thoughts.

Just open a website, click around, and get paid. New or updated website owners compensate you to test their sites.

For example, with User Testing, you can earn almost $30 for an hour. Here’s how it works:

• You get paid $10 via PayPal for every 20-minute video you complete.
• UserTesting pays you to visit websites or apps, complete a set of tasks, and record your thoughts.

While you’re visiting a website your screen will be recorded as well as your voice. Their clients include Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and other Fortune 500 companies.  How would you like a few bucks to share your thoughts?

Check out how to make quick money from home testing websites for a full list of companies that will pay you for testing.

9. Get paid for being healthy

The health app AchieveMint gives you points for being healthy and doing things like walking, tracking your food, or taking health surveys.  You earn points which can be redeemed for cash or Amazon Gift Cards.  For every 10,000 points, you earn $10 and there is no limit on your earnings.

AchieveMint connects to the fitness apps you may already be using including Fitbit, RunKeeper, Healthkit, and MyFitnessPal.

You can earn 10 points just for signing up with AchieveMint and connecting an app.

10. Become a freelancer or freelance writer

Doing freelance work can greatly increase your income. Are you a stay at home mom with an English degree or a guy who naturally can find mistakes in written text?

Huge and trustworthy sites like Upwork have thousands of employers who want to hire for all kinds of tasks where you can write or edit about anything from technology to business articles. Get paid for every single article. Get a great reputation and you can turn this into a full-time job.

Read the 7 easy steps to become a freelance writer.

11. Technical freelancing

Freelancing isn’t all about writing. You can do everything from design, graphics, marketing, and web programming jobs from sites like:

• Upwork
• PeoplePerHour
• Freelancer
• Demand Media

Pick your payment on per project basis.

12. Become a virtual assistant

Work for someone from home. Virtual Assistance (VAs) can do everything from checking emails and making travel plans to handling internet research or working for their small business.  High-end earners can command $50-$100 an hour.

Some reputable sites are Zirtual and Upwork

Read how to become a virtual assistant and work from home.

13. Tutoring

Give private tuition classes at your home and use your SAT knowledge. Choose your schedule, if you have some imperative routine tasks.

Or rather, go for online tutoring and earn $20 per hour on Chegg Tutors.

14. Share your views

Share your honest opinions for everyday services and products you use with focus group companies. These organizations can improve their products on your feedback, and you get to make $50, $100, or more. Check out 2020 Panel.

A friend does this at his local mall. He only makes a little side money doing the focus groups, but it pays for a babysitter and a night out occasionally.

15. Rate pizzas

Many companies pay you for rating local pizza shops. You just have to rate the place on the quality of their pizza and note their delivery time. For this, you can get a free pizza, plus $5. Just register on Trendsource and get started.

16. Review stuff

Write a review and earn anything between $1 and $50 per review according to the requirement. Yelp can give you some special invites.

17. Change your search engine

Do you use Google or Yahoo to search for something on the net? Now, leave them behind and opt for the Bing search engine.

Conduct your regular searches on Bing, make it your default search engine, and earn credits that can be redeemed for gift cards. You can earn as much as $5 to $10 per month. Tip: Just stay signed-in, when you perform a search.

Another option is Nielsen Digital Voice. Digital Voice is a part of Nielsen – the big company that publishes T.V. ratings. Just surf the web and you may be able to start earning money.

18. Data entry

Use your accurate and quick typing skills to enter information. Go through Craigslist or Upwork and find data entry and administrative jobs for yourself. These jobs can be easily done through telecommuting.

19. Work for Amazon

Pick micro tasks from Amazon Mechanical Turk. These are services that require human interaction. You can work from home, flexible hours and get paid by one of the world’s largest retailers.

Here are some examples of tasks workers have completed:

• Select the correct spelling for these search terms
• Is this website suitable for a general audience?
• Find the item number for the product in this image
• Rate the search results for these keywords
• Are these two products the same?
• Choose the appropriate category for products
• Categorize the tone of this article
• Translate a paragraph from English to French