Today’s post is brought to you by Jon from the Money Shed, an online forum for people who are interested in learning how to make money online.
Hi, my name is Jon, and I make money online.
Now the above may be a very short sentence but already I imagine it is conjuring up a picture in your head of pound symbols and me trying to flog you the latest and greatest MLM, Avon, Younique, Juice +, Freedom Living scam scheme around.
The reality is much simpler than that. I just find work out there that can be done at home, do the work that is asked of me and bring in just shy of £900 a month!
There’s no selling, there’s no ‘creating an upline’ just simple, hard, work.
This is also not a story of earning that much a month by doing surveys for 50p a time which takes 2 hours to complete or spending every waking moment on Swagbucks.
That isn’t earning online, that’s just time-wasting chump change.
A lot of people who look into earning money online, see surveys and think that’s all it is. That actually isn’t the case and it just takes a bit more digging through the fluff to see there are real opportunities to make some serious cash.
Maybe, I should start this story from the very beginning and explain how I ended up earning what I do now and how you can do it too with a bit of determination and a good work attitude.
My Lightbulb Moment
In the late nineties, I was at College and I had a friend that got sent a cheque each month from America by clicking on banner ads on his website.
He wasn’t getting much (maybe $60 a month) but I remember being fascinated that this money was earnt entirely online.
I always remember that moment as being my ‘light bulb’ moment where I thought, you can actually make money online.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I first got into the same honey pot as everyone else, that being surveys.
They paid £1 a time but I was happy to be earning £10 every few weeks.
From there I moved onto Mystery Shopping which although I found nerve-racking at the very beginning, paid me far more than surveys ever did.
As time went on I became part of a community of home workers which exposed me to other work that was out there.
One of the big turning points was when I came across an opportunity to work for the Text Q&A service ChaCha when they launched in the UK.
Here was an opportunity where I was being paid for each question I answered and while it wasn’t a lot (really wasn’t, it was 3p!) I was able to log in and earn money whenever I wanted.
Questions came thick and fast and I could easily rack up £10 a day or more. I was earning £200/£300 a month and couldn’t believe my luck.
Then the unthinkable happened. They pulled out of the UK market and I was left earning nothing! I had put all my eggs in one basket, become too cocky and hadn’t bothered doing any other work. I was now left with nothing.
Once I’d got over the shock of losing that income every month, I had to go back to basics.
Money Making Community
The one saving grace was the community of home workers I was part of. I knew that because we would all share ideas with each other, it wouldn’t be long before another opportunity came along.
And as luck would have it, a few months later a fellow ex ChaCha worker like myself got me into working for another text Q&A service which helped me to earn £1,000-£1,200 per month!
I also discovered the world of apps like Field Agent & Roamler which were earning me £25-£50 per week just by doing a series of set tasks.
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On top of those, I was also doing transcribe work for the likes of Appen which was paying well beyond minimum wage and had also got quite heavily into a company that does nothing but online user groups which again paid VERY well.
I knew at this point it was important to keep up with my other income streams, even if that meant just dipping my toes into things like Mystery Shopping or online focus groups.
The reason it’s important is that you never know when circumstances will change with the firms that you work online with. Companies can go bust, hours can change, the pay can decrease. It’s important to always expect the unexpected.
It is because of that mindset that I am now able to bring in each month the money I do. I have no interest in surveys that pay £1. I want to earn real money and I wasn’t going to get it doing work for pennies.
There is another school of thought and one that I have done a few times and that is generating the work yourself.
There are a lot of sites out there such as People Per Hour and Fiverr where you can sell your skills in return for payment.
This could be writing content, designing a logo or even just sending a Tweet to all your followers.
If you have a certain skill that is in demand such as great content creation, graphic design or creating YouTube videos, you really earn a decent amount.
Top Tips For Earning Money Online
Be Flexible. If you have a Mystery Shopping assignment that pays well but is a bit out of town, DO IT! You can’t complain on one hand that you aren’t being offered opportunities when if they come around and you refuse them.
Play the long game. When you first start working with an online company the pay might not be great. Stick with it though as if you are good at what you do and impress the company, they will eventually pay you what you deserve.
Also, companies like to stick with people they can rely on and trust. This means if you work with a company enough, you will build that trust and become a go-to person for them.
Become part of a community. I can’t stress this enough but trying to find work from home when you are going it alone is a total minefield.
If you are part of a community you have the benefit of sounding an online company out with other like-minded people.
Working from home can also be lonely but as long as you have a community to bounce ideas off and ask questions, you will be ten times more educated and also become exposed to a LOT more opportunities to make money.
Follow these rules and understand that there is FAR more to earning online than meets the eye and you will go far and easily reach my levels of income.
There’s not one thing I do that anyone else out there can’t do. All the companies I work for will employ anyone like you to work from home to so why not set some time aside and come and find out what REAL working from home can bring you.
Ricky Willis is the original Skint Dad. A money-making enthusiast, father, and husband to Naomi. He is always looking for unique ways to earn a little extra.
This is a fantastic post, and I’m sure it will be a real eye opener for many people out there. I’ve often found myself looking for opportunities to make money from home, and often found myself disappointed as I browsed pages upon pages of content telling me to sign up to survey websites, or to join in with the latest MLM venture.
Neither of these options appeal to me, but I must be honest and say that I’ve certainly signed up to the odd survey site or two in times of needs. I quickly realised that making £1 per week with a minimum payout of £50 wasn’t really going to cut it. Sure, it’s an income I didn’t have but I was unlikely to see it for a year or so!
I really value sites like SkintDad and The Money Shed because they detail real opportunities. Indeed, it was only recently that I found myself at the signup page of The Money Shed. If I’m being brutally honest, I didn’t expect much. I figured I’d be told to sign up to the classic survey sites, or that I could make £20,000 a month in my spare time by selling some cheap multivitamins. What I found was a community full of like-minded individuals, all willing to help each other in the quest for extra income.
I won’t lie and say I’ve made a fortune. I haven’t. But, I have made a few hundred pounds over the last two months using apps like Roamler and Field Agent, and although it involves travelling around for a few quid here and there, it’s really boosted my income at a time when I really need it. There have been other opportunities too, such as testing websites on What Users Do, and I wouldn’t have found these things without a community that’s willing to help each other.
I have recently started my own blog called All Things Manchester that documents events, places to go, entertainment, food and drink, student deals and the like, and I’m seriously considering starting a section on worthwhile money making opportunities within the city. I think it would be of value to a lot of people looking to earn an honest, decent, extra income each month.
Phil
I am an active member of The Money Shed and have been since April; before joining I was very much in the mind set that all online work is survey’s or people who have been lucky enough to negotiate with their current work place to work from home. Jon grabbed me when I questioned a reply he had posted on a popular parenting forum, he directed me over to The Money Shed and to be honest I almost didn’t bother looking; another one assuming I would get no where. I was wrong, very wrong.
As well as the members posting opportunities as soon as they find them, the site is great for introducing the members to representatives of some of these companies such as Click and Walk, Streetspotr and more recently Streetbees who basically launched their product with the members of TMS. I myself have just won a £50 prize purely for spreading the word about this new company which wouldn’t of happened if it wasn’t for Jon reaching out to representatives encouraging them to join the forum.
Jon and the other members have shown me that survey’s that take 1hr for a 15p payout aren’t the only way to bring in some cash and if you look hard enough you will find what you are looking for. I now bring home an income from the same Text Q&A service that Jon mentioned, as well as several mystery shopping opportunities and website testing gigs.
I have also started a blog of my own which I hope will (in time) become a small earner though it is a very niche area; aimed at the alternative music crowd with some gaming and baking thrown in. With the help of members who know so much more than me about this world than I do I have been able to get it up and running. I know I still have a lot of work to do on it and I am thankful that I have somewhere to go to ask the questions I need to.
Hmm certainly some interesting stuff. I’m always look for extra ways to make a little extra money. One thing I’ve found recently (perhaps mention it on TMS?) I’ve been renting spare electronics like projectors and cameras on the site Fat Lama. Worth checking out especailly if you have valuable useful items lying around? It’s not exactly ‘online’ as your renting phyiscal items but it is super easy…
Sounds like an interesting idea, I’ll take a look into it. Thanks for the tip.
Hi, great post as always. I’ve been using The Money Shed for some time and like you say the support from being surrounded by like minded people is unbelievable. Like you I’m always looking for new opportunities, whether I’m on my way to the office, walking the dog or fixing the garden furniture I’m always planning ways to either earn revenue from something or alternatively improve customer experience.
Thought you may be interested in one most my most recent ‘light bulb’ moments. I’d heard about the world of retail arbitrage but up until 3 months ago had let it slip me by. It was almost three months ago to the day that in a hurry I purchased a watch strap on eBay. Within a day the item had arrived and I noticed that there was a small gift receipt thanking me for my purchase. At the bottom of this receipt was the Amazon logo. When undertaking some further investigations I noticed that the same item that I had purchased on eBay for £35.91 was available on Amazon for £29.90. A mark up of £6.01 between the two platforms. It was at this point that I realised the power of retail arbitrage and in particular, Amazon to eBay Arbitrage.
Arbitrage is essentially buying a product at a low price and selling it for a higher price, quite simple when you think about it and one that nearly all company models follow. The act of retail arbitrage involves buying a product from one online retailer (in this case Amazon) and selling that item on another online platform for a small profit (in this case eBay). Many also refer to this practice as dropshipping. The company which I purchased the item from had over 51,000 items for sale and over 11,000 positive feedback. Once you allow for eBay and Paypal fees of £3.59 and £1.42, this meant that for every item sold the seller was making an easy £1.00 per item. As these items are sent out as gifts by someone with an Amazon Prime Account, there is limited Amazon branding and details of the purchase on the packing. In addition sending through an Amazon Prime account means that the postage is always free.
I spent sometime researching various products and platforms and settled on Profit Scraper. I’ve been using online software for sometime now which actively sources items that are selling for at least 20% more on eBay than on Amazon. You can use the software to actively upload these items to eBay direct from Amazon, monitor stock levels and ensure certain profit margins are maintained. When you sell an item on eBay, the software will automatically purchase the item from Amazon and send the item out as a gift so the customer is none the wiser.
Ben – Thriftypence
There are so many scams on line, Facebook has loads of these advertised, where you end up paying a small fee to join and getting nothing back but a lot of hard work with no real income. Yor post is brilliant as it tells it like it really is, I like that. Thanks for sharing.
Kaz Psychic, UK