8 side jobs you can do from your apartment for extra money

A survey from Bankrate revealed that over 45% of all working Americans have a side hustle, with the percentage rising to nearly 50% when we narrow it down to millennials. It seems that bringing in a stream of extra cash or passive income is becoming more and more common in the U.S. 

If you need the extra cash, working from the comfort of your own apartment can be a blessing. It makes side hustles a lot easier, especially if you have a flexible work schedule. This is money you can use to invest in stocks, pay off debt, find a business opportunity such as franchising, or get a new mortgage — the possibilities are endless.

If you want to start your own side hustle, get started with these work from home ideas with top earning potential:

Freelance 

According to a survey conducted by Upwork, there are now over 56.7 million freelance workers in the United States, and this number is rising. This type of hustle comes with several advantages that are hard to ignore, such as choosing your clients and being your own boss. Freelance work also encompasses a wide range of options: writing, graphic design, website creation, SEO, digital marketing and consultancy are all great opportunities to consider. For those focusing on search optimization, working with or learning from an established SEO agency can provide valuable insights into delivering consistent and scalable results. For beginners, freelance writing is a good place to start since it requires little to no qualifications apart from being a native English speaker.

If you want to find work as a freelance writer, here are a few great job boards to visit:

• Problogger
• BloggingPro
• FlexJobs
• Mediabistro

Translator 

If you speak more than one language, becoming an online translator could be a productive way to make money from home, especially in the entertainment industry. Tons of movies and TV shows want to translate their scripts to create subtitles and are willing to pay anybody who is bilingual good money to do just that.

You can find online translation jobs on sites such as:

• Jooble
• Indeed
• Translation Directory
• Unbabel
• Gengo

Online surveys

Online surveys get a bad rap for attracting many scammers, but in truth, people expect a bit too much out of them. This type of work definitely can’t substitute your monthly salary, but it is a pretty easy way to make an extra hundred dollars every month.

If surveys sound like the right fit for you and your budget needs, there are quite a few sites out there that pay up to $10 or more per survey. Plus, these surveys are pretty short and easy to finish. Namely, Survey Junkie, Swagbucks, and Inbox Dollars are all high paying survey websites you can start working with to make a few extra bucks. 

Teach English online

Being a native English speaker means having countless opportunities to choose from if you want to make money online. Apart from freelance writing, English teachers are also in high demand online. Some companies pay native English speakers up to $22 an hour to teach English to their employees. This is a great side hustle with top earning potential that also doesn’t require any qualifications to get started. 

Start a podcast

Starting a podcast means opening the door to a multitude of monetization possibilities. Successful podcasters like Joe Rogan or The Minimalists make thousands of dollars every month through ad revenue, sponsorships, and even selling their own products.

Unlike text-based or video-based content, podcast listeners are statistically more loyal, which means once you build an audience for yourself, you can benefit for years to come. While podcasting can take a while to become lucrative, consuming this type of content is quickly becoming the norm when it comes to how we commute, clean, or work out. Why not get a head start on something that is here to stay? 

Virtual assistant

A virtual assistant earns an average of $16 an hour, which can add up to quite a few extra dollars at the end of the month. If you’re considering taking this path, here are the most common tasks you should expect to perform: 

• Scheduling meetings
• Drafting memos
• Outsourcing tasks
• Creating content
• Managing SEO
• Handling social media
• Billing
• Invoicing

You are essentially the back-end of someone else’s business, with every new project going through you. If you plan on starting an online business of your own someday, this is also an excellent way to learn some important skills and get paid for it.

Create online courses

It’s no secret that online education is becoming the new norm in how we acquire and develop lucrative skills for ourselves. Besides the huge boost in individual Americans taking online classes to grow their skill sets, a whopping 90% of corporations now use eLearning as part of their employees’ development plans.

If you are an expert on something worth learning and you haven’t found a way to make money from it yet, you are missing out on a stream of passive income. You can use an online course platform like Teachable or Skillshare to structure your knowledge into digestible bite-sized chapters, and then sell your courses online for others to learn from. The software these platforms provide allows you to create a course using video, audio, or text and then sell it to interested customers as well. 

Sell your pictures/videos online 

If you are an avid photographer, you could also consider selling your pictures online. Websites like Etsy, Alamy, iStock, or Shutterstock are great platforms to sell your work. This a great way to earn a few extra bucks on the side and make money from your hobby, but keep in mind you’re competing with thousands of other photographers in a worldwide marketplace, so it could take a while to earn a substantial side-income. 

Still, if you do some research to find out how to cover the right topics and use these websites productively, you can definitely make a few extra bucks on the side, all while enjoying your passion. 

In summary

As our world continues to shift towards online work, the idea of earning money from the comfort of your apartment is becoming more real and less wishful thinking. Whether you want to take up work as a consultant or freelance as a writer, working from home gives you a long list of benefits.

So, what side job are you going to choose?