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Are you looking for ways to make $1,000 from your couch?
Looking for some extra cash to save for a big purchase, boost your savings account, or pay off debt?
Making extra money from side hustles can be pretty lucrative and it’s not as hard as you might think to work from home earning $1,000 or more from your couch.
What could you do with an extra $1,000/month?
- Pay off debt faster
- Save at a quicker rate
- Save for the down payment on a house
- Save for the down payment on a car
- Upgrade your lifestyle
- Boost your savings account or emergency fund
- Start a college savings fund for your kids
The options are endless.
You’re going to love this article!
To make things easy, we’ve rounded up these 20 scam-free ways to make an extra $1,000 working from home.
Check it out!
View this article in video format by clicking the play button below.
Table of Contents
1. Survey Taking
This makes the top of the list because it’s something anybody can do. It’s rewarding, fruitful and the opportunities are abundant.
How it works?
With survey taking, you are getting paid to share your opinion. You take paid surveys to help companies operate better, produce better products, train their staff, and improve overall.
Each survey is paid a set amount, dependent on the opportunity and survey company. You can get paid in various ways:
- Cash
- Check
- PayPal
- Gift Cards
- Rewards
The method of payment varies based on the survey company. Here are some favorite survey companies to get you started:
Vindale Research
When you sign up for free, you get a bonus for completing your profile! After answering a few questions to get your account setup, you can start with answering surveys.
Each survey will show the estimated time to complete and payout. You can pick and choose your favorites to take and watch your balance rack up.
Payouts are done twice a month and once you reach $50 in your balance, you’re eligible to be paid, via PayPal or check mailed, your choice.
They offer a generous referral program too so if you have friends that would like to make extra money, you can use your referral code to refer them and earn $5 for each person that signs up under your referral link!
You can earn $12+/hour with Vindale. Learn more here.
Survey Savvy
Survey Savvy is similar to Vindale. You sign up for free then you can immediately start taking surveys. Survey Savvy has a program called Savvy Connect which pays you to install their app on your cell phone. You earn money every month passively through their Savvy Connect program.
Plus, they offer high paying panels often, which pay you up to $80+ each!
The minimum payout threshold is just $1 and they pay you via check mailed.
Swagbucks
Swagbucks offers many different opportunities to earn, including:
- Answering surveys
- Playing games
- Watching videos
- And, more!
With so many opportunities to make money, you will not get bored!
They also offer a ton of different mobile apps:
- SwagiQ
- SwagBucks Shop
- SwagBucks Local
- SwagBucks Watch
- Sportly
Get the inside scoop and all 15 ways to earn with Swagbucks!
2. Blogging
Starting a blog is an easy, fun way to express yourself, connect with others, work with awesome brands and get paid!
- This blogger started earning $1,000+ per month in the first 6 months she started
- This blogger started earning $5K to $7K per month with her small blog
- This blogger makes $100K+ every month with her blog
More and more bloggers are emerging, getting paid to share their experience, teach, explore, travel, and more.
How it works?
Step 1.) Pick a Niche
Your blog niche is your topic. This is going to be what you will blog about. While you can blog about numerous topics, it’s better if you pick one specific topic to focus on.
- What are your going to blog about?
- What topics are you passionate about?
- What are your knowledge about or what’s your expertise?
Here are some profitable blog niches to consider:
- Food and nutrition
- Lifestyle
- Wellness and fitness
- Making money
- Saving money
- Travel
You can definitely blog on another topic and make this a true passion project for yourself. It’s a fun, lucrative hobby that pays in dividends! Once you pick your niche, next up is naming your blog.
Step 2.) Name your blog
The fun part, naming your blog! Don’t be afraid to get creative here. Pick a blog name that is meaningful and try to have it match your domain name, if possible.
For example, if your blog name is Busting Your Budget, make sure your domain name matches at www(dot)bustingyourbudget(dot)com.
Make sense?
Pro Tip: You can check domain name availability for free on NameCheap.
Here are some other helpful tips when it comes to picking your blog name and domain name:
- Avoid numbers
- Avoid dashes, dollar signs or special characters
- Shorter is better
- No more than 4 words in your blog name and domain name, if possible
- Try to go for a .com
Step 3.) Get your domain, hosting, and WordPress
Domain, hosting, and WordPress can be setup in a breeze. Most hosting providers include your domain name for free with purchase, like this host. They also include SSL certificate and other perks.
Then, you’ll connect WordPress. With HostGator’s 1-click WordPress install, you can have WordPress added in under 2 minutes!
Once this is done, start blogging!
Step 4.) Start blogging and get paid!
Now, it’s time to get blogging. You’ll do things here like:
- Create blog pages like About Us or Contact Us
- Add blog posts on your niche
- Set up your social media pages for your blog
- Plus, more fun activities
This really is an entire project. It’s one of my favorite fun hobbies that actually pays!
Ready to get started? Here are 7 detailed steps to help you start your blog.
3. Rent out Your Place
Passive income is the name of the game here, with renting out your place with AirBNB.
AirBNB connects short term renters with homeowners, helping renters find spaces to rent and helping homeowners monetizing their homes through rental income.
Short term rentals is a very lucrative industry. People are buying and renting out their properties full time, earning income passively, all from the comfort of their couch.
The process of becoming a host is super easy.
How it works?
Step 1.) Sign up with AirBNB for free, with rent your space
Step 2.) Decide how you want to host
Step 3.) Welcome your first guest
This money making opportunity has really grown a lot in recent years. There are whole communities dedicated to AirBNB hosts on:
And, other places online.
Pro Tip: You will want to be a great host so you can earn a high rating, which can help you increase the number of times your space is requested, which controls your pay.
4. Rental Arbitrage
We just talked about being an AirBNB host for homeowners. You can do the same as a renter and it’s called rental arbitrage.
This works the same way except you aren’t the property owner, you’re the renter.
For example, say you visit family for the weekend. Instead of your place sitting empty all weekend, rent it out!
You can actually earn enough to have this arbitrage hustle pay your rent!
Scenarios this would work well in:
- Any time you’re away from your home
- If you stay over weekends with your partner, friends, or family
- Travel
- While you’re at home
Keep in mind, you don’t have to be away from your place to rent it. You can rent out rooms too!
There are so many possibilities with this one. Check out more on rental arbitrage here.
5. Start an E-Commerce Store
As an e-commerce store owner, you’ll be operating your own online store. You can sell in any niche you desire:
- Fashion
- Home decor
- Kids
- Toys
- Accessories
- Footwear
- Tech
As a former e-commerce store owner myself, I can tell you that it’s very rewarding to run your own online store.
It’s fun to create and design the shop, search for the latest, greatest products, connect with customers, promote online and on social media, and earn money working from home.
My fashion apparel store operated on Storenvy for about a year before outgrowing the platform and moving onto Shopify.
Other store platforms you can consider include:
- Woocommerce
- BigCommerce
- Wix
You can run the store entirely on your own or (my recommendation), you can outsource tasks to employees or freelancers.
This is a lucrative industry today. More and more brick and mortar stores are going out of business, trying to compete against online stores. This growing market can bring a fruitful outcome for you.
6. Teach Online
As an online ESL teacher you’ll be teaching English to Chinese students online. This is a part time opportunity that can earn you up to $25/hour.
Here are some requirements from most ESL companies:
- Must be a resident of U.S. or Canada
- Stable internet access
- Bachelor’s degree
There are more and more ESL companies coming to light so you’ll have your pick of which one you’ll want to work for:
And, many more. Check out the top 10 jobs that pay to teach english online.
7. Lose Weight
You might be wondering, how can you possibly make $1,000 by losing weight.
Meet Healthy Wage!
Healthy Wage is a company that lets you make a healthy wager on your weight loss goals.
How it works?
Join Healthy Wage and set up your healthy wager. You’ll set a weight loss goal and deposit a set amount (you choose) like $50/week to Healthy Wage. This wager holds you accountable and gives you motivation to keep pushing to meet your weight loss goal.
At the end of your timeline, if you meet your weight loss goal, you’ll get all your deposits back plus more!
So, it’s like you’re betting that you can lose weight based on the timeline you set like, losing 25 pounds in 6 months, for example.
These wellness challenges encourage healthy living and weight loss. You can participate alone or form groups with family, friends, or coworkers.
Wondering how much you can earn?
Kristin lost 114 pounds and won $4,000!
Valerie lost 45 pounds and won $1,000!
See more success stories.
If you have some weight you’d like to lose, Healthy Wager may be a good option to help incentivize your weight loss efforts.
8. Sell Your Stuff on Facebook
Do a good Spring cleaning and sell your stuff on Facebook! Here are some examples of things you can sell:
- New or preowned apparel
- Electronics
- Furniture
- Footwear
- Toys
- Music and video
- Equipment, photography gear, etc.
- Designer garments, gear, or equipment
Other places to sell online: LetGo, Craigslist, or Amazon. You can also sell in person at stores that accept goods for sale like used electronics stores or your local consignment store.
9. Become YouTube Famous
Get on YouTube and start earning money. This is how it works:
Step 1.) Start a free YouTube channel
Step 2.) Pick a Niche
Step 3.) Record and upload content consistently
Step 4.) Get paid
YouTube success is often underrated. A lot of people don’t know the income potential of YouTube. USA Today put out a story on the highest paid YouTuber of 2018, earning $22 Million. It was a 7-year old who earned by playing with toys on camera!
YouTuber personalities get paid in a number of ways:
- Ads
- Sponsorships
- Creating their own products and selling to their audience
You can create a channel on any topic of interest. If you have expertise or can teach an engaged audience, you are on the right track. Some examples:
- Teach money-saving tactics
- Teach a different language
- Teach music lessons
- Give tech tutorials
- Vlog your life
10. Sell Your Handmade Items on Etsy
Open an Etsy store and sell your handmade goods. It’s easy to get started and free to open a seller account. The listings are $.20 each and there are a ton of options built in to your seller account to help you sell, like:
- Stats and analytics
- Keywords your products are ranking for
- Sales history
- Recommendations
- Marketing options on Google, Etsy, and more
Top sellers are making six figures per year on Etsy. It’s like running an online store in a marketplace. This is awesome because Etsy’s audience is huge. It is far easier to get your first sale than going at it alone with no experience. After setting up my digital artwork store, I made my first sale in the first 4 days! It’s so easy, anybody can get started with it.
As a handmade seller, you aren’t limited to only Etsy either. Here are some good alternatives:
11. Publish Your Book
You can self-publish one or more books online. The most successful writers don’t necessarily have a New York Times bestseller. They are those writers who are creating multiple books for passive income potential in the future.
If you have some ideas for a book or love writing, consider doing this to boost your income up to $1,000 or more from your couch.
12. Freelancing
Monetize your skills by freelancing for extra money. You can make a lot of money freelancing. Keep in mind, this is a full time job for many. Some freelancers even make a lot more than full time employees doing the same work.
Some skills in demand:
- Graphic design
- Video editing
- Bookkeeping/accounting
- Copywriting
- Developer
- Web design
- Social media marketing
Head to freelance job banks like Upwork or Guru. Join for free then, start applying to projects.
13. Transcription
Get paid to transcribe audio files, earning up to $25/hour. You listen to audio files and type what you hear.
It sounds super easy but there is definitely some skill required to do this well. It’s great because it’s a legitimate work from home career and you can earn a nice living part time or full time doing it!
Try this free mini-course to see if transcription is right for you.
People that need transcription:
- YouTubers
- Attorneys
- Podcasters
- Claims adjusters
- Financial Services companies
It’s a great job for nights and weekends with lots of flexibility, allowing you to pick and choose the jobs and projects that you want to work on.
14. Become a Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is a personal assistant that helps companies and individuals virtually. There are a wide variety of tasks that VA’s can do, including:
- Answering emails and phone calls
- Scheduling meetings and appointments
- Setting up/scheduling social media
- Copywriting
- Light tech support
If you enjoy data entry and admin-related tasks, you will love being a virtual assistant. You’ll likely be working as an independent contractor and you can have more than one client.
VA’s work part time and full time, managing one or more clients run their day-to-day lives and businesses. Top virtual assistants like Kayla Sloan make up to $10,000+ per month!
This can definitely be a lucrative job field.
It’s great if you enjoy:
- Job flexibility
- Working with people
- Working on a computer
- Managing multiple projects and/or clients
Jobs can be found online in job banks like Upwork, Freelancer, Craigslist, Careerbuilder, and related sites. You can also find virtual assistant work right on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and other social networks.
I ran an interesting experiment a few months ago, working as a VA for 30 days! I picked up 2 clients and secured around $900 in work for the month. I found the jobs on Facebook and I worked from home helping clients build and grow their websites, set up automated processes, and more.
15. Consulting
Are you an expert in a field? Consider helping others in paid consultative work. Consult beginners, intermediate, or advanced users in their field improve their processes.
You could consult on how to make their company run smoother, how to make processes more efficient, helping them get more traffic, earn more money, get more leads, etc.
Consultants can easily make a full time income working part time.
Look into this is you have a lot of experience in an industry and would like to lend your knowledge to help others.
16. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is one of the e-commerce business models that more and more people are having huge success with.
This has a low barrier to entry and low startup capital so it’s very appealing to people who want to start an e-commerce business with little money and resources for startup.
Dropshipping is easy. You source products from a vendor and sell those products to consumers, as the middleman. You’ll open your online store and when a customer buys, you’ll place an order from your dropshipper to ship items direct to your customer.
You never handle the product.
A lot of business owners love this because with hands off the product, you can save a ton of money on shipping and fulfillment.
- No inventory warehouse needed
- No staff required for fulfillment/handling
- No expenses for packaging/shipping materials
In a non-dropship model, as the e-commerce owner, you’ll have stock of all the products available for purchase in your store. When a customer buys, you pack and ship the order to them.
When I used to run my e-commerce store, fulfillment was the most dreaded part of my job. It would take me hours and hours to handpack 100 orders/day.
I eventually ended up outsourcing fulfillment to a fulfillment house so they can manage the packing/fulfillment for me. I did this for a while until I eventually moved to a full dropship model, as explained here.
17. Brand Ambassador
Brand ambassadors are people that represent brands. These are bloggers, social media personalities, people in the media, etc. They partner with a brand to represent them for an extended period of time, like 6 months-1 year, for example.
As a brand ambassador, you’ll be compensated in the form of:
- Cash
- Free products or,
- Both
You may be required to post the brand on your social channels a set number every month, travel to special events, film television commercials, etc.
It’s a fun way to work with a company in a nontraditional kind of way.
18. Video Editing
This is an in-demand job that a lot of people are hiring for. It’s great because you work form home, usually on your own schedule, and can earn a lucrative wage doing so.
You’ll be editing videos for clients. Here are some clients you may work with:
- YouTube channel owners
- Content creators
- Brands
- Small businesses
You can find work in job banks, freelancer networks like Upwork, and social media, among other places. Video is the next wave. More and more people are turning to video as their media of choice and with such, the demand for editing continues to rise. You won’t have a hard time finding work in this industry.
19. Copywriting
There are copywriting opportunities available all across the web. I used to do this as a side hustle when I worked my bank job several years ago.
You work one or more writing jobs to make a cool $1,000 or more every month. These can be blog posts, white papers, technical reports, books, email newsletters, etc. If you love writing, this is a hustle you’ll enjoy.
Here are some places to find copywriting jobs:
- Problogger Jobs
- Upwork
- Freelancer
- LinkedIn jobs
- Indeed
20. Website Flipping
Like you flip houses, you can do the same thing in the digital world with websites and domains.
How it works?
You build a website or a buy a website, fix it up, and sell it for a profit. I’ve been doing this for years and really enjoy it. You can earn an extra $1,000 from your couch, with one or more flips a month.
If you are somewhat tech savvy, the cheaper route is to build a website. You can follow the “start a blog” guide above to go through the entire process. Then, fix it up, which includes improving the site to make it more valuable, doing things like:
- Adding a fresh, new attractive design/theme
- Adding more content
- Monetizing the website
- Growing the traffic and fanbase
You’d go the same route if you decided to buy an existing site. The goal is to make it more valuable. Once you’ve done that, you can flip it for a profit!
Final Thoughts
There you have it! These 20 ways to make $1,000 from your couch, are here for you to try out. Have more work from home ideas of your own? Share with us! Comment down below so we can hear from you!
