Making money online is something that comes very naturally to me. Not that everything I do makes money, I’d far rather help someone and invest in them as a person and in their lives, than to make money online, but it is something that I’m good at. My friends in real life tease me, calling me “Midas.” Saying I have the Midas touch. Whether or not it’s true, I don’t know, lol, but I do know that I’ve been making money from my computer for over 18 years and coming up with creative ways to make extra money.
Years later, it’s something that I love teaching other women how to make money from home. I believe that EVERY WOMAN should have the option to stay home with her children, regardless of income. Part of that is saving money and knowing how to spend wisely. The other part of that, for many, is making money from home so that they can BE home with their kids.
Today, I’m going to be sharing with you 7 of the ways I made money last month. Now, keep in mind, this isn’t an all-inclusive list. There are MANY streams of revenue that I make online and feel it’s important not to put all your ‘eggs in one basket,’ so to speak. But, here are 7 real ways to make money from home that I used last month, ways that can help YOU with ideas to make money from home as well!
7 Ways I Made Money Last Month
1) Ebates
Between my cash back rewards that I earn from shopping online (is there any OTHER way to shop?!) and helping others discover the awesome-ness that is Ebates, I made a pretty good chunk of change. They pay every 3 months and between all that, I earned $2,069.86. If you divide that amount into 3 months, I made $689 in one month! Not too shabby.
It’s definitely a company I highly recommend. I’ve been with them for about 7 years now and just love them. I’ve tried several other cash back companies and just never really liked them. One company didn’t pay me and I left. This company has been a legit source of cash back for me for years. And since I do most of my shopping online, I make quite a bit back between that and my Paypal debit card (which pays me 1% cash back).
2) Essential Oils
I love my essential oils. They have literally changed my life, but the FDA doesn’t allow me to talk about them online. Boooo! I literally can’t even say the name of the company I’m with! BUT, what I can tell you is that they ROCK. I get ALL my oils and products for FREE from my brand of choice and I earn a nice commission every single month as residual income for doing nothing more than being with them for about 5 years and setting up a solid team a long time ago. Now, I sit back and watch the money go into my account each month with total freedom to never have to sell another product again!
3) Coaching
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE coaching other people. The amazing feats that I see my clients reach after only a short month is so amazing to me.
One of my favorite clients was making $2,000/month before my coaching and within 60 days after my coaching, was consistently bringing in $6,000/month! It brings me SO much joy seeing those kinds of results and getting to know other bloggers. And God is good to me, so why SHOULDN’T I pass that on?
It’s a pretty hopping business and I love every minute of it.
4) Blogging
Of course, my absolute passion is blogging. I love it so much and I’m so blessed that I have such a great “job.” The biggest reward for me in blogging is getting to hang out with all of you guys all day long. I’m so lucky!!!! I get to stay home with my kids and now that they are older, it’s so much easier to get my work done. I can create more books, more newsletter freebies, free printables, etc. All the stuff I wanted to do before on my blog, but didn’t have the time because my kids were younger.
But don’t think they are not just as much a part of this as I am. My daughter is 10 and she helps me with titles, because, yes, I stink at titles. I don’t know how she does it! I’ll sit there for an hour and not come up with one good title and within 2 minutes, she’s got a killer title! To encourage her, I pay her to help me. 🙂 It works out great for everyone.
5) Sold something
I sold a wooden garage shelf on Craigslist. I honestly thought I wouldn’t get more than $20 for it, but I ended up getting $120, thanks to a friend of mine for promoting it! I also have a few other large items on there, so hopefully they will sell soon as well, as they are just taking up space in the garage.
If you’re looking to make money, Craigslist and local Facebook groups for your city are a great place to start.
You can sell just about anything on there. Just be sure to meet somewhere public for safety reasons.
6) I worked as a VA (virtual assistant)
It’s something that I rarely ever do, but sometimes in order to meet a certain number in income, I’ll do roundups. I get about $22-$30 per roundup that I create and it takes about 1 hour from start to finish to create them. I created 6 of them (when I work in batches like that, it only takes about 30 minutes per roundup) and made about $140. It turned out to be about $46/hour. Can’t make that much at any job offline, that’s for sure!
I wrote an entire book about how to make money as a virtual assistant. The information is available in the Honest Bloggers Academy.
7) I sold books and printables
I have books and printables for sale in my ecommerce Shopify store and they make me money every month…good money. Anyone can do this. Simply write a book (or create a printable), make a pretty cover and put it on Amazon or in your store (I recommend Shopify). Start promoting it and BAM, you’re selling books as an author! Obviously, there’s a little more that goes into that, such as writing it, picking a title, and so on.
Here’s how I come up with what to write about:
After you’ve been blogging for a while, you will start to know what topics do well for your site and what your audience wants to know from you. If I’m writing a post, and it starts getting into the 4,000 word count, I immediately consider it for an book. Not everyone should do this. There are different marketing plans/ideas for everyone, but this is my personal strategy. I then begin to think about if it’s valuable enough that someone would pay a few dollars to get the information. If I feel they would, and if after I’ve prayed about it, it seems like a great idea, I go for it.
Another great idea is to turn a series on your blog into an book. Because they are so long and can easily be formatted into an book, it seems wise to me. When I first heard this idea, I honestly had a huge problem with it. But someone mentioned to me that a lot of people want the convenience of having a huge series in an book form on their phones or ipads, so they can read while on-the-go without downloading ads and other things that a website offers. A couple bucks is worth it to them and getting your information into as many hands as you can is helping more people, and in my opinion, that’s what it’s all about…helping as many people as I possibly can.
Another way I create books, is by what my readers want. If a lot of them are asking for a particular thing, then I know it’s going to be popular and instead of writing a 2,000 word post, why not write a 4,000-6,000 word book on it instead and really go a lot deeper into the content, answering every question they possibly could have.
Again, it’s up to each individual person, but that’s how I personally decide what to create books about.
