4 Surprising Ways To Make Extra Money From Home
Do you ever think your work life is like the movie Ground Hog Day? You take the same route to work every day. Stop at the same store and buy the same cup of coffee. And you park in the same parking space.
And when you get to the office you do the same job, submit the same reports, have the same meetings and eat the same lunch.
I won’t even go into the ride home from work but I think you catch my drift.
But anyway…
The Gallup poll released their 2017 State of American Workplace report and it showed that only 59% of employees were engaged at work. That means a whopping 41% of employees are unhappy or bored with their job.
Stephen King also referred to this “Ground Hog Day” affect in his book Dreamcatchers as ‘SSDD’, which stands for “same sh*t, different day.”
Well, the same can be true when you work from home. Just like a ‘regular’ job, doing the same thing day after day can become boring. And the next thing you know you’re unhappy and in the same rut as someone who works a ‘regular’ job.
But then again, sometimes you need a break from the norm. Trust me, I get it. After working in sales most of my corporate America career, I was looking for something different for my new work-from-home life.
So when I started research all the ways to make money from home, I was excited about all the opportunities there were. That was back in 2008. Now there are even more ways to make extra money from home.
There’s the norm like at-home customer service and tech support jobs. And then there are out of the box ideas like the ones I’m about to share with you here.
How To Make Extra Money From Home
If you’re tired of the same ole work-from-home jobs, here are some out of the box ways to make extra money from home.
Serve On A Virtual Jury
Forget about driving downtown, dealing with traffic and trying to find a parking garage close enough to the courthouse. Now you can get paid to serve on a virtual jury.
It works just like a ‘normal’ jury. An attorney gives you the details of a case and then you provide your verdict.
You have to be at least 18 years old, a United States citizen and never have been convicted of a felony to qualify as a virtual juror.
Depending on who you sign up with, you can make anywhere from $5 to $125 per case.
Here is a list of sites to find paid virtual jury gigs.
Jury Test
Online Verdict
Become A Freelance Researcher
As a freelance researcher for AskWonder, you’re like a human search engine. And as a Wonder researcher, you’re assigned questions that you have to submit answers to in the form of a well-written write up.
This opportunity is especially great for stay-at-home moms and people with a disability. For moms, you can set your own hours to work around the kid’s schedule. And you control how much you earn so that it doesn’t affect disability benefits.
Active Wonder researchers make $8 to $16 per question and can earn about $2,000 a month.
Click here to learn more about becoming a researcher for AskWonder.
Mystery Shopper
Now for businesses, it’s all about giving their customer a first-class customer experience. And one of the ways most restaurants and retail stores monitor employees is by sending mystery shoppers to evaluate their customer experience.
A mystery shopper rates the entire ‘process’ for lack of a better word. For instance, let’s say they go into a fast-food restaurant. Mystery shoppers will also rate how he/she was greeted, if the employee was friendly, did they get the order right, offer you a dessert, give you a receipt and thanked you.
And they really do use the feedback. When my daughter worked at Raising Cane’s she had a couple reviews and one of them was below expectations. She told me her manager went over the feedback with her.
My daughter recalled the incident and it turned out the customer was upset because she had to wait for her order due to an issue in the kitchen.
So although she was at the drive-thru window, she still got dinged for waiting too long.
Anyway, back to making money as a Mystery Shopper. For more information about mystery shopping and where to find gigs, read Mystery Shopping 101: Why This Job Really Is a Big Deal.
Get Paid To Work Out
Now we’re at the last out of the box ways to make money from home.
I am no fan of exercise but if you show me the money I will do crunches and squats ‘til the cows come home! LOL.
If you’re all about health and fitness, motivated by money – and who isn’t, this could be a win-win situation.
You can make extra money doing things like using smartphone apps, as a personal trainer or fitness blogger. You can even go further out of the box and become a direct sales consultant in the fitness niche.
Sounds good, right? If you want to know more, Holly of The Work at Home Woman wrote a guest post about it called 5 Ways to Get Paid For Working Out and she laid out all the details!
And There You Have It
Those are just some of the out of the box ways to make extra money from home. For more side hustle ideas like these check out my post 50+ Ways to Make Extra Money.
I would appreciate it if you would share this post on social media to let other people know about these unique money making opportunities. Thanks!
