25 Proven Ways To Make $1,000+ A Month Online You Can Start Today

What would being able to make $1,000 a month online mean to you?

Maybe it would help you:

• Cover the rent
• Leave your job and spend more time with your family
• Pay off your debt quicker
• Save more and invest for the future
• Be able to travel more

Being able to make $1,000+ a month online can have a huge impact on your life. But most people believe it’s just a pipe dream that only people with “special skills” can achieve.

In fact, it’s much more achievable than you may think.

This article will show you 25 proven ways that real people use to make $1,000+ a month online.

They are just normal people like you and me, and they have all been on the Make Time Online podcast at some stage to share how they do it.

Feel free to play the podcast below to hear more about their stories and then skim your way through the article or read every word to see if you get any inspiration!

Just so you know, most of them had no idea how to do this about 5 years ago (some even much more recent!)

Can I Make $1,000 A Month Online From Home?

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You probably saw the title to this article and immediately imagined…

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In reality, this simply won’t happen any time soon. All of these methods of making money online took these people time and effort to learn.

However, none of these people are born geniuses or lucky because they were “rich and famous”.

As it turns out, almost anyone can make money online.

We’re just not taught about this in school.

If you can read and write it’s actually possible to make any amount of money online if you learn from the right source and put enough time into it. As you continue to read this article on ways to make $1,000 a month online, you will see exactly how.

Make Money Online Benefits

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You probably know there are loads of benefits to making money online.

Here are some of them:

• Your earnings are unlimited (you can scale your earnings online much easier than in a physical business)
• It gives you the potential to quit your job (and make time form working online!)
• Provides flexibility (work any time you like)
• Allows you to work anywhere in the world
• Reduces expenses (it can become a hobby to replace other expensive hobbies such as shopping)
• You can start earning money online part-time (no need to quit the day job to start)

The benefits are endless especially if you make money online in a way that can scale and is passive income.

Now, I can almost hear your mind asking…

Is Making Money Online Easy?

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Yes and no.

Yes in the sense that you can literally sign up to online paid survey sites right now. By clicking that link you can get paid bonuses just for signing up and then earn more money by filling out some surveys.

They are all completely free to join too (if a survey site is not free to join it’s likely a scam!)

However, if you are looking to make passive income online it will take longer than some people will tell you.

Are the skills hard or difficult to do?

No.

Does it take time to learn the skills you need and set things up to make it passive income?

Yes.

What Is Passive Income Online?

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The definition of passive income can change depending on who you ask.

The definition of passive income online here is:

Put the work in once and get paid over and over again for it. It also requires a little effort to maintain it.

The best example I can give for it is…

If someone tells you it’s possible to make passive income by clicking a button and watching the money roll in… it’s a scam.

If they say you can just do the work once and you’ll make money from it forever… they are lying.

It is possible to make passive income online, but it’s important to be aware of what this means in reality.

Therefore, this post explaining ways to make $1,000+ a month online is different to many others that you will find…

Make $1,000 A Month Online Ratings

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There are so many ways to make money online but they are not all equal.

The rest of this article will show you numerous ways that everyday people are making $1,000+ month.

But it will also provide a ranking for 5 different areas so that you can quickly see what approach suits you.

Each rating is a score of 1-5 with 1 being the lowest or easiest and 5 being the hardest or highest.

Difficulty

The difficulty rating just means how difficult it would be for you to start making some good money from the make money idea.

It takes into account the time you would need to put in and the skill level required.

A score of 1 means you could start making money very quickly and easily.

A score of 5 means it would likely take you some time to make money from the idea as you would need to learn some more skills on the way.

Skill Level Required

This is the rating that may put you off.

However, none of the skills needed in this article is rocket science.

Every real example you will see from someone making money in that way has learnt the skill either by themself (aka Google or YouTube) or finding a mentor or low-cost course.

They have simply invested in themselves.

A score of 5 means you need to have some very specific skills to make money from the idea. But often this means there is more opportunity as fewer people will attempt this.

Initial Investment

This is pretty obvious.

A score of 1 means you need no money to start. A score of 5 means you will definitely need money to try this idea.

*A score of 2 means you need very little money but some people may argue you don’t need any money to start!

Income Potential

Again another straight forward one.

A score of 1 means you are unlikely to make much money from this. A score of 5 means the income potential is unlimited (seriously… I mean unlimited).

Passive Income

We’ve already discussed the definition of passive income.

So if the score is 1 it means you will have to continue to trade your time for money to make money from the opportunity.

A score of 5 means it’s possible for you to put in very minimal effort and time to keep making money.

*Some ideas are possible to “systemise” or hire other people (aka freelancers) to make it more hands-off.

How Make Time Online Podcast Guests Make Money Online

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As stated earlier in this article, every single one of these ideas has been implemented and spoken about on the Make Time Online podcast.

No one is an astronaut or super genius.

They are all completely normal people who have figured out to do this by themselves.

The make $1,000+ a month online opportunities are split into different sections to allow you to check out the ones you are interested in.

Enjoy!

Online Business Ideas

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These are online business ideas that you can start from home.

Some of them may seem similar but there is actually quite a big difference between some of these ideas.

Just knowing what business you are actually trying to build can be the difference between success and failure.

1. Start a Blog

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Yes, a money-making blog is a business!

The term “blog” still seems to have this negative connotation to it (like the word “vegan”!)

People typically imagine some young lady who writes about what she had for dinner yesterday and how she’s feeling.

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Whereas, in fact, a blog is basically any website that you have ever looked at.

A blog is simply a website that someone (or some people) writes articles (or posts) on.

It’s become one of the most common ways for people to make money online as there is no real limit to what you can earn from a blog…

And anyone can start one!

Hearing about these blogs was what opened my eyes to money-making opportunities online.

Positives:

• You can start a topic on something that interests you aka passion project i.e. write about being a Mom or a yogi or travel etc.
• Very little technical skills or investment required to get started
• Monetise the blog in numerous ways to create multiple streams of income i.e. affiliate marketing, display ads, selling products

Negatives:

• Takes several months (at least) before you make any significant money
• Easy to get distracted or not have a focus (shiny objects)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 4 out of 5

2. Affiliate Marketing

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This is actually how I started making money online.

The concept is pretty simple.

You connect people to a product that they are already looking for.

If someone clicks your link and buys the product, you will get paid a commission.

And commissions range from anything between 4%-90% (I actually promote a course that is super cheap & great and it pays me 80% commission!)

There are heaps of ways to use affiliate marketing, but the best way to scale a passive income is also by using a website (aka blog).

Positives:

• No need to spend time creating your own products.
• Possible to make money from affiliate links quickly using social media platforms (i.e. you could join Amazon Associates right now and recommend your favourite book on Facebook… if someone buys through your link, you’ve just made money online!)
• Possible to scale the business for unlimited income (we’re getting to this…)

Negatives:

• There are certain skills you will need to learn to make a good income from it (i.e. SEO, copywriting etc.)
• It will take time to build passive income

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

3. Niche Blogging- SEO Focus

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This is a very interesting make money online idea and one that you are taught about in my #1 recommendation.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation.

It basically means trying to get your website ranked on Google’s first page for certain keywords.

A keyword is a word or phrase that someone types into Google.

And some keywords get searched for a lot more than others, for example:

“Gardening tools” gets more searches than “gardening in winter”.

The idea behind it is to choose a very specific niche to write about i.e. gardening tools.

You then would write specific articles (like this one you’re reading about how to make $1,000 a month online).

For example, you may use a keyword such as:

“Best Gardening Tools For Weeding”

or

“How to Use a Garden Hoe”

By ranking on the first page of Google you will consistently get “traffic” to your website every month. You do not need to pay any money or advertise your website to get this traffic… people visit your website every month… for free!

You can monetise this site with affiliate links or by placing display ads on the website.

Positives:

• Once you rank for keywords on Google it can become very passive
• It can be very low cost to get started (around $85/ year for website hosting & a domain name is all you really need)

Negatives:

• It takes quite a few months for a new website to start to be recognised by Google
• It can feel like you’re not getting anywhere and many people give up before they see success

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

4. Viral Blogging- Using Pinterest & Ads

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Many people will use Pinterest as a way to promote (aka market) their blog.

However, there are actually some people that set up their blog specifically for Pinterest.

Are you wondering what the hecky mo I mean?

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Well, Pinterest is still mainly used by women with a median age of 40.

So if you are pinning about quad bikes do you think you’ll get heaps of traffic from there? Of course not! You may be able to get some traffic, but nowhere near as much as other niches.

The niches that typically do VERY well on Pinterest:

• Home decor
• Recipes
• DIY crafts
• Women’s fashion

So if you create a blog focussing on any or all of these topics, you are going to be reaching a much larger audience.

It doesn’t end there either.

There are 2 types of articles that people LOVE to read and save on Pinterest:

• How to (or ultimate guides)
• List posts (this is a list post… 25 ways to make $1,000+ a month online)

So some people deliberately set up their blog to focus on creating articles on one of the 4 big topics above and only write “how-to” or list post articles.

This means they end up getting a lot of traffic… quickly!

Once this happens…

All the blogs need to do is place some high-quality ads on there and wallah… they make $1,000+ a month online very quickly (a few months).

Here’s the kicker about Pinterest compared to Google (or SEO)…

Pinterest doesn’t care how old your website is or how many people link to it. All they care about is if people save and click on your pins.

The other great thing is that Pinterest has its own “SEO traffic” too because…

Pinterest is technically two types of platforms:

1. A social media platform
2. A search engine

At the top of Pinterest, there is a search bar that people type “keywords” to find something they are looking for.

Note that pins that rank in the top 60 get eyes on them every single month! Google is really only the top 10 or so.

Positives:

• Can be very quick to get traffic to your website
• Once you get over 25,000 monthly sessions to your website you can use Mediavine ad network, which pays much better than other display ads such as Google Adsense.
• You can also hire writers to continue writing under your name (ghostwriter) to make this method more passive

Negatives:

• Writing long “list posts” can be time-consuming
• Pinterest can be fickle and your traffic can come and go for no apparent reason
• There is a learning curve to using Pinterest (creating “pins” to boards & scheduling them)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 4 out of 5

5. Contributor Blogs

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I’d actually never heard of this one before I spoke to this guest on the podcast.

The idea behind this one is that you use a website that already gets some traffic each month. It could from Google or other social media channels, that doesn’t matter too much.

You can start this in a couple of ways:

1. Buy an existing domain with traffic
2. Start a new blog yourself and build the traffic up

Once you have a website generating 10,000+ page-views a month other people are more willing to “guest post” or “contribute” on your website as it helps them gain exposure.

This way you can keep producing content and generating traffic to your website without writing anything yourself.

The issue here is that you will need a network of “bloggers” looking to get exposure to their own blogs willing to write for you. If you are brand new to blogging this may not be the best idea.

But then again you can network with other bloggers quickly in Facebook groups and slowly add the contributors over time.

Positives:

• Very little work to maintain once you have contributors for your blog
• There’s no limit to how much you can scale this

Negatives:

• It will require networking and connecting with appropriate bloggers
• The bloggers are likely to be quite new so the content may not be the best. You will need to sort the wheat from the chaff!

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

6. Creating and Selling Courses

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This is the way that bloggers tend to go from making a few thousand dollars a month to making 5 or even 6 figures a month.

Yeah seriously, there are plenty of “normal people” making 6 figures a month from their online business.

Just think about this…

Imagine you make 50% affiliate commission from a $25 e-book about how to use Pinterest. So you make $12.50 each time someone buys the course through your affiliate link.

Let’s say you were making a consistent 100 sales a month due to getting traffic to a certain article about how to use Pinterest for bloggers.

Now, if you create your own (better) online Pinterest course, you could charge $65 and keep all the profits.

Your income jumps to $6,500 a month instead of $1,250!

Now imagine that you create a course or product that you can sell for $500+… or create multiple courses…

However, it doesn’t mean you have to create a huge or really expensive course to start making money in this way.

Example of smaller courses

You may know how to knit a jumper and there may be other people who would love to learn that.

If you could create a short e-book or an online course on a platform like teachable then you could make money from selling that course.

It certainly helps if you have a blog (aka website) to help promote the course but some people use social media platforms to promote it for free.

A great tip is to build an audience either with an email list, on social media or on your blog. Once you have an audience you can ask them what their struggles are and create a course that suits them. This way you won’t spend ages creating a course that nobody wants!

Positives:

• You are more in control of how much money you make
• It’s possible to create multiple courses or improve your course as you go
• You can automate the sales by offering other people a chance to become an affiliate and using sales/ email funnels

Negatives:

• You have to do the work to make sure people buy it
• It takes time to create the courses

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 5 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

7. Affiliate Marketing Business Using Paid Ads

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Some people are really just not interested in writing or creating a blog.

I get it!

I used to be one of them.

It seemed like too much effort for too little reward…

That was until I truly understood the value of a blog to help get free traffic from Google or social media channels.

However, the good news is that it’s possible to create income from affiliate marketing without owning a blog.

There are free methods that you can do this using social media channels. But that requires a lot of elbow grease from you. You will typically need to manually message people and the conversion rates are pretty poor with this method because of the lack of trust!

So this leads onto the paid ads method.

You can pay for ads on Google, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram and almost any platform that exists now.

How paid ads work:

1. The platform loves it because you pay them money
2. You love it because you get targetted traffic
3. The audience loves it because they find products that they are looking for.

If you can make more money from affiliate commissions than it costs you to place an advert on one of these platforms, then you can imagine how quickly you can grow this!

There are real people out there who use this method to generate an insane amount of money online every month like clockwork.

But it is easier said than done.

These ads are becoming super competitive and if your ad doesn’t grab attention and make people want to find out more, then you can burn through money like there’s no tomorrow!

Positives:

• You can make money very quickly
• It’s possible to scale your income to frightening levels if you can find affiliate programs with good conversion rates & write great ad copy

Negatives:

• It’s possible to lose a lot of money very quickly if you don’t figure out how to get people to click on your ads (many people chase lost money here)
• When you stop buying ads your income stops (it is possible to set up a long-standing advert or hire someone else to do it for you though)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 4 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

8. Podcasting

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So as you can tell I also have a podcast (there is a podcast at the top of the page for this article in case you missed it).

However, my podcast was never designed to make money. I, personally, just wanted to share what I was learning about making money online and have some really cool chats with people that are living life on their own terms.

Benefits of having a podcast:

• Learning from experts in your industry
• Creating a personal brand or branding your business
• Getting some cool freebies from guests or sponsors (I’ve had some amazing courses from mine)
• Save time- send people to a podcast episode rather than constantly repeating yourself if someone asks you a question (you still help them get the answer and you don’t need to spend ages writing a long message back!)

But it’s also possible to make money from a podcast. Even if you think you’re a nobody!

Podcasts can have paid sponsors in exchange for you mentioning them during your podcast.

It’s possible to find a small business or a “solopreneur” (possibly a blog owner) who wants to get their brand out there. People are willing to pay $100+ per episode, so if you make 2 episodes a week it’s easily possible to make $1,000 a month online.

People like John Lee Dumas get paid tens of thousands of dollars a month from his podcast.

However, when you are just starting you can offer small businesses something like:

• I’ll mention your company 2 times per episode
• I will promote your company on my Twitter account with X followers, my Facebook group with X followers etc.
• I will send weekly emails to my highly engaged list of X number with promoting your company

This is amazing exposure for small businesses and many are willing to pay you good money for it!

Positives:

• Podcasts can be really fun… you get to talk about a topic that you are passionate about
• You can network with some amazing people who you normally wouldn’t be able to speak to
• You can start right now, it takes hardly any special equipment or software to start one (see below)

Negatives:

• It’s not really passive income as you have to keep creating podcasts to keep the money coming in (although you can outsource it to someone else eventually… but that kind of defeats the point!)
• Connecting with people on the other side of the world in different time zones can be challenging sometimes (but I manage it on a weekly basis!)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

9. MLM/ Network Marketing

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Multi-Level-Marketing or Network Marketing is a type of business where “consultants” (also known as influencers/ recruiters etc.) get paid commission for selling a companies products.

This is a similar way as affiliate marketing but there is one difference…

They also get paid for recruiting more members to the program.

Sometimes this will be a direct commission for recruiting members, and usually, they will get commissions from sales their “downline” make.

This means they could be doing anything they want and their team could be making all the sales.

In reality, it doesn’t always work like that.

There are many stats that show the vast majority of people don’t make good money from MLM programs i.e. 99% of MLM recruits lose money.

But equally, there are people who take it very seriously and live an amazing lifestyle and enjoy the perks of the business.

MLM Benefits:

• Free travel
• Fancy cars
• Personal development training

Some MLM companies still focus on outdated and poorly scaled techniques such as “home parties” where a recruit may invite people over to show off the products and explain the business opportunity.

But the most successful consultants will always leverage the power of the internet to work 24/7/365. It may be on social media or building their own website.

If you are considering starting an MLM company see if you can find one which ticks these boxes:

• Low start-up fee – ✅
• High-quality products – ✅
• You don’t have to carry inventory – ✅
• Generous compensation plan – ✅
• An affiliate-like system (so you can sell online) – ✅
• Company is in the early momentum phase – ✅

Also, be aware that some MLM companies are just pyramid schemes in disguise. They may offer a “product or service” but really the ONLY way you will get paid decent money is by recruiting more members into the MLM program.

Check out this 5-minute video to see how to avoid a pyramid scheme…

Positives:

• Often includes excellent benefits and bonuses i.e. fancy cars, luxury travel and lucrative bonuses
• If you build a good “downline” you can make passive income

Negatives:

• In reality, when you stop working on the business it will stop making you money unless you get to a very high level
• It is very competitive and often involves “selling” the company to your friends and family to try and get some more recruits
• You need to have excellent people skills and be able to sell the products and vision to others

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 5 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

Sell Things Online

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Nearly all of the business opportunities above also include selling things online.

The majority of them are digital products that could be their own product or someone else’s, but every make-money opportunity involves selling something.

This section covers the opportunities for selling physical products online.

10. Dropshipping

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This has become a super popular way to make money online in recent years.

First of all, let’s define a common misunderstanding of the difference between dropshipping and Amazon FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon):

• Dropshipping is when you act as the middle man between suppliers and customers. Therefore you don’t have to own or store any stock.
• Amazon FBA is when you invest and store merchandise in an Amazon warehouse before being sold.

Here are the basic steps to getting a dropshipping business up and running:

1. Select a niche
2. Perform competition research
3. Find a supplier
4. Build an eCommerce website (Shopify is the most popular one, it costs from $29-$299 a month)
5. Acquire customers (i.e. using Facebook ads or other social media)
6. Analyse and optimise it

Whilst it is actually possible to start dropshipping without any monetary investment (you can use sites like eBay for your supplier’s products), the most success happens when you own your own store and send customers to it.

Ways To Get Free Traffic:

• Using social media/ connect with influencers
• Guest posting on relevant blogs
• Focusing on building an email list (MailChimp and MailerLite are free)

However, dropshipping can’t rely on SEO or long term free traffic methods because you won’t be writing articles using keywords like you will on a blog (aka website).

Therefore, you will also need a budget to invest in Facebook or Google ads to send potential customers to your store.

Similarly to the Affiliate Marketing with ads business model, the potential is unlimited and you can make a lot of money very quickly.

If you can create an ad that generates more profit compared to how much the ad costs then your income is unlimited.

However, that is easier said than done and you are likely to lose a fair bit of money early on if you’re brand new to creating ads. Some people give up before they find a successful campaign whilst others are aware of the risk and manage to break through to become profitable.

Positives:

• No need to store inventory and you don’t need to write long articles or create products
• Possible to make a lot of money very quickly if you can create a profitable ad campaign

Negatives:

• If you stop working and creating ads then you will stop making money
• It’s possible to lose a lot of money by chasing lost money on ads
• You will likely need to invest in some training as creating ads and dropshipping requires specific skills (i.e. copywriting and marketing)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

11. Sell Things on eBay

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This one’s a great one!

Something that I have again personally done in the past and it’s great to make a bit of pocket money from some random junk you have in the house.

However, there are actually more business savvy methods you can take with this one:

• Dropshipping (as just explained in #10)
• “Flea Market Flipping” (buying things for cheap and selling them on)

I won’t go into dropshipping model again but it’s possible to buy things from suppliers for wholesale value and sell them at retail value with this method.

The same principle applies for “flea market flipping”.

The idea is that you buy things (or find things) for cheap or even free.

Then you can put them on eBay and make a healthy profit.

Here’s the eBay secret sauce:

1. Buy things locally
2. Sell them worldwide

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying…

One man’s junk is another mans treasure

It’s possible to find amazing deals all over the place if you train your mind to find them. Here are some ideas:

• Flea market sales
• The dump/ tip
• Big dumpsters in retail areas
• The side of the road (no kidding!)
• Lettings/ real estate agents (who deal with tenants moving out and leaving stuff behind)
• Moving companies

It’s possible to get a great contact who comes across stuff left behind all over the place. It’s often a huge problem for them to dispose of it, so that leaves you with an opportunity to pick up things for free or dirt cheap and sell them on.

You may think it’s hard to sell certain items but when you put it on a worldwide stage such as eBay, you will be surprised.

Positives:

• No money is required to start (you likely have hundreds of dollars worth of items in your house that you don’t use and you can find things at the dump for free!)
• Once you make a profit you can reinvest that and buy better items that can sell for more (it’s possible to make a lot more than you think as you’re about to find out…)

Negatives:

• It takes some hard work and hustle to find these opportunities
• It’s not the most passive income (although you can outsource tasks, such as finding the items at flea markets or uploading them to eBay etc.)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

12. Buy & Sell Cars (Or Other Vehicles)

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No matter where you live in the world, chances are… people buy and sell cars there all the time!

Just Google “buy a car” and you will find numerous websites that you can buy and sell cars where you live.

The idea is again pretty simple:

• Buy cars at a discount
• Sell them for more

You can even add a step in the middle if you know a thing or two about cars i.e. fix the car up or make it better.

It doesn’t have to be cars though!

Other types of vehicles to “flip”

“Van Life” has become all the rage!

People are realising they can live for a fraction of the price in a van and have the freedom and time to travel wherever they like. This isn’t even grown-up students just out of college. It includes “mid-life crisis’s” and newly pensioners!

If you can learn how to convert vans into a campervan, you can earn some serious money from this.

You can even target specialised vehicles such as VW campervans, which hold their value really well.

Certain cars do hold their value well so it’s even possible to buy a car for yourself and sell it a couple of years later to make a profit (effectively giving you a free car!) Typically, Japanese models that are about 3-5 years old tend to do well for this.

By using these tips it’s possible to make $1,000+ a month online by selling a couple of used cars per month… or fixing up one van every 3 months or so!

Positives:

• You can make a quick profit if you can find a good deal on a car.
• It can be a fun hobby to do during your spare time (i.e. converting vans into campervans is some people’s idea of fun… I’m one of them!)

Negatives:

• It’s never really passive income unless you turn this into a business and employ other people
• You can only make as much money as you can physically buy and sell… so it’s hard to scale the profits

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 4 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

Online Jobs From Home

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Some people just don’t want to create an “online business”.

Maybe you just want to make an extra $1,000 a month online by working for someone else. It may be that you don’t want the stress of having to build something yourself or continue to grow it (aka water the plant) over time.

If that is you, then chances are one of these online jobs from home may be perfect for you.

There are normal people all around the world that generate an income every month with one of these jobs.

13. Virtual Assistant

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This is possibly the easiest and quickest way for anyone to start to make $1,000 a month online.

Did you know there are tens of thousands of people who are looking for someone to help manage some smaller tasks for them every day?

These tasks may include (but are not limited to):

• Email management
• Book appointments with clients
• Following up with customers or clients
• Answering calls
• Calander management
• Managing social media accounts
• Organising files or documents
• Research
• Personal errands (booking holidays/ flights)
• Transcribing
• Networking

It is becoming increasingly popular for “solopreneurs” to build a business (an entrepreneur who builds a business by themself… often online) online these days.

And oftentimes eventually they need help!

If this sounds like something you’re interested in doing then here are a few…

Ways to find a Virtual Assitant job:

• Fiverr (or other sites like Upwork, Freelancer etc.) – not the best
• Job boards such as ProBlogger – better
• Network on social media (active Facebook groups are great for this) – recommended

Without a doubt, the best way to land one of these gigs is to get to know the person first.

STOP.

Re-read that last sentence.

You can do that by following these steps:

1. Find out where they hang out (is it Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, a forum or somewhere else)
2. Interact with what they do (comment and share a blog post or social media post and join their email list and REPLY!)
3. Join communities that they are in and be helpful to people (share your knowledge, opinions and be honest)
4. Find an area you can see they need help in (i.e. if they have a growing Facebook group, can you help to manage that? Do they take a few days to reply to emails or even fail to do so?… you could help here! Do their blog posts need a spell check? Does their Instagram account suck?)

But whatever you do don’t become a stalker, like…

via GIPHY

When you use those 4 steps you are much more likely to work with clients that you want to… and you’re much more likely to get paid the amount you deserve!

Here are a few great tips from Drew DuBoff to get the best package:

• Work out how long you think you will need to spend on the tasks at hand
• If it’s your first one work on a $25 an hour basis
• Work out how much that costs per month and aim to get that rate i.e. 40 hours a month (aka 10 hours a week) = $1,000 a month
• Always aim for a “retainer package”… aka $1,000 per month to do X, Y and Z (not $13.49 an hour to check some emails)

You may need to try it out with your first gig and be a bit more flexible but it’s a great way to start making money online.

Positives:

• You can make $1,000+ a month online quickly
• You can use skills that you already have i.e. email management, Facebook group management, Instagram posting, Organising a calendar, research skills etc.

Negatives:

• It is not passive income (although it is possible to turn it into a business and employ others to smaller jobs for you!)
• Like a traditional job, there’s a limit to how much time you can give to other people aka a limit to how much you can earn

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 1 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

14. Freelancing

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This is similar to Virtual Assitant work.

But it typically involves providing some sort of specific work for your client i.e. Pinterest account management, writing blog posts, proofreading blog posts, researching blog posts, editing podcasts etc.

The 4 steps in the VA section apply again here.

The thing you likely have to offer compared to cheaper VA’s or freelancers from sites such as onlinejobs.ph is your English skills and your ability to connect with the clients.

Just speaking from personal experience, I am much more likely to hire someone who I already know.

If it’s a toss-up between a random profile on the internet or a real person I’ve messaged before I know who I will choose.

Here are some more tips to help you land some freelance work:

• Use your own website to showcase your skills (have a “hire me” page on the menu bar, add any previous examples to prove authority)
• Guest post for free if you are trying to get a writing Freelance gig (simply write “your niche + guest post” into Google to find opportunities… simple eh?)
• Connect with other Freelancers (use Facebook groups and ask on social media if anyone is a freelancer)
• Ask existing contacts if they know anyone that could use your services… and explain what your services include (sometimes they may even need them!)

There are 5 different ways you can get paid as a freelancer:

• By the project, or flat rate
• By the hour
• How many words you write
• By the page
• Retainer fee, for ongoing work (the golden ticket!)

They all work for different people but the ideal one is if you can land a retainer fee for ongoing work.

Whichever rate you (or your client) choose, try to make sure you are aiming for around $25+ an hour still.

For example, if it takes you 3 hours to write a 1,000-word article and the client wants to pay you by the amount of word you write. You know you can accept that project if they pay:

$75 divided by 1,000 = $0.08 per word (that would be $80 for 3 hours work!)

The more skilled you get the more money you can demand (once you gain the confidence, you will no longer ask!)

Positives:

• Can be a consistent income stream & you can start earning quickly
• Possible to charge higher rates over time & no investment is needed

Negatives:

• You still trade your time for money
• Can be hard to find good opportunities

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 3 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 2 out of 5

Work Online For Money

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15. Running Ad Campaigns

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Put your hand up if you know someone that owns a business.

Keep your hand up if you think they would like more customers that are already interested in what their business offers.

If you’re like me you have both hands in the air right now (it makes it really hard to type!)

via GIPHY

These businesses would LOVE to pay someone to send targeted clients and customers their way.

The big word there is targeted.

How to get targeted clients

If you run an advert on Facebook and Google and get 100,000 die-hard American football fans to click on a ballet workshop, how many do you think will purchase the workshop?

Yeah… roughly exactly diddly squat!

But what if you sent 100 parents of ballet enthusiasts who have signed posters of Misty Copeland in their bedroom? I have no idea who Misty is either… I just Googled famous ballet dancers!

Yeah… the company would make a lot of sales!

Here’s the truth:

Google, Facebook, Instagram and all online algorithms are becoming so smart that they send targetted ads to people who are looking for them.

Seriously, just think about the types of ads you see on YouTube or Facebook. Are you kind of interested in them?

Of course you are!

You can make your ads super-specific including:

• Age
• Gender
• Where they live
• Language they speak
• Interests
• Behaviours

If you can learn how to create ads on these platforms that get clicked by targeted audiences then a lot of people would love to pay you for this skill.

Positives:

• You can make a lot of money from making good ads
• It’s also a skill you can transfer and use in your own business or help you to set up a profitable blog (i.e. send traffic to your sales pages, affiliate marketing programs etc.)

Negatives:

• It is not a passive income stream as you are trading your time for money
• Creating successful ads is much harder now (people are more aware of them) and you will need to keep learning the skill as it can be different on each platform

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

16. Writing White Papers

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So a white paper is kind of a cross between a magazine article and a corporate brochure.

It is supposed to help readers solve a problem, understand an issue or make a decision. Here’s an example.

Basically, it should educate and sell.

This is why clients are willing to pay $3,000+ for a 6-14 page white paper.

Just like any skill in life the more you practice writing these the quicker you will become.

Chances are you have been to school.

If you are lucky enough to have done so, you have probably been taught the exact skills needed for writing white papers:

1. Research
2. Writing

Typically you will find the best opportunities from business-to-business companies.

These companies will often have complicated offerings and they want to convince another business to buy their product or service.

This is an area where you may find it hard to get into if you don’t have experience in a particular industry. They can be complex and will often only want to hire people who have a good understanding of it.

But here are some tips to find an opportunity to write white papers:

• Ask existing clients or contacts– explain what a whitepaper is if they don’t know and show them how it can help them
• Look out for companies that write brochures or articles written online and explain how a whitepaper can be better for them
• Offer to write one for a fraction of the normal price (or even free) to get started and build a portfolio (this is one of Grant Sabatier’s top tips for side hustles)

Once you have done one or two it’s much easier to show other businesses what you can do… ideally with their results (everyone likes results… aka how much money you will make them)

Another top Sabatier tip- try to find clients in the same industry so you build on your knowledge after each white paper

Positives:

• You can make a lot of money from a considerably low word count
• It becomes easier to do with practice

Negatives:

• You are trading your time for money
• It can be hard to get started

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

17. Survey Sites

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*Disclaimer- You will not be able to make $1,000 a month online from this method!*

Maybe the title should be 24 ways to make $1,000+ a month online and one way to make a few hundred dollars (but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it).

Yet some people will try to claim you can earn 4 figures a month from surveys. But they will almost definitely be about to scam you or are just lying!

It is possible to earn $200+ a month online from survey sites though.

It’s not easy to make a lot of money from them but here are the…

Top tips to make surveys worth your while:

1. Create a separate email address so you only get survey emails in there
2. Sign up to as many legit survey sites as possible as they don’t all send surveys out every day
3. Always be honest (it can get confusing keeping up any white lies)
4. Create a habit and complete surveys you are accepted onto at the same time every day i.e. after your breakfast, during your lunch break or my favourite… when you first get to work… cheeky monkey!
5. Avoid paying for a survey site… EVER

Companies are happy to pay people for their opinions as it helps them to make sure their ideas are suitable for the market.

via GIPHY

All you have to do is sign up to legitimate survey sites and offer your honest opinions.

Positives:

• You don’t need any special skills, just the internet!
• You’re about to find out that you can make $40+ within the next 30 minutes

Negatives:

• Some survey sites refuse your surveys (if you don’t fit their criteria)
• It’s only realistic to make a few hundred dollars a month from this method… you’re not going to quit your job from it

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 1 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 1 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 2 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

18. Dog Walking/ Pet Sitting

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This one is technically not online (obviously).

However, it is possible to find opportunities online or through certain apps, such as Rover.

You are probably thinking… is it even possible to make $1,000 a month from this side hustle?

Would you believe me if one guy made over 6 figures a year from this side hustle?

He obviously created a system to outsource it and make it more like a business but it just shows what is possible from seemingly simple money-making opportunities.

Grant Sabatier’s friend was still working in a full-time job when he did this too!

You would be amazed at how many people would love to walk dogs and get paid and there is a growing trend for people to own a dog.

Positives:

• Easy to start as no specific skills are required (apart from walking)
• You can use this as a side hustle in your free time and at times that work for you
• You get to play with dogs without being tied to owning one!

Negatives:

• It’s not passive income (unless you create a business)
• It’s hard (but not impossible) to quit your day job from dog walking

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 1 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 1 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 1 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

More Techie Online Work

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So these side hustles require you to have a bit more knowledge into certain technical aspects.

It doesn’t mean you need to be able to code really hard stuff.

And these skills you need can certainly be learnt quickly and cheaply (or even free thanks to YouTube!)

19. Domain Flipping

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Did you know that website URL’s are kind of like a piece of property or real estate?

You can buy websites that are already making money and carry on taking income.

Kind of like buying then renting out a house.

Or you can buy a website to add value by fixing it up and selling it for a profit (as you can do with a house too).

These are some tips for what to look for in a domain:

• Look for expired domains (DomCop or ExpiredDomains.com)
• Especially 3-4 letter combos, single words or popular double word domain names
• A good domain authority and page authority (use Moz to find this out)
• How many backlinks the website has (which affects DA & PA)
• What the website has been used for previously… try to avoid porn sites or illegal drug dealing etc. (use archive.org)
• Avoid previous Google or Adsense bans (isbanned.com and bannedcheck.com)

Once you buy a website you can also improve its value by “fixing it up” or making it better.

Here are the most common ways you can improve a website:

• Improve the SEO of the website
• Get backlinks to the website from trusted websites (helps to improve Domain Authority and hence SEO)
• Improve the website speed (add or remove certain plugins)
• Use high-speed themes & designs i.e. Genesis (coding can help here)
• Write more content to help rank for more keywords
• Add appropriate affiliate links or display ads to improve the monetisation from the website

This may sound complicated but these are all skills you can learn and there are loads of tools you can use.

For example, aHrefs has the industry’s most accurate backlink checker, which can help you see what backlinks any website gets…

via GIPHY

And as with everything you will only get better at picking these bargain domains over time.

Positives:

• Possible to make money quickly from cheap domains if they have expired
• There is no cap on how many domains you can own & some domain names will go up over time without doing anything (if they become popular or in-demand)
• You can “force” an increase in value quicker by “fixing it up”

Negatives:

• It’s possible to lose money by buying a domain for more than you can sell it for
• It’s not really passive income (although you can buy and hold the website if it generates income)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 3 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

20. Build Websites

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If you have never done this, it may seem very hard to do.

However, it has never been easier to build your own website. In fact, I can build mine from scratch in 30 seconds thanks to the tools from my #1 recommendation.

I don’t know how to code and I had no idea how to design a website before the one you are reading right now.

Using WordPress means that you can use plugins to make the design and speed of the website very good very quickly.

There are thousands of website themes that you can use, either free or paid versions. This means you can make your website stand out just by uploading a different theme, without needing to know how to code.

Here are some tips for building a website as a side hustle:

• Find a small business or entrepreneur who has a poor quality website or is looking to make one (same tactics as earlier… join FB groups & network on social media… become a friend, don’t stalk people!)
• Go above and beyond for your first client (really understand what they want and do it for whatever price they are willing to pay)
• Once you know how to do that you can use it as an example for another bigger client in the same industry i.e. law firm/ accountancy/ real estate broker etc.

By using those 3 simple steps Grant Sabatier managed to make $50,000 in 4 days from his second client that he built a website for!

Positives:

• People are prepared to pay a lot of money for a good quality website
• You can offer a very specific solution to people’s problems

Negatives:

• There is a learning curve for creating a website exactly how you want it
• Some clients may ask for more technical bits than you are capable of delivering. However, it is possible to outsource those parts or learn them in time.

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 5 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 1 out of 5

Other Business Opportunities

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It’s possible to use online marketing and the internet to promote or make money in other businesses.

There have been numerous guests on Make Time Online that have utilised these opportunities.

21. Promote Existing Business

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You may have your own physical business already.

It’s easily possible to additionally make $1,000+ a month online by utilising a website and online marketing skills.

Seriously, just imagine you have a plumbing business in San Francisco…

How much more business could you get if you were to rank on page one of Google for “San Francisco Plumbers”?

If you have a niche business in an area that is not competitive, it may be much easier than you think to rank for keywords that can help your business (check out #3 for more info on SEO)

Also, it’s possible to get a lot more attention to your business just by using social media content.

Examples of social media content to grow your business:

• User-generated content. Can you add a competition or prize to someone that posts a picture of something with a #yourbusiness? GoPro does this really well (see pic below)
• Facebook Livestreams show up on peoples notifications
• Podcasts really help to build trust (see #9)
• Infographics (use canva to design them for free)
• Live webinars to give people the chance to interact and ask questions (you can upload these to YouTube or Facebook after to re-use the content)
• Client testimonials (videos are ideal)
• Guides or eBooks

Getting people to engage and interact is one of the best ways to grow your business. All social media channels can help you to do that.

Positives:

• Your business can grow exponentially
• Very little monetary investment is required to build an online social media presence

Negatives:

• You may need to invest some time into learning how to create a website and write content to be found in Google
• It can be time-consuming to try to use ALL social media channels (focus on one or 2 to build engagement before trying to be everywhere!)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

22. Build a Personal Brand

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This is quite a hard one to measure.

It also closely links to the previous make money idea.

But, it’s possible to use the internet to create a personal brand that can help you in any business or area of life you move into.

Here are some ways to build a personal brand:

• Social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube etc.)
• Starting a podcast
• A website or blog

A personal brand means you are much more likely to connect with your audience and build trust over time. This means if you come to sell anything in the future or are looking to raise capital, you will already have people from around the world that know and trust you.

The key to building this brand is to be completely yourself and honest at all times.

People can tell when someone is being fake or trying too hard to be someone they are not.

If you don’t know something or are trying to learn something then let your audience “follow your journey” rather than claiming to be an expert already.

Or you can even be a “research assistant” for them!

Positives:

• It’s not very much extra work to take a picture or video to share what you are doing
• It can help you to stay accountable with your goals and vision

Negatives:

• It can feel like you are putting in work without seeing an instant reward
• It’s hard to measure exactly what value your personal brand actually has

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 3 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 2 out of 5
• Income Potential: 3 out of 5
• Passive Income: 3 out of 5

Investing

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Some people think that you can only invest when you have money in the bank to do so.

But this way of thinking is exactly why some people never have any month at the end of the money.

It’s possible to find investment opportunities online for anyone’s budget and with a bit of creativity.

It’s also possible to make $1,000+ a month online using these investments.

Just by planning for these opportunities, it helps to set a budget as you know exactly what that money is going towards.

23. Invest In Index Funds

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The hidden in plain sight secret of the rich…

If you’re looking for truly passive income this is the one for you.

Obviously you need to have the monies to invest in the first place but by using “the 4% rule” it’s possible to retire early and be inflation-proof!

“The 4% Rule” Overview:

1. Work out how much money you (and your immediate family) spend in a year
2. Times that number by 25
3. Stick it into index funds
4. Retire & never need to work another day in your life

The reason this works is that index funds will return a conservative 7% interest per year over the long term.

So if you were to take 4% out of your “pot” at the end of the year, you still are leaving the “pot” to grow by 3%+ each year (which should cover inflation).

For example:

1. You spend $40,000 a year
2. $40k x 25 = $1 million
3. After one year your pot = $1,070,000
4. You take 4% to live off aka $42,800
5. Your pot is now worth $1,027,200
6. Repeat and grow!

If you’re like me you’re probably thinking, well how am I supposed to get a pot of $1 million?

Erm… hello… have you not been reading this article?!!

I’m not saying it’s easy but guess what… it has been done (no prizes for guessing which podcast guest did it!)

Index funds capitalise on 3 things:

1. Compound interest
2. You pay the lowest fees for a “managed portfolio of stocks and shares
3. You limit human error (and emotions of buying high and selling low)

I’m not going to go into detail here about why index funds beat any other form of investment in the stock market over the long run (the podcast series below does that for you)

@WarrenBuffett talks about his 10yr bet against the hedge fund. Best ambassador of index funds. #BRKLiveStream #brk pic.twitter.com/iQMzxOgR1Q

— olivier lorrain (@olorrain) April 30, 2016

Positives:

• If you invest with vanguard it is truly passive income (you only need to login once a year to withdraw your $40k!)
• If you don’t live in the USA, UK or Australia you can invest with Saxo bank or Internaxx in index funds ETF’s

Negatives:

• You need the money in the first place
• You are reliant on the market to continue what it’s done for the last 100+ years (until the current financial system changes it is very likely this pattern will continue in the long run)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 2 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 2 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 5 out of 5
• Income Potential: 4 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

This is the exact strategy Grant Sabatier used to retire early. You can check out the 3 part podcast series on index funds (roughly 20 min an episode):

1. Why you should invest in index funds right now
2. How to invest in index funds
3. The ultimate strategy to invest in index funds

24. Invest In Property/ Real Estate

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So property can be more hands-on than paper assets, such as index funds.

But it does mean you have more control if you have the right knowledge.

If you buy a property with positive cash flow (the rental income makes more money than it costs each month) then you are “property bubble proof”.

Hence, if the market crashes, you can hold your property and continue to rent it out for a profit.

Over time the value of property continues to rise (for the same reason index funds do… the current fiat currency financial system).

You can actually use online systems to help build a portfolio, such as:

• Social media
• Podcasts. You can start one yourself (like Tej did) or The Property Podcast has everything you need to invest
• Blogs

You may be wondering how.

Well, Facebook for one is full of property groups.

Even if you don’t have the money to invest but want to get involved you can start trying to find “property deals” on and sell them on.

Again, if you have good personal branding online this will really help to find potential investors that would love to buy that deal from you.

This is, in fact, how I have managed to turn a 3-bed terraced house into an 8 bedroom HMO in the UK, whilst living in Qatar. I connected with many property investors and developers until we found a deal that suited us.

If it wasn’t for social media this wouldn’t have been possible.

Positives:

• It’s possible to find deals on social media or other online channels
• It’s possible to sell deals in the same way
• You have a lot of control over the asset with the right property education (there are so many strategies)

Negatives:

• Property is less liquid than other assets and can be slow (due to regulations and hoops to jump through)
• Even if you use lettings agents and outsource work it’s not as passive as paper assets
• If you need to sell at a bad time you can lose a lot of money (the key is to only invest what you won’t need in the near-mid future)

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 4 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 5 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 4 out of 5

25. Invest In A Friend/ Startup

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This one is riskier than other methods of investing.

But the rewards can be much larger.

These opportunities can also be presented from people building a personal brand online. If you know the person and trust them, you’re much more likely to invest in them.

There are startup companies starting all the time and they often need investment to get them off the ground.

Before investing in a startup make sure you do your research and don’t just jump in because someone is your friend!

via GIPHY

Here are some things to look for:

• A strong target market for the product or service
• Good margins
• Strong management team
• Credible business plan and projections
• An exit strategy
• Passion and commitment

It’s possible to invest in startups on crowdfunding platforms or if you know someone starting a business.

Positives:

• Possible to make a big return on your investment
• It’s possible to get paid passive income from dividends or a lump sum if there is an exit strategy to sell for a certain price

Negatives:

• It can be very hard to know which startups will be successful and which ones will flop
• Your investment can be tied up for some time before you get any returns

Ratings:

• Difficulty: 5 out of 5
• Skill Level Required: 4 out of 5
• Initial Investment: 5 out of 5
• Income Potential: 5 out of 5
• Passive Income: 5 out of 5

Proven Ways To Make $1,000 A Month Online Summary

So there you have it!

25 legit ways that “normal” people make $1,000 a month online.

Feel free to check out the podcast show notes at the bottom of any opportunity that interests you. Each one will have more tips and advice on what to do to get started for that money-making idea.

Here’s the brutal truth though…

None of this is taught in schools.

And nobody is going to help you or your family learn this.

So if you think this could help someone you know please do share this in any way you can.

How to Make Money From a Blog Quickly: Blog Income Reports Study in 7 Niches

This Blog Income Reports Study on how to make money from a blog quickly has no affiliate links on it. It was made with the sole purpose of helping new bloggers go from 0 to 4 figures a month quickly by using the proven path already laid out for you.

You probably already know that it’s possible to make money blogging.

But for most people, it is hard to know how to monetise your blog at the start. Every “guru” you turn to tells you something different… you should do more freelancing, or use adverts, or affiliate marketing or write an ebook.

Here’s the truth…

Every niche has a slightly different trend in making money within the first year or so.

I’d like to tell you that hard work and dedication will make you money online in the end. But the fact is if you don’t see results quickly, you’re more likely to give up.

This blog income reports study will show you how to make money from a blog quickly in 7 different niches. It is a proven road map for you to take a blog from zero to 4 figures a month… and beyond!

Infographic

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Use Visual.ly if you would like to get the code to embed this infographic and link back to this page.

How is This Blog Income Report Study Different?

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Brandon Gaille produced a lot of amazing facts in his 2018 blog income report study.

However, one important thing was missing…

How does each niche make money?

More importantly, how does each blog niche make money in the early days?

The generic advice doesn’t work for every niche, as you are about to find out.

For example, if you have a food blog is there any point in looking for affiliate programs to promote? Or if you have a marketing blog, should you bother using adverts?

The more you read this study, the more you will see the proven path that is laid out for how to make money from a blog in your niche.

The 7 Niches in This Blog Income Reports Study

There are 7 niches researched in this blog income reports study:

1. Food
2. Health and Fitness
3. Lifestyle
4. Mommy
5. Marketing
6. Personal Finance
7. Travel

And if you look into the majority of successful blog niches they will normally fit under one of these categories.

The lifestyle niche includes blogs that write about a variety of interests but could have an emphasis on DIY crafts, home decor, journaling etc.

The health & fitness or Mommy niches are closely linked to lifestyle but there was a clear focus on these blogs.

The Blog Income Reports Study Criteria

This study had a few criteria that had to be met:

• At least 5 blog income reports in each niche
• All income reports also need to be over $1,700 per month (most reports below this amount are just “a bit of this and that”)
• All income reports are below 6 figures a month (51 out of 57 were under 5 figures per month with the highest at $19,889)
• Income reports must also have a break down of where the income was from

Why use these criteria?

We wanted to find blogs that are making money from their own niche. Not just making money “blogging about blogging”.

Just think about it… have you seen those headlines on how to make money blogging like this?…

How I Made $1.5 Million Blogging Last Year... With my Eyes Closed on a Beach

Disclaimer- the “eyes closed and beach” part is totally made up!

These are great for motivation but when you see a Mommy blog with these numbers it’s almost always because of one thing…

It has expanded into blogging about blogging.

Therefore, it’s not an accurate representation of how that niche makes money anymore…

It’s really just another marketing blog.

For this reason, many of the income reports used were not the blogger’s most recent income report.

The farther back you look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

Winston Churchill

By finding the income reports towards the start of the blogger’s journey we are able to see how to blog for money in the early stages.

Key Terms for the Study

So here are some key terms that you will need to be aware of for this study to make sense:

• Ads: The amount of income from ad networks.
• Affiliate: Affiliate marketing income (being paid a commission if someone buys something through a link on your website for someone else’s product).
• Own Products: Any products that the owner creates and sells. This includes ebooks, courses, physical products and apps.
• Other: Any other income. This includes freelance work, sponsored posts, sponsorship for their website or podcast, coaching or other services they provide.
• Start Year: The year the website was created.

Important Disclaimers

There are also some things to take into consideration with this study.

1. Some blogs overlap 2 or more different niches i.e. Fit Mom Journey is part Mommy and part Fitness.

However, the main niche that is written about is the one recorded in this study (hence, Fit Mom Journey is more about health and fitness).

2. Mommy bloggers often fall under the lifestyle niche but there were enough blogs that clearly had a focus on Moms and parenting.

3. It’s hard to find blog income reports from websites that are not blogging about blogging!!

And there is a big reason why people make income reports…

Most income reports promote more affiliate links.

Yes, they can be educational, motivating and helpful. I’m grateful for them just doing this- research! But, 99 times out of 100, they are used to recommend more affiliate products.

Part 1- How to Make Money From a Blog: The Income Distribution of 7 Niches

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You can find all of the blog income reports used in this study towards the bottom of this page.

But if you’re like me, you’ll be pretty excited to see the difference between each niche.

How to Make Money From a Food Blog- Income Distribution

There is a clear monetisation method for food bloggers.

Ads for food blogs are crucial.

This is why getting onto the best ad networks and understanding what the requirements are to do this is so important for them. You can learn more about this on The Best 5 Ad Networks for Blogs.

Food Blogs Focus on Ads

Well duh!

But let’s think about why and what this means…

The obvious reason for this is that food blogs tend to get a lot of traffic because everyone needs to cook.

When the typical “house chef” (AKA Mom… please don’t shoot me for the stereotype!) struggles for ideas they do one of two things, in 2019:

• Google recipe ideas
• Search Pinterest for recipes

This means that new blogs can get hundreds of thousands of page views from Pinterest alone if they use it right.

Pinterest still has a high majority of active users that are aged between 25-45 and female. Hootsuite shows there has been an increase in male sign-ups since 2018, but they are still not as active on the platform.

Therefore, Pinterest is crucial for how to make money blogging about food. If you have a new food blog, all of your efforts should be spent on Pinterest promotion at the start.

Check out “5 Pinterest Hacks to Explode Your Traffic” if you want to get more pinning traffic tips.

How to Make Money From a Health & Fitness Blog- Income Distribution

There is again a clear method that health and fitness blogs use…

Advertising networks.

However, it’s important to note this doesn’t have to be the case.

For example, Avocadu didn’t use any ads on the website at the start and focused much more on affiliate marketing and selling their own products quickly.

Health & Fitness Bloggers Get the Least Income from “Other” Means

Out of the 5 blogs in this study, Only Root and Revel started making any money from sponsored content.

None of these websites reported income from freelance or coaching work.

So how did health & fitness blogs make money from a blog?

Common Affiliate Opportunities for Health and Fitness Blogs

In a moment you’ll notice there are a range of products promoted on each website without any real common trends.

Here are the main money earners for health and fitness websites (excluding ads):

• Xukkhini- Weight loss products on Clickbank
• Avocadu- Yoga products on Amazon Associates (note they even admit you won’t be able to make much from here) plus Clickbank and their own products.
• Root and Revel- Affiliate for Butcher box (organic meat products)
• Fit Mom Journey- Affiliate for Perfect Keto
• Organize Yourself Skinny- Own products i.e. ebook and meal plans

Using Pinterest is again where the majority of your time should be spent if you have a new Health and Fitness blog.

Once you see what articles your readers are interested in, then you can look for appropriate affiliate products to promote.

How to Make Money From a Lifestyle Blog- Income Distribution

So how do lifestyle websites make money from a blog?

As you can see below, ads are also super important to lifestyle blogs when they first start to make money blogging.

However, due to the large range of topics lifestyle blogs cover there really is no right or wrong way to monetise these types of websites.

Lifestyle Blogs Use Different Income Streams

You can see from Chasing Foxes that it’s possible to get an insane amount of traffic quickly to your blog. Silas and Grace pumped out 50 posts before they even launched their website and had over 2 million page views in a single month… within their first year!

This is obviously going to bring in some great income from ads. They relied heavily on Pinterest for this again.

Whereas Let’s Reach Success focused on freelance work and sponsored posts in the early days.

Lifestyle Blog Formula

Despite there being many ways lifestyle blogs can earn money there is a general theme across the blogs in this study.

The main focus was on making money from a blog with ads and affiliate marketing:

1. Typically the websites built up traffic to monetise with some ads.
2. They used Amazon Associates to place links for products they were writing about.
3. This way they could test out what their audience was interested in.
4. Eventually, they could create their own product tailored to their readers wants.

To be honest this is not just a lifestyle blog formula.

It’s also really the trend across the majority of these successful blogs as you are about to find out.

How to Make Money From a Mommy Blog- Income Distribution

Mommy’s make money blogging in a very similar way to lifestyle blogs.

But again ads stand out as the main way to make money from a Mommy blog at the start.

There was an interesting finding from this study…

Mommy Blogs Quickly Blog About Blogging

Maybe this isn’t always the case.

But…

Every one of the Mommy blogs (with Easy Baby Life less so) in this study started “blogging about blogging” or promoting some of their favourite blogging tools.

This kind of makes sense as a lot of Mom’s will be interested in making some money from home so they can spend more time with their kids.

However, these income reports prove it is possible to make money without doing that as none of them had really monetised in this way… yet!

Common Mommy Blog Affiliate Ideas

There was one platform which dominated in all of these reports:

Amazon Associates.

That’s a bit vague, so here are some common ideas they promoted:

• Baby gifts
• Baby gear- buggies/ prams/ car seat etc.
• Breastfeeding stuff
• Nursery ideas- cribs/ lamps etc.

There tend to be lots of different items promoted. But the “comparisons”, “reviews” or “how to use” posts did well.

How to Make Money From a Marketing Blog- Income Distribution

This niche is where you see the biggest difference to every other niche!

This is why you need to take “blogging about blogging” websites with a. pinch of salt.

Have you noticed yet that the things that work for these blogs may not work in your niche?

There are 2 key findings from this blog income reports study….

#1 Marketing Blogs Rely Less on Pinterest- They Do Not Focus on Ads

Readers on marketing websites (i.e. blogging about blogging or podcasting or how to use affiliate marketing etc.) do not want to see a load of pop-ups or ads everywhere.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. They want readers to click on their products and affiliate links, not the ads!
2. It slows the website down.

Simply put:

• Ads are annoying and readers on marketing websites are more aware of them, unlike the typical readers in other niches.

Therefore, the last thing the readers on marketing websites want is to be interrupted every two seconds.

…Or struggle to scroll down without the website glitching.

#2 Marketing Blogs Make Money From Their Own Products Quickly

This was another interesting finding.

Even when I put in Pat Flynn, Melyssa Griffin and JLD’s super high incomes ($150,000 a month+) the income distribution hardly changes…

This just shows that it is possible to make money from your own products even with a new website.

The Best Marketing Blogs Have Less Traffic and a Smaller Audience… But Build Better Relationships

Just take Pete McPherson’s Do You Even Blog as an example.

With a relatively new website, Pete generates 60% of his income from his own courses. You can listen to my chat with Pete on the Make Time Online podcast about what he sees as the “Future of Digital Marketing“.

Also, Ana from The She Approach has already had a lot of success from her own ebooks and courses, with 47% of her income coming from them.

Common Affiliate Networks for Marketing Blogs

There are some common networks for marketing blogs:

• Shareasale (4,000 merchants)
• Awin (6,000 advertisers)
• Amazon Associates (everything you can think of)
• Ultimate Bundles (limited offers on different topics)
• Website themes (Bluehost dominates, but any work just fine)
• Autoresponder (Convertkit dominates)
• Tailwind (Pinterest automation)
• Marketing funnel (i.e. Clickfunnels or Thrive Themes or Leadpages)

Every marketing website promotes individual affiliate programs too.

Ranging from Pinterest ebooks to full-on 6 Figure Blogging courses.

Click here to see my personal favourite blogging tools and courses.

How to Make Money From a Personal Finance Blog- Income Distribution

Another different looking graph!

As you can see personal finance bloggers make a higher percentage of their income from affiliate marketing than any other monetisation method.

So if you’re a personal finance blogger, chances are you should be looking at affiliate programs to make money blogging.

Personal Finance Blogs Focus More on Affiliate Income Than Any Other Niche

Even in the early days, you can see personal finance websites focussing on affiliate marketing.

Affiliate programs such as survey sites (i.e. Survey Junkie) or reward sites (i.e. Ebates, now Rakuten) will make up a large portion of this income.

You can even see what Jeff and Ben from Dollarsprout recommend…

These type of affiliate links are easiest to convert (AKA low cost, free or even provide a sign-up bonus for people to join).

Are you beginning to see how getting someone to pay $10 to join is not as easy as paying someone $10 to join?

This is much easier to sell in the early days compared to $1,000+ courses that marketing websites may be offering, where trust is key.

Common Affiliate Programs for Personal Finance Blogs

Here are some of the common programs that personal finance bloggers use to make money from a blog at the start:

• Swagbucks (Awin- survey)
• Survey Junkie (survey site)
• Inbox Dollars (Svorn- survey)
• Rakuten (cashback)
• Ibotta (cashback)
• $5 Meal Plan
• Credit Sesame (personal credit manager)
• Flex offers (millions of products)
• iGain (market research)
• CJ Affiliate (millions of products)

There are also loads of different affiliates depending on your specific focus i.e. credit card sign-ups or stock trading programs etc.

Plus, here’s a little bonus look inside Jeff’s income-generating platforms (this is super useful if you’ve never seen the backend of affiliate programs before)…

This was from their October 2018 Income report at $61,915, after Dollarsprout was more established.

You can check out our chat on the podcast if you’d like to hear how these guys created a $240k/ month online business in 3 years.

How to Make Money From a Travel Blog- Income Distribution

Again another different looking graph.

This time you can see that travel blogs typically get their income in a variety of ways.

Some sites such as Once in a Lifetime Journey make money blogging mainly from consulting. Others, such as External Expat do quite a bit of freelance work.

The fact is, travel blogs will have to hustle more to find these opportunities.

Travel Blogs Make Money With Sponsors and Freelance Income

If you’re like me you may find this really helpful to know.

If you were starting a travel website the majority of them make money from other monetisation methods, such as sponsors and freelance writing.

In fact, 6 out of 8 of the travel websites in this study has some income from sponsored posts or freelance work.

So if you are trying to make money blogging with a travel blog by creating your own course, you may find it’s an uphill battle.

Remember, don’t reinvent the wheel!

Use the map that others have left you to copy their success.

Some Useful Marketplaces for Travel Blogs

Here are some of the places for how to make money from a travel blog:

• IZEA (lots of brands to partner with)
• Fiverr (freelance work)
• Upwork (freelance work)
• Flex offers (millions of products)
• iGain (market research)
• CJ Affiliate (millions of products)
• MaxBounty (millions of products)

Freelancing and sponsored income comes in such a variety.

However, the best opportunities tend to not actually come from sites like Fiverr and Upwork.

This makes it harder to set out a blueprint for the best ways to do it.

For example, Will from Travel Blog Breakthrough got a big chunk of his income from a Trekking company after they saw his work on the Inca Trail Guide.

He jumped on a skype call to make that happen.

Make sure you check out the income reports below to find other ways of how blogger’s make money from a travel blog.

Part 2- The Blueprint to Make $1,000+

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Now, I bet you’re looking at all of these pretty charts thinking…

So what?

Well, let’s summarise the key takeaways and more importantly…

Let’s work out an action plan moving forward.

#1 Every Blog Needs Traffic

First of all, let’s start with the obvious.

If you want to make money from your website you have to get traffic.

Period.

5 out of 7 niches have a large chunk of their initial income from using ad networks.

Yes, Google Adsense is easy enough to get onto and start the ball rolling.

But the majority of these bloggers were getting most joy by using Mediavine or AdThrive.

So it would be wise to aim for this.

Agreed?

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

But How do I Get This Traffic?

If you’re like me, this is THE question you want to be answered!

This short video will explain exactly how many of the bloggers in this study have made sure they are writing content that people are actively searching for.

AKA how they get more traffic…

So if you use these techniques rather than just guessing, you will notice your articles will start getting much more attention quickly.

Click these links to try it out right now:

1. Pinterest
2. Ubersuggest

#2 Aim for 25,000 Sessions a Month (Unless You Have a Marketing Blog)

I know what you’re thinking!

That sounds like a lot, right?

But there are 57 blog income reports that show you this is 100% possible for you to do.

Why 25,000 monthly sessions?

Simple because Mediavine requires 25,000 monthly sessions to allow a blog to use their network.

Therefore, aim for that!

AdThrive, which tends to pay a bit better on average requires 100,000 monthly page views.

This means to make some good money from ads on your blog, you need to focus on getting 25,000 monthly sessions…

Quickly!

Check out “The 5 Best Ad Networks for Blogs” to see more details about the ad networks.

Even the bloggers that did not focus on ads still needed the traffic to work out what affiliate programs or products their audience wants.

If you aren’t getting 5,000 monthly sessions yet then check out “How to Use Pinterest for Beginners“. As many of these income reports prove… Pinterest is still the fastest free way to get traffic to your website.

#3 Use Affiliate Products to Match Your Readers Interests

Once you get traffic from Pinterest (at least 5,000 page views a month) you can use Google Analytics to see what posts most of your readers are reading.

This proves exactly what the people reading your blog are most interested in. And are you beginning to notice you don’t need to guess?

Use the data!

Once you know this, you can start to recommend great products that fit with these articles.

Plus, you can write more posts on these topics to get even more traffic!

#4 Create Your Own Product (Optional)

If you really want to start making a big income then this is the next step to take.

As you can see from this study already, it is possible to make well over $1,000 per month blogging without even thinking about this stage. (*Cough cough Chasing Foxes with $15k/ month from ads alone!*)

But if you make a better version of the affiliate product that you are promoting, you will get to keep all the profit instead of a per cent of the sale.

Hence, instead of making $5 commission on a $30 ebook, you can make the full $30 (or whatever you choose to charge for it).

This is the proven path that has already been laid out for how to make money from a blog.

Part 3- The Key Findings

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There were some important and some unexpected findings from doing this blog income reports research.

#1 It is Possible to Make Money Blogging… Without Writing About Blogging

This could well be the biggest takeaway from this blog income reports study.

It is possible to make money in other niches than marketing.

All of the income reports below will show you how these blogs made money without talking about blogging.

You can tell that some of them (i.e. The Busy Budgeter) have clearly started to blog about blogging. But there was very little money made from “blogging about blogging” in these income reports.

#2 Some Niches Tend to Reach an Upper Limit

For example, Mommy & lifestyle blogs only have so many affiliates they can promote and only so many pageviews they can get in a month.

At this stage, it’s hard for them to create a specific “Mommy product” so many of these blogs tend to start “blogging about blogging”.

This opens up many more affiliate programs and provides an opportunity to create their own courses.

Just as I eluded (ooo posh word from me!) to earlier, most blog income reports will exist to provide motivation for others. But they also promote more affiliate links i.e. Bluehost hosting or an autoresponder or favourite theme to use etc.

Therefore, it is hard to find income reports that are based solely on a “non-blogging” niche. Many of the websites featured in this blog income reports study will eventually have affiliate links to blogging tools or courses.

#3 Income Distribution Changes Over Time

The graph below shows the average income distribution of 7 blogs, one from each niche.

The second graph is from the same 7 blogs. But they have since kicked on and made at least $40,000 a month.

As you can see there is a much heavier reliance from their own products and affiliate marketing.

All 7 of these websites now have a focus on blogging about blogging (Show Me The Yummy has a course on how to make videos for food bloggers, which is sort of related).

Simply put…

Once you start making good money from your blog, focus on automating with affiliate marketing and funnels selling your own products.

The most successful blogs tend to have affiliate opportunities for their own products meaning it becomes even more passive.

The 7 Blogs Used For This

Blog Name	Niche	First Income Report	Monthly Income	Second Income Report	Monthly Income
Just a Girl and her Blog	Lifestyle	Feb 2014	$2,446	Dec 2016	$41,700
Show me the Yummy	Food	Jun 2016	$4,781	Dec 2016	$46,366
The Realistic Mama	Mommy	Mar 2016	$5,891	Aug 2018	$48,162
Avocadu*	Health & Fitness	Apr 2016	$4,244	Aug 2019	$111,929
Making Sense of Cents	Personal Finance	Jan 2015	$15,396	May 2018	$136,808
It’s a Lovely Life	Travel	Mar 2017	$37,810	Dec 2018	$147,833
Melyssa Griffin	Marketing	Jul 2015	$9,226	Dec 2016	$283,680

The Most Important Finding of All

Every single blogger that has started making $2,000 per month or more has done this one thing.

There are ZERO exceptions.

I bet you want to know what it is, don’t you?

But you won’t like it…

Seriously though you won’t…

Hustle.

I told you, you weren’t going to like it.

There’s no magic sauce that made these blogs earn money.

They all hustled at the start.

They all found “other” ways to make money or put in an incredible amount of effort to make money through the more “passive” ads, affiliate marketing and own products.

As you can see… content creation is key!

But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel (in fact, it’s better that you don’t because if it hasn’t been written about before, there is probably a reason!)

Find what works for others and make better versions of them.

57 Blog Income Reports in 7 Different Niches

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So here are the blog income reports that were used in this study.

Feel free to click on the blog name and look into any of the reports in more detail.

Food Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Yup Its Vegan	Food	Feb 2017	2013	$1,708
Pinch of Yum	Food	May 2012	2010	$2,970
The Endless Meal	Food	Nov 2016	2011	$4,118
Pickled Plum	Food	Nov 2016	2013	$4,330
Show me the Yummy	Food	Jun 2016	2013	$4,781
Butternut Bakery	Food	May 2019	2018	$5,041
Piping Pot Curry	Food	Aug 2018	2017	$5,110
The Bewitchin Kitchen	Food	Jan 2017	2010	$5,362

Health & Fitness Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Xukkhini	Health & Fitness	Mar 2018	2017	$1,732
Avocadu*	Health & Fitness	Apr 2016	2015	$4,244
Root and Revel	Health & Fitness	Jan 2018	2015	$7,534
Organize Yourself Skinny	Health & Fitness	2015	2013	$8,726
Fit Mom Journey	Health & Fitness	Dec 2018	2016	$10,123

*Income report was taken from Alex and Lauren’s book “How to Make Money Blogging”. Their income on Create & Go is updated every month.

Lifestyle Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Vigor It Out	Lifestyle	May 2018	2017	$1,907
Anastasia Blogger	Lifestyle	Jan 2018	2017	$2,085
Just a Girl and her Blog	Lifestyle	Feb 2014	2013	$2,446
Jessicas Laughter	Lifestyle	Jul 2016	2016	$2,569
Gathering Dreams	Lifestyle	Jan 2018	2017	$3,836
Chasing a Better Life	Lifestyle	Jun 2018	2017	$4,274
Let’s Reach Success	Lifestyle	Jun 2019	2013	$4,305
Sewrella	Lifestyle	May 2018	2016	$10,180
Chasing Foxes	Lifestyle	Aug 2017	2016	$19,889

Mommy Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Moms Make Money	Mommy	Aug 2013	2011	$2,147
What Mommy Does	Mommy	Jul 2015	2012	$3,391
Single Moms Income	Mommy	Aug 2015	2012	$3,754
Mommy on Purpose	Mommy	Dec 2016	2010	$3,976
Easy Baby Life	Mommy	Apr 2017	2015	$4,310
Rose Atwater	Mommy	Mar 2016	2013	$4,886
The Intentional Mom	Mommy	Apr 2017	2008	$5,481
The Realistic Mama	Mommy	Mar 2016	2014	$5,891
Pulling Curls	Mommy	May 2017	2014	$6,621

Marketing Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Blogging Her Way	Marketing	May 2018	2017	$1,704
Moms Make Cents	Marketing	Oct 2016	2016	$2,127
Do You Even Blog	Marketing	Mar 2019	2017	$2,883
Inspired Blogger University***	Marketing	May 2016	2014	$3,738
The She Approach**	Marketing	Jan 2019	2016	$4,230
House of Brazen	Marketing	Mar 2017	2013	$5,219
Her Paper Route	Marketing	Mar 2018	2017	$8,426
Melyssa Griffin	Marketing	Jul 2015	2015	$9,226

**This is Ana’s first $50,000 income report. The total has been divided by 12 even though it took 2 and a half years to get there because the income has sped up more recently.

***Only the income from Inspired BU was used for this study (not the income from Meet Penny)

Personal Finance Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Millennial Boss	Personal Finance	Apr 2018	2016	$1,950
The Frugal Millionaire Blog	Personal Finance	Jan 2017	2014	$2,171
The Savvy Couple	Personal Finance	Jan 2018	2016	$2,412
Retired by 40	Personal Finance	Dec 2016	2013	$3,328
Fitnancials	Personal Finance	Nov 2018	2013	$4,612
Inspired Budget	Personal Finance	Jun 2018	2017	$7,296
Unconventional Prosperity	Personal Finance	Feb 2018	2017	$8,221
Dollarsprout	Personal Finance	Jan 2018	2016	$12,372
Busy Budgeter	Personal Finance	Mar 2016	2014	$12,484
Making Sense of Cents	Personal Finance	Jan 2015	2011	$15,396

Travel Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Wherever Writer*****	Travel	Feb 2018	2012	$1,973
External Expat	Travel	Jan 2018	2016	$2,502
Ali’s Adventures	Travel	Jun2017	2007	$2,868
Get Away Couple	Travel	Sep 2018	2017	$3,027
Travel Blog Breakthrough	Travel	Oct 2016	2014	$3,431
Practical Wanderlust	Travel	Apr 2018	2016	$5,882
Living the Dream RTW****	Travel	Aug 2019	2010	$8,113
Once in a Lifetime Journey	Travel	Nov 2018	2014	$9,682

***** Only travel related income was reported in this study- not the “blogging about blogging” income.

**** This income report gets updated every month but was used with the figures from August 2019

One Final Note on How to Make Money From a Blog

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Remember this…

It is possible to make money in any way in any niche.

Of course, it is possible for food bloggers to create their own course or “monthly meal plans” and sell them in the early days.

Of course, you can make money from ads in any niche.

But what you have above is a proven path that successful blogs have taken to start making good money in different niches.

Use what they have left behind to your advantage.

Once you get that regular income, it then becomes possible to put more time into automating things and generating passive income from affiliate marketing funnels and sales of your own products.

How to Make Money From a Blog Quickly Summary

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You can see a clear roadmap that successful blogs have taken to make money blogging in 7 different niches:

• Food, Lifestyle & Mommy blogs should focus on Pinterest. Ideally creating list posts that people want to read & aim to get on Mediavine or AdThrive ad networks.
• Health & Fitness blogs should do the same but quickly find affiliate products for their most popular articles.
• Personal finance should also use Pinterest, noting that budgeting does better on Pinterest closely followed by ways to make money (use low cost or free affiliate products such as survey or cashback sites).
• Marketing blogs should have an idea of a product they can create i.e. an eBook or Teachable course. The focus is on creating high-quality articles and really connect with the readers.
• Travel blogs should still use Pinterest to drive traffic. Hustle to find sponsorships and freelance work to make up the income initially.

It doesn’t mean that you have to stick to this, but it does give you an idea of the quickest and proven ways for your niche to start making money.

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. Check out “The Most Profitable Niche” and “The 5 Best Ad Networks for Bloggers“.

7 Easy Ways to Make Money at Home

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this post on how to make money at home contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. In fact, you may receive a discount or some money for free! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

You don’t know it but, by the end of this page, you will have learned how to make money at home.

Imagine what it would be like if you could spend each day deciding how to spend your time. 

Just picture waking up in the morning without the alarm going off to the smell of a freshly brewed coffee. 

Visualise yourself having a leisurely breakfast with your family knowing that you control what time you need to work and IF you need to work that day. 

And as you read this web page, remind yourself of what this would feel like. 

Why Bother to Make Money at Home? 

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If you’re like me then you don’t wont to work in a job until you’re 75 years old. 

In fact, you probably would quite like to have more time to do the things you love whilst you’re still young and energetic!

Well here’s a fact for you:

Being in control of your schedule has the biggest impact on your happiness. 

Most of us know some people who work from home or don’t have a “typical job”. 

Now, let me ask you this…

Do you think these people dread Monday mornings?

Here are 6 reasons why everyone should find out how to make money at home:

1. It increases your chance to reach financial independence and retire early (FIRE)
2. It can provide you with additional income to spend on treating yourself and loved ones
3. Making money at home can be done part-time with as much time as you want to put in
4. There are soooo many ways to make money at home that there is something to suit you
5. You can spend more time doing something that you are passionate about
6. You spend less time “doing stuff” and therefore spend less money on things that don’t make you happy

Try it out yourself and tell me if this is wrong!

How to Make Money at Home on the Computer 

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If you’re thinking “but I don’t even know where to start!” then you are not alone amigo!

Most people would jump on the opportunity if they knew how to make money at home. You can find out more ways to make money from home on Single Moms Income.

Now I would like to help you experience what it’s like to actually do this!

#1 Start a Blog or Online Business

This is without a doubt the best way to make money at home on the computer to earn passive income. 

Really think about it… 

Do you want to HAVE to work for the rest of your life?

Would you like the option to be able to pick and choose days and times when to work?

If you would then earning passive income is a must!

A couple of years ago I genuinely didn’t know it was possible to earn money through a blog…

But it is!

Here’s how:

• Adverts/ Sponsors
• Affiliate marketing
• Selling your own content

I’ve put a lot more information about these types of income in other posts which you can find below. 

For now, you just need to know that it’s not super hard to start a blog. 

However, it can be harder to set up a blog that suits monetisation (which is how to make money at home).

But not to worry!! You could have a blog set up in a great way for monetisation within the next 30 seconds after you read this article:

• How to Build a Website the Easy Way in Under 30 Seconds

Related articles:

• Can I Make Money Online?
• Why you Should Make Money Online Part Time
• Best Affiliate Marketing Products to Sell

#2 Use Online Surveys to Make an Extra $200+ a Month

The easiest way that ANYONE can make money at home is without a doubt filling out surveys…

The issue with most survey companies (and there are loads of them!) is that they will only send you the odd survey depending on your background information (age, gender, nationality, religion etc.)

So it’s important that you find legit survey sites and ideally sites that pay in cash rather than vouchers.

Here are the top 5 recommended survey sites by Make Time Online:

1. Paidviewpoint
2. Swagbucks
3. Inbox Dollars
4. Prize Rebel
5. Vindale Research

There are some important tips to be aware of to make good money from surveys too:

• Join as many as you can that you find are legit (they won’t send surveys to you all the time)
• Create a separate email address just for surveys (you can receive a lot and it will get confusing in between your normal emails)
• Cash out as soon as possible- there’s rarely any advantage for not doing this!
• Use your spare time wisely (lunch breaks/ waiting in a line/ watching TV during adverts etc.)

You won’t become rich or be able to quit your job from this but it is realistic to make a few hundred dollars a month by giving your opinion in your spare time.

You can read more about what each of these sites does and find a total of 15 legit survey sites that pay you money here.

#3 Start a Podcast

It’s one of the best ways to connect with other people.

Not only can you interview people you admire and would like to learn from, but you connect with the people that listen much more than you can from a blog.

Some people think it’s really hard to start but if you have a laptop and internet chances are you could start one by the end of the day!

Many podcasts use advertising as a form of income but it’s often the relationships that you build that can help to monetise a podcast.

Check out the chat I had with Jeff and Ben from Dollarsprout who earn $240k/ month from their online business.

How to Make Money at Home for Free

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As you absorb this information, you’ll start to realise that anyone can make money from home. 

And you will start to feel better about the options you have for the future. 

Just picture this for a moment…

You are making an extra few hundred extra dollars every month just by doing things that you are interested in or by using skills you already have. 

Now, let me ask you this…

If you could make money at home for free, would you want to?

Since you’re still here, I’m going to assume you’re interested. 

So here’s how to make money at home for free:

#4 Become a Freelancer- Earn $50,000+ per year by Proofreading!

You’re probably wondering how you can become a freelancer. 

Well, do you speak English?

Do you know how to read and write?

There are so many opportunities to get freelance work on editing or writing for all kinds of businesses.

Are you interested to find out more about how Caitlin earns over $50,000 per year? 

She earns this simply by proofreading and enjoying her holidays!

Check out her FREE 45-minute workshop to see how to make money at home:

Click here to get instant access to Caitlin’s workshop 

#5 Become a Virtual Assistant

If you have a specific skill or you can help someone else out that is extremely busy… then people will pay you for it!

Maybe you can:

• Book someone a holiday
• Check emails for someone (believe me people in the online world really want help with this!)
• Do graphic design 
• Automate someone’s social media account
• Web programming
• Help with marketing

Check out some of these reputable sites to see how to make money at home… right now!

• Upwork
• PeoplePerHour
• Freelancer
• Leaf Group 

It’s very possible to earn $50-$100 PER HOUR!

#6 Become a Tutor

And as you think about how to make money at home, you become really interested in these free ways to make money. 

Tutoring online is one of the best ones particularly for those wanting to get started soon!

Using Chegg you will start earning from $20 per hour!! 

So this can easily add up to over $1,000 per month extra cash tutoring part-time from the comfort of your own home.

Click here to sign up.

#7 Teachers!! Sell Your Lesson Plans

Here’s one for all my teaching friends…

You can literally sell your lesson plans.

Do you remember a time when you just started teaching? The amount of time and energy it would take to plan ONE lesson!

New teachers will gladly pay for some of these lesson plans that you have sitting on your hard drive (if you did a PGCE in England you know what I mean!)

Check out this website:

Teachers Pay Teachers

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• What I’ve Learnt from Reading Over 100 Books in the Last 3 Years
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story
• How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

Is it Possible to Make Money Online Fast? 

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The closer and closer you get to the end of this page, the further and further your problem of how to make money at home goes.

Little by little you begin to notice that it is possible to make money at home.

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

Is it possible to make money online FAST?

Hopefully, by now you can see that it is!

Within a few minutes you could: 

• Have a survey in your inbox ready to make $5 or more.
• You could sign up to tutor online and have your first student within 24 hours. 
• Sign up to a freelancing website and start connecting with people that could really use your services!
• Build a website that is designed to be monetised in 30 seconds (click here to do that now!)

Do you realise what you will get from doing any of these things?

… yes apart from money!

You will learn a new skill. 

And only rare thinking people like you already know that skills are what the new currency is in today’s information age. 

The more skills you develop and improve the more people will want to pay you!

But I Just Don’t Have the Time 

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Ah how did I know you’d say this!

Really think about this…

Like really, really…

Do you have a spare hour this week?

In fact, do you have a spare hour RIGHT NOW?

Because if you do, you can literally set your life path on a new course.

Learning how to make money at home is like what spinach is to Popeye.

It WILL give you a buzz knowing it’s possible to make a new stream of income from the comfort of your home. 

Before long you will be creating time to spend on making money at home.

You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.

Charles Burton

Pin this page to come back to it later…

How to Make Money at Home Summary

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Just imagine days from now waking up to see additional money in your bank account. 

This doesn’t have to be a distant dream. 

All it takes is a bit of action from you and you can start trying different methods for how to make money at home…

RIGHT NOW!

Get on it like a fat kid on cake.

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. If you are interested in making money online to free up your time, have a look at my #1 recommended program here, which I am currently using.

19 Best Time-Saving Tools & Resources

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this time-saving tools and resources post contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. In fact, you may receive a discount or some money for free! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

You probably know there are thousands of time-saving tools and resources. But knowing which ones to use can sometimes waste more time than anything.

Most people think that it’s super hard to do all the extra things they want each day. However, by using these time-saving tools and resources it’s possible to be way more efficient with your time and money.

This resource page is a list of the recommended services, products and companies that I use or have used that I KNOW are valuable. They can save you hours of time each week, which can make a huge difference in your productivity and sanity!

Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money but you cannot get more time. Jim Rohn 

Recommended Blogging Resources

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Hosting

Wealthy Affiliate

Are you interested in making money online to free up your time?

Maybe you’ve started a blog or maybe you have an existing business that isn’t being well promoted online. Or maybe you would just like to know where to start…

Wealthy Affiliate literally holds your hand into getting an online business set up and driving FREE traffic to your website.

This is my TOP recommended blogging resource!

The reason for this is because it’s not only a hosting platform for up to 50 websites. It also comes with:

• Affiliate marketing training (120 lessons with video and text, that is constantly updated, plus weekly live webinars)
• Keyword research tool (Jaaxy costs $49/ Month by itself)
• The support and community are second to none (there is always someone on live chat with over 1.5 million members)
• & too much more to put in this time-saving tools and resources post

It’s completely free to start and costs $359 a year for the pro membership (there are many courses that cost more than this alone and come with none of the added benefits or support groups). If you’d like to learn more, check out my review here. 

Bluehost

Maybe you already know what you’re doing with blogging and you just need to get your hosting (essential for monetising your blog and getting it ranked on search engines).

I used to use Bluehost as it’s super easy and affordable to use and you can start from $3.95 per month through this link. 

If you are new to blogging I’d recommend getting the one-year hosting plan which will cost you just under $72.

Build Email Lists

MailChimp

Autoresponders are crucial blogging resources. 

It’s how you build a real relationship with your readers.

If you’re just starting out and you have 0 email subscribers, you’ll likely want to join a FREE autoresponder such as MailChimp. 

ConvertKit

Wow, this is so much easier!

You can create as many sequences, automations and opt-in forms as you like.

Combine that with the awesome analytics to see what your readers open and click it becomes very easy to provide personalised and specific information that suits your readers.

It does cost $29 a month but if you’re serious about making money online an autoresponder cannot be overlooked. Try ConverKit out for 14 days for free here.

For Traffic

Tailwind

Pinterest is THE best way to get traffic for free quickly to a new blog.

Fact.

The main reason for this is because it acts in a similar way as Google (sending users to content). But it’s possible to create viral pins and get traffic much quicker than it takes for Google to recognise your website. Read more about this in “5 Secret Pinterest Hacks to Drive Traffic to Your Website“

Tailwind’s now the only legitimate partner to Pinterest and is a way that you can automate your pins (rather than sitting on Pinterest all day or waking up at silly O’Clock to pin at the best time for your audience).

You can give it a try with 100 pins for free here. It will cost $9.99 a month after that to continue but it’s one of the things I wish I purchased much sooner than I did as it saves soooo much time and brings in sooo much traffic!

Create Pins/ Design Logo’s

PowerPoint

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying… SERIOUSLY???

Well… yes

For 3 main reasons:

1. You probably already know how to use it (thank you ICT @ school!)
2. It’s easier to create designs that STAND OUT on Pinterest (everyone else uses Canva!)
3. You have more control over the details and design (i.e. using shadows to make words “pop” out)

I didn’t want to believe this either until I tried out BTOP’s $9 “Create the perfect pin” course. This was a HUGE game changer in seeing some awesome traffic from Pinterest and it walks you through how Jeff and Ben have designed their pins to help them grow their websites to over $240k/ month business.

Canva

An amazing FREE graphic designer website. You can design some amazing pins (for Pinterest) blog cover pics and logos here. 

Graphic designers are highly recommended for blogging resources but I’ve already mentioned how you can use programs such as Powerpoint to get the same if not better results.

I have also used Snappa in the past but I don’t recommend it as it costs around $10 a month… I would highly recommend using a free tool and getting Tailwind for this money.

For Writing

Grammarly

I’m not sure how I ever used to live without this one!

Grammarly fixes spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes online so you can write freely knowing a big red line will show up whenever you misspell something simple!

Another great free extension. It has a paid version but the free one is great for the basics.

A massive tip is to use a hypnotic writing cheatsheet and analogy book so you can go edit your writing with words that scientifically proven to increase reader engagement. Get yours for free here…

Podcast Resources

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Podbean

You also need hosting (somewhere to store it) to put a podcast out there into the world.

Podbean is user-friendly, has no limits to how much you can produce in a month (great for long formats/ interviews) whilst also the most friendly way to do this on your pocket ($9 a month)

Audacity

This is another free resource and is fricking awesome!

It’s easy enough to learn how to use with a couple of YouTube videos or just playing around and it can help to produce a professional-sounding podcast quickly. Did I mention Audacity it’s free?

Levelator

Have you ever listened to a podcast where someone is being interviewed and one voice is WAY louder than the other?

Problem solved with Levelator… another free resource!

Ecamm recorder

If you intend on interviewing people you will need a way to record your voice… and their voice!

Ecamm call recorder for Skype is so simple to use and only costs $39.95 for life.

Recommended Time Saving Resources

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For Learning

Audible

Easily one of the best apps EVER! 

If you find it hard to find the time to read, check out Audible. It’s an amazing use of time (check out the NETIME life hack). 

Listen to some of the best advice from the worlds most successful people on your phone, laptop, iPad, Alexa anywhere ANYTIME!

I pay £69.99 for 12 books over a year. There are alternative memberships such as 3 books a month for a free 30-day trial then $14.95 after. 

If you don’t know what books to start with check out the Best Self Development Books of all Time.

Podcasts

Fits in nicely with the above and you can find some amazing information for FREE using this app.

Overcast massively improves your podcast listening. It’s great for customising playlists and has a cool “smart speed” feature that speeds up in silences and plays at a comfortable listening speed. 

Apple Podcast works well for iPhone users too obviously!

Blinkist

Blinkist is NETime on crack!

Would you like to be able to read 4 books a day? With this app, you genuinely can get the best information from some of the world’s most productive people in 15 minutes. 

Honest!

There is written and audio format so if you have a spare 15 minutes on the way to work you can get some amazing little gems of information here. 

I pay $89.99 for an annual membership for unlimited summarised books. 

For Productivity

Trello

Don’t you hate it when you get interrupted? Isn’t it impossible to remember the things you had to do from the day before?

This is one of the top time-saving tools and resources.

This app how I plan my weeks, days and effectively my life… and Trello is FREE!

Asana

Like Trello but better if you like lists.

You can be as glamorous as you like with Asana, but I keep it simple. 

I have a project for each quarter of the year. I then have a “to do” list, a “to do this week” list, “started” and “done”.

It’s amazing because you can move the tasks along as you go and it helps to remember to do all those pesky things that you usually forget like pay a bill, do a tax return or call your Mum (jokes… I always remember that Mum!)

It’s a great tool to use if you are delegating tasks in a small team or to a VA and it’s again a free tool!

Evernote

Ahhhhh my digital brain.

If you don’t use this I literally do not understand how you can cope!! One of the best time-saving tools and resources around.

Have you ever been out and about for someone ask you what your date of birth is and you had a complete brain fart?! 

Evernote doesn’t EVER fart with its brain… EVER!

It remembers your passport details, your tax number, your companies address, that great article that you read on your phone when you were on the loo… it remembers everything and more.

Some awesome benefits… 

1. You can search for anything and it finds it (including handwritten notes!!) 
2. It works offline and then stores it when you get the Internet again
3. It’s FREE!

Recommended Money Saving/ Making Resources

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For Investing

Vanguard

If you live in Australia, the UK or the USA then investing in index funds through Vanguard is the best way to earn passive income. 

On average you will receive a conservative 7% a year on average (some years it may be much higher and some years it can be negative)

Saxo

If you are an expat or live somewhere else, then you can invest in index funds through ETF’s. Be sure to check out the 3 part podcast series to see why, how and the best strategy to invest in index funds here.

You can still invest in index funds through ETF’s from Saxo bank.

Bullion Vault

I’m not going to go in too much detail here about why to invest in gold and silver as I find people tend to fall asleep but if you want more information about this check out this post!

BullionVault stands out to other ways to invest in precious metals because:

• It has low storage fees (0.12% a year for gold and 0.48% for silver/ platinum)
• The best prices you’ll find to buy gold or silver (it’s peer to peer trading)
• You own contracts for physical metals

To Track Money

Toshl

Toshl is another FREE app to track your expenses. 

It’s such a pain trawling through bank statements to see what you’ve spent each month, which is a big reason why people don’t do it!

If you put in your expenses each time you spend money on something toshly will put all of them into categories and neatly organise it for you!

Surveys

Would you like to get paid for filling out surveys online?

Here are Make Time Online’s top 5 survey site recommendations:

• Paidviewpoint
• Swagbucks
• Inbox Dollars
• Prize Rebel
• Vindale Research

It’s the easiest and quickest way to make a bit of cash online and you can save loads of time by doing these 3 things:

1. Set up a separate email address for emails
2. Join as many good sites as possible
3. Cash-out as soon as possible

Find out more in the best 15 survey sites to get paid real money here.

Travel Resources

BA Amex Card

Would you like to receive a business class flight from London to New York each year?

By spending on this Amex and working with your partner you can easily get enough points to do this.

Click here to get a bonus 6,000 points when you spend £1,000 in your first 3 months!

Plus it’s a FREE card… an absolute no-brainer!

Uber 

Imagine how would you feel if you could take your own personal driver anywhere in the world?

Well with Uber you pretty much can!

Plus it’s cheaper than a normal taxi

Plus it’s often quicker than to call a taxi

And you can often get in a NICER taxi

If you don’t already have it get Uber now… plus get a FREE ride with this link!

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Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. Are you looking to get more traffic to your website? Find out the #1 way that new sites get thousands of views a month quickly by clicking here.

Who Else Wants More Traffic?

Get the Pinterest Secrets to Skyrocket Your Traffic Today

I do!

We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

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15 Legit Survey Sites That Pay You Money Quickly in 2019 [$200+/ Month]

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this post on legit survey sites that pay you money contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. In fact, you may receive a discount or some money for free! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

15 legit survey sites that pay you money quickly in 2019 [$200+/ Month]

You probably agree that it would be great to make an extra couple of hundred dollars a month.

But most people think it can be really hard and time-consuming to find a side hustle like this. The fact is you can actually get this money sent straight to your inbox. All you need to do is give your honest opinion in your spare moments (lunch break, commute to work, watching TV etc.)

This article will show you the best legit survey sites that pay you money. Plus, you can earn $45 just for joining the below programs!

Key Terms for Legit Survey Sites That Pay You

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This overview of the best legit survey sites that pay you will make it easy for you to decide what surveys are best for you. 

It will give information or a ranking for each survey site in 5 key areas:

Countries

A list of the countries the survey site is available in currently (note new countries are often added to legit survey sites, this is written in July 2019).

Trust *

A rating based on our own personal experience plus researching the website and other people’s reviews (this is the main factor in our opinion).

Frequency *

A rating of how often surveys are sent to you taking these 2 factors into account:

1. The more frequent the higher the rating… you will learn why in the top tips section later.
2. How often you complete a survey and receive the reward (the more you are rewarded the higher the rating)

Payout *

A rating taking 3 things into account:

1. How much the surveys pay (the higher the better… obviously!)
2. The method of payment (PayPal/ cash is ranked higher than vouchers)
3. The minimum withdrawal payout threshold (the lower the better)

Sign up Bonus

How much you can receive just for joining through a link below.

Some will pay you the bonus instantly some sites will require you to fill out a certain number of surveys before you receive it.

*A score of 1-5 for each of these areas will be given with 5 being the best score.

Survey Sites Disclaimer

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It’s important to understand that survey sites will not make you rich or provide a means to quit your job.

Here’s the truth:

However, it certainly is possible to earn an extra $200+ a month by giving your own opinion in your spare moments. Each survey site will have different ways to make money i.e. watching videos, playing games or searching the web.

But all of these sites include filling out surveys for market research companies.

If you want to make some good money from survey sites it’s a good idea to join as many survey sites as you can… check out the top tips section below to see why.

However, if you are looking to replace your income (and some) then there are legit ways to make money online to free up your time. Check out “The Perfect Part Time Job Online” for more information about this.

Related content:

• How does Blogging Make Money?
• Why Do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Share Their Story
• How to Make Money at Home

15 Legit Survey Sites That Pay You

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So here are the 15 best legit survey sites that pay you money in 2019.

They are ranked in order of trust.

#1 PaidViewpoint

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• Countries: US, UK, Worldwide

• Trust: 5/5
• Frequency: 4/5
• Payout: 5/5

• Sign up Bonus: $1

There are 4 main reasons why PaidViewpoint is number one on this list:

1. Pay cash for every completed market research survey
2. Never screen you once you are invited to a survey (some sites will let you complete a survey and then say…. “Ooo sorry you’re not in the target audience”)
3. All surveys are interesting and easy to complete
4. They do not sell your personal information to anyone else

It consistently has great reviews all over the internet and does exactly what it says it will do.

#2 Swagbucks

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• Countries: US, UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany, France

• Trust: 5/5
• Frequency: 4/5
• Payout: 4/5

• Sign up Bonus: $7 for completing the startup instructions- This fluctuates but is the case in July 2019

You will earn “Swagbucks” (SBs – 800SB is £5 PayPal cash) for every survey you complete. These SBs can be converted into cash, gift cards or PayPal credit (aka cash).

You know Swagbucks are legit as they have been in business since 2005 and receive a customer rating of over 4 stars out of 5 on Better Business Bureau. Plus they have paid out over $212 million according to their website!

Here are some other ways to earn money with Swagbucks:

• Cash back program for online shopping
• Get paid for searching the web
• Watching videos

#3 Inbox Dollars/ Pounds

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• Countries: US, UK, Worldwide

• Trust: 5/5
• Frequency: 4/5
• Payout: 3/5

• Sign up Bonus: $5

The 2 BIG benefits of Inbox Dollars are:

1. Pays in cash
2. It’s really easy to use.

It was so simple to sign up and after answering some generic questions (income level, race, religion etc.) you get a $5 bonus!

You will receive surveys that you can complete but the pay out for these surveys were a bit lower than some other survey sites. It’s certainly possible to earn a few dollars an hour from this though.

If you’re good at watching TV and doing things on your phone at the same time then this is still free money!

#4 PrizeRebel

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• Countries: US, UK, Canada, Australia

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 4/5
• Payout: 4/5

• Sign up Bonus: 150 points (~$1.5) when completing sign up questions

There is such a huge variety of rewards and ways to earn rewards with Prize Rebel.

Here are some ways to earn rewards

• Take surveys
• Fill out offers- sign up for trials. join mailing lists etc.
• Watch videos
• Complete tasks i.e. complete Internet searches
• Participate in contests/ games

Here are some of the rewards you can earn

• Gift card (500+ options)
• PayPal cash
• ACH bank transfer
• Credit for online games

You only need $5 worth of points to request a reward, which makes it very easy to cash out quickly too!

Due to the site being around since 2007 and over 9 million members PrizeRebel easily makes it into the top 5 legit survey sites that pay you money quickly.

#5 Vindale Research

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• Countries: US, UK, Australia, Brazil

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 3/5
• Payout: 5/5

• Sign up Bonus: $1 after completing the generic sign up questions

Vindale Research makes the cut for the top 5 for one simple fact.

They tend to pay out more per survey than other sites.

They pay between $0.25 and $50 for each completed survey.

This does mean the surveys are usually more complicated and take longer to complete and you make not qualify for as many as other sites.

However, Vindale Research does offer other ways to earn money other than just filling out surveys.

#6 Survey Junkie

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• Countries: US, Canada, Australia

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 3/5
• Payout: 4/5

• Sign up Bonus: N/A

Survey Junkie, like Swagbucks, works on a points system. You need 1,000 points to reach the payout threshold, which is $10.

Since a lot of surveys bring in around 100-200 points it’s easy enough to actually get paid. The bad news is you won’t qualify for surveys from Survey Junkie as often as some other survey sites, which is why it narrowly misses out on a top 5 spot.

There are a lot of positive testimonials on the Internet for Survey Junkie.

#7 Pinecone Research

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• Countries: US, UK, Canada

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 2/5
• Payout: 5/5

• Sign up Bonus: N/A- but it is invite only!

This is well known to be an exclusive company offering surveys and product testing.

Unlike a lot of other survey sites, it can be hard to join as it is invite only (hence the low score for frequency), but the payout is very good. Every survey is at least $3 (300 points) and you only require 300 points to withdraw your funds.

Therefore you can get cash in the bank every time you take a survey!

#8 Prolific

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• Countries: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Italy (20+ countries in total)

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 2/5
• Payout: 4/5

• Sign up Bonus: N/A

Founded in 2014, with 25,000 members, Prolific provides data for academics and researchers at many top universities.

You really have to focus on giving good answers to keep a high score as you will be screened out of a lot of surveys if you fall under a certain score.

There is a good reward for this though as surveys can pay out as much as £10 for 45 minutes of work if you can qualify for these types of surveys (around $20 per hour!) Plus the withdrawal limit to PayPal is only £5.

There are some great reviews online about this so it’s definitely worth giving it a go due to this high payout.

#9 Panelbase

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• Countries: UK

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 4/5
• Payout: 4/5

• Sign up Bonus: £3 just for signing up

Panelbase could have easily ranked higher in the list but it is currently only available to UK residents.

You get £3 just for signing up and the payout is typically between 50p-£10 so pretty good! You will receive quite a lot of survey opportunities from them but you do need to act quick as they tend to disappear if you wait to do them.

#10 Toluna Survey

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• Countries: US, UK, Aus, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, NZ, Canada, India (worldwide)

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 5/5
• Payout: 3/5

• Sign up Bonus: 1500 pts

This is one of the biggest panels and comfortably makes the top 10. You can earn through surveys and games where you can play to earn.

You can receive around 2,000-50,000 points per survey. But it takes quite a lot to get any payout… 55,000 points get you a £10 voucher or 190,000 points gets you £35 PayPal cash.

It’s pretty easy to take multiple surveys every day and each survey will take around 15 minutes to complete.

You can expect to earn around £3.75 per hour with the average payout and time to complete a survey.

#11 YouGov

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• Countries: US, UK

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 5/5
• Payout: 2/5

• Sign up Bonus: 2,000 points ($2 for US) 100 points (£1 for UK) for first survey

One of the leading research companies with over 4 million members. It’s slightly different to other survey sites as it has a focus on social issues and general interest topic. So it’s great if you have strong opinions on these topics.

They tend to send a lot of surveys that reward you with 300-500 points which are quite easy to complete.

It will take some time to cash out though as the minimum threshold is 35,000 points ($15 in the USA) or £50 (5,000 points) in the UK.

#12 MyPoints

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• Countries: US

• Trust: 4/5
• Frequency: 3/5
• Payout: 3/5

• Sign up Bonus: $10 bonus

Established in 1996 there is a lot of credibility behind MyPoints. However, from our research, it is definitely not what it used to be.

Beware there have been complaints that customer service is not great but there are a lot of people that have been paid from this site over the years.

There are numerous ways to earn points (700= ~$5) and get paid so it’s still a site worth trying out. Not to mention the bonus just for completing a few surveys.

#13 One Opinion

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• Countries: US, UK

• Trust: 3/5
• Frequency: 3/5
• Payout: 3/5

• Sign up Bonus: 1,000 points ($1)

Most surveys pay $1-$5 which is pretty good, but you will need 25,000 points before cashing out ($25), which is quite high.

It is possible to receive surveys every day though, so you can reach this threshold relatively quickly.

Note all many countries OneOpinion accounts closed at the end of June 2019 (Canada, France, Australia, Germany and Italy)

#14 LifePoints

---

• Countries: US, UK, Australia (worldwide)

• Trust: 3/5
• Frequency: 3/5
• Payout: 3/5

• Sign up Bonus: N/A

This is in here as it’s super easy for pretty much anyone to sign up to. It’s still a pretty new company (merged MySurvey and GlobalTestMarket in January 2019) so it’s not that well trusted yet.

However, you only need 575 points (£5) to get paid and each survey takes about 15 minutes and rewards you with 100 points.

It’s possible to earn $3-$5 per hour.

#15 IPSOS I-Say Panel

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• Countries: US, UK, Australia (100+ countries)

• Trust: 3/5
• Frequency: 3/5
• Payout: 2/5

• Sign up Bonus: N/A

Again another easy to join survey site that was founded in 1975 and conducts more than 70 million surveys a year.

Once you have 500 points you can cash out (typically get this in under 10 surveys).

#16 BONUS- Rakuten

---

• Countries: USA, UK, Australia (29+ countries)

• Trust: 5/5
• Frequency: N/A
• Payout: 5/5

• Sign up Bonus: $10 just for signing up

Now, Rakuten is not a survey site but it’s in this post because it is by far the best cashback website that we have found.

All you have to do is click the link, install the extension and then shop online as normal. If you can receive cash back it will tell you automatically and give you money in your account.

As soon as you make your first cashback claim you will be rewarded a bonus $10 through the link below. It’s an absolute no brainer as you don’t pay anything for it or ever need to think about it!

If you are interested in making serious money online, check out the following posts:

• How to Build a Website the Easy Way… in Under 30 Seconds
• How to Make Money Online Without Selling
• Affiliate Marketing Online: The Secrets Revealed

Top Tips- The Survey Strategy to Make $200+ a Month

---

Since you’re still here, I’m going to assume you can tell survey sites is a really easy way to earn a bit of extra cash each month.

However, it’s important to be realistic about how much you can earn from survey sites.

But if you use these tips you’ll find it way easier to make consistent money for giving your opinions, without spending all your time filling out surveys:

1. Create a New Email Address Only For Surveys

This is rule number one for getting the most out of survey sites. If you’re like me, you probably find it very time consuming keeping up with all your emails as it is.

Survey sites will send you LOTS of emails and they can easily get missed in between emails about cat videos and the latest shopping discounts.

Make it a habit to check up on them each day at a certain time as some surveys will only be open for a day.

2. Sign up to as Many Survey Sites as Possible

Some survey sites will not send you many surveys. Some send loads.

But by signing up to multiple sites it increases the chances of having regular surveys to complete and get paid for.

You won’t qualify for every survey because market research companies will want to pay people that fit a certain criterion (i.e. age, your interests, what country you live in etc.)

This leads onto…

3. Be Honest

It’s tempting to try to guess what kind of audience the survey site will be looking for and adapt your answers to fit that.

The issue with this is it will become very hard to remember the white lies you have told on different survey sites. Always be honest and consistent with your opinions and when filling out your personal information.

4. Cash Out as Soon as Possible

Some sites will have restrictions on when you can spend the points or how long they are valid for.

If you reach the minimum payout amount it’s usually best to withdraw it when you can. Note some sites may have bigger rewards if you get more points but this is rare.

5. Watch Out for Scams…

There are 3 clear ways to tell if a survey site is a scam:

1. You need to pay to join (you NEVER need to do this!)
2. Promises to make thousands of dollars a month
3. Require credit card details to join

I can almost hear your mind thinking, “but won’t I get better surveys from paying sites?”

NO!

This is something we have found out the hard way but paying for a survey site is a sign that the site is probably a scam.

We’ve made this mistake so that you don’t have to!

Legit Survey Sites That Pay You Money Summary

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Imagine what it would be like if you could earn an extra few hundred dollars a month by giving your opinion whilst watching TV or during your lunch break.

Little by little you begin to realise that it is possible to make money from survey sites. There are tons of sites out there but don’t let that overwhelm you. Use the sites on this page to start as they have all been vetted.

Using legit survey sites is possibly the easiest way to make money online. In fact, you can earn $45 just by joining the above websites.

But have you noticed that it will not make you thousands of dollars a month?

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. You can learn more about the proven 4-step process that has helped thousands of people all over the world to make money online to free up their time by clicking here.

Plus, kick start your journey to make passive income online below…

How to Swap a Free Chair for a House & $300k+ w/ Rob Stephenson From Flea Market Flipper

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this podcast with Rob Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

If you’re like me, you probably get excited about earning money for free…

Well, how does over half a million dollars in one year sound?

Rob Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper joins the show to chat about…

• How a chair from the junk can become a rental property and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory
• An opportunity for people all over the world
• Why Rob is so good with the ladies… lucky Melissa!

Be sure to check out the free video workshop by Rob below.

Rob’s Background

---

1:30 mins

The more you listen to this podcast the more you will learn that Rob is just a normal guy like you and me. You will find out…

• Rob grew up as the youngest of 7 kids… and the only boy!
• His parents went to flea markets at the weekends when he was growing up
• Why he had to take on flea market flipping full time in 2015

Later on in our chat, you will find out why the security of a job is not always that “secure”…

Now What About This Flipping Challenge?

---

3:30 mins

I literally couldn’t hold back my excitement about this!

This is one of the most incredible financial stories I’ve heard ever…

• They found a chair in the rubbish (trash for you Americans!)
• Ended up buying 2 exercise bikes for this
• Then it multiplied…
• By the end of this week, they will have $10,000 in cash and over $100,000 inventory
• By the end of the year, Rob predicts they will have $150,000 in cash for a rental property and $300-400k inventory (make sure you follow them to see if they can do it!)

Are you beginning to realise that anyone can start doing this… without needing any money! Now, who said you need money to make money??

Melissa claims that Rob wakes up every Saturday with a “pep in his step” about going to find a bargain!

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

Yes Please!!!… Where Can I Start?

---

9 mins

During this part, Rob explains that…

• Flea markets are only one avenue
• Trash day is the best day
• Buy locally – Facebook, eBay, online stores

The more you listen to this podcast the more you begin to notice this may actually be possible…

Related content:

• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

Rob’s Secret…

---

11:30 mins

Right, lean in a bit closer here.

You need to listen carefully to find out how to…

• Build core relationships
• Make contacts with the “right people”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could get these crazy bargains brought straight to you rather than having to find them every time?

OK, but once we get the deals, this begs the question…

How Can You Sell it?

---

13:30 mins

Now, let me ask you a personal question… “Have you ever tried to sell something and found it annoying when people haggle with you to knock the price down?”

Aha! Rob to the rescue once more…

• Don’t try to sell locally i.e. Craigslist, Facebook only have 40-60 thousand people in a community
• eBay has over 171 million users- Therefore makes up 80-90% of Flea Market Flipper’s sales
• Learn about their business model… Buy locally, build relationships, sell online worldwide (simples!)

In a moment, Rob will tell you how to…

Figure Out The System in Your Area!

---

17 mins

If you live in any of the “top 5” big countries (UK, USA, Canada, NZ, Australia) then you’re laughing. If not, you’re about to see that when there’s a will there is a way…

• Get onto eBay and work out how it works in your area
• Discover how to save so much money on the shipping (44% better off)
• How Rob ships stupidly big stuff!… oh and gets paid for it!
• How to avoid wasting your time haggling when you are selling

Imagine what you could do if you knew how to make a quick couple of thousand dollars anywhere, anytime…

Flea Market Flipper Insane Deals

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20 mins

So do you want to know what is possible? Find out:

• How they flipped a Security tower (like the massive ones at Disney)- bought for $5k sold for $25k
• And a Harley Davison Sign- bought for $250 sold for $7,500 (plus a bonus on the shipping… this was big!)
• The secret key for what to look for when purchasing something
• How to avoid gambling

Since you’re still here I’m going to assume you would like to know…

How Can I Learn More About This?

---

24 mins

Now, Rob and Mellisa would like to help you experience some of this success for yourself.

What if you didn’t have to make the same mistakes they did when they started?

They have figured out all the hard stuff through trial and error and have created an online course that anyone can start implementing straight away.

You’ve got to wonder what it would be like to have the time to spend with your family or helping out your friends rather than being tied down to a 9-5 job.

Because that’s exactly how Rob had just spent his day before speaking to me.

If Rob Could Time Travel…

---

27 mins

Before Flea Market Flipper, Rob was working in an office job.

He was called into his boss’s office one day to find out that his families health insurance was being removed. And he had his third child due just after this was going to happen.

Can you imagine the stress of trying to figure out how you will cover thousands of dollars worth of expenses whilst you’re about to have your third child?

So these are the top 3 tips Rob would give himself if he went back to when he was still working in a cubicle…

1. Finding something that you’re passionate about- start off with something you are intrigued by… it may become a passion
2. Consistency- Some people may do it now and then, but you will not find deals every day or every time you look for it.
3. Discipline- Do what needs to be done, don’t delay it.

In a minute you will learn what action you can take right now to set your future on a different path…

Action

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31 mins

This one is a no brainer!

When you try out the free workshop that Rob and Melissa have created you will see why so many people recommend this to their friends.

It’s about an hour long and there are so many little nuggets of information in there.

Plus you get a free ebook on how to sell on eBay just for attending.

Click the video below to check it out…

Links

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You can contact Rob through their website…

Fleamarketflipper.com

Or you can send him an email on…

rob@fleamarketflipper.com

Rob Stephenson From Flea Market Flipper Summary

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So, before you go, here are my 5 big takeaways from this chat with Rob…

1. Finding something that you’re passionate about
2. Consistency
3. Discipline
4. Build relationships
5. Take action- you probably have heard of eBay before… but have you used it as Rob does?

Like so many things in life they are all easy to do… but easy not to do. You decide what path you’re going to take.

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. Let me know in the comments what is your biggest takeaway from this podcast. And don’t forget to share this page if you think it’s an opportunity that could help you or any friends!

The Ultimate Passive Income Strategy to Retire Early

MTO8- Podcast on the ultimate passive income strategy to retire early. Note, I am not a financial advisor these are just my opinions that have been formed from researching different studies and books. Please, please, please do your own research. Remember, knowledge is power! There may be affiliate links in this article, read the full disclaimer here.

1. 7 reasons you should invest in index funds today
2. How to invest in index funds
3. The ultimate passive income strategy using index funds

 

Everyone knows that the way to retire early is to find a passive income stream. However, it can be hard to know what is the best way to actually achieve this. 

Most people will be willing to put in hard work now if it means they can reap the rewards later on in life. You may be thinking that there really isn’t such a thing as passive income because no matter how you make money you will have to put in some work at certain points. Well, this strategy is the closest thing to earning true passive income.

This podcast will reveal the ultimate passive income strategy to retire early. 

 

How Much Money do I Need to Retire Early? 

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(1 min) 

Work out your own “financial freedom figure” so that you would never have to work another day and live off this passive income forever. 

The only number you need to know is how much money you spend each year (annual expenses). 

 

Here’s the maths:

Annual expenses x 25

 

e.g. $50,000 x 25 = $1.25 million

 

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying… How the heck am I going to get $1.25 million? 

This is a great question and is the whole point of this website and podcast. To help you make money, retire early and make more time in your life. 

 

Before we really get into that remember this important quote:

If you aim for nothing you will hit it every time.

 

Related: 

Financial Freedom Book Review

Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog

 

Tony Robbins Freedom Stats

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(4 min)

These freedom stats will help you to realise why you should start investing ASAP:

• Corrections (a drop by at least 10%) have happened on average once a year since 1900
• Less than 20% of corrections turn into a “Bear Market” (fall by over 20%)
• Nobody can predict the market
• The stock market rises over time despite many short-term setbacks
• Bear markets have happened every 3-5 years, historically
• Bear markets always become bull markets (see chart below)
• The greatest danger is being out of the market (see chart below)

BEAR MARKET TABLE

 

Why the Stock Market Goes Up Over Time

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(5 min)

There are 2 main reasons why the stock market goes up over time:

1. Inflation
2. Current financial system

As you absorb this information you’ll realise our current financial system needs growth to survive. You may have heard on the news about how a 2-3% annual growth is healthy for our economy and is good news. 

The fact is it doesn’t have to be!

If there was a set amount of money in the world and it was all backed to something that was finite (such as gold… which is what the economy used to be before 1913…) then growth wouldn’t be needed at all. 

Our current financial system relies on quantitative easing and would implode if deflation was to occur. This means the powers that be do everything in their power to prevent a deflationary economy (resulting in more money being printed, hence an increase in the stock market prices and all assets over time!)

 

Related: 

How our wealth is being stolen- The power of Inflation

Save Hours of Time with these Resources

 

How This Strategy Allows Your Pot to Grow (…and Earn Passive Income)

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(6 min)

Remember a 7% return each year is a conservative number compared to the growth of the stock market over the last 100 years.

• The US stock market has averaged 10.16% annual return between 1920 and 2016- Stat from Andrew Hallam’s book Millionaire Teacher
• The S&P 500 returned an average of 10.28% a year from 1985 to 2015 (if you invested $50,000 in 1985 that would be worth $941,613.61 in 2015) – Fact from Tony Robbins book Unshakeable

So let’s assume the index fund returned a conservative 7% interest rate (suggested by Grant Sabatier in Financial Freedom). This means you can take 4% out to live on ($50,000) and leave the extra 3% in your pot to allow it to grow!

 

In the example this means:

• 1.25 million would increase to 1.2875 million

This would mean the following year you could live off $51,500… and your pot would grow to $1,326,125. Are you beginning to see how this strategy is inflation proof?

To learn more about this ultimate passive income strategy to retire early check out this related post:

• The Secret to Earn Passive Income

Examples to Reach Your Figure

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(7 min)

So going back to that great question you asked earlier…

“How am I going to get $1.25 million?”

Well, if you could save and invest $20,000 a year you would reach your figure in 23 years. If you’re a high earner this could easily be within your reach as long as you don’t live beyond your means. And don’t you think that sounds better than working for 50 years on the off chance your pension pot pays you when you’re old enough to retire?

 

If you think that would be impossible to save this amount each year, then you may have to find an additional stream of income. After all, if you currently earn $18,000 a year the most you could possibly save is $18,000!

But don’t worry that is where this website will come in handy to help!

 

Related:

• How Grant Sabatier made $50,000 in 4 days and Reached Financial Freedom
• How to Make Money at Home
• Pete McPherson Shares His Secrets to Earn $10,000 a Month from Blogging. 

 

Do you remember hearing that there are 4 main asset classes to invest in?

1. Paper (Stocks, Shares, Bonds etc.)
2. Property
3. Business
4. Commodities 

If you have no idea where to start I would highly recommend focusing on learning new skills that can be monetised in the future. 

Skills are your future equity. 

 

Can you imagine learning marketing, website design and copywriting skills all whilst making an income? Jumpstart your own profitable website by following this 11-day course for free. 

 

 

ACTION

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(12 min) 

There are 3 pieces of action for you to take today that your future self will be very grateful for…

1. If you haven’t already, the first step is to understand what your own financial situation is. Work out where you spend money and how you earn money. 

You can get your free financial statement planner and the tips on how to use it below to easily work out your annual expenses. 

 

 

 

2. The second main way to ensure you are making good financial decisions is to learn more about the current financial system.

You probably know that most people do not understand how the economy works. 

The more you learn about the way that money is used within society the more informed decisions you can make about what to do with your money. By watching these 30 minute YouTube videos you will learn more than what the vast majority of people know about our current financial system. 

If you haven’t got time now, pin this page and come back to it later on for some quality Netflix and chill time 😉

 

 

 

3. Just start! Open an account with Vanguard if you are living in the UK, US or Australia. If you live somewhere else or are an expat you can open an account with Saxo to invest using ETFs. 

Even putting in the lowest amount possible may seem ridiculously far away from your “financial freedom number”. But it is infinitely closer to that number if you currently are not investing anything (I guarantee it’s the hardest step to take, but it’s actually very simple to do!)

Learn more about how to do this in the 2nd episode of this series.

 

The Ultimate Passive Income Strategy to Retire Early Summary

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Little by little you begin to notice this ultimate passive income strategy to retire early could be possible. It doesn’t mean getting there is super easy but it certainly can be done!

Taking these small steps and actions will compound over time to make your future situation that much better!

 

Do Something TODAY that your future self will thank you for.
.#quoteoftheday #successquotes #WellnessWednesday @ClearPathStrategies pic.twitter.com/kBar5wAJ3v

— Micheline Birkhead, MBA, Digital Marketer (@M_Birkhead) March 7, 2019

 

Keep changing for the better,

 

Mike

 

P.S. Please do subscribe and leave a review here… If you are reading this on a computer find the podcast by going into your podcast app and search for Make Time Online. 

 

P.P.S. Leave a comment on whether you found this mini 3-part series useful on investing in index funds and what you would like to hear more about in the future. 

How to Invest in Index Funds

MTO7- Podcast on how to invest in index funds. Note I am not a financial advisor these are just my opinions that have been formed from researching different studies and books. Please, please, please do your own research. Remember knowledge is power!

This is a 3 part podcast series on index funds:

1. 7 reasons you should invest in index funds today
2. How to invest in index funds
3. The ultimate passive income strategy using index funds

You may agree that finding a way of earning passive income is not very easy. 

Most people will want to find ways of doing this but don’t know where to start. If you listen to episode one of this 3-part podcast you will learn 7 reasons why index funds can provide a genuine passive income stream. 

This podcast will show you how to invest in index funds and the best platforms to use when doing so.

How to Invest in Index Funds if You’re From the UK, US or Australia

---

(1 min)

There is a simple way to get started if you are from one of these 3 countries… Vanguard.

John C. Bogle (the founder of Vanguard) has basically invented index funds so that normal people can get invest in index funds. 

There are 2 main reasons why Vanguard is the best way to invest in index funds:

1. Their fees are the lowest you’ll find
2. You can invest in “retirement funds” which are managed for you

Click the following links to learn more and get started:

Vanguard UK

Vanguard US

Vanguard Australia

(Note these are not affiliate links!)

Stocks vs Bonds Figures

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(5 min)

Stocks are small portions of a company. The company uses this money for growth and you can see an increase in the price of the company stocks if they do well over time. 

Bonds are basically a form of debt (usually for a company or government)- you find out the interest rate and when the borrower agrees to pay you ahead of time. Check out this short Penny Hoarder YouTube video to explain this simply…

Typically stocks will outperform bonds in the long run. However, bonds are historically much more “safe” and less likely to have a big drop in any given year. 

These are the stats for the 10-year range between 2008-2018:

Bonds- 4.18% annual return 

Stocks- 8.72% annual return

Just remember if you invest in a single company and it goes bust you would lose all of your money invested with them. When you invest in index funds this cannot happen (unless all the companies in the whole country go bust at the same time). Check out part one for a reminder about this. 

The simple way to look at this is that if you are younger it would be wiser to invest more in stocks than bonds (as they have a larger gain over time). If you need to start withdrawing money from your investment pot then you may want to have a higher ratio of bonds as they are less likely to have a big drop in any given year.

This leads to Vanguards amazing retirement funds…

Vanguard Retirement Fund Benefits

---

(6 min)

There are 2 massive advantages of using Vanguard retirement funds. 

1. Hands off- Saves you more time!
2. Leave your emotions out of it Rebalance portfolio- Buy low and sell high automatically 

Look at how transparent the fees are for this account as well. You will find it almost impossible to pay such a little amount in fees when compared to transaction costs (if you buy stocks yourself) or management fees you would find in any mutual funds. 

So the best thing about investing in these retirement funds is that you don’t have to do anything! It’s completely hands off and your account will be managed for you making you more time! But that’s not all…

Morningstar discovered that DIY investors tend to underperform the Vanguard retirement fund.

This is because investors tend to speculate on the market and buy when prices are higher and sell when prices are lower (if you listen to the news it makes it very hard not to do these things!)

So all of this uncertainty in the market at present (March 2019) leading up to Brexit and the trade agreements between USA and China may mean the market is more stagnant or we may even see a correction. But that is a great time to buy more funds (as the market is on sale!) 

Related:

• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income

Minimum Amount to Get Started

---

(11 min)

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying… but I haven’t got enough money to get started. This is a concern that a lot of people have when they start investing. But as you can see the minimum amount to open an account is very reasonable:

• UK- £500 or £100 per month instalment.
• USA- $1,000 to get started with a “retirement fund”.
• Australia – $3,000 to get started with a “retirement fund”.

Just so you know you can put a lot more than this into an account if you have it, but you will likely need a lot less than you may have first thought. 

What Account to Open?

---

UK

If you’re from the UK you get £20,000 per year to put into an ISA (Individual Savings Account). This is completely tax-free and you won’t pay any capital gains tax (CGT) or income tax. Check out Vanguard’s “Benefits of Investing in an ISA” to understand more about which account you should open.

USA

If you’re from the US, check out this link to understand more about the best account(s) to open. 

Invest for the Long Run

---

(13 min)

View the money you are putting in like a future pension pot. It’s not money that you can dip into if you want to go on a fancy holiday next year. 

This lets compound interest do its magic over time. 

Skip the below video to 6:50 minutes in to see the power of compound interest in a simple story…

How to Invest as an Expat or From Another Country

---

(14 min)

Open an account with Saxo for the region you live in.

Invest in ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). These are very similar to index funds but they just have a different fancy name. 

Read Investopedia’s article on the advantages and drawbacks of ETFs to understand them a bit more. 

1. Open an account with Saxo
2. Buy ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds)
3. Keep your share allocation as you’d like it by buying more of the underperforming ETF

Read more about this in Andrew Hallem’s article about investing as a British Expat in Singapore. 

Related:
The Best Way to Earn Passive Income

ACTION

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There are 2 action points for today:

1. Work out your current annual expenses
2. Open an account to start investing in index funds for where you live 

Finding out more about your current financial situation can be an unbearable thought for some people. It’s much easier just to carry on doing what you’re doing than facing the harsh reality of where your money is going. 

But I can tell you from experience it 100% helps your future self to allocate your money on things that you want rather than finding there’s not enough month at the end of the money.

Related: How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

You can get your free financial statement planner and the tips on how to use it below to easily work out your annual expenses. 

Summary

---

So should you invest in index funds? Does a bear poop in the woods? 

Listen to the first part of this short series here to see the 7 reasons why you should invest in index funds ASAP. 

As you can see it doesn’t have to be a long task or really complex to get started with investing in index funds. If you can get a Vanguard account then get on like that bears poop would get stuck on velcro. If not find a brokerage account that you can buy ETFs for a low transaction fee (Saxo!)

….and remember…

The best time to start investing was when you were born. The second best time is today.  

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. Do comment below to let us know what you currently invest in or what is holding you back from starting… or send me a message on WA here

7 Reasons You Need to Invest in Index Funds Immediately

MTO6- Podcast on reasons to invest in index funds. There may be affiliate links in this article, read the full disclaimer here. Note I am not a financial advisor these are just my opinions that have been formed from researching different studies and books. Please, please, please do your own research

This is a 3 part podcast series on index funds:

1. 7 reasons you should invest in index funds today
2. How to invest in index funds
3. The ultimate passive income strategy using index funds

You probably know that finding ways to invest your money can be very time consuming and daunting. 

However, it is possible to make a good return on your hard earned cash without having to spend hours in front of your computer screen. It’s also possible to do this without paying other people to manage a fund or relying on people pay you in the form of interest or rental income. 

This podcast will show you 7 reasons why index funds are so highly recommended by the financial giants of the world. 

If you’d like to see more detail about this podcast then check out this link:

• The Closest Thing to True Passive Income

What is an Index Fund? 

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An index fund is a public fund that requires no “active” management. 

Basically, you don’t need to buy and sell individual stocks of certain companies, it will simply own all the stocks in the index (i.e. the 500 stocks in the S&P 500 index fund, which is the top 500 companies in the USA)

Simply put, there will be much lower fees that you pay to any brokers because it doesn’t require anyone to select stocks in certain companies.

As you continue to read on and listen to the podcast, you will realise this is the #1 that any investor should spend their time researching (how to lower the fees you spend on investments!)

Facts!

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These are some of the facts that show why index funds are superior to mutual funds or the average individual investor!

• The US stock market has averaged 10.16% annual return between 1920 and 2016 – (1) 
• The S&P 500 returned an average of 10.28% a year from 1985 to 2015 (if you invested $50,000 in 1985 that would be worth $941,613.61 in 2015) – (2)
• The average investor returned 3.66% during this same time (the result was $146,996 in 2015) – (2)
• A 15-year study in the Journal of Portfolio Management showed that 96% of mutual funds underperformed the S&P 500 stock market index fund – (3)
• Another study showed that 33 out of 195 (17.5%) mutual funds DISAPPEARED between 1979 and 1999. There’s almost a 1 in 5 chance that your mutual fund may go bust! And there’s no telling which ones they will be – (4)

Are you beginning to see why index funds are recommended by the smartest investors?

By periodically Investing in an index fund the know-nothing…Investment professionals #WarrenBuffett https://t.co/WiF9GwErFB pic.twitter.com/xjOmdtB8Yh

— Nikhil Gupta (@nikhil_catalyst) February 28, 2019

Here are some freedom facts from Tony Robbin’s book Unshakeable, which should help you to realise why you should be involved in the stock market:

• Corrections (fall by at least 10%) happen on average once a year since 1900
• Less than 20% of corrections turn into a “Bear Market” (fall by over 20%)
• Nobody can predict the market
• The stock market rises over time despite many short-term setbacks
• Bear markets have happened every 3-5 years, historically
• Bear markets become bull markets (see chart below)
• The greatest danger is being out of the market (see chart below)

Unless the current financial system drastically changes then inflation will carry on occurring. This is a big factor in the reason why stocks, bonds, property and all commodities keep going up in the long run.

Related content:

How our wealth is being stolen- the hidden power of inflation

Sources of Information

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1. Value Line Investment Survey- A Long-Term Perspective Chart 1920-2005 and Morningstar Performance Tracking of the S&P 500 from 2005-2016, www.morningstar.com
2. Tony Robbins, “Unshakeable- Your Financial Freedom Playbook“, 2017
3. David F Swenson, Unconventional Success, a Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment (New York: Free Press, 2005), 217.
4. Robert D. Arnott, Andrew L. Berkin, and Jia Ye, “How Well Have Taxable Investors Been Served in the 1980s and 1990s?” The Journal of Portfolio Management 26, no. 4 (Summer 2000): 86.
5. Mark Hulbert, “Index Funds Win Again”, February 2009, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/your-money/stocks-and-bonds/22stra.html?_r=0
6. Andrew Hallam, “Millionaire Teacher- The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School“, 2017
7. Grant Sabatier, “Financial Freedom”, 2019

ACTION

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Watch how incredible compound interest really is!

This is why you need to get investing… immediately!

Now, you may be wondering how you are supposed to actually have enough money to invest in index funds. The first step is to get your own finances in check. My wife, Sarah, and I have used the below financial statement template for the past 4 years, which has helped us to save money and invest more money.

Related content:

How we Save £30,000 a year and travel as teachers

Summary

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There are so many reasons to invest in index funds as so many financial experts say! But here are 7 big ones:

1. Don’t Argue With the Facts
2. Beware of Mutual Funds Managers & Financial Advisors!
3. Avoid Paying HIGH Fees! (Your main job as an investor)
4. It Saves so Much Time!
5. It Forces you to Buy low and sell high
6. You CANNOT go Bust
7. Don’t Worry About the Next Crash, remember the 

To see these points in more detail check out this post.

If you enjoyed this podcast then please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes right here.

Keep changing for the better

Mike

P.S. What reason do you think is the most important to invest in index funds?

How does Blogging Make Money?

There may be affiliate links in this article about “how does blogging make money?” read the full disclaimer here.

 

After you read this article you will have learnt the answer to the question “how does blogging make money?” 

 

 

I don’t want to faff around so let’s get into it!

There are 3 main ways to monetise a blog.

1. Advertising
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Creating and selling your own products or courses

 

1. Adverts

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You probably know there are 2 different ways to make money from advertising:

1. Advertising Networks
2. Direct advertising/ sponsored posts

 

Advertising networks

This is probably what most people will think of when they think of making money from adverts.

There are a few different networks that bloggers can use but here are the main ones:

 

• Google AdSense- Little requirements, I’ve heard it helps to have a website for 6 months
• Monumetric- need 10,000 page views a month
• Mediavine- need 25,000 page views a month
• Ad Thrive- need 100,000 page views per month

 

As you can see there are different requirements to work with each network but the ads generally pay more the harder the requirements are.

 

So how do you get paid from having adverts on your website?

That is the right question!

You generally get paid in one of 2 ways:

1. Cost per thousand (CPM) i.e. $4 for every 1,000 views 
2. Pay per click (PPC)

 

If you are a new blogger it’s best to start with Google AdSense even though the pay will be the lowest.

It will probably pay around $2 per thousand “impressions” (how many people see the ad i.e. view your website) i.e. 10,000 views in a month pays $20 (so it’s not much!)

 

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

“But that will make my website look tacky!” 

You may have a point but here are 4 BIG reasons why you should use adverts ASAP:

1. Your readers will be used to seeing ads… so it won’t be a big shock when you add them!
2. If you have a post that does go viral you will be thankful you had them on there.
3. Something is better than nothing, it can offset other costs such as automatically pinning on Pinterest with tailwind 
4. People are used to seeing ads everywhere (Youtube, TV, Podcasts, Newspaper etc.)

 

Not only that, you can actually help connect people with products that may help them if you choose good and relevant adverts to what you write about.

 

Starting with AdSense helps to learn the process.

It will make the future switches much easier to know where to place the ads and how to work with the network etc.

 

Related Article:

Bloggers! How to make money with Adverts

 

Direct Advertising/ Sponsored Posts

Now, this way is slightly less well known but it can be more lucrative for beginner bloggers.

Direct advertising is when a company reaches out to you to either publish a post on their behalf or ask you write a post for them. It may be a review of a product or simply a post about their industry.

The idea is that they would want a link to their product or their own website and your blog will send targeted traffic there!

The price of this can vary greatly but will typically be over $150 and can go into the $1,000’s depending on how relevant and big your website is.

 

So let’s move onto the next monetisation method…

 

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• What I’ve Learnt from Reading Over 100 Books in the Last 3 Years
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story
• How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

 

2. Affiliate Marketing

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Affiliate marketing is the best thing for bloggers since sliced bacon!

A big reason some people never start (or quit too soon) is because they don’t know what product to create… YET!

The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you can start earning a decent income without even having your own product! It’s not uncommon for bloggers to earn $6,000+ per month from promoting other people’s products. 

 

Now, I used to get a bit funny about “selling” stuff to people. Especially when it isn’t even my own product!

However, let me ask you this…

Have you ever watched a film that you recommend a friend go and see at the cinema? Or have you ever told a friend about an amazing deal after you found one in H&M? 

Of course you have!

 

That’s why as long as you only recommend great products that will help other people, you’ll actually be providing a service. If they buy it and it helps them then they will thank you for it!

Affiliate marketing is all about connecting people that are already looking for a product.

The important thing is to be honest.

I mean think about it… If you’ve tried the product out you are much more likely to know some of the things that other people will be concerned about or looking for.

 

Related articles:

• 8 Ways to Avoid a Scam Online
• 6 Questions all Bloggers Need to Answer

 

There are loads of other programs or products you can become an affiliate of and a whole range of different “niches” (topics) you can choose to write about.

 

Examples:

• Amazon Associates– anything!
• Shareasale– almost anything!
• Clickbank– mainly digital products
• CJ Affiliate program– almost everything
• Shopify– eCommerce
• Rakuten– Online store

 

And here are some popular blogging affiliate links:

• Leadpages- Online marketing tool
• StudioPress- WordPress themes
• ConvertKit– Autoresponder
• Bluehost– Hosting service
• Tailwind– Pinterest scheduler
• Wealthy Affiliate– Affiliate marketing training, support and hosting service.

 

If you are interested in learning more about how you can monetise your website and particularly how you can get the most success from affiliate marketing then try out this free email course. 

Some of what it covers:

• What do you NEED to get started (that most people don’t know)
• How to write quality content
• Optimise the 2 most important pages on your website
• The secrets to email marketing 
• What is the future of digital marketing?
• Get traffic on tap

 

 

So this leads us onto the third and last way (or is it the last way?) of monetising a website…

 

3. Creating and selling your own products 

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So this is where the big boys and girls make the BIG money!

 

Check out Brand Gaille’s Income Report Study. This shows how bloggers earning over $25k per month make 80% of their income from their own courses. 

 

However, you don’t have to be an experienced blogger to start creating some of your own products.

For example, you could create a free 7-day Pinterest course, that you’d send out with your autoresponder, and a $7 Workbook that compliments this course nicely so you can get the most out of it!

Try out this free course if you want to instantly get more eyes on your website (FYI there is not an upsell for a $7 workbook!!)

 

 

There is one thing to bear in mind though…

Make sure people actually want what you are offering.

 

This is a common mistake that some businesses make early on. They may create an amazing product but they have not tested to see who their target market is or IF anyone wants it!

The beauty of blogging (if you do offer good content) is that you will begin to have subscribers and people that are interested in what you are doing.

You can then just ask them what they want or what they find the most interesting and create products related to this!

So as I hinted earlier there is another way to make money online.

It’s great to get some income early on, and it’s great to learn more… 

 

BONUS- Consulting or Services 

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So this is not necessarily a way to make money from your blog. However, it is so closely linked that I think it should be included in this post on how does blogging make money.

You can write/ proofread/ advertise for other businesses or bloggers for an agreed upon rate.

Some people may start writing posts for less than $0.10 per word but some freelance writers will earn $1,000’s per post that they write for someone else.

It’s a great way to supplement your income when starting out in the blogging world.

This will require hustle to find people or companies willing to do this, and you may have to offer a lower price than what you are worth to get started and learn the ropes. 

Grant Sabatier speaks about how overdelivering early on can have huge benefits to create a system that other people want and are willing to pay more for.

Check out the podcast for more details:

How to make $50,000 in 4 days and Reach Financial Freedom with Grant Sabatier.

 

Feel free to contact me here if this is something you are looking for:

mike@maketimeonline.com

 

Related articles:

How to Make Money at Home

 

Another way some bloggers will make money is by consulting or coaching other bloggers.

This can really vary from specific feedback, goal setting, deciding on a niche etc.

 

Remember to pin this post on “how does blogging make money”…

 

How does Blogging Make Money Summary 

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As you get closer to the end of this article you begin to realise the answer to the question, how does blogging make money.

 

There are the main 3 ways to monetise a blog:

1. Advertising 
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Creating and selling your own products

But remember, consulting or offering services is the most common way for bloggers to start making money early on. It helps to learn and develop these skills, whilst making money from doing so. 

 

And do you begin to realise the importance of starting a website and continuing to learn? 

 

Keep changing for the better

 

Mike