I'm going to be sharing with you 11 ways that have made money from home over the past 10 years. Now, my work-at-home story began before I even started working from home.
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Back when I was still at my day job, I was trying to figure all this work-at-home stuff out. I was trying to find some opportunities to make some money on the side while transiting into a full-time home business, and one of the first opportunities that I took advantage of was mystery shopping.
Now, if you are not familiar with this, what are you basically doing is going into a store, posing as a regular old shopper. Then when you get home, you're providing feedback about your store experience: How were you treated? Were you greeted when you walked into the store? Was somebody there to help you, answer your questions?
Things like that. Mystery shopping, it isn't the best-paying opportunity in most cases, and for those of you that are looking to work at home fulltime, you are going to have to leave the house, so it isn't something that is going to be a long-term plan for most of you, but if you are just trying to get familiar with what this whole online thing is and how you submit work and how you pick up jobs online, mystery shopping can be a great way to do that. Now, call centers were the opportunity that I took when I was ready to make my transition into full-time work at home.
I knew that I wanted to start up my own business, but I needed to pay the bills while I was getting things going. Call center work, it's really plentiful online, and it's often an easy hire for those that have some kind of customer service in their background. For me, it was a no-brainer. They pay an hourly wage in most cases, and they offer a weekly or a biweekly paycheck, and that's what I needed while I was going to be setting up my own business. I took two call center jobs with two different companies and just got rolling that way. Within a couple of months, I had my home business set up, and I could leave those call center jobs behind. It's not going to be a dream job for most people, but it can be a means to an end if you need to get something paying you right away. Well, when I left my call center jobs,
my next role as a virtual assistant and I was a virtual assistant for many, many years. I started out doing just general VA work, anything from, for while I was acting as a virtual receptionist for a chiropractor office and answering their phones while they were at lunch or on break. I also worked for a landscaping company fora while doing data entry of their receipts and their invoices. Then for many, many years, I was a virtual assistant to other bloggers. I helped them with their content production and social media marketing, with things like that. Virtual assistant, it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and it's really an opportunity that you can take and make your own. You can use the skills that you have or you learn skills that you want to know and really create a business that's your own. Now, another thing that I did for quite a few years was freelance write. As this person that was working, as I had a blog my own and as I was being a virtual assistant to other bloggers, it was only natural for me to supplement my income by offering freelance writing services to other people online.
I did that for quite a few years. I always stayed within my chosen niche hereof online businesses and online marketing, but that really opened a lot of doors and provided me with another income stream while other things fluctuated over time. Now, while it's not something that ever really took off for me, I did have dabbled in eBay-selling over the years from time to time just as opportunities came up on their own, the things that I had that I wanted to get rid of, but that can't a great opportunity for a lot of people out there who really enjoy the thrill of the hunt and finding a good deal that they can resell for a profit. Both eBay and Amazon, FBA, are really popular-home businesses right now. Now, while I was a virtual assistant, there occasionally would be different services that were really in demand but were also really easy for me to offer as one-off services. It wasn't something that maybe people need ongoing or needed to be on a monthly retainer from me for, but it was something that was really quick and easy that I could get done and really profit from. In those instances, I offer those services on Fiverr.
Fiverr is still a really popular site today. It started out primarily as just a place that you could offer just small services and tasks for $5 each. Over time, it's really grown into something that you can offer. A lot of upsell potential there, and different rates for different packages. It can really be a great profit place for someone who has some different skills that you can offer with a quick turnaround and without a lot of upfront work. You don't have to learn quite so much about your client's business or what they need. It's something that they could really say, "Here's what I need to be done," and you can take it from there. Now, when we get into things like passive income opportunities that I've taken advantage of over the years, eBay, or, excuse me, ebooks certainly one of them. I started out selling ebooks long before Kindle was even around. Back in those days, we were selling on E-Junkieor ClickBank, which are still around now, but Kindle has certainly become a more popular option for creating your ebooks.
That's something that can be really easy to get going, get it written, get it for sale online. It can continue to earn you money for months or years down the road. Now, something that we're probably all familiar with when we're talking about little moneymakers is surveyed. That's something that I don't really participate in much these days, but back before I started working from home full time, I was certainly involved with things like Pinecone Research, some other survey panels that would pay you a few bucks for just answering a click-online survey. Along those same lines are cashback rebates. That's something that I still do a lot today. It's often money that you can make without any extra work. You might have your Discover card paying you cashback on your purchases. Ebates is certainly one that I use a lot of and absolutely love when it comes to online purchases. There are a lot of different ones out there.
Make sure you're paying attention to what credit cards you're using when you go to make an online purchase. Make sure you are taking advantage of those things like Swagbucks or Ebates or even Ibotta every time that you make an online purchase or an offline purchase in the case of Ibotta. Now, something that we're all familiar with going to be direct sales, and that's something that I was involved in before I made my transition into full-time work at home. There are hundreds of legitimate companies out there that work in this, network marketing, or social selling is what that's often referred to these days.
Whether it be Tupperware, Avon, Chloe + Isabel, Stella & Dot, these are all legitimate companies that offer you the opportunity to earn commission on your personal sales. Also, they'll need a downline. Now, that brings us to 10 years later. What I am doing today is primarily blogging. My income today comes solely through the products and services that I promote and offer on my blog. The majority of my income comes from affiliate marketing. I get paid a commission when people buy through the links to affiliate products that I promote on my site. I also have courses that are available for sale.
I get paid for display ads on my site. There are a number of opportunities that you can implement when you are trying to make an income from blogging. The thing with blogging is it does take some time to build it up and there is a bit of a learning curve there, but it is something that can be really fulfilling once you get it going and getting it creating an income on its own. The thing you need to really keep in mind is that you choose the right topic for your blog. You're going to want to, this is going to be something that you're going to need to talk about frequently and for years to come. You really want to choose a subject that is something that you're passionate about, that you love to learn about, and that you love to share with others.
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