Making income from home and without any 9-to-5 restrictions is the dream for many people. Not only does it provide the flexibility of a home environment, but the ability to work whenever and wherever you want.
While there are a lot of people selling online courses and books, intending to make you a millionaire from home, most of them are just products to get you involved. Most of them won’t provide any realistic way to make money from home.
We’re instead focusing on simple methods to make extra cash online and grow your revenue streams. No courses, subscriptions, or payments required.
1. Leverage Your Skills Online
Advancements in social media, cloud computing, and the growing “work from anywhere” industry has greatly improved the possibility of making money by being self-employed.
There are several ways you can make use of your spare time at home to make money: freelancing, blogging, tutoring.
1. Freelancing
Freelancing is such a wide and open field that it deserves its own blog post. Any skill that can be done online can be used to make money from home: copywriting, designing, becoming a virtual assistant or social media manager, and many others.
You can look for freelance jobs in various areas. Usually, there’s some social media groups or pages where these opportunities may be posted. Some online communities also aggregate on communication tools such as Slack.
On the other hand, there’s plenty of freelancing websites available where finding jobs is a lot easier. Two commonly used sources are Fiverr and Upwork. While you can find jobs for nearly anything, ranging from freelance writing to social media management, there’s a few caveats to using these websites.
First, most of these websites take a decently-sized cut of the money made on the platform. Upwork, for example, charges a contract establishment fee (a flat $4.95) and a 10% commission fee for any payments made.
While they may not seem enormous, take into account that these cut into your pre-tax profits. So, you’re always making significantly less than it may seem at first. Additionally, these websites are extremely popular, so the competition is fierce. A freelance writer may be competing with dozens of others for a single contract.
So, while these websites are great as your first entry into making money online, it’s often best if you can get a few contracts outside of them. Even if the pay is exactly the same, there are no commission fees to be paid.
2. Blogging
Creating a blog and writing content can be a great way to make money. While social media has overtaken blogging in popularity, there’s still plenty of money to be made with blogging.
You can monetize your own blog in two ways—ads or affiliate marketing. Ads can be added extremely easily to any blog through programs such as AdSense. You’ll get payments for users who view or click on the ads that show up on your website.
Another option is affiliate marketing. You can strike deals with various companies that will provide you with a specific link. If a user clicks on it and purchases the item, you receive a small commission fee. With lots of traffic, the sums can become quite substantial, turning your blogging venture into an online business.
3. Social media
While you can take up social media management as a freelance gig, you can also create your own accounts and market them. Social media has become extremely profitable for various influencers.
There’s two usual routes—regular social media (Instagram, TikTok, etc.) or YouTube. The former work great if you have a niche such as fitness where you can build up a huge following. Most famous influencers will get brand deals with affiliate marketing opportunities, allowing them to make money online with ease.
On the other hand, a YouTube channel will work in a similar fashion, however, it has a wider range for niches. You can make educational content, documentaries, and other videos, monetizing them through AdSense and brand deals.
Running a social media profile or a YouTube channel can provide you a full time income and make $200 a day or even more. They, however, also take a lot of effort and patience, so they’re best thought of as an online business that brings a lot of responsibility.
2. Utilize the Gig Economy
While freelancing is more or less running an online business, the gig economy is often better to make quick cash. Unfortunately, it has a drawback in that most such jobs will require you to perform various physical tasks. As such, it’s a great way to make money if you don’t need a full time income.
1. Ride sharing and delivery services
If you have a car, you can utilize both ride-sharing and food delivery services to earn quick cash. Apps like Uber (Eats) and DoorDash allow you to deliver food without placing restrictions on how little you work per day, so if you need to make some extra income, they’re a great choice.
Some apps will allow you to deliver food with other types of transportation such as bikes, so you don’t even necessarily need to own a car. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely you will make $200 a day with just food delivery or ride sharing.
Additionally, while it’s a great thing to do in your spare time, earning a lot of money from these tasks will begin to look like a regular job. It’s definitely not passive income and the labor isn’t easy.
2. TaskRabbit and others
Food delivery and ride sharing aren’t the only two types of gigs. Nowadays there’s plenty of apps for all sorts of tasks, from dog walking and pet sitting to handyman work.
You can always find something that will suit your skillset, although all of these will require a significant time investment.
3. Invest to Grow Your Income
Depending on your financial situation, you can use investing to earn passive income. While the stock market can fluctuate heavily and cause losses, in the long term the entire market usually increases in value.
Without significant capital, however, you won’t make $200 a day from investing. In fact, most people won’t ever reach that level even if they do everything correctly. It’s a great way to make money for the long run, but it’s not the best short term strategy.
Additionally, be wary of any online course, influencer, or any teaching online that tells you they have some secret to beating the market. Most hedge funds that have leading world experts and extremely advanced technologies fail to do that. The likelihood someone with an online course has beaten the market and the hedge funds is near zero.
An alternative way to earn money through investments are cryptocurrencies. However, they follow much of the same logic as the stock market, except they’re significantly more volatile. While you may be able to earn extra money on a lucky streak, the likelihood that you’ll earn financial freedom purely through cryptocurrencies is extremely unlikely.
4. Creative Active & Passive Income Sources
The internet has created an incredible opportunity for all sorts of creatives and entrepreneurs. From creating an online store to podcasting, all of these business models are enabled by digital reach, which can be a great way to earn extra cash.
1. Online products and services
You can sell various digital products on an online store. These may be PDFs, images, strategies, and any other product that’s created through mental effort. Additionally, you could also sell some arts or crafts through such a store.
Since creating your own website and marketing it is a full time endeavor, it’s quite common to use various platforms such as Notion, Facebook Marketplace, and many others. These platforms already have huge reach, so you can make use of the inbuilt audience to market your services or products.
Another option is to create a print-on-demand service if you have the necessary equipment. T-shirts and various other items are quite popular sources of extra money for some people, which can later turn into an entire business.
Using platforms like Etsy, Shopify, Facebook Marketplace is again a great option as it significantly reduces the barrier-to-entry and starting costs.
Finally, e-book publishing is also a great option to earn money. You no longer need to sign deals directly with large publishing houses as there’s plenty of online options available. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is a common option that also gets you listed in the store, which makes it a great way to make money.
With enough effort, having an online store can become a full time revenue generator, not just something you do for extra cash.
3. Educational content creation
If you have a penchant for video creation and educational content, a YouTube channel isn’t the only way to earn money. Online courses are a great way to make money consistently, especially since nowadays you don’t have to sell them on your own website.
Platforms like Udemy, Teachable, and many others accept educational content and courses created by independent people, allowing you to make money from creating such content yourself.
While it’s a significant time investment, the extra money generated from online courses can be significant. If your course becomes popular, it can be your ticket to financial freedom.
Alternatively, podcasting is also a great option to make extra money. While it doesn’t have to be educational, most of the extremely successful ones provide some combination of entertainment and education. After you hit some brand deals and affiliate links, you can definitely make $200 a day or more.
5. Other Unique Opportunities
If none of the above seem a viable way to make $200 a day, there are some other unique options you can pursue. These will take less time, however, it will be harder to earn good money from them.
1. Mystery shopping
A mystery shopper is someone that’s hired by a company (either directly or through an agency) to evaluate customer service, product positioning, and other aspects of retail businesses such as grocery stores. As the name suggests, the employees don’t know that the person is a mystery shopper, so they act as if it was any other regular customer.
Becoming a mystery shopper, however, is a long and arduous process, but it’s also a great way to make good money. You first have to find a company or agency that’s accepting mystery shopping participants and you’ll usually start out as an assistant.
Working through the ranks and getting a certification will allow you to pursue bigger and more projects. A fully certified mystery shopper is a well-paid position, however, it’s somewhat limited as you’ll often be restricted to local businesses instead of taking advantage of global opportunities.
2. Online surveys
A great way to supplement your income with extra cash is through online surveys. Various survey sites serve as middlemen between businesses looking to conduct consumer research and people looking for ways to make money. Survey sites provide the questionnaires to consumers, who get paid to complete them, while getting the data businesses were looking for.
Since you can answer surveys in anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes, it’s something you can do in your spare time while making money. While it’s unlikely that you’ll earn $200 per day taking online surveys, it’s still an added boost to your total income.
3. Flipping
Flipping is the process of finding things to buy and selling them at a higher price to someone else. Common examples include real estate, car, and flea market flipping. Sometimes some repairs or maintenance is involved to increase the value of the item (such as in real estate or vehicles).
But you don’t have to start flipping with only large investment items. Flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores are a great starting point as long as you can assess the value of items properly. Thrift stores and garage sales are particularly great for deals as the items usually cost comparatively little.
You can then sell flea market or thrift store items on platforms like eBay, Craigslist or Vinted. Since these items have no “sticker price”, you can nearly always make a profit as long as you find the right buyer.
FAQs on How to Make $200 A Day
1. Is it really possible to make $200 a day online?
While it is definitely possible to make that much money online, we should note that there’s no free money. You will always have to either invest something or put in some effort to make money. Online is no different from offline in that regard.
It’s usually easiest to make $200 or more a day by either freelancing or starting your own business. One of the best options is something where you can optimize your time by doing tasks effectively.
A virtual assistant, for example, may often have to sell hours directly (for example, by attending meetings). As such, a virtual assistant will have a harder time scaling their efforts to meet that earning potential. Designers, on the other hand, are usually paid per project, so, over time, they’ll be able to do the same tasks quicker.
2. How much time do I need to invest daily to make $200?
For a lot of people, you’ll need to commit a lot of time to make $200 per day. While online ventures are more easily scalable, there’s still no free money that appears without effort.
There are more passive strategies such as investing, but you will need higher starting funds to get to the same point. It’s often best to employ a mix of active income (such as online surveys or pet sitting) with passive income (such as investing) to reach your financial freedom goals.
3. Do I need any special skills to start earning $200 a day?
While special skills are not strictly necessary, having them improves your earning potential substantially. A highly experienced web designer will have more opportunities to make extra money than someone without those skills.
Additionally, some jobs may have strict requirements. For example, if you want to deliver packages for extra money, having a driver’s license will be a necessity. You may even need to go through courses or certifications to get the necessary skills to deliver packages for some companies.
Delivering food through apps is often less restrictive than packages as you can do it with a bicycle, bike, or other modes of transportation.
Some methods, however, have no requirements. Online surveys will only match you for geographical location or have no restrictions at all. So, they’re a great way to earn extra money for nearly anyone.
