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Side Jobs From Home: How to Earn Money in Your PJs

The gig economy is popular because it enables people to make money on a part-time basis or completely replace their full-time income, but with a flexible schedule they control.

Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom who wants to contribute to the family budget or a full-time employee who just needs a little extra cash, you’ve probably considered picking up a side job with a gig economy company.

But most gig economy jobs require you to be somewhere specific, usually driving around to deliver items or give rides.

What if you can’t get from point A to point B?

If you’re someone who needs a side job but also needs to be home due to family responsibilities, mobility issues, or just wants to work from your sofa, this article is going to make your day.

There are lots of side jobs you can do from home and this article will teach you how to find work from home side jobs, the types of side jobs you can do from home, and how to determine which one is a good fit for you.

The Best Side Jobs From Home (Overview)

We’ve included an overview of our top picks below. For detailed information on each pick, scroll down.

  1. Remote Jobs
    • Virtual assistant (VA)
    • Freelance writing
    • Transcriptionist
    • Translator
    • Teaching English (or another language) online
  2. Non-Remote Side Jobs
    • Renting a Spare Room
    • Childcare
    • Pet Care

How to Find Work-From-Home Side Jobs

There are several platforms you can use to find work-at-home side jobs.

Two of the most popular are Upwork.com and Fiverr.com, and they work very differently.

Upwork

A homepage of the upwork screenshot

On Upwork, an employer will post a job listing and after you create a profile, you’ll be able to apply to it.

You’ll be bidding on the job along with a few dozen or more people so the odds of landing it will likely be small.

If the employer is interested, you’ll either be invited to interview or assigned the task.

Upwork will immediately collect your agreed-upon rate from the employer and, once the work is accepted, release it to you.

While Upwork is free to join, it does charge fees, which start at 20 percent and go all the way down to 5 percent as you keep working with the same clients over long periods of time.

You can learn more about the Upwork application process, fees, and payment schedule for freelancers by clicking here.

While many complain that Upwork is a race to the bottom, it is the biggest work-from-home online marketplace and it is possible to find long-term, work-from-home projects on there that will offset your initial effort.

You just have to be willing to put in the initial legwork to build your reputation on the platform.

Fiverr

A homepage of the fiverr screenshot

To find work on Fiverr, you’ll need to create a vendor profile that lists the services you offer and the prices for each one.

On Fiverr, a service is called a “Gig” and your list of services at different price ranges is called a “Gig Package.”

On Fiverr, you won’t be pitching for every single job listing but be part of a marketplace where the buyer chooses from a list of vendors, so spending the time to make your Gig Packages appealing is worth it.

While Fiverr is free to join and doesn’t have any sort of subscription or listing fees, it does take 20 percent of your Gig price, no matter how many Gigs you sell to the same person.

Fiverr does pay promptly and many of the most popular Gigs on Fiverr take just a few minutes or hours to complete.

You can learn more about selling Gigs on Fiverr by clicking here.

Care.com

Care.com is another site you could use to find a flexible side job.

While it will have fewer options as far as jobs you can do from your own home, there will also be less competition for those jobs than on a website like Upwork or Fiverr.

Some of the most abundant job listings on Care.com are for babysitters, tutors, and pet care providers, all of which could be done in your own home.

There are some potential costs associated with using this platform, all of which we discuss here.
Side Jobs from Home: Options

Types of Side Jobs You Can Do From Home

There are several different types of work-from-home jobs you can choose from.

Some are fully remote and you could do them from anywhere in the world, while others are location dependent.

Remote Jobs

Some jobs are fully remote and online jobs, although the schedules are fairly flexible.

You could choose to be a:

Virtual assistant (VA) — Your work could entail social media posting, data entry, email, or community management for a small business up the road or across the world.

This work usually requires a certain number of hours per day or week, but the hours are usually pretty flexible.

Freelance writing — As a freelance writer, you could be responsible for producing blog content, company website copy, emails, newsletters, or social media content for small businesses.

This work is usually deadline-based instead of hourly.

Transcriptionist — If you’re patient and a quick typer, you may find typing up audio files to be an interesting and easy way to make extra income as a part-time job.

Translator — If you speak multiple languages, you could work as a translator and be working on anything from website content to sales presentations to user manuals to subtitles for movies.

Teaching English (or another language) online — If you’re willing to commit to a set schedule, you could choose to teach English or another language online.

There are children and adults around the world who seek to improve their languages skills and you could help them.

Non-Remote Side Jobs

There are some work-from-home jobs that will allow you to earn extra cash, but will require you to welcome others into your home.

These options include:

Renting a Spare Room — You could utilize a website like Airbnb.com or HomeAway to make extra cash by renting your spare room out to visitors or college students.

Childcare — You could offer babysitting or afterschool care for children in your own home.

This would enable you to work from home, although it is a more scheduled and engaging side gig than just renting a room.

Pet Care — You could also offer pet care in your own home.

Many pet owners prefer to hire petsitters (ideally the same one over and over) than to board their animals when they go away.

Other Side Money Earning Options

While it’s not technically a job, you could earn some extra money by using a website like Ebates.com, Ibotta.com, or Swagbucks.com to earn cash back the online shopping you’re already doing.

Ebates even allows you to earn cash back on some in-store purchases if you’ve registered your credit card with them.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you could dip your toe into affiliate marketing by promoting your referral codes to those sites to friends, family, and social media followers and earn referral credits.

You could also earn extra cash by listing the items you’re not using on Ebay.com or making hand-crafted items like jewelry or candles to sell on Etsy.com.

If you create digital products like downloadable crafting patterns or clipart, you could even end up with a passive income stream.

While these options won’t earn you a lot of money, they’re easy to do in your free time, around your other commitments, with just a little bit of know how.

Side Jobs from Home: Non-remote

How to Tell Which Work-at-Home Job Is for You

There are so many good options for what you could do as a side hustle from home that it can be intimidating to know where to start.

The best way to choose is by answering a few questions to see where your skills and interests lay.

Consider your answers to these questions:

  • Do you want a remote job or would you prefer to interact with people?
  • What are your current skills?
  • Which skills are you interested in learning?
  • Would you prefer to apply to jobs or have people choose you?

Depending on your answers, you may discover that selling transcription services on Fiverr or offering pet boarding over the holidays to be your idea side hustle.

The nice thing about utilizing job boards for your work-from-home job search is that there is a very low barrier to entry.

If you try something and realize you hate it, you have only invested a few hours into setting up your profile and starting to work.

That’s much less effort than a normal job-hunt and having to actually commute somewhere.

Earn Extra Money From Your Own Home

There are lots of options for work-from-home jobs so you just need to pick one and get started.

It’ll take a little time to build up a reputation and clientele to reach your income potential with your side hustle, but the sooner you get started, the faster you’ll get there.

Get started today and you could be earning a decent second job income within a few weeks or months.

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