Supplementing Your Income Online

I am sure that everyone has been at a point in their lives where they want to earn a little extra money. Maybe you want to save a little so they can take a nice vacation. Or maybe you want to put a little away for a rainy day or even retirement. Or perhaps you are like me in that you need to earn a little because your day jobs do not pay enough to pay all of your bills. (Let's face it, rent, student loans, and food aren't cheap...)

Nearly two years ago I moved out on my own. I had been living away from home for a little over two years at that point, but I had been living with roommates and was never fully responsible for everything at home. But, circumstances changed and life moved on and I found myself on my own. I was terrified. Could I make it? Did I even earn enough to support myself? I was pleased to find that I was stronger than I thought I was and that I could indeed stand on my own two feet. But, I did find that both my full time job and part time job left me with very little at the end of the month to spend on myself. Everything went to my overhead: student loans, rent, credit card payments, insurances. Working 55 hours a week and not having more than $10 in my bank account at the end of the month was getting old. Quick.

I did a little research on line and found that not all work online jobs are scams. You just need to be smart about it. Last year I earned enough on-line that I needed to pay taxes. Want an exact number? Let's ball park it around $800. And that is not just on this site. I'm not a big fan of putting all of your eggs in one basket. Now, I know that number doesn't sound like a lot but keep a few things in mind. I didn't really put much effort into it until March (so three months into the year). The more effort I put into finding work the more I earned. So, if I needed more I could make it happen, if I didn't need as much I didn't do the work. Make sense? So take that $800 and divide it by the 9 months in which I earned it. Its just under $90 each month. That's not really something to sneeze at.

So, I am sure you are wondering how I managed to earn the money. Am I right? I'll tell you. I don't mind sharing my secrets. In fact, I am more than happy to help someone out that is in need of a helping hand. I saw an add for a blog on my Facebook feed one day. I know what you are thinking: its a scam. Well, i decided to check it out. It changed my life. I strongly recommend checking out the penny hoarder blog.

Now, read the articles with an open mind but keep in mind that not everything on that site is going to help you. I found a few things that I thought were worth checking out and I have seen a profit. I feel like I have been fairly lucky. But, then again you get out of it what you put into it. Words to live by. I promise.

I also, obviously, write here on hubpages. I do make a profit from writing here, but I can tell you this. Don't quit your day job. But, it is really nice to get a little extra cash every now and then. It did take many, many months in order to start earning a profit regularly.

I found HubPages on Monster.com. It sounded easy and fun. I mean, who wouldn't want to get paid to write a few article at home? So, I gave it a shot. It took months. And I mean almost a year before I saw any sort of profit. Now, about three years later, I have a somewhat reliable income. Wanna know what the best part it? I do almost next to nothing with this site.

I have written so many articles that are of quality and have fairly steady traffic that I pretty much have constant numbers. Every now and then I will publish a new article or go back and update an older article that has fallen in standards. Sometimes I will even post a link to an article on one of my social media platforms.

The main thing you need to keep in mind with this site is that you are not going to get rich overnight. You need to reach the $50 payout threshold by the end of a month. If you don't reach it, you will carry over to the next month until you reach it. The nice part is if you carry over to the next month you keep earning all month even if you reach the payout threshold. This means you can earn more than $50 when you do get paid. The bad news: it takes about a month to process the payment after you reach payout.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it is going to take a long time to build readership and have enough traffic to make an income. You will also want to be smart about what you are writing about. Some topics are popular all the time, for a short period of time, during a certain time frame each year, or they aren't very popular at all. It is also possible to have a topic that is too popular. Have you ever tried to look up 'how to take care of a beta fish?'. There are so many websites and articles that come up. Chances are yours will never get the traffic you want just because the topic is already saturated.

Amazon Mechanical Turk. Trust me, give it a shot. You may find that this site is not for you, but chances are you will be able to make a profit and a short amount of time. The important thing you need to keep in mind is that you need to stay at it. The more HITs (Human Intelligence Test) you do the higher your rank. The higher your rank the more HITs you are qualified for. The higher the rank you will also allow you access to higher paying HITs.

I started off doing HITs that were worth $0.01 each. I would do several dozen a day. I know that sounds like a lot, but each one only took a few seconds and I was just sitting around watching TV. Now, I can make anywhere from $4-8 a day in just a couple of hours each time I sit down to do work (typically a couple of times each week). I know that doesn't sound like a lot but if you were just going to sit down and watch the news for an hour after dinner why not do a little work while your sitting there? In that time you can listen to the news and earn a couple of dollars. Say you earn $2 each day while you watch the news for an hour. Assuming you only watch the news Monday-Friday you will earn an extra $40 a month. Again, I know it doesn't sound like much but that is $480 a year. That could be used for savings, retirement, or even just to treat yourself to happy hour avery now and then.

So, what exactly are the HITs? I'm glad you asked. They range from transcription to surveys. Most of what I do is take surveys for college students working on getting their masters or pHD. A lot of these students will get a grant from their university for them to gather data. Answering these surveys gives them the data they need. They get their degree and I get a little extra for my pocket. Its a win win. Most of these surveys don't take as long as they say say they will (I average around 15 minutes for each survey).

Now, you will need to do work for 10 days before you are able to transfer money from your account on Amazon Mechanical Turk to your Amazon payment account. Once you transfer money to your Amazon payment account you can use it on Amazon to buy things, send it to someone as an Amazon gift card, or transfer it to your bank account. The best part it, you can pay yourself whenever you want! It just takes a couple of days for the transfer to go through.

There are more ways to earn money online. There are websites that pay for people to transcript audio files. I will be honest. I tried this out and I didn't like it. I wasn't able to pay attention enough to do it correctly. I found it dull and I couldn't have any background noise on. Though, there are some HITs on Amazon Mechanical Turk that pay over $150 for transcription and I have been considering giving it a try again.

There are a lot of sites where you can get rebates for your grocery purchases. I have given this a try too, and I just don't buy the right kinds of things. A lot of times they are looking for a specific brand. I have been trying to eat healthier this last year and haven't been buying a lot of processed foods and daddy fruits and veggies are never on the lists for rebates.

Surveys are a great way to earn money online. I never had any luck making money with them, though. Why? I am not a minority. I don't have children. And I am not married. I am not someone the requesters are looking to get data from. Its sad, but its the truth. However, if you are someone that fits the requesters perimeters you can make a lot of money taking surveys online.

Change your search browser to Bing. You will not get rich quick with this. But after a while you will get paid a little just for doing the same searches you had been on google. Its worth checking out. Trust me.

In the end the best way to earn money is to do something you are comfortable with. You can give blogging a try. You might just find that you like it. Or you could find that surveys are your thing. I am willing to bet that you can find something you like. Even if you only get a little bit each month that is still more than you had before. It makes it a little easier to save when cash it tight.

I wish you the best of luck!