The secret sauce separating hobbyists and full-time professional bloggers are SEO tools like SEMrush. This SEMrush Review covers how it works.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
This is the second time I ever tried Teespring, but my first time writing a Teespring Review. As a designer, this is a fun way to earn extra money by designing fun tee shirts and other gear. You essentially design funny/clever t-shirts and then market them to be sold.
Teespring is a legit website where you can design custom tee shirts and other apparel such as hoodies, socks, mugs etc. using their proprietary online design software. Once you create a custom design, you can share a link with your friends who can buy your t-shirt design directly on Teespring. The money, printing and shipping are all handled by Teespring.
The difference between Teespring and other custom t-shirt design places is the shirts aren’t actually made until you have a minimum order.
This way you don’t have to buy a bunch of shirts you’re not sure will sell or not. Thus filling your garage full of crappy shirts. All you do is create the design and TeeSpring handles all the orders, payments and shipping once a minimum amount of shirts are sold. Then you as the designer get a small profit off the orders sold.
Absolutely! We’ve personally used Teespring and found numerous positive reviews about the company. They’ve been around for years and built up a solid reputation. Even Forbes mentioned them as a great way to make money by selling well-made t-shirts and other gear.
The biggest bonus to Teespring (and why I wanted to write this Teespring Review) is that once you get the minimum amount of orders. You as the designer get a cut of the profits for creating the design!
Teespring handles all the heavy work (collecting money, printing, shipping), but since you are the one that created the shirt design and marketed it, you get a portion of the money made. Of course, Teespring takes their share, but you get yours too.
It’s a unique sidehuslte if you’re a creative type that can create some clever t-shirts and market them.
Head over to Teespring and hit “Start Designing”. It’ll ask you to create an account with them. It’s just the basic name, email, and password. They don’t ask for any payment information when your first setting up an account or first creating a shirt design.
You’ll then be asked to “Pick Your Canvas”. They have a number of options since they originally started. You can create unique/clever designs on a wide variety of items including:
I am going to focus on t-shirts for this Teespring Review since that’s what they’re famous for.
I select apparel. This takes you immediately to their online design software where you can create a completely unique t-shirt design from scratch.
It’s a bit intimidating, I just created a basic word print design (I find inspiration from Amazon’s funny shirts). I obviously didn’t get too crazy, but you have a lot of options for what you can do including uploading your own custom designs.
I was impressed with the variety in Teespring’s online software program, it really was impressive. It’ll work great for beginners if you don’t have your own design software like Adobe Illustrator. This is what their online software looks like.
Once you finish a design, Teespring will let you set the price for how much you want to sell the shirt for. You could set the price for $50 per shirt if you’d like. It may be more than people want to buy a shirt for, but it’s up to you.
You’ll start off with Teespring’s recommended sell price.
In addition to what you set the price at, Teespring will show you how much of a profit you’ll make based on the number of shirts and the selling price. So simple economics, the higher price you set and the more you sell, the more profit you’ll make. In the Teespring Review example below, if 7 shirts are purchased, I would make $70 or $7 per shirt if I sell for $23.99.
After you set the price, you will create a profile on your new shirt design. This is what people will see when they view your shirt on Teespring.
Take some time with this. Giving your campaign/shirt description a clever description can really help sell shirts to people on the fence.
If you want to check out the t-shirt design I did for this Teespring Review, go to Teespring.com/i-am-a-blogger-teeshirt where you’ll have the option to buy. It’s very basic. I like to set the bar low for you to create your own amazing shirt design!
That’s it. Now anyone can see your shirt and buy it. The biggest thing from here is sending the link to your friends, post on your blog or share with your social network to buy the new shirt.
A popular strategy I’ve seen, create a clever t-shirt idea for a specific niche of people. For instance, the famous “Don’t worry I’m a ______” tagline. To give an example, I’ve seen “Don’t worry I’m a Nurse” and people created specific facebook ads for people who listed their occupation as “Nurse”. I believe it’s been really successful.
I like the idea of Teespring. It allows you to quickly create a custom t-shirt design to share with all your friends for them to buy. However, it doesn’t seem to be set up for a permanent side hustle. There are a lot of better/easier ways to earn more money.
Once you create the t-shirt design, it takes A LOT of effort and marketing dollars to get those shirts to sell. So unless you have a particular network of people who are willing to buy a specific t-shirt, I wouldn’t recommend this as a permanent side hustle.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
The following is a guest post by Lyuthar Jacob, a log editor at Dealslands UK. He is the type of geek who loves to write about Marketing, Money Saving, and Finance.
Who doesn’t like to have easy cash? You can earn money online with ease. There are many ways to achieve your set target to gain money without belabour. When it comes to making money online, there are certainly thousands of ways to earn easy money within the comfort of your home. So, if you are interested to earn money online, knowing the right kind of platform in accordance to your interest and passion is always crucial.
Following are some of the quick and easy tactics which you can start using today itself to make money online fast.
If you started a website or blog out of passion, you can earn a significant amount of money from it by joining some of the best affiliate programs. In this, all that you need to do is market other brands within your site’s pages. When you partner with such business, you have to mention their product or service and link those using a unique affiliate code received from the brand. Whenever someone buys a product or service through your link, you will make extra money.
It is advisable to partner with the companies that are related to your content. For instance, if you are a financial advisor, join an affiliate for financial products like credit cards, investment account, insurance, etc.
Everybody has some skill. If teaching is the one in your case then it can help you make money online. You can go for tutorials regarding anything that you like starting from cooking, dancing, freelance writing or sketching and what not!
Moreover, for this, you can find many platforms like Udemy, Teachable, or Skillshare where you can upload your course learning through videos, images, text, etc. Next, use your content to build customers and accept payments. You can also build one of your own with the help of the software like ClickFunnels and other platforms. Make sure to deliver valuable content to others and in turn people will happily pay you to learn it.
You can buy old books from various sellers or other online platforms. After having a potential book to sell, navigate to Amazon and look for its actual price. You have to then decide what price you expect with respect to the condition of book. Make sure you don’t end up incurring any loss as you also have to pay Amazon’s fees of $2.35 + 15% of the sales price . If you are making money now with such old books, list them in your seller account. This is something lucrative which can be done part-time or in the weekends to make extra money. There are other platforms also such as Bookscouter, eBay, Half Price Books, etc which can help you sell old books and earn money.
If you have the creative talent of writing, you can earn money online by creating content for other websites or blogs. The income of bloggers and influencers vary widely. A report from Glassdoor shows that a blogger’s average income ranges from $19K to $79K.
Another survey of 1,000 bloggers interpreted by Blogging.com found that 17% of bloggers are able to maintain their lifestyle with the money that they earn. However, in this competitive world,you need to deliver 100% quality content to reach up to such a high level. Moreover, content writing has really built its importance. So, with tons of writing jobs available, it is easy to start writing, develop your skill and earn money.
Photography is something which many people love to do. So, if you have such a passion for photography and you can capture eye-catching images, you can use this skill to make money online. You can list these images on stock-photography websites like Adobe Stock and Shutterstock. Then, you will receive payment when somebody purchase the right to use your image.
You don’t need to capture pretty snaps always. Remember, what you require to be unique is just original content. Also, it is crucial to edit the photographs professionally and store into certain file formats. Apart from photography, you can use other skill like sketching or painting, photoshop, etc. to make extra money.
If you like to post your pictures or love blogging about the food that you taste, travel scenes etc., you can make money out of it now. If you have a decent number of followers on Facebook or Instagram, just approach companies in your niche and they will be happy to advertise with you. This is a win-win situation for both of you as you will be earning from your passion and the brand gets to tap a new audience and potential customers through something unique.
You can also monetize your online community to earn money online. Build a community through blogs and social media platforms where similar-interest people are gathered. Also, you can build an online forum and ask people to pay for membership. You can use such mediums to promote and sell yours or other’s products and services. If you are passionate about something and also like to engage with people that have the same passion, this is something you should certainly consider for earning well.
When you visit any website, there are always Google ads popping up here and there. You can also add these to your site’s page. Moreover, it is very simple to set them up on any basic website. If you have a website or blog, you can create a free Google AdSense account. After that, Google will provide you with a unique code which you can paste onto your website. Google can then track your page algorithm, traffic, and the visitors directing from your page, etc. Once your website start attracting a decent amount of traffic, it can be a very lucrative way to make money online.
If you have large social media audience or a website, you can make money online fast through pursuing sponsored posts and ads.
How does it work?
Companies (like Viglink) are always looking for bloggers and website owners to advertise their product or service. So, if you have a huge following, don’t miss this opportunity to make money online in very convenient way. Moreover, the figures in which you will be earning depends on your popularity. So, don’t compromise on the quality of the content that you are creating for your audience. It will eventually let you earn huge.
Another great idea to make money now is managing ads for the clients. Due to the increasing demand of digital marketing, each and every business needs SEO for popularity.
If you’ve a decent extent of knowledge in this regard then you can manage the social media accounts of brands or run Facebook ads, paid ads on YouTube or Google, etc. to make money now. If you master this art and start attaining huge conversion rates, you can make money online fast and that too in a hefty amount.
If you are thinking to make money online, the aforementioned tricks are easy to tap. Moreover, they need negligible or very less amount of investment. So, what are you waiting for?
Start earning money with these quick and effective approaches now!
What To Write About: Anything with a Top 10 Tagline
How Much Can You Make: $100 per 1,800 word article (via PayPal)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 8.02M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Listverse is full of (you guessed it) lists! Top 10 lists and such are a great attention grabber for readers and Listverse pays for articles with at least 10 list points. They will easily shell out $100 for good quality list articles. If you have a great idea for an attention-grabbing list, submit your list idea to Listverse for consideration. It may be a quick way to get paid to write articles, making $100 per article on our list of websites that pay you for writing. Just make sure that you do your research on your lists, avoid easy grammar issues and create a really attention-grabbing headline.
What To Write About: History, Science, Innovation, Arts & Culture, etc. (Smithsonian stuff)
How Much Can You Make: $1,000 per article
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 9.81M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
How ambitious are you? The Smithsonian is a big deal and one of the more prestegious websites that pay you fro writing. So you may be surprised to hear they do accept submissions from freelance writers. Although you need to provide at least 3 links to previous writing examples, and if you don’t have good ones, you should move on. If you do have all of that, you should “pitch” an idea for an article you have. Don’t worry about having crazy good photographs, they’ll provide the photography your article needs, you just need to supply the 250-300 worded idea and eventually final article if approved.
What To Write About: Anything
How Much Can You Make: Pennies Per Page View (via ads)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 3.18M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
HubPages is an online community that writes about anything and everything. Once you sign up for free, you can write about whatever your passionate about. Your article will have ads on them and you’ll receive a portion of that revenue while you get paid to write articles. The more popular your articles are, the more money you’ll make. This is similar to having your own blog, but HubPages host your articles for you in return for a small portion of the ad revenue your articles produce.
What To Write About: Topics They Ask For
How Much Can You Make: Up to $40 for a 500 word article (depending on writing level)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 591.52K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
How iWriter works is that people pay iWriter to write articles for them. So a client will pay iWriter to write an article on “Baking Bread”, for example. Then iWriter will send the request to its army of writers (you) and you’ll take the job. The client will pay iWriter and iWriter will pay you in return. The more great articles you write, the more you’ll earn from iWriter based on their 4 tier (Standard, Premium, Elite & Elite Plus) writer levels. Once you receive Elite Plus level, you’ll be paid $40 for a 500-word article. You’ll pay will depend on the level of writer you are and the number of articles you write. What’s nice is you can accept/decline as many articles as you can write from the comfort of your own home. This is nice because the email request will come in with different topics where you can get paid to write articles.
What To Write About: How To Articles for coding, web design, Adobe Products, anything graphic
How Much Can You Make: $200 per tutorial (increases the more you submit)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 19.74M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Tuts+ is a site I used to visit all the time when learning Photoshop. They have some great tutorials by some awesome teachers, so this probably isn’t for new writers, but people who can prove they’ve written similar tutorials for well-known websites. This makes them one of the top websites that pay you for writing, paying around $200 (starting out) for How-To’s. There are opportunities to create written and video how-to-tutorials. Just make sure you have the depth of experience to back up what you’re teaching. Here is a list of tutorials they’re looking for people to teach.
What To Write About: Tips to help out bloggers (blogs, social media, making money online)
How Much Can You Make: $100 – $200 per article
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 303.49K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
The Income Diary is a website focused on helping new bloggers to set up their site, write content and monetize it for future revenue. Since this is a specific niche, there is much similar content that currently exists on the site. While you may be able to earn $200, it is a very difficult way to get paid to write articles and get your content accepted. However if you have an idea that you think fits well with their audience, submit your idea and they’ll tell you if it’s worthy. Otherwise don’t bother writing an entire article until your idea is accepted. If you do get your article idea accepted, you should jump for joy because they are one of the top paying websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Trip Ideas, Destinations, Hotels (travel stuff)
How Much Can You Make: $1 a word (articles range from 400 – 2,000 words)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 6.03M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
With an audience of 1 million viewers per month, Travel + Leisure receives many writer submissions so they’re looking for high-quality articles from writers with previous writing experience. If you’re interested in writing for them, go over their website and understand what type of articles are published. Then go over to their contact page and email them a short email with your “pitch”, don’t bother writing your full article. If they like your idea, they’ll email you back with the guidelines they want. About 95% of the articles on their site are from freelance writers so you may have a shot. They’re one of the few proven websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Volunteering, Work, Living and Studying Abroad
How Much Can You Make: $50 – $150 (for a 1,250-2,000 word article)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 422.94K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
While not the most aesthetically pleasing website, these guys have tons of articles submitted by people around the world relating to volunteering, working and living abroad. So much so that their “Travel Writer Guidelines for Submissions” page is heavily detailed on what they’re looking from their writers. Overall this is a great place to share that amazing study abroad adventure you had in college and share all those little secrets you learned along the way like don’t buy cheap outlet plug converts or how to use hotel key cards as knives for your PBJ sandwiches. If you have any of those wacky travel stories, consider this one of the first websites that pay you for writing that you try.
What To Write About: Things important to adults going back to college
How Much Can You Make: $55+ (for a 1,000-1,500 word article)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 386.82k monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is an old-school website but maintains high popularity for people interested in going back to college later in life. This site makes money by ads and selling leads to college recruiters. So articles about sharing your personal story about going back to college or how your thinking about going back to college may be ideal. This may be a great place to get paid to write articles if you’ve ever considered going back to school.
What To Write About: Getting paid to travel whether it’s writing, photography, tours, etc.
How Much Can You Make: $50 – $200 (for a 300-600 word article)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): less than 10K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is an interesting writing topic because The Travel Writers Life showcases popular ways people are making money while traveling. So you won’t find any fluffy travel stories here. It’s more about how you paid for your study abroad apartment by working at your landlords banana stand. If you have any stories where you made a little money while traveling, this is a great place to share your story on one of the few websites that pay yforfro writing.
What To Write About: Wide range of topics from life style, culture to family and night-life
How Much Can You Make: $20 – $60
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 3.35M monthly visitors
Since this is such a popular website they receive numerous writing solicitations and thus don’t have to offer much money for people looking to get paid to write articles. While they don’t pay much, this may be a good place to start if you’re a beginner writer. If you’re looking to try it out, you’ll have to create a profile on their contributor page and send them your article idea. It’ll take them a month or two to review it and if you don’t hear back, don’t take it personally they get a lot of ideas. Try submiting another idea. When it comes to larger websites like this, it’s a numbers game. Luckily you have the option to write about a wide range of topics on their websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Web development related to code, content, design, process, business, etc.
How Much Can You Make: $50 – $200 (1,500 word articles avg.)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 543.71K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a very niche website related to website development. If this topic interests you, send their team your pitch idea (ideally in a Google Doc) for review. They review all ideas once a week and rarely accept pitches on the first draft. However they’ll likely help you develop your idea further making it worthy of their website. They’re currently looking for new writers so if you have a story to share regarding web development or user experience, shoot them an email.
What To Write About: All things WordPress Website related
How Much Can You Make: $50 (They give you a list of topics with prices)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 712.64K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
These guys have one of the most efficient ways to get new writers. Beyond their super easy sign-up page where you submit your credentials, they give you a list of topics to write about and how much they’ll pay for each one. It looks like someone on their team realized keywords they want to rank for and added that list for potential writers to write about. Most of the articles they currently have posted only pay $50 per article, but they claim up to $150. Keep in mind, most of the articles they are looking for are related to how to code WordPress websites, so it may be a little niche for most people. If you have the WordPress knowlege though, it’s one of first websites that pay you for writing you should consider.
What To Write About: Trip Ideas, Destinations, Travel Adventures (travel stuff)
How Much Can You Make: $50 per article (articles range from 1,200 – 2,000 words)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 160.98K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a site I really enjoyed right after researching. It’s a very indie type travel site where it encourages really exploring your travel destinations over high-end resorts. If you have a travel story/idea that you want to pitch, send it to them after you check out their article guidelines to get paid to write articles. Most of is it pretty basic, but something to keep in mind. If you’re not sure your work is good enough to submit, try their “Guest Post” guide where your article won’t be paid for, but you can submit it in front of their audience. It’s a great way to gain travel writing exposure without much pressure on our list of websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: All things related to retiring overseas (cost, living, places, etc.)
How Much Can You Make: $75 – $400
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 712.64K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
International Living has both a blog/newsletter (they call it a Postcard) and monthly magazine that they’re looking for contributing writers to get paid to write articles. If your article gets accepted to the Postcard, it’s worth around $75 while the monthly magazine is worth $250 for 840 words and $400 for 1,400 words. If you’re curious what to write about, they love inspirational stories about retiring abroad in your dream location (use SEMrush for popular keyword ideas). They want to know how your money will stretch longer in other countries and how that affects healthcare and other lifestyles. If you’ve ever been thinking about retiring in a small tropical country or somewhere cooler, maybe this is one of the websites that pay you for writing for you.
What To Write About: Anything Pop Culture with a funny twist
How Much Can You Make: $100 – $200
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 19.24M monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
While most websites actively look for experienced writers, Cracked is all about encouraging new writers to submit ideas with lots of different ways to contribute and get paid to write articles. You can write the long lists they’re known for like “26 Sexy Halloween Costumes That Shouldn’t Exist” or creating funny graphics they can use on their social media accounts. They are heavily reliant on content writers like you can contribute to their online publication. If you think you have a sarcastic or satire writing personality, definitely register as a writer for them and jump into the hilarious world of Cracked. This is one of the most popular websites that pay you for writing on our list.
What To Write About: Articles About Great Photography
How Much Can You Make: Likely Around $50, not listed
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 151.96K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a really open category, photography. Everyone has tried photography at some point in their life. It’s pretty easy to point and click to great a great image. Either to sell via stock photography, share with your friends or hang up in a gallery. The point is, most people have a photography lesson learned or story to share and Photodoto is the perfect place for topics such as Photography Inspiration, Tips, Gear or post-production. Take a shot at this website to write a guest post, they seem to be very excited to hear about pitch ideas.
What To Write About: Anything to help people save time and money (stretch your dollar)
How Much Can You Make: $0.10 per word (Most articles 500-700 words)
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 151.96K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Now, this is a site we can get behind, another personal finance website! If you have some great ways to save money/time this is the place but keep in mind, The Dollar Stretcher has been in circulation since January 1998. They have TONS of articles on how to save money so if you’re going to pitch them you need to be creative, inventive and very specific. They ask you don’t pitch them “7 ways to save on groceries“, but rather “7 ways to save money on ground beef”. If you email them your pitch and don’t hear anything, they likely already have similar content and didn’t bother responding. Try pitching again being more creative, everyone does something cool to save money. It’s a great way to get paid to write articles if you’re able to niche down into specific money saving ideas.
What To Write About: DIY Home Improvement / Interior Design Projects
How Much Can You Make: Likely Around $50, you set your price.
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 271.60K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Yay I’ve been looking for a good DIY site where I can get paid to write articles. Curby started as one man’s journey doing home improvement projects and grew into a vibrate community of 271 thousand visits a month focusing on cool home improvement and interior design projects inspiring people. Now they’re one of the top websites that pay you for writing about home improvement projects. If you have a home improvement project that all your friends just rave about, consider pitching Curby to see if it’s a good idea for their site and get paid!
What To Write About: Life of a Pet Owner (tips, hacks, pet stories, etc.)
How Much Can You Make: $75 per article
Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): less than 10K monthly visitors
How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Many websites that pay writers are related to web development or travel so it’s great to see sites like this that pay for articles that most people have experience with, like pets. This site focuses on connecting pet owners through their site and social media. More importantly, they help animal shelters and rescues connect with a wide range of pet owners for possible adoption. Blog Paws really tries to capture the reality of life with pets and can use writers that can help others navigate that world. If you’re a pet owner that can’t stop talking about how great it is to be a pet owner, this may be a perfect place to get paid to write articles on our list of websites that pay you for writing in 2018.
Writing for others is a quick way to get paid writing and build up your own portfolio. However, you’re working for other people and making THEM money. Consider using our guide to Starting Your Own Blog That Makes Money on Day 1! This is a nice alternative utilizing your writing creativity. Having your own website allows you to display a portfolio of your writing work and earn money for yourself from the awesome content you create!
Hope you like our blueprint for starting to get paid to write articles! We absolutely love websites that pay you for writing, helping fellow freelance writers and side-hustlers. While writing this and looking at the criteria these websites are looking for in contributing writers, it’s actually a really easy way to earn extra money. Most of these websites paying between $50 – $150 per article even for beginners, you could write an article every day for a month (30 days) and make $3,000.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
As you’ll see below, as an Uber driver you can work whenever you feel and make money per ride. However, you are a freelancer in the eyes of the company and all costs of gas, insurance, accidents, wear & tear and taxes are your burden to pay. So in our examples, we note how much these Uber drivers make and include whether that’s before or after expenses.
Mr. Money Mustache did a great Uber driver experiment and shared his results after driving people around Boulder, Colorado for a while. He stressed the importance of driving costs and importantly your time. He was surprised with how much waiting around there was waiting for pick up requests, he noted how waiting around doing nothing affected his profit per hour. This profit per hour would be a lot lower if he didn’t receive tips, that is where most of this money came from, not the driving. You should consider this when trying Uber.
Harry who hosts the RideShareGuy, a blog centered around the ride-sharing economy, has been a big advocate of ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft hence the blog “RideShareGuy”. In 2017 he did a survey of 1,150 Uber/Lyft drivers on his website. He asked them a range of questions including how much do Uber drivers make and discovered on average, drivers made $15.68 per hour driving with Uber. If your curious, he found Lyft drivers made $17.50 per hour.
MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research did a survey of more than 1,100 Uber and Lyft drivers on how much they were paid by the ride-sharing companies as well as their expenses such as insurance and repairs. This study was heavily criticized by Uber arguing the questions weren’t worded fairly causing MIT to take down the study, but here are the main points. Researchers found that a median driver generates $0.59 per mile of driving but it costs them $0.30 per mile to drive.
A Stanford study focused on the gender earnings gap in the gig economy estimated an Uber driver’s gross hourly earnings at $21.07 before expenses. They even dug down into Uber’s payment formula and discovered Uber drivers are paid $1.70 as a base fare PLUS $0.20 per minute PLUS $0.95 per mile. While they estimated a driver’s expenses at $0.32 per mile.
For example a 2 mile &, 15 minutes trip could earn the driver $6.60 and cost the driver $0.64 in expenses. A real total of $5.95 for that ride.
SherpaShare did a 2015 study on Uber and Lyft drivers. They created an awesome graphic (below) and made a few assumptions from the data. In the larger cities where there is more frequent Surge time (fewer drivers & more requests = 30% price increase), drivers made significantly more. However, each city has different averages. Depending on where you live may determine if you should take advantage of being an Uber driver or not.
Source: http://www.sherpashareblog.com/2015/07/what-uber-lyft-drivers-earn-per-trip/
Cities with massive demand like New York had an insane $29.34 per hour for Uber drivers while smaller cities like Nashville had $10.14. If you live somewhere like Fargo, North Dakota, you may have a difficult time making any decent money.
Buzzfeed somehow gained a copy of internal Uber calculations to discover how much do Uber drivers make in three major US markets – Denver Detroit & Houston. It was important to them to include expenses into their calculations and found drivers in these markets earned less than an average $13.5 per hour after expenses.
For example, the average driver in Detroit earns $12.70 per hour or $8.77 per hour after expenses. Uber drivers in Houston earned on average $14.18 per hour or $10.75 per hour after expenses. Denver Uber drivers appeared to earn the most of the three major US markets, Denver Uber drivers earned $16.89 per hour or $13.17 per hour after expenses.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/internal-uber-driver-pay-numbers?utm_term=.wcw78n4QN6#.mpxrRl8dkO
If you’re curious how much you could make, use this formula. The Stanford study above shared their formula for how much do Uber drivers make. Based on this formula, Uber really encourages long trips through heavy expected traffic for drivers to make the most money. The Uber Pay Formula is as follows:
You may notice that this is considerably lower than any taxi fare you’ve ever received. There’s a reason for that, the Uber Pay formula is heavily advantaged for Uber Riders. Meaning Uber is highly cost competitive with taxi drivers so people choose Uber over traditional taxis, giving Uber drivers more driving opportunities at the cost of more money per ride.
Lastly, the biggest variable in the formula for how much do Uber drivers make is TIPS. Tips are not a constant factor in Uber rides so I didn’t include them in the Uber Pay Formula but they’re the single biggest reason some Uber drivers make more money. Next time you’re riding in an Uber, look around and notice the bottles of water and snacks offered by your Uber driver to entice a bigger tip.
We’ve found Uber drivers make around average $10 per hour after all their expenses and, in most cases, Lyft will make you a bit more. If you put this in context, this is the same average wage for McDonald’s.
If you’re an Uber Driver please leave in the comments below how much you make per hour, we’d love to hear from you!
It may not be one of the most profitable ways to make money, but there’s a certain freedom and enjoyment knowing you’re the boss and working whenever you choose. Would you consider driving for Uber for this freedom?
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
There’s an entire underground world on the internet of people buying and selling domain names, it’s called Domain Flipping. Thing is, anyone can do it and make money. Think of it like flipping real estate, but instead, you’re flipping website domains.
Similar to real estate flipping. You are flipping website domains. These are the addresses you type into your internet browsers that direct you to the website you’re looking for. These are the addresses that end with (.com), (.org), (.biz), (.net) and so on. In total there are about 280 different domain extensions.
Domain Flipping is buying these addresses for a low price and then selling it for a higher price.
If you’re curious about how much people have made while buying and selling domain names or domain flipping, here are some examples of success stories that have hit the news.
Page Howe once owned the domain name “Seniors(.com)”. He originally purchased the domain name for $100,000, which is a lot mind you, most domains sell for $12. He later sold “Seniors(.com)” for $1.8 Million or $1.5 Million after his broker commissions.
In a similar fashion, Page Howe also owned the domain name Guy(.com) and he sold that a few months later for $1 million. If he bought that for the average $12 for a domain name, he made an 83,333% profit buying and selling domain names.
All these success stories have one major thing in common, they are typically one, generic word. There is a HUGE advantage in having a small, easy to remember domain name. If you’re a company that sells cameras, having the domain name Camera(.com) is beneficial. You’re in a prime marketing spot online for people to looking to buy a camera.
Think about these common word website domains as the New York Times Square of real estate in the digital domain world. You’re buying these website domains because people are familiar with those words. The more common a word or phrase is, the more valuable it can be.
Currently, the (.com) domain extensions are the most popular, but like I mentioned. There are 280 different types of domain extensions possible. Most people though associate a web address with a (.com) extension. So I will focus on these.
In the future, other well-known extensions like (.co) will become more popular but we’re not there yet. If you’re looking to buy a domain and sell it, you’ll likely want a (.com) extension.
Looking at some of these success stories, I wanted to give it a try.
I likely couldn’t find any one-word domain names (most are taken) but I could find a couple popular phrases that have an available domain name.
Here’s how I started.
To find popular phrases I opened up the Google Keyword Planner. This free tool by Google, allows you to find out how often a word or phrase is searched in Google. A phrase like “Yoga Mat’ has on average, about 10K – 100k monthly searches. That’s A LOT. However a more niche phrase like “Good Yoga Mats” only has 100 – 1K monthly searches. These seem similar, but I wanted to focus on the exact popular phrase that people are searching for.
The more searches your popular phrase gets, the more valuable your exact domain name could be. Try finding popular phrases with the Google Keyword Planner.
Words/Phrases to consider:
Choose Niches that make money: People will buy a website domain if they think they can use it to make money. So buying popular phrases/words that could be associated with selling something like computers(.com) or hotels(.com) could be used by a company to sell computers or hotel reservations. However, something like Warof1812(.com) may not have the same business potential.
Local Domain Names: Something like TireRepair(.com) may be taken but you should also look into DenverTireRepair(.com). Sometimes local cities have high search rates that may have an available domain. It’s definitely decreasing your audience the more you niche down, but your chances of having an available domain increases.
Future Potential: Think about what’s next in the world and see if you can buy the name first. Do you know rocket powered sneakers are the next big thing? Try buying the domain name RocketPoweredSneakers(.com) and sell it when it’s at the peak of popularity. It’s currently available, I checked, you can buy it now.
Current Craze: When PokémonGo was HUGE last year, my domain flipping friends (Matt of Handshakin.com is one) were all about buying domains like PokeStopNearMe(.com) and other related domains associated with the PokémonGo craziness. It’s like the day trading of the domain world. You’re buying domains during the hype and hope to sell them for a higher price quickly before the hype fades.
Date Names: Do you like to think about future events like the 2030 Olympics? Think about buying the domain 2030OlympicStadium(.com) or other Date Names that could be a hot item to buy when the date gets closer.
Avoid Trademarks: You do need to be careful from a legal standpoint. If you choose a name that too close to a trademark name like McDonaldsBurgersSuck(.com) it could result in a lawsuit that could force you to give them the name for free. In general, I try to avoid buying and selling domain names close to a trademark name.
Once I did a search of any phrase, I would immediately download the results from the Google Keyword Planner and export the list to excel. Usually, you could only download around 750 results from the Google Keyword Planner at a time.
I would copy and paste those phrases that had above one thousand searches a month into GoDaddy’s Bulk Search Option to see how many of those phrases are available. It’s great you can search up to 500 phrases at a time to see if there is a (.com) domain extension available.
Now I used GoDaddy because it’s a simple and easy way to search for available domains, but it’s definitely not the only game in town. I use my hosting service, Bluehost, to actually buy my domains, to keep them all in one place.
I repeated Step 1 & Step 2 a lot, like 5 hours on Sunday to find popular phrases that have high monthly searches or future potential.
In the end, I had a small list of available domains with how often they’re searched for online. The longer you do this, the larger your list could be of popular phrases of available domain names to buy.
After veting my list for a while, I knew I only had a budget to buy 2 domain names. So I limited my selection to the very best.
The two domain names I bought were:
Sad Fact: I bought both of these for $11.99 but that’s only a 1 year license to own these. So it’s more like leasing. You have to renew your ownership of domains every year. So holding both of these domain names for 10 years will cost a total of $260.
Just because you bought the domain name, people aren’t magically going to email you offering millions of dollars for your domain. You have to let people know you have it for sale and how it can benefit them.
My next steps:
If you’re looking to Auction a name, here are some popular sites you can auction your new domain name.
Usually, these auction sites take 20% – 30% of the sale. They take so much because they are providing the audience that is actively looking for buying and selling domain names. Otherwise, it’d take forever to sell a name.
Don’t expect to sell your domain right away, it sometimes takes months or years to sell a domain name. Sometimes not at all. Not many people make buying and selling domain names a full time business. For most domain buyers and sellers, it’s a part time job.
A lot of people who are regularly buying and selling domain names have a portfolio of hundreds of domain names. A sale of a website name for $6,000 might sound like a lot, but often times it only pays for their library of domain names they’re paying an annual subscription to hold.
In the end, a domain name is only as valuable as the price a buyer is willing to buy it.
We covered a lot, what is domain flipping, some crazy success stories and step by step guide to buying and selling domain names. This is something you could totally start right now as another way to make money.
I’ll be honest I’m just excited to own a couple of website domains, they’re my own little piece of the internet. I’ll likely hold onto these for a couple of years if I can’t sell them right away.
The fun part of this is the potential to discover those hidden gems like hotels(.com) and sell it for $11M down the road. It’s not likely to happen for the domains I have, but I now know the process. I can be on the lookout for website domains in upcoming trends. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
I stumbled upon the Fluid App also known as Fluid Market a few months ago after a friend, Matt Holmes of Handshaking.com, told me about it. It’s an app that lets you rent out your stuff for money instead of selling it. Since then I’ve been using the app and testing it for this Fluid App Review.
Fluid Market is a Start Up making some big waves in Denver. They have essentially created an online marketplace (through the app only) that people can rent items from other people.
Think Craigslist, but instead of selling your items, you rent them out for money. Or you can rent items you only need once, like a carpet cleaner, instead of buying one. This is what it looks like.
The idea being, if you only need an item once like you want to rent a scooter for the day. You can find one on Fluid, see how much it is per hour/day and contact the owner to rent it. You pay everything through the app so you’re not actually exchanging money with other people. Take that Craigslist!
If you’re like me, you’re thinking “This looks like an awesome way to earn more money, but I don’t want other people damaging my stuff”. I was nervous too, I’ll admit that. Their $1 Million insurance policy helped me feel a little bit better, but still, it’s my stuff and I don’t want to deal with insurance hassles, so I started small for the Fluid App Review.
I searched around my 583′ square foot studio apartment for stuff that was valuable enough people would want to rent, but I didn’t mind getting banged up a bit. Not that it would, but again, I was hesitant.
The ONE thing I found was my Clothing Iron. I figured someone in the area may need a clothing iron, so what the hell.
To start my Fluid App Review, I downloaded the app from the android store (it’s also on the Apple Store). At first, it was a bit slow and clunky. However, it’s gotten SO much better from what it was a couple months ago. Someone in their tech support is doing something right. Plus it’s a StartUp up, so I’m sure they’re constantly updating and improving it.
After downloading the app, I get a screenshot like this
It gives you the option to use an email or Facebook, I selected email only. I’m sure there’s a social component to the app that’s nice, but I just wanted to try it out. I didn’t want to message all my friends on Facebook about it.
Then I got that clunky loading screen (again it’s gotten a lot better!).
Once in the app, you have categories on top and a random assortment of items below. I haven’t figured out how it chooses what items are on the home page. These are all the items you can rent. From each quick view thumbnail, you can get an idea of what items they have. Including the name of the item, photo, the cost per hour/day/week, the item’s rating and how far you have to travel to pick it up.
If you click on an item, like the scooter I want to rent ($15 for the day!). You’ll get a more detailed description of the item and lender, along with additional photos, which really helps! At that point, all you have to do is scroll to the bottom and click “Check Availability” to rent it.
So I had my Clothing Iron and I was ready to start renting it out. I go to the top left icon to see all their options, and select “Add Item”
Then I start filling in the info on what kind of Clothing Iron, add photos (either from your gallery or take them on the spot) and set my price. Once you add the category, you’re pretty much done. Anyone can add an item and it’s incredibly easy through the app. It took less than 5 min.
The Fluid App will take 20% of every transaction, they say this is to help pay for the insurance and upkeep of the marketplace. Keep that in mind when pricing your item.
The last thing you do is add how people are supposed to contact you about renting it out through “Pick Up/Drop Off” instructions. I asked them to email me, but you can have them call you as well. Do this in a public location like I talk about in How To Sell You Stuff On Craigslist.
FYI – No one can see your number or email until AFTER they have paid. That part is SO nice.
Then I waited. So far, I haven’t heard from anyone about renting my clothing iron. Lol I guess it’s as useless to me as it is for anyone else.
If I do make any extra money from this, I’ll add it to my monthly income reports.
So now I’m looking at other items to try and sell on the Fluid App.
This process is equally as easy. You select the item you want, hit “check availability” (in case it’s rented out already) and you’ll get a list of times in hours that you can rent it out for. Select how many hours you want it and that’s how it’ll calculate payment.
Then you submit your request and pay via credit card. There isn’t a paypal option that I’ve noticed during the Fluid App Review. It’s credit card only.
Afterward you get in touch with your lender to coordinate the pickup. Basically, the app just provides the marketplace of items to rent and the payment option, the rest is up to the renter and lender to coordinate.
Don’t get disparaged about my Cons, I’m being pretty critical of the new start up, but I really am impressed by this company. In fact, I was so impressed by these guys during the Fluid App Review, for the fun of it, I checked to see if they were hiring. Who knows, if they do things right, it could be the next SNAP. So I submitted a quick resume to their marketing team. What the hell.
My IPO dreams were rapidly cut short the following day when Fluid’s HR team contacted me to say they were looking for someone with a little more “Rental Experience”. I guess my couple years in college renting out outdoor gear to students wasn’t enough. LOL it’s ok, I’m still a fan of the app.
This is a pretty exciting app that I hope grows because now I’m constantly looking for new stuff to rent out. It’s a really neat idea to make extra money. PLUS a sustainable revenue source if you have an item people really want to rent (bouncy houses, VR equipment, and cars are high demand items). What do you think of my Fluid App Review? Would you rent out any of your stuff?
Here’s me contemplating what to start renting out next. FYI that’s an electric scooter, totally bad ass I know. =P
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
I am going to try something new for a self improvement article that has not been done here on Wallet Squirrel yet. Starting this week I am going to do a little mini series about getting rid of distractions within my own personal life. This series will go for the next 3 months with an article being released at the beginning of each month. It will be during the same week when Andrew releases one of his awesome income reports.
This will not be one of your typical self improvement articles where I list off a bunch of things for you to try. No, this is a list of items for me to go out to personally experience it for you! Over the years I have been reading article over article about self improvement, and do not get me wrong, there are some good tips out there. The issue is most of the writers have never tried these “self improvement” tips themselves so how do we know if they work?
Getting rid of distractions is key to self improvement. Without those distractions you can work on what you truly love.
One of my favorite writers about self improvement is Z from Zero to Skill. He often writes about his own personal experiences on becoming a better and more productive person. One article I loved was his Ultimate Guide For Waking Up Early. He walks through what helps him and what did not work out to help him get up in the morning after years of trial and error.
This personal touch is what I want to bring to this mini-series. My goal is to give you several ideas throughout the series on decluttering your life to for self improvement and increase your productivity.
Today we will talk about the foundation as to why and what I plan on doing over the next three months. Today we will talk why we should all get rid of distractions in our lives. Then I will lay out some goals that I want to accomplish. Then I will set out for a month using several techniques I have researched about over the years. Part 2 of the mini-series will talk more about those techniques and what did or did not work out.
Let us begin!
Just this past weekend my pastor at church talked about work during his sermon. One thing he mentioned really resonated with me. He talked about what if everyone would cut back on all extra clutter in life (ie. Playing on the Xbox, watching Netflix, looking at Facebook, etc)? Then he asked, what if everyone took that time/energy and put it into their passions instead? Think about how much more productive and successful those individuals would be.
Now this is not the first time I have heard these questions about people spending more energy on their passion rather than only being consumers of unhealthy distractions. Sadly, I cannot remember those other examples but this is my most recent encounter with the thought.
The thought of removing all of this extra clutter in my life seems really scary at first. I think, “What if a better video game such as COD: WWII comes out?” Or, “What if I miss some big important message or video of a cat saving a dog’s life on my Facebook feed?” This fear is FOMO, the fear of missing out. Just recently, I have only begun to understand that this stuff does not really matter in life. What I should be worrying about is my family, my friends, hiking in the Colorado mountains, along with other passions such as working on websites.
After coming to this realization I was able to clearly see that there are so many materialistic items in my house that I really did not use anymore. The only reason I am holding on to them is because of that “What if” moment. For the first time, I was free to let go of those items.
Question: Go ahead, take a look around your house. Do you have any of these items in your house? What is your goal by getting rid of distractions for self-improvement?
For me, it is all about getting rid or minimizing these distractions so I can become more financially free from debt. This will be accomplished by replacing Facebook, the Xbox, as well as reducing Netflix to spend more time on Wallet Squirrel, Adam Olson Photography, and other side hustles. This will all lend me to enjoy my family and friends more.
Ugh! Facebook…..
Getting distracted is very easy for me. Especially when I have something in front of me such as an Xbox, Netflix, or Facebook to distract me.
There is something that Marc from Surviving Prepper said that really caught my attention.
“If you eliminate items in your life that are not needed, you have room for items that are needed”
For me, I see this as I need to remove the distractions in my life so I can really focus on what is important to me (God, family, friends, fitness, and yes…Wallet Squirrel).
I tend to be a very materialistic person. These fun but worthless items keep me distracted on what really matters, my family, life goals, health, and so on. It is time to make the sacrifice by selling a bunch of items in our house that seem to add more value to my life but really do not. Some of these items include an extra 42 inch TV, an Xbox, a couple old laptops, an old camera, and whatever else I find.
I also like to watch a lot of Netflix on my own while working on tasks. It really slows down my productivity. Netflix will not get canceled because I also enjoy sitting down with my wife to watch a show or movie. Instead, I will set a rule that Netflix watching is only when I am with her.
Social media and Netflix are major distractions for me.
The biggest step self improvement will be dropping social media sites such as Facebook. I have tried many ways to avoid this evil distraction but I cannot get away from it. Because I use Facebook messenger to communicate with my best friends and some are too stubborn to switch services **Cough**Cough** Andrew **Cough**Cough** I cannot get rid of Facebook altogether. So I will use Cold Turkey to block the site on my personal and Home computers as well as my phone.
Side Note: If you do not know what Cold Turkey is, I highly recommend you check it out. It allows you to block any distracting website on your computer or application on your phone. You can set up custom schedules to when and when you cannot access these websites or applications. It is really helpful!
I have a lot to accomplish in the next four weeks till the June follow up article comes out. Below is a set of goals I plan on accomplishing before the next follow up.
Wakey! Wakey! Time for eggs and bakey!
I will go over if I accomplish these goals or not and the techniques/tips used for each goal. There will be a detailed review of what I did to accomplish each one and what you can do for yourself. If I fail, I will go over what did not work and adjustments to be made.
Stay tuned for the remainder of this raw adventure giving yourself real life tips and tricks to getting rid of distractions for self improvement.
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Whether it was in high school or in college most of us have had one or two flexible part-time jobs to earn some extra cash. For me, my first job was detasseling in the cornfields of Iowa. Then I moved onto being a lifeguard at the local water park for a couple summers.
The issue with most of these part-time jobs is they do not work out for us grownups to make some extra money to pay off debt. I wanted to pull in some easy to access part-time job that will work alongside your 9 to 5 full-time job.
My goal for this list is to tell you several flexible part-time jobs that are easy on your schedule and simple to jump right into.
This might sound like a job for only those younger people but it is not. Sure there are a lot of teenagers and college students working in retail but there are plenty of grown adults as well. Personally, I have worked a lot of years in retail and it is a pretty good place to be for a part-time gig.
Back in college, I worked at a major department store where I actually met my wife. Later on, after college, I worked at a landscape materials company where I helped sell rock and design yards. The latest experience was because I was in transition between careers. I worked at a major sporting goods retailer here in Denver. This gave me the time to work on my master’s degree while providing for my family.
Working in retail is one of eight great flexible part-time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.
Overall, I have just about seven years of retail experience. I found that the hours and time off needed were extremely flexible. The money is decent for what the job is. Working twenty hours a week might allow you to bring in an extra $800 a month.
There are several apps out there that are basically the Uber for dog walking. You can pay someone to walk your dog OR you can get paid by some who will pay you! If you are like my wife and me, we enjoy going for a walk almost every day after work. So why not get paid for that walk? Hop on one of these apps, Wag! or Rover, to see if one of your neighbors needs help walking their dogs.
Bonus Points! Both of these apps are not just for dog walking. They allow you to pet sit as well!
This is one that I do not have any personal experience with. My wife has been looking for some flexible part-time jobs for this coming summer. As an English teacher, I plan on recommending freelance writing to her. It will be great because freelance writing is easy to engage with once school is out and disengage once school is back in session. For me, I will hopefully get a good article out of her experience 🙂
Freelance writing is one of eight great flexible part-time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.
Michelle from Making Sense of Cents recommends starting out slowly with one gig at a time. A slow start will ensure that you can focus on that article to make sure it is the highest quality. The higher the quality articles you write, the more likely people will hire you for more. It helps to find a niche you enjoy writing about. If you are having fun writing then it is likely that your writing will be even better.
So how do you find these gigs? Michelle recommends checking out the ProBlogger job boards to find freelance gigs.
Look you are not going to get rich by completing surveys, take a look at Andrew’s review of surveying, No more survey apps, they just don’t pay well. You can make some decent money for your savings account every month though. Using Michelle from Making Sense of Cents as an example again, she made around an extra $100 a month from surveys. I do not think this is bad since all you have to do is sit back on the couch with your computer to fill these out.
Some of the more popular services are Swagbucks, Pinecone Research, American Consumer Opinion, InboxDollars, and Harris Poll Online.
Use Swagbucks to earn some extra money.
Uber and Lyft are the newish hip ways to catch a ride around your city. I really love these services as they provide a very easy and simple way to hale a ride. With a couple clicks on your phone and someone is on their way to pick you up.
These services have also become a great way to earn extra money with your own vehicle. With the extreme elasticity of setting your own hours, this is one of those flexible part-time jobs that can fit anyone’s needs. Since you set your own hours, you can make as little or as much as you would like being an Uber or Lyft driver.
Uber or Lyft are great ways to earn extra money on your own time.
I once took a ride from an Uber driver who use to drive a cab. She said that she loves working for the service. It provides her with a lot more flexibility. In turn, this allowed her to spend more time with her kids while making more money than she used to. I thought that was such an awesome statement for Uber.
Personally, I have never tried Lyft. Have you? If so, tell me about it in the comments section below. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
This was my part-time job back in college. Donating Plasma was one of my favorite flexible part-time jobs I have ever had. The hours were super flexible, the pay was great for what was entailed, and it was very easy. I donated plasma for over three years while in college. It provided just about $300 extra dollars for me a month while conforming to my crazy academic schedule as a landscape architecture student.
If you are interested in donating plasma check out my detailed write-up, How to Earn More Money – Donating Plasma.
Etsy is one of those flexible part-time jobs that are easy to jump into but does take some time to get established. I have sold a few photographs on Esty but never put the time into really establishing my shop (that is what they call your personal page). I have read that this can take a little while but can be totally worth the effort that you put forward.
Etsy allows you to sell your own crafts as a part-time gig.
Similar to Uber or Lyft, you put time into Etsy whenever you can outside of your 9 to 5 job. The more you put into your shop, the more likely it will succeed. In the near future, I will be revisiting my Esty Shop trying to revive it and see what I can get out of it. It looks like I have some work to do as they reset my shop since I have last logged in. Stay tuned!
I absolutely love photography. Sadly, since moving to Colorado in 2011 my life has become WAY too busy to be able to put time into the craft. One way I have found to make a little money off of my photographs that are just sitting on an external hard drive is through stock photography.
Back in 2013, I decided to upload some random photos that I liked. Some were my favorite photographs of all time and some were just good. It turned out one of my random ‘just good’ photos that I took of the St. Louis Arch was really loved by people. This photograph has gone on to make me around $1,000! I only host this photograph on iStockPhoto and ShutterStock.
I have used stock photography to make true passive income for the past four years.
Stock photography is truly a passive income. I have not touched that photo on either service in that past four years. So fun!
If you are looking for some extra cash to help pay off debt then I recommend you try out any of these eight flexible part-time jobs. All in all these flexible part-time jobs are very easy to get started with. They will allow you to get started right away and earning more cash as soon as possible!
In case starting your own small business sounds like a better option you should read about these 50 Small Scale Business Ideas That You Can Start Today.
We have come up with a bigger list of Ways to Earn More Money. Most of these are not flexible part-time jobs. Rather this list has other experiences on how to make more money such as selling something on Craigslist.
Hello Everyone! Before I get to today’s main way to earn more money, donating plasma, I wanted to introduce myself. As a lot of you already know from Andrew’s introduction of me from his post last week, I am Adam. If you didn’t see his introduction, go check it out now. It is a really good read! Don’t worry, I won’t go anywhere, I’ll still be here when you get back.
You back? Great! I hope you enjoyed that article as much as I did.
Anyways, back to what is important, me! As I’ve already mentioned, I am Adam, the newest and greatest (shhh don’t tell Andrew) contributor to Wallet Squirrel. I am very excited to work alongside my best buddy Andrew making great content for you while learning in the process.
My goals here are to learn more about becoming financially free and to become that. My wife and I have a lot of debt (car, student loans, and house) that we want to break free from. I want to include you in on this journey to paying off our debt!
A little about me. I am married and we have a four month old. We also have two dogs, a lab-retriever and a husky. Living in Denver, Colorado allows our little family to do what we love the most, spend time in the mountains. We love to hike, climb 14ers (Mountains above 14,000 feet in elevation), and to camp. One of my favorite hobbies is photography so you will be seeing several posts from me about it and how you can make money with your camera. Be excited!
A little self promotion of one of my photographs
I guess I’ll stop rambling and get to what you are really here for. Way #72 to earn more money by donating plasma.
A lot of people cringe at the thought of having a 12 gauge needle moving towards their arm. I don’t blame them, it can be a very nerve racking process. Especially when a trainee would come to stick you but most weeks the experience was great. I am here to walk you through the donation process to help ease those nerves.
Back in college donating plasma was my main income for a few years. Twice a week one of my roommates and I would go to Biolife Plasma in Ames, Iowa to donate plasma. Typically we would earn between $50 to $70 a week for our plasma and time.
So let’s walk through what my typical visit was like. Keep in mind, I have experience with only one facility and your local donation center might vary.
When I initially started I had to take a physical to make sure I was fit enough to donate. This is not a traditional physical that you get at the doctor, so do not worry about that. It takes about an hour to complete between all of the paper work, the million and one questions they ask you, as well as the general physical health checkup they perform. The physical needs to be repeated every year, which was my least favorite part of the experience. Not because it was hard or anything like that, it was just really annoying.
Now that the initial physical is complete and I was approved the rest of the visits were easy. I would walk through the front door and sign in at the front desk. This included answering a bunch of questions on a computer. Some examples are. Have you visited certain countries within a particular time frame? Were you sick recently? Did you donated blood recently? Then I would go sit in the waiting room for a little bit. A nurse would call my name to check my temperature, blood pressure, and verify so other items. If I had too high of temperature or blood pressure I could not donate for the day. If I passed, the nurse would take me back to the donating beds.
Once back there and settled in, a technician would come to stick my arm so the donation process could start. This is the part most people cringe about, don’t worry about it. These technician do go through a thorough training process. Out of the three years I donated, only a few sticks did not go too well.
Technically this photo is of someone donating blood but looks very similar to the plasma donation process.
After getting hooked up I was able to relax during the donation process for the next thirty to forty-five minutes. This is when I would read/study or watch a movie. I really enjoyed this part of the donation process as you were literally forced to relax. When done and unhooked, I went to check out, sign up for my next donation time, and get paid! The whole visit took about an hour and a half.
Payment wise, Ames was a smaller market so we only got $50 to $70 a week for the donations. We were limited to two donations a week each time. They would pay $30 for the first time and $40 for the second visit. Some bigger cities paid a lot better. It was rumored that people in Kansas City were getting $130 a week!
For anyone with a few extra hours in the week and looking for more money I highly recommend checking your local plasma donation center. This is a fairly easy way to gain some extra income. It is mostly a painless process that allows you to get other work done during the process. If I missed anything about the process or you have a story about your own experience, give a comment below.
Now that you know a little more about way #72 to earn more money, donating plasma. Head over to our comprehensive list to check out other ways you could earn more money in 2017! We will continue to try out and review these ways throughout the year for you. If we are missing something on the list and you want to see us review it shoot us an email or tweet (@WalletSquirrel)!
Cheers!
-Adam
