In 2023, it’s now more viable than ever to make money without a job. While most of us have been used to trading our time for money, it’s becoming more apparent than ever that you simply cannot rely on your job as your only source of income.
In this article, we’ll show you how you can get started with gift card sites to make money, get paid from online surveys, make some extra money flipping stuff, and much more.
The various ways to make money outlined in this article will vary depending on the resources available to you, but we’re certain that there is something in here for everyone.
Without further ado, let’s get started with some ways to make money without a job.
1. Invest in Real Estate
Yes, we know this method might sound capital intensive, and it definitely is. With that said, this is one of the most robust and tested ways to make money without a job. From investing in rental properties to flipping undervalued homes, there are various ways you can approach this, but it’s important to know first hand the amount of money you have at your disposal before embarking on this side hustle.
While this isn’t an article on how to make money with money, you should definitely consider the credit options available to you if you decide to pursue this seriously. Leveraging yourself financially the right way can open up a lot of doors to make money without a job from real estate.
2. Rent Out Spare Rooms in Your Home
Alternatively, if you have a spare room in your home that’s vacant, you can always list it up on sites like Airbnb to get paid via short term rentals.
If you live in a high-demand area for rentals, this is a fantastic way of making money without a job. Renting out a room allows you to monetize your real estate while still giving you the option to live in the house you’re already in.
3. Pay Off Debt
While paying off debt isn’t technically a way to make money, you’re essentially freeing up more money that would otherwise be wasted on unnecessary interest.
This is especially true if you have high-interest debt, like credit card debt. We understand how daunting it might be to even start analyzing how much debt you have, but it really is the best way to make money without a job.
Think about it; if you managed to flip some stocks for a 10% profit, you’d be pretty stoked about it; paying off debt is essentially the same thing when you consider that you’re not paying 10% more than what you already owe in interest.
For more in-depth information on a strategy to pay off debt, check out our infographic here for 12 tips to get out of debt fast.
4. Refinance Debt
Alternatively, you can refinance your debt to potentially reduce the interest on your loans. This is especially applicable to student loans, as some studies indicate that some student loans can take up to 20 years to pay off, resulting in an insane amount of interest paid over the course of the loan.
With that in mind, refinancing student loans might be your best bet to optimize the terms of your loan that can hopefully reduce the amount of interest that you would have to pay.
Consolidating debt, when done right, can have a huge impact on your interest rates and repayment terms. This obviously leads to massive savings, inadvertently allowing you to make money back in the long run.
Sites like CommonBond are great for refinancing student loans, and if you have other forms of debt, a site like Credible might be better suited for you.
5. Earn Cash from Shopping
With sites like Honey, Ibotta and Rakuten, you can actually get paid for shopping. For the purchases that you’re going to make anyway, a cashback site like the ones aforementioned can make you a decent amount of money in the long run.
Rakuten is really simple to use; simply sign up on their website and browse the items you were going to buy with their search bar, and you get paid a small percentage of your bill.
On the other hand, Honey is a web extension that will automatically search the web for the best deal of the item you were going to buy, all without you lifting a finger. Then, Honey helps you get the best deal by letting you use the best discount codes or promos it can find, and you still get paid a small kickback after the purchase.
Another app you can try is Ibotta, where you can claim rebates by scanning the receipts of qualifying purchases to the app. What is great about Ibotta is that you can easily use it in conjunction with Honey or Rakuten, as you’d only need to present the receipt to Ibotta to claim your cash.
6. Start A Blog
If you have an affinity for a particular hobby or niche, starting a blog can be one of the best ways to make money.
Chances are, you’re passionate about something and have some insights that others find might value in. By publishing them on a blog with the right strategies, you can most certainly attract an audience that wants to listen to what you have to say.
When it comes to monetizing your blog, the options are endless. From affiliating products from other people, running display ads, or even coming up with your own product, you’re only limited to your creativity when you choose to monetize your content.
Starting a blog is relatively simple and doesn’t require a whole lot of investment up front, making the barrier for entry super low for most people. Simply put, all you need is a genuine passion for a subject, and the persistence to stick to your blogging your strategy.
For a detailed breakdown of the exact steps to start a blog, check out our infographic here where we walk you through everything you need to know to get started with blogging.
7. Self-Publish A Book
If writing on a blog isn’t quite your cup of tea, you can still put those writing skills to self-publish a book, which has become so easy to do in recent years.
With the growth in popularity of eBooks, you can sell your work digitally, making it far more accessible to a lot of people while drastically reducing the amount of hassle to get your book published. On top of that, the cost of hosting an eBook on the Internet is practically zero, which means you get to keep a relatively huge cut, no matter which publishing platform you choose.
A nice added bonus here is that if you’re already running a blog, you can easily convert your blog posts into an eBook; we cover this quite extensively in our post here, which you should check out if you’re considering doing this.
Once your eBook is ready, the easiest platform to start selling it would be the Kindle Store. Getting your eBook uploaded to Kindle is super easy and can be done in a matter of minutes, so there’s literally no barrier to entry for listing your work online.
With that said, simply shooting in the dark when it comes to publishing your own eBook might not yield significant results. A proper strategy goes a long way to ensure that there is pre-existing demand for your eBook, and if you want to learn more about a comprehensive strategy to self-publish, check out our detailed guide here.
8. Sell Your Own Products
If you’ve ever had an idea of how certain products can be improved, there’s a good chance that there is already an audience who might just be waiting for your offering to buy.
Product development obviously varies significantly depending on the type of product you want to create, but with sites like Alibaba, finding the right supplier for just about anything is possible with enough research.
Once you have decided on the product and have the right suppliers to produce it, you can easily list it online with either Shopify or Amazon.
If you want more control over how your store looks and want to build a brand, we can’t recommend Shopify enough. Shopify is incredibly easy to use and gives you full reign over the customer experience, from the UX of your website to the check out page. Not to mention, there’s a huge variety of apps available in the Shopify App Store that you can install in a matter of clicks to get nifty little features installed on your store.
The freedom you get from Shopify can also result in much more earning potential, as you’ll be able to build a solid customer base over time, which you can retarget for new or recurring purchases to drastically improve the average lifetime value of a customer. You’ll also be able to build a real brand along the way, which is also extremely important to stand out from the crowd.
To learn more about selling your own products on your own website, check out this guide here.
On the other hand, if you prefer to just focus on product development and not deal with running your own site, selling it on Amazon FBA is the way to go. With their insane market share over the e-commerce space, your product will be exposed to Amazon’s huge customer base without you lifting a finger. Moreover, Amazon will handle the logistic end of things, allowing you to leverage its vast delivery network.
Sure, you’ll pay Amazon a sizable cut of your revenue, but it’s well worth it when you consider just how much work you can save by outsourcing certain facets of your business, allowing you more time to focus on other things.
When it comes to selling on Amazon, finding the right product to offer is more important than anything else. Check out our guide on how to find the perfect product to sell on Amazon here.
9. Flip Stuff Online
Do you have a good eye for spotting deals? With sites like eBay and Craigslist available at your disposal, it’s not hard to do some research on the market value for certain items and flip them for a profit.
From pawn shops to thrift stores to your own used items, there’s no shortage of ways you can source items to flip for a profit.
Selling goods online also allows you to arbitrage items based on location, for example, if you see that the market for a certain type of item is much higher somewhere else than your local area, it’s a no brainer to source those items locally to then sell it out of state for a markup.
10. Babysit Kits or Pets
If you don’t mind the idea of taking care of a child, or even a pet, babysitting can be a lucrative way to earn some side income without a job.
For babysitting kids, check out Care.com, where they connect babysitters like yourself to parents who are in need of your services. You’ll have to go through a comprehensive background check for obvious reasons, but once you’re all set up, you should be getting gigs in no time.
If you prefer walking pets instead, check out Rover, a huge network of dog walkers that can help you connect with dog owners.
This way, you don’t have to go through the trouble of advertising yourself on Facebook or obscure sites, and your clients will be able to find you more easily.
11. Wrap Your Car for Advertising
If you drive around a lot, you can stand to make good money from advertising with your car. The way this works is that you get your car wrapped with a graphic of the advertisement and get paid for the amount of miles you drive with that wrap on.
For those of you who are going to be driving around a lot anyway, this can definitely help make you some money for doing what you were going to do anyway.
To get started with car wrap advertising, check out sites like Carvertise and Wrapify.
12. Donate your blood
Donating blood is a great way to help those in need and make some money at the same time. Depending on your blood type, you can stand to get paid every time you’re able to donate blood.
You can also donate plasma, but this is far more complicated than the procedure for donating blood.
Check with your local authorities to see if you qualify to donate blood and how to get started.
13. Rent out your car with Turo
Have a spare car sitting around, or if you don’t need to drive your car that much? Put your car to use with Turo, a service that allows you to rent out your car for decent money.
If you’re concerned about the risks of lending your car to a stranger, Turo does provide insurance coverage for damages, and they do ensure that only qualified users can access their platform.
Depending on the model year and make of your car, you can potentially make up to thousands of dollars per year by just renting out your car.
14. Test Websites or Apps to Provide Feedback
Website owners and app developers are constantly looking for ways to improve their offering, which is where you can come into play.
You can get paid to test apps, websites and more with a few different sites. This is relatively easy to do and a great way to get paid for your spare time.
For testing websites, sites like TryMyUI and TestingTime will pay you to give honest feedback on a website’s usability and user experience should you qualify.
To test mobile apps, check out Userlytics, where they pay you to test our mobile apps instead of websites.
15. Review Items That You Already Own
Ever had a weird glitch on your brand new TV, or if you accidentally stumbled upon a pair of headphones that turned out to be way better than you expected?
You can offer your experience with a product that you already own with a simple YouTube video, and make money doing so.
Simply sign up for Amazon affiliates and insert affiliate links in your video description to get a small cut for items that people purchase through your link. Be it a positive review or a negative one; there’s always people out there who might want your opinion on an item before purchasing it.
16. Resell Textbooks Online
Any college student can attest to the ridiculously expensive prices of textbooks, which have been on the rise over recent years.
If you are in college or know some friends who are, you might just be able to source some used textbooks and sell them online using a website like BookScouter: a marketplace for used textbooks.
17. Help Scout Real Estate Properties
Do you live in an area with a booming real estate market? Many real estate investors are looking for a second pair of eyes when it comes to scouting properties, as online listings or images sent by agents might not accurately reflect the current state of said property.
Fuzul is a platform that has a network of clients that are willing to pay others for a quick video for a certain property, where you can come in and do the job for some quick bucks.
Conclusion
With these tips in mind, you should be able to find the right way to make money without a job. From small side hustles to fully-fledged businesses, we think there is something here that anyone can try out. We hope you found this article useful and give some of these ideas a try.
Bernard currently works full-time as a growth hacker and content researcher for HUSTLR. When he was studying in the US 2 years ago, he flipped Yeezys on eBay as a side hustle to fund his degree and living expenses. He’s currently working on his Amazon FBA business & dropshipping on the side.
