9 Business Ideas to do from Home

(This post contains affiliate links – please see my disclosure policy in the footer).

Around 5% of Americans now work from home.

There’s good reason for that. Working from home has many great benefits and there are now a huge number of businesses you can operate from home just using the internet.

If you want to make money from home, some of these benefits include:-

  • You’ll avoid the need to commute saving on fuel and your sanity;
  • It’s often easier to manage other commitments in your life like child care;
  • Higher productivity as you’ll be able to work uninterrupted with less distractions and a quieter environment;
  • It’s beneficial for your work/life balance;
  • Working from home is often less stressful.

Operating a business from home is often a great idea for people who cannot commit to the usual 9-5 slog and therefore it’s perfect for stay at home moms, students or perhaps those who just don’t like being around people.

So let’s explore a few business ideas if you are looking to avoid the typical 9-5 grind that most people subject themselves to on a daily and often life long basis.

Let’s have a look how.


This post contains affiliate links meaning we may receive a commission for any products purchased via those links. For a list of our partners, please read our disclosure.


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1.Start a Blog

Perhaps the most obvious one, given you are currently reading a blog.

Blogging is absolutely perfect for people who want to work from home and has many benefits like:-

  • You are your own boss and can commit as much time as you like;
  • A lot of the money you’ll earn is often passive once you’ve done the initial hard work;
  • Blogging gives you the flexibility to do other things in your life and effectively enables you to choose your hours of works;
  • Overheads are generally fairly low compared to other businesses;
  • Blogging is good fun and you’ll meet awesome people!

You might think to yourself – “but I’m no good at writing!”.

Believe me, there are plenty of bloggers out there who are mediocre at writing but still make a tidy profit.

You don’t need to be winning the Pulitzer prize to make good money from blogging! It’s more about getting your content out there and savvy marketing than being the Shakespeare of the online world.

After all, a blog is more like a conversation than an essay. Some of the most successful bloggers out there have done very well by writing in a conversational style that engages with their audience and creates a dialogue between them and their reader, rather than being a prize winning novelist or essayist.

So if you’re not the best writer – do not threat! A big part of being a successful blogger is persistence and the desire to keep going. Once you’re established, the benefits can be huge!

Let’s look at some of the financial possibilities of what can be achieved:-

  • Ryan Robinson at RyRob.com – $50k+ a month
  • John Morrow at SmartBlogger – $100k+ a month
  • Michelle at Making Sense of Cents – $100k+ a month
  • Alex and Lauren at Create and Go/Avocadu – $100k+ a month
  • Tim Sykes at TimothySykes.com – $1m+ a month

Crazy figures!

This blog has only been set up for 6 months and I make $100 per day some days. I always make a minimum of $30 and that’s without advertising.

⭐You can set up a blog here with BlueHost for only $3.95 per month and they even offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you decide blogging isn’t for you:-

You can read my 5000 word article on how to start a blog here and get started today:-


2. Work as a Proofreader

Proofreaders scrutinize written text looking for grammatical, spelling, punctuation and other written errors. Your job will be to note and correct those errors when identified.

You’ll be mostly analysing documents like legal transcripts, websites, contracts and even novels.

You will need to complete some training to become proficient but most of the time no university degree is required, although it can be beneficial to have one.

You’ll learn many transferable skills:-

  • You’ll learn to develop a keen eye for detail and an analytic approach to work;
  • You’ll improve your written English skills and develop a better understanding of punctuation, grammar, syntax and vocabulary;
  • You’ll learn how to work independently.

You can work on a freelance basis so you’ll be able to choose the hours you want to commit to – perfect for students or stay at home mums.

The salary is excellent too:-

How to earn money from home as a proofreader

Proofreading guru, Caitlin Pyle, has made a career out of proof reading court transcript documents, making 5 figures from the comfort of her own home.

She made $43,000 dollars in her first year proofreading.

She’s put together a free course that you can enrol in so you can learn how to become a professional proofreader.

How to become a Proofreader

Work is easy to find for a proofreader too. Check out these websites to get a feel for the amount of work out there for proofreaders:-


PIN IT FOR LATER

3. Work as a Transcriptionist

A transcriptionist types up words into written documents from pre-recorded audio.

A lot of transcription work is done in the medical and legal industries.

I am a lawyer by profession and I often have to order transcripts of court hearings when a case goes to the appeal courts.

When I make the order for the transcript, a transcriber will take the court’s audio recording and type it into a document to be used in the appeal.

To do the job, you’ll need to be fairly fast, consistent and accurate at typing and be able to listen attentively to audible communication.

The average medical transcriptionist’s salary according to GlassDoor is $24,857.00:-

The great thing is, working as a transcriptionist can be done completely at home and there’s a big demand for the work.

You can learn how to be a transcriptionist with Transcribe Anywhere, which is course put together by professional transcriptionist, Janet Shaughnessy.

The first part of the course is completely free so you can see if transcribing is for you!

What one student had to say about Transcribe Anywhere

4. Work as a Virtual Assistant

Working as a virtual assistant is the perfect job to do from home.

By nature, a virtual assistant works remotely, so it’s a great job if you don’t want to have to traipse into an office everyday.

Virtual assistants are employed by people to complete remote tasks that often they haven’t got time to do themselves.

You’ll be doing tasks like:-

– Managing someone’s diary for them – so arranging appointments, organising work schedules, responding to emails and other administrative tasks;

– Social media marketing. You’ll maintain and promote a business on social media which may mean running ad campaigns, increasing a business’ social media following or responding to online queries;

– Creating content. You might help create videos, adverts and promotional emails.

The salary can be great too and it’s not unusual to be earning up to $5000 per month working as a virtual assistant.

I would strongly recommend checking out Gina Horkey’s course.

Within 6 months of becoming a virtual assistant, Gina left her day job and started working as a full time virtual assistant earning $4000 per month.


5. Teach English to Foreign School Kids

You can now use the internet to teach children, mainly in Asia, how to speak English over Skype.

VIP Kid offers this is exact service. You will need to be eligble to work in the USA or Canada, but once you are set up, you can earn money with just a laptop and a webcam.

The best thing is you can do as much or as little as you like and earn up to $22 per hour plus referrals for your trouble.

If you work 35 hours a week doing this you’ll be earning close to $800 a week.


How I made $3500 on Facebook with affiliate marketing

In around 2015, I started affiliate marketing on the only platform I had available to me at the time – Facebook. I didn’t have a blog back then.

Even so, I still managed to make around $3500 just by using Facebook!

Better still, I only posted on my Facebook wall around 20 times to do this. That’s the power of affiliate marketing!

I have written a full post about exactly how I did it.


6. Become a Book Keeper

If you’ve got a knack for numbers and figures, then why not become a book keeper.

Book keepers can earn up to $60 per hour from home. You’ll basically be responsible for looking after the accounts of small businesses.

This job does take a level of knowledge and skill but luckily there’s a few courses out there to get you started.

If you’re interest in book keeping then I would strongly recommend Ben Robinson’s course, Bookkeeper Business Launch, which comes well recommended from Entrepreneur, the Penny Hoarder and Inc.

Ben offers an initial free trial which includes a few initial training videos so you can better understand the life and work of a book keeper.


7. Sell Digital Products

One of the most profitable ways to make money from home is to sell digital products online.

The thing you notice quite quickly when running a blog is that the bloggers who are making the most money are the ones selling their own digital products.

This business idea is particularly accessible if you’re skilled at something already and want to monetize those skills by teaching others. The internet has made it much easier to sell these products as you can get them in front of a wider audience.

A few ideas might be things like:-

  • Courses on how to do yoga;
  • Courses on diets like the keto diet;
  • Courses on how to keep fit or to lose weight;
  • Courses on how to grow your social media following;
  • Courses on how to learn a musical instrument.

Places like Udemy and BitDegree are great places to upload video courses to. With Teachable you can create written courses.


8. Make and Sell Arts and Crafts

The arts and crafts market is now enormous. In fact, in 2017, the value of the American market was said to be over 40 billion dollars.

If you have a talent for making arts and craft, there’s now a wide variety of places where you can sell your handy work to make money online. ​

There is a huge demand for hand made crafts for things like weddings, birthdays, Christmas and for home/garden decoration, so you’ll be happy to know there is a wide audience out there to buy your work. ​

The biggest arts and crafts shop to sell your goods on is Etsy. They are fairly cheap to sell on too, with a listing fee of £0.15 and then a 9% processing and transaction fee. ​

Some other worthy mentions are:-​


9. Set Up an E-commerce Store

Why not make money online by opening up an online ecommerce store. It’s never been easier to set up an online store than it is today. The most convenient thing is that you do not even need to store inventory or stock. By setting up a store that uses drop shipping, the supplier (usually in China) will simply send the product purchased from your online store straight to the customer. ​

There are literally thousands of YouTube videos and blogs showing you how to set up such a business. I have found Jack Kitchener’s YouTube videos to be very helpful at showing you exactly how to kick start such a business and make it profitable. 

One of the most popular methods for setting up an online drop shipping store is using Shopify to construct your store and then you ship your products direct from your supplier when you get a purchase.  

You can also set up a store on Amazon and use fulfilment by Amazon to deal with all your shipping and returns. This allows you to set up an online store quickly with very little capital needed up front.

Just to whet your palate a little, here’s 4 successful Shopify stores and their annual revenue:-

  • Flat Tummy Tea – $35 million annual revenue (for a tea shop – Crazy!!!)
  • LDS Man – $1m in 92 days selling Kevlar Pants and others novelty items!
  • Endy Sleep – $20m revenue business selling mattresses!
  • Freshly Pickled – multi million dollar a year business selling baby shoes!

You can check out my guide on how to set up a Shopify store here.


⭐⭐BONUS SIDE HUSTLE⭐⭐

I often supplement my side income with surveys and even earned $500 in one month last Xmas!

Surveys are a great way of boosting your side income if you haven’t got much time to waste and want something care free and easy!

Doing surveys is all about joining up to the right survey sites so you can exchange your time for cash in the most profitable and effective way possible.

? Top Tip: Survey sites don’t always give you the best surveys everyday so you’re best to signing up to at least 5 quality sites so you can maximise your side income!

Here’s my favourite survey site!

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Work from home jobs and business ideas to do from home

About the author

Oliver graduated from law school in 2008 and has practiced exclusively in the field of civil litigation for the last 10 years. He has a wealth of experience and expertise in litigation involving large financial losses and a special interest in consumer law. He has achieved numerous 7 figure settlements and has been involved in multi-billion dollar class-action consumer lawsuits against companies such as the Volkswagen Group. Away from the law, he is a consumer information and personal finance writer, having been featured in key publications such as Yahoo Finance, GO Banking Rates, NewsBreak, MEL Magazine, and many more.



-Chief Editor and Founder

3 thoughts on “9 Business Ideas to do from Home”

  1. Hi, I am working in survey sites for last three months. I am looking for the correct way of doing survey task successfully. I am pleased to read your articles. I have lot of gaps that i can overcome by following your guidences. I am working in dailyonlinesurvey too.

    Reply

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