How to Make Money as a Student

(This post contains affiliate links – you can seem my disclosure policy in the footer.)

The problem with trying to make money as a student is that all the typical jobs like bar work, working in retail or working in a restaurant pay pitiful, soul destroying wages.

You have to exchange a lot of time and effort for crappy returns!

Worse still, these run of the mill jobs take you away from your learning schedule and only serve to demoralize you at a time when you should be enjoying some of the best years of your life!

What if I told you there were more carefree ways to make money that you can fit around your schedule and that you can do from the comfort of your dorms! Not only that, but with a little enterprise, you’ll be able to earn a lot more money in the process!

This post will explore some of the best methods of making money online for students. Whether you’re in the midst of your studies or you’re enjoying the holidays between terms, leverage some of these and you’ll be reaping the rewards in no time!

If you leverage one or two of these there’s no reason why you can’t make $2000 a month. Especially with number 4 and 5!

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1. 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:-

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’s put together a free course that you can enrol in so you can learn how to become a professional 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:-

• Fiverr
• UpWork
• Proof Reading Services

2. Work Remotely From Home

One of the internet’s greatest attributes is its ability to connect people wherever they are.

You’ll normally think of this as providing mainly social benefits, but the benefits for business are just as important and profound.

There are now thousands of companies out there who don’t give a damn where you are – they’ll hire you anyway.

Here’s some interesting facts about remote work from Hubstaff:-

• 68% of millennials said a work-from-home option would greatly influence their interest in working for a company
• 82% of telecommuters reported lower stress levels
• 80% of telecommuters report a higher morale, and 69% of telecommuters reported lower absenteeism
• Full-time telecommuters save more than $4,000 each year by spending less on a variety of costs.

There are a wide range of roles available if you’re interested in doing remote work, many of which don’t require a college degree. Such as:-

• Remote Graphic Designer – the average salary for a graphic designer is $48,000pa

• Remote Virtual Assistant – the average salary of a VA is $32,000pa

• Remote Customer Support Rep – the national average salary is $37,000pa

• Remote Development Operations – More specialist and skilled but they earn on average a whopping $104,490pa working from home

• Remote Proofreader – the national average salary is up to $58,389

I recommend the following if you’re looking for remote work:-

• FlexJobs
• Staff.com
• We Work Remotely

3. Complete Online Surveys

It is quite surprising how much you can earn just by giving a few minutes of your time to answer online surveys.

Whilst this method isn’t going to make you a millionaire, it is very convenient and requires no specialist knowledge. You can literally make money on line whilst sitting on your sofa watching TV. It’s definitely an easy way to make extra cash online!​

They don’t require much brain power either so you’re hardly going to be expending a ton of energy doing them, which means they’re great after a hard day at work.

Here are 5 of the best online survey sites for you to get stuck in with:-

Survey Junkie : Around $10 per hour on average but some focus groups pay on average $75 each

Vindale Research : Up to $50 per survey

Inbox Dollars  : $5 just for signing up (US residents)

Survey2Cash : Earn up to $50 on your first survey

Pinecone Research : Earn around $5 per quick survey 

4.Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way of getting paid for marketing a business’s products or services. It works by rewarding you if you bring people to a business’s website and they buy something. You usually earn a percentage on the sale that your referral generates.

This method works best if you have a blog or website but even just sharing links on social media can generate referrals and sales. I have made several thousand dollars just by sharing affiliate links on Facebook after adding numerous people to my account with similar interests to me.

Facebook allows you to add 5000 friends which is quite a lot of people to promote your products to and you can even go beyond this is if you have a business or fan page. 

See here how I made $3500 sharing affiliate links on my Facebook profile!

Amazon has its own affiliate marketing program, Amazon Associates, where you not only get a commission from people clicking on a link and buying a certain product but also if the customer buys other things whilst on Amazon.

The problem with Amazon Associates is you normally need a blog or website to get accepted.

I would therefore have a look at Flexoffers affiliate network. They have hundreds of offers and products to promote and they are fairly easy to get accepted to:-

Here are a few others worth checking out:-​

• ShareASale
• Ebay Partner Network
• Shopify
• Paid on Results

5. Run and Monetize a Blog

Blogging is one of the best ways to make money online today!

You can set a blog up for next to nothing and the income potential is huge.

I mean just look at the income of some of the top bloggers:-

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

WOW!!!

You can monetize your blog in a number of different ways by doing the following:-

• Advertising affiliate products or services through programs like FlexOffers ;
• Selling courses you have made;
• Displaying ads with companies like MediaVine, Google Ads or Adsense
• Selling e-books;
• Sponsored posts where someone pays you to post about their product or services.

You can set up a blog here at Blue Host for as low as $3.95 per month:-

To succeed at this you do need to have a lot of traffic coming to your page which will generally mean you have a successful and regularly updated blog or website providing helpful content, but if you do there probably isn’t an easier way of earning money. You literally earn money as you sleep. 

6. Test Websites

Did you know you can supplement your income by testing websites. Pretty amazing!

Companies pay people like you to simply browse around on websites, complete a few forms and then provide feedback afterwards.

They pay handsomely too!

The company UserTesting will pay you $10 per test and you only need to commit around 10 – 20 minutes of your time. That’s an awesome $30 an hour for little more than browsing the net, which I am sure you do plenty of anyway.

There are companies out there who are willing to pay you for your insight and experience of using products, services or your knowledge of a particular topic.

UserTesting comes well recommended!

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Other website testing companies include:-

• Whatusersdo
• Enroll 
• UTest 
• UserFeel

7. Take Party in Study and Research Groups

One such company providing this service is Respondent.

Basically you sign up to their panel, provide some basic details about your location and profession and you are then provided with a list of studies to join.

This can involve completing surveys, being interviewed about a topic or simply just providing your opinion. They pay up to $350 for your participation too!

For some of the studies you do need to have specialist knowledge in that area but others anyone can join!

This is an example of some of the studies:-

Definitely worth a look if you’re seeking some casual, effortless income.

8. Risk-Free Matched Betting (UK Only)

(This method is largely a method to make money online in the UK but I see no reason why it can’t work across the world in theory, although it will probably be a bit harder without a company to find you the free bets as you’ll see below!)

Fast, tax-free and lucrative. Matched betting is probably the quickest way to make money in a short space of time with hardly any specialist knowledge required.​ Matched betting is a method of making money by using the free incentive bets that bookies give out to new customers joining them and to customers they are trying to retain. ​

The best thing about it is that it is risk free (unlike standard betting aptly called a “mug’s game”) as you use the free bets the bookies give you. In simple terms it works by simultaneously placing a back bet (a bet on something winning) and a lay bet (a bet on something losing). As you are using a free bet as your back bet, you make money either way, whatever the outcome.    ​

In 3 months I made around £5000 using this method spending around 2 hours a night and that’s why it’s my favourite method to make money online in the UK. (You can see how I did this here.)

There are a number of websites online to guide you through the process but the best website I have found by far is Profit Accumulator. This website provides full support and guidance on how the method works and has some really excellent and knowledgeable support staff and a massive online community of thousands of members. They also have an excellent 5 star rating on Trust Pilot. ​

Profit Accumulator even provide a free trial so you can get used to how matched betting works and you make around £45.00 straight away for free. There is a monthly charge for the more premium package but this opens up a whole host of other offers that are worth literally thousands of pounds and gives you access to all the support you will need and some very helpful tools.  ​

9. Sell Photographs Online

If you are a photographer, either professional or amateur, the internet is now a great marketplace to sell your work!​

With the amount of people now blogging, making websites and designing, there’s a massive online demand for unique photographs for people to use in their projects. ​

There’s a huge demand for all sorts of photographs such as nature,  people, food, travel, sports and everything in between. ​

Here are my top 5 places to sell your photographs online:-​

•  Adobe Stock 
•  Shutterstock 
•  Alamy
• CreStock
• Getty Images

10. Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is a method whereby companies can engage the services of a wide number of people on the internet to get a big job done. ​

This normally involves tasks like product testing, filling in surveys, translation, data entry, form filling and search engine optimization. When you’ve completed the task, you’ll be paid a fee direct into your Paypal account.

Most of the work you’ll be doing will be quite tedious, so it’s probably best to swerve this one if you like exercising the ol’ grey matter. However, if you are android-esque in your ability to concentrate, you’ll do just fine. ​

Here’s a list of my favourite crowdsourcing opportunities:-​

• Click Worker
• Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Micro Workers

11. Get Paid for Searching the Web

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There are now a  few websites out there that will simply pay you to search the web or give you cash rewards when you buy something. What a carefree way to make money online!​

My favourite of these is Qmee. Simply add the Google app to your browser and every time you search for something and click on one of Qmee’s product links, you will earn a small reward. The money is paid straight into Paypal and can be withdrawn any time. ​

Qmee also provide coupons and offers on certain items so you can make savings when you purchase things. They also allow you to make money by completing surveys.​

There are also a bunch of others providing a similar thing:-​

• Bing Rewards – Provides rewards when you browse and purchase certain items
• Ibotta – Provides cash back on purchases you make online

⭐⭐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!

Survey Junkie

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