5 Ways to Make Spending Money

The best thing about earning money online is that you get to choose how much time, resources, and skill you want to invest in a job. If you don't want to commit to a full-time online job or a career, you can do occasional work in your field for some extra cash. If you don't want to use any of your skills, you can perform simple tasks for small cash rewards. It really is all up to you because there is a huge demand for various types of work online. And people are recognizing the benefits of the online economy — one in four Americans are earning money through it.

If you are serious about earning money online, and if you want decent earnings, you have several options. You should be aware, right from the start, that the best ways to earn real money online will require some skill and dedication.

1. Join an Online Labor Market

You might have heard of the statistics that say how more than a third of U.S. workforce is freelancing. Freelancing, or working without being employed by a business, is not a product of the digital age. The digital age, however, gave us new ways to develop our freelancing careers through online marketplaces, and many people are taking full advantage of the convenience online freelancing offers.

The money you can make freelancing online is real money. It can be a real career choice for you. For starters, your best bet would be to join one of the many online freelancer marketplaces, like Upwork, and get your feet wet there first. Later on, you can build your own online presence and start working away from these websites.

2. Do Small Tasks

There is also money to be made doing simple tasks for people. Granted, you will have a harder time making a career out of your TaskRabbit gigs than with online freelancing, but the money you can make is real money. If you have some special skills you can offer to people, you will probably be able to charge more money or upsell to the clients you find online. But it's very much about starting small and staying that way until you want to find a more serious online gig.

3. Become a Pinterest Expert

Social media marketing is a huge thing. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter see millions upon millions of dollars in marketing revenue every year, with every self-respecting business using social media to reach new customers and maintain relationships with the existing ones.

But then there's Pinterest, the social network with a user base that is predominantly female, and a big unknown for marketers. You have a couple of choices for monetizing your knowledge of Pinterest. You can use affiliate links or offer a service. Or, you can become a Pinterest-manager for hire.

4. Tutor People

If you are a native-English speaker, you have your work cut out for you. People from other countries will pay you to help them learn your language, even if you are not an English professor.

Your language skills are not the only skills you can monetize by tutoring online. And tutoring is not the only way to monetize your skills. You can teach people one-on-one, but you can also develop and sell seminars, eBooks, and other types of teaching products. And the things you can teach people vary from personal accounting to knitting.

5. Start an Online Business

Finally, you can become an online entrepreneur and make your online bucks by developing an online business. Dropshipping, a type of e-commerce where you are responsible only for the online store and not the inventory, is a type of online business you can start. Or, you can start your own copywriting agency. Find a couple of people to join you, and your copywriting agency can grow into a full digital advertising agency. There are very few limits to the type of business you can start online.