Have you ever typed “how can I make extra money?” into the search bar of a search engine like Google? Each month, about 1 000 South Africans type “how can I make extra money?” into the search bar of Google.

South Africans are looking for ways to make extra money.

I think I must have probably typed “How can I make extra money?” into the search bar of Google too at one stage. I didn’t have a job when I started going through a divorce and moved to my parents’ home with my two sons, and I wanted to work from home on my computer, and do any other work online too, that could make me extra money. I was quite desperate to make money from home.

How did I avoid the problem of falling for any work from home scams? Well, that was easy. I didn’t have any money to part with, so couldn’t join anything that had start up fees. I could hardly afford my Internet connection and struggled through slow connections and plenty of timeouts, as I was connecting to the Internet on my computer through my cellphone. I went through quite a bit of airtime, but couldn’t afford ADSL back then.

Well, it’s over 5 years later, I have ADSL, and I work from home, doing freelance work from home, and making extra money online.

Now, to answer your question “How can I make extra money?”

If you have no money but at least have Internet, then one of the easiest free ways to make extra money is to use your computer and the Internet. There are free ways to make money or make extra money online.

If you are not interested in using your computer or the Internet to make extra money, and don’t have money to start anything else, then you are going to have to either take out a loan from somebody you know, or take out a loan from your bank or from a reputable small cash loans business. You could also start with selling a few things you already have in your home, or offer a service that involves work that doesn’t cost you anything to do.

You would then use the money you loaned, or the money you made from selling things or offering a service, to purchase the products you require to sell something from home, even if those products you purchase are just materials or ingredients to help you make and sell something from home (or at a flea market or craft market.) Or, the materials you buy may be a few items you need to offer a service from home, or to offer a better service from home if you have already started offering a service from home.

So, what’s left to do to start making extra money from home?

Decide if you want to work online or offline. If offline, then decide if you want to offer a service or sell a product, and decide on what exactly that service or product will be.

Plan, prepare, purchase anything required (with the little money you have from having taken out a loan, or from having borrowed money from somebody you know, or from having sold something in your home, or from having offered a temporary service from home) and start advertising what it is that is going to make you extra money.
Advertising can be expensive. Free and virtually free methods of advertising are possible, but if used may take you a long time before you build up enough clients or customers to make your method of making extra money work well enough. If you make products to sell at a flea market or craft market, though, no advertisng may be necessary.

If I had no money to start with, how did I personally get to start working from home as a freelancer and making extra money online?

a)
I borrowed some money from my parents, just for living expenses. (All paid back now.)

b)
I met a man, now my boyfriend, who had previously briefly taught himself how to design a website, from reading free information on the Internet. He didn’t have a job either, couldn’t find one after more than 100 job applications, and together we learned more about how to design websites. We got our first web design client or two after dropping little A6 size plain black and white printed pamphlets into the post boxes of a few bed and breakfast establishments.

C)
We also prepared a few seedlings from plants or seeds we found in the garden at my parents home, stuck a homemade sign on the front wall, and sold seedlings to passersby.

d)
I joined oDesk, a freelance job site, and through getting and doing work for International clients started discovering a whole lot more about Internet marketing, and about how it was possible to make money online for free.

e)
We also did a lot of reading. On the Internet, for free. We took notes. We have no university degrees, but we are making money from home because we taught ourselves how to. We continue to read a lot of free information all over the Internet, and usually learn something new just about every day.

How to avoid work from home scams:

Even if you do have a little money already, to begin your efforts at trying to make extra money, pretend you don’t have any money. If you have no money, or pretend that you don’t have any money, you won’t join anything that requires a start up fee.

Not all work from home opportunities that require a start up fee are scams, but there are so many work from home opportunity scams out there, that it’s best to simply avoid them all. You can start sifting through work from home opportunities and deciding which are scams, and which are not, once you have some spare money to spend. Or you may not even ever need to join any work from home opportunities that require a start up fee, because your own efforts at making money from home or at making extra money may be working well enough for you, all on their own.

© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2012 and 2013