The following post is by MPFJ staff writer, Chonce. You can read more articles by Chonce over at her personal blog, My Debt Epiphany. Enjoy!
How nice would it be to make an extra $1,000 this month? If you have bills piling up, debt payments that need to be taken care of, or just need a little extra money to make ends meet, an extra $1,000 probably sounds very nice.
Let me tell you a little secret. It’s pretty easy to earn $1,000 this month if you consider all your options and work hard at it. You can pick up an extra job, sell some of your clothes, have a huge garage sale, or take on an additional project this month.
However, it’s not as easy to consistently earn $1,000 each month, but that’s what you really want. Instead of receiving a one-time lump sum, you can earn up to $12,000 per year if you utilize any of these techniques to earn at least an extra $1,000 per month.
Freelance Writing
If you have any experience with writing content for print or online or if you’ve ever written for a blog before, you might want to earn extra money for freelance writing. It’s a popular side hustle and an effective way to earn $1,000 per month consistently.
To get started, you should start a blog or develop an online portfolio to showcase your work. Once you start interacting with other bloggers or leaving comments on other sites, you can ask to contribute some quality guest posts to other sites to get yourself noticed and develop some writing samples.
Then, you’ll want to start pitching potential clients including other bloggers, small business owners, or solopreneurs who you think could benefit from your content on a consistent basis. A great way to earn money as a freelance writer is to pitch sites with a blog to see if they can hire you as a regular contributor or staff writer. Pitching is the hardest step in the process but the more you do it, the better your results will be. It’s a competitive industry but there’s also more than enough work for everyone.
Start quoting clients with a starting rate of $50 per 800-1000-word post, then you can raise it as time goes on. If you charge clients $100 per post and complete 10 posts per-month or two per-week, you’ll earn at least $1,000 each month.
Virtual Assistant Work
Virtual Assistants are becoming more and more of a necessity for growing businesses. A virtual assistant (VA) is an online work-from-home personal assistant who helps businesses and individuals with a wide variety of different tasks.
Being a VA allows you to work from the comfort of your own home and set your own hours so you can earn a flexible income. VAs do everything from scheduling social media updates and creating invoices to editing content and blog posts, checking emails, creating newsletters, online research and more.
As long as you are good with computers and can type well, you should be able to market yourself as a VA and learn how to perform a wide variety of tasks. Some of the best ways to get started are to start searching for gigs on sites like Zirtual.com, start a blog or professional website to immerse yourself in a community of people who may need your help in the future, and cold pitch busy blog owners, companies, and entrepreneurs.
VAs can start off earning between $12-15 per hour but can earn up to $30-60 per hour depending on the task. Of course, the higher you charge, the less you have to work to get to $1,000 per month, but even if you start with a rate of $18 per hour and work very part-time to earn $1,000 each month.
Real Estate Photography
Like to take photos? You can turn your habit into a profitable side hustle that allows you to earn an extra four figures per month. Real estate is a bountiful market as there are always potential renters and buyers who are searching for a new residence.
Property owners know the value of presentation and understand that good photos means more quality leads. If you have a quality camera that takes professional photos, start a portfolio of your work by uploading photos to sites like Flickr or even starting your own professional website to advertise your services.
Print out business cards and start sending them to realtors in your area and going to local networking events to meet other potential clients in the industry. You can even take on one or two pro bono gigs in exchange for a testimonial or referral. Freelance photography is already a pretty popular gig and with real estate images, you can easily charge anywhere from $100-300 per shoot so if you did just a handful each month you can earn $1,000 in no time.
Website Development
With more than 2 billion people on the internet, it’s no wonder why almost everyone wants a website these days. While everyone wants a visually appealing and professional website, they have no idea about what all goes into the process or how to create a stunning site.
If you have an experience with programming and coding, you can cash in on your skills by developing websites for clients. You can start marketing your services by using the same techniques I mentioned for the previous gigs.
On the bright side, if you’re interested in this type of work but don’t have much experience, you can always take a programming class and learn everything you need to know. You can make that investment back pretty quickly because experienced programmers who work full-time can earn up to $150k per year. If you just do it in your spare time and charge clients anywhere from $300-800 for a fully functional website as a starting rate, you can easily earn at least $1,000 after just doing two or three projects.
Teaching Students a Second Language
You don’t have to speak any foreign languages fluently to earn money from this side hustle. You can teach students English online from the comfort of your own home.
If you have a knack for English or a teaching background, this would be an ideal opportunity. Some great places to start looking for online teaching jobs are TurtorABC.com and Italki.com. You’ll want to charge a reasonable rate of around $30 per hour of language tutoring. If you teach online for at least 8.5 hours each week, you’ll earn $1020 per month.
Summary
As you can see, the list can go on and on. In order to earn $1,000 per month consistently, you must determine what your skills are and what you like to do. Then, properly market yourself to potential clients and network. You have to present yourself as a professional and showcase your experience in order to lock in the rates I discussed earlier. It may be a challenge in the beginning but it’s not impossible since many other people are doing it.
As an added motivation, just think of what you could do with an extra $1k each month when it comes to paying off your debt, making progress on your investments, and increasing the savings in your bank account.
How about you all? Do you have a side gig that brings in consistent income each month?
Share your experiences by commenting below!
***Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/76657755@N04/7027595009/in/
