5 Ways to Make Money Online Using Your Skills

Are you looking for a way to earn some extra money? Did you do well in school, or on standardized tests? Here are more than five ways to make money online using your skills.

The kids are bawling, the dog is yapping, and the phone is ringing.  It’s enough to drive a parent mildly bonkers. As if the breakneck pace of modern life didn’t impose enough pressures on you, you also have to keep the little ones and the four-legged ones fed, cleaned, and entertained.

Related: What to Do When the Kids Say I’m Bored

But none of this means that you can’t earn professional money while doing all that. In the Internet age, there are many avenues for college students to stay-at-home moms to make money while overseeing their household.

There’s nothing hoity-toity or exclusionary about this: according to a recent Pew Report, better than half of stay-at-home moms have a college degree, and—of those—nearly ten percent have earned postgraduate degrees.

According to recent Department of Labor statistics, almost forty percent of U.S. households have a breadwinner from Venus, not from Mars, at the helm.  What they said in those ’70s cigarette ads is truer today than ever: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Here are more than five legit ways to make money online using your skills:

Freelance

After I was laid off, I held several part-time jobs including selling books online, mystery shopping, merchandising, freelance writing, online work, virtual services, serving as a product affiliate, working as a waitress, and growing on this blog.

If you’ve performed a job before or have the skills required, you can obtain work on a contract or freelance basis. This will give you the opportunity to do work for multiple companies without being committed to any.

Virtual Assistant

If you are looking for a full-time position, consider taking two (or more) part-time positions. This offers variety in tasks and an opportunity to expand your personal network and skills.

Some companies still offer benefits to part-time employees. If not, create your own benefits (by making your own schedule around your vacation). And, you may earn more per hour, allowing you to purchase your own health insurance and other benefits.

Sell

Art – Vintage pieces often sell for the most, so if you’ve been lucky enough to inherit some vintage art, get it appraised. You never know what it could be worth to someone else.

Collectibles – Football stickers, baseball cards, Pokémon cards, and old dolls and action figures made up a significant portion of many of our childhoods. If you have any old coins sitting around, think twice before you give them away. They could be worth thousands to collectors.

Electronics – I bet you find yourself needing to replace your electronic devices more often than ever. Televisions, computers, and games consoles all come with an expiration date. Their time is ticking away before they become totally redundant. How many old records, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, or Palm Pilots do you have lying around that are now worth nothing?

Related: Five No-Cost Ways to Make Money Online

Consulting

Knowledge is power and this is especially true on the internet. There are millions of others hoping to start businesses and make money online. Most of them will need the help of skilled individuals along the way.

If you’re one of them, then use it to your advantage. You could turn that knowledge into a digital product, like an ebook, and sell it via Amazon.

Start a Business

Now that you’ve inventoried your skills and experience, what services could you provide in your own business? It has been said that you can start a business with only $100. Don’t believe it? Read the$100 Startup. Can you provide services in lawn care, cleaning, cooking, childcare, or another area?

Related: How To Take Your Home Business To The Next Level

Tutoring

One of the most lucrative avenues open to moms with a college education is in the booming field of online tutoring and online homework help.

The nation’s colleges and universities are bursting with overworked students, plus—with the slow but steady attendance decline in brick-and-mortar schools in favor of online education—many of these students are willing and able to seek academic help at the touch of a button.

If you know a high-school or college subject well enough to be of use, you can start this minute as an online tutor or homework helper!

A tutor conducts live chat sessions over the Internet with students, while a homework helper completes written assignments—like homework problems or term papers—and then e-mails them to the student.

There are dozens of online tutoring and homework help sites.

Complete a questionnaire and upload some transcripts—and, perhaps, take a subject matter exam (brrr!) or two—and you’re ready to rock and roll. Log into a site where you’re registered, and you can pick and choose from tasks that are posted constantly from a live electronic feed that’s as busy as a stock ticker.

You can earn $30 an hour, which is not a small amount of money. Some assignments you can bid on at your leisure, while others are strictly catch-as-catch-can.

Best of all, you can do this day or night, all year round. Available for work at three in the morning? Some English-speaking student in India or Singapore can use your help, then and there.

Worried that there won’t be any work in the summer? Kids in Australia, South Africa, and such work straight through our summer months and head for the beach in January and February!

Best of all, you can do everything from the comfort and convenience of your home computer, and you get paid via Paypal.

They need your help in a cornucopia of subjects, from business to biology, from English to economics—and from fine arts to physics. Teaching English a foreign language is also an option for moms and all you need to do this is a good online TEFL course.

If you can prove your mettle to the academic standards team, you can even work outside your degree area.

“My degree is in nursing, but I’m doing some chemistry problems and editing an American literature report. The fees I’ve earned this week will pay for a rack of groceries, and we all know what those cost.” -Studypool Tutor

True, you do need some quiet time so you can talk to a student or work on a written assignment without little Johnny throwing a temper tantrum or Spot barking his head off. But young kids sleep a great deal, and your four-legged charges just aren’t all that demanding.

This post was sponsored by Studypool, a well-funded Silicon Valley startup. Studypool is one of the premier websites offering online tutoring and homework help services that match you up with students in need.

Have you ever provided tutoring?