There’s no better feeling than having money in your pocket.
Unfortunately, for most, that means working long shifts with little free time, just to earn enough money to get by.
I’ve been there. For years, I worked a job that drained my energy and self-esteem.
I wanted to get out of there, but I didn’t know how.
For a few months, I spent more energy researching how to make money without a job than I did doing my actual job!
And that led to me where I am today: making a full time living from part time hours blogging, plus some other online side hustles.
There are plenty of options out there for people who want to earn money with no boss, no early morning starts and no annoying coworkers.
Take a look at some of the best ways to make money without a job.
Please note that this site uses affiliate links. That means that if you sign up for some of the opportunities below, I may earn a commission – at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting my site!
Rent your stuff out
Have you got stuff lying around the house that you haven’t touched in years?
What about that old camera you got years ago as a gift? Or what about that bike you bought to get fit?
If that sounds like you, then maybe renting out that stuff could be the best way for you to earn money without a job.
FatLlama are a great example of this idea. This is a website where you upload your stuff onto the site for people to rent out and bring back to you once they are done.
You’re protected by FatLlama’s guarantee so people can’t just walk away with your stuff.
Rent your driveway
On a similar note, if you have a driveway that’s sometimes empty, you can rent it out for people to park on. Websites like yourparkingspace.co.uk and Just Park match up drivers with space owners.
This works especially well if you live near a station, office district or town centre. You can let people use your drive while you’re out at work yourself, and not even notice it!
Rent your storage space
Here’s one more easy way to make money doing nothing with things you already have.
If you have any empty space in your home – perhaps a garage, loft or spare room – you can charge people to store their belongings there.
Some websites facilitating this are Storemates and Stashbee.
This is like a super easy (although less profitable) version of renting out a room on Airbnb. Most of the rentals will be fairly long term so you rarely have to interact with anybody.
Test websites
Sites like UserTesting and Utest are always looking for people to test client’s websites. Tasks usually involve testing the usability of a site by performing some sample actions, and offering your opinion and advice to the client.
You are expected to talk for at least 10-15 minutes and follow on screen tasks, all while being recorded to be sent back to the client.
You are paid £7-£10 for each task you complete. This works out at an amazing hourly rate – although be aware that you might not qualify for all tests and they are first come, first served.
This best suits people without a job or who work from home so you can immediately take new tests as they become available during the day.
Matched betting
You’ve probably seen all those bookmaker sites with their special offers, such as ‘bet £10, get £10 free’. Well, matched betting is a way to make money from those offers – without gambling.
This works because you use special calculators to balance two bets – one for, and one against a particular outcome. Done properly, you don’t lose money. And you can keep all the profit from the free bet.
This can sound a bit odd if you’re new to it but I promise, it’s totally legit and it’s even tax free! I’ve personally made hundreds each month doing matched betting and I know some people make close to a full time income doing this either on top of or instead of a job.
Sites like this one (which I use) provide the training, tools and customer support so you know exactly what to do.
Start an affiliate marketing website
If you do your research you are bound to come across affiliate marketing as a way to make money online and many people will tell you this is the best way to make money without a job.
Now, as someone who has built several affiliate websites I can tell you that yes – you can make way more money than you could at many normal jobs!
However, it takes a lot of research, dedication and hard work to reach those types of results.
This is not a get rich quick scheme. But if you’re ready to play the long game, you can truly make a great living without a job.
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend somebody else’s product to your own customer base. You receive a commission once a sale has gone through.
Since you don’t actually sell the product yourself, you don’t have to deal with any customer service issues or shipping issues. It’s very hands off.
One of the most popular companies used by affiliate marketers is Amazon.
So, you would create a website based on a niche that has plenty of products for sale on Amazon – anything from fitness to video games to pet care.
You then create content such as product reviews with links to your Amazon affiliate account, and if people buy from your link you will receive a small commission.
Intrigued? I actually have a free ebook that shows you exactly how to build a low-cost, simple affiliate marketing website!
I tried to make it as easy as possible for beginners, with step-by-step screenshots and instructions to guide you through every step 🙂
Sign up for the free ebook here:
Again, this isn’t a get rich quick scheme but once you get the ball rolling you won’t need a job.
Honeygain is an app that you download on your computer and it pays you to share your unused bandwidth with data network companies. It hums along in the background and you don’t even notice it.
The amount you make depends on your location, internet connection and how many devices (you can connect up to three). It’s not a high payer but some people make around £20 a month from it.
You won’t get rich but there’s literally no effort involved other than the initial download, so I think it’s worth a go.
Focus groups
Focus groups and market research panels pay you to share your opinion on a product or brand. These can be very well paid – sometimes £100 or more for an hour’s work!
Face-to-face focus groups usually take place in big cities like London, but there are also some online or phone opportunities. Respondent.io is a great site to find high paid online opportunities.
Surveys
Get paid to share your opinion on survey sites. This is not a high paying opportunity, but combined with some of the other ideas on this page it can add up to some decent extra cash each month!
Here are some sites I like:
- Prolific – the best paying and most interesting surveys
- Qmee – cash out instantly, no minimum payment threshold
- YouGov – has a lot of interesting surveys and not too low paying, although you need to reach £50 before you can cash out.
- Pinecone Research – pays £3 per survey
For more, check my roundup of the best paying survey sites in the UK.
Dropshipping
Want to set up your own online store, but don’t want to deal with actually buying and shipping the goods? Dropshipping is for you!
With dropshipping, you create an online storefront, and list products that you can buy cheaply from other sellers. Most people create their shop on Shopify (they have free templates and apps to make this really easy) and source the products from Chinese sellers on Aliexpress.
When somebody places an order, you order from the original seller and they ship it directly to your customer – without you having to handle the product yourself.
Of course, you would mark up the products to make a profit.
There are website apps such as Alidropship that integrate it all for you. So this business model can be ‘set it and forget it’.
Dropservicing
Dropservicing is like dropshipping, but for services!
Basically, you sell online services, and outsource them to a cheaper freelancer.
For example, say you find a great freelancer on Fiverr who will build a basic website for £50. You contact a local business that needs a website, and offer to do it for £200. Then you pass the job on to your freelancer, and pocket £150.
You can do this with any kind of service that can be sold online. Some examples are freelance writing, editing, creating graphics, SEO services.
Just make sure that you do have some understanding of the niche yourself, so that you’ll know if your suppliers are doing a good job. And don’t just go for the cheapest seller out there – you should always aim to provide a genuinely good service.
Use tasking apps
There are plenty of money making apps out there, allowing you to earn an extra income at the touch of a button.
Tasking apps like Roamler, BeMyEye and Field Agent have apps for both IOS and Android, meaning anyone can get involved with this.
For anyone who doesn’t know what these apps do, they take traditional mystery shopping and take it mobile. Some of them do have a variety of tasks, not just mystery shopping tasks.
Some tasks involve going into local shops to check they have a range of chocolate available, taking pictures of the displays and then buying a bar of chocolate (which you are reimbursed for).
Other tasks involve completing audits on stores, making sure stores have the right levels of stock on the floor and finding out the reasons why they don’t.
Tasks typically pay £3-4. However, it is common to see some payments rise if people haven’t picked them up! I have seen some tasks that started off as £4 but end up as £25 because no one had picked them up in a few weeks. These are typically tasks in out-of-the way locations – so if you have a car, you might get lucky.
Tasks are first come, first served though – so it’s best to get in quick.
Use shopping receipt apps to earn money
We all go shopping, and the amount of receipts filling most of our wallets is crazy. But they very often get chucked straight in the bin.
Now imagine you could use those receipts to earn yourself money. Sounds like a good idea, right?
There are several apps out there that you can use to upload pictures of your receipts and earn a little extra money without actually having to do any work.
Now, it won’t make you rich, but it’s better than throwing them straight in the bin.
Apps like Shoppix and ReceiptHog allow you to upload all of your shopping receipts in return for points and coins which you can redeem for Amazon vouchers or cash to your PayPal account.
Here are a few more receipt apps to get you started.
Traditional mystery shopping
We’ve already spoken about mobile apps that let you do mystery shopping tasks. But traditional mystery shop websites are still out there – and there’s a tonne of work to be completed every month.
Websites like MarketForce and RetailActive give you the opportunity to complete mystery shopping tasks like visiting petrol stations, high street shops and pubs to assess the customer service.
Tasks are usually quick to complete and can be slotted into your daily routine.
And although mystery shops don’t pay a lot, if you complete a lot of them in a month you could have a nice little earner without having a proper job.
Not to mention, the free food and other goodies to keep!
Just to note, at the current time, mystery shopping jobs and task apps etc are a no go. I’ve just included these as something to keep in mind for the future, since it will hopefully be business as normal soon! If you are looking for ways to make money from home during lockdown, check out my post on how to make money without leaving the house.
Publish a book
This one will take a lot longer than most of the other suggestions on this page – but it can be one of the most lucrative, especially if you create content that people love.
For those out there who love writing, then writing and publishing a book is probably something you want to, or have dreamed of doing before.
You could say it’s easier than ever to publish your own book with the likes of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing giving pretty much everyone the chance to show off their literary skills.
In order to make a success with publishing your own book, however, it’s important that you create something that people want to read, not just something you’re putting out there in a vain attempt to get some cash flow.
But it doesn’t have to be the next Harry Potter. If you have a skill to teach or some specialist knowledge, useful nonfiction how-to guides can also sell very well.
Create an online course
Online courses have really taken off over the last few years. With sites like Udemy and Skillshare people have access to thousands of online courses teaching people just about everything possible.
Creating your own course could see you rake in some decent cash without having to work the normal 9-5.
Bear in mind though that creating a course takes a lot of expertise in whatever you want to teach, as well as weeks or months of hard work. You’ll have to create content, upload videos and edit it to make it easy for learners to participate in.
But once they’re done, you can sell the same course over and over again with little extra work. Online courses are a passive side hustle that could see you bringing in thousands every month if you can provide learners with invaluable knowledge.
Design T-shirts
Have you got an artistic bone in your body?
Then designing t-shirts and selling them on sites like TeeSpring or Amazon Merch could be your answer to making money without a job.
Just jot down your best ideas and have them printed onto a t-shirt which people can buy from your store and have your design sold across the world.
These sites (known as print-on-demand) handle the printing and shipping, so all you have to do is upload design files.
I even have a tip for those who want to do this but aren’t artistic. Using services like Fiverr you can buy designs cheaply from freelance designers, upload them to T-shirt printing sites and rake in the profit.
Make sure you design T-shirts that you would wear. Don’t just upload any old rubbish as it probably won’t sell.
Sell art on Etsy
Here’s another artistic one. Etsy is a place where people make all sorts of handmade goods and sell them to people from all over the world.
You can sell your paintings, drawings, handmade jewellery, pretty much anything. You can even sell digital products, such as printable wall art, or planner pages.
I’m a huge fan of this last idea because you only have to make the product once and you can sell it over and over – hello, passive income!
The great thing is you can sell your own pieces at whatever price you want and you get to keep the money from all of the sales, minus Etsy’s seller fees of course. But there are no upfront charges.
You get your own Etsy shop website and you are free to promote it via social media to draw in the crowds.
You can take a look at the Etsy site to get some inspiration to get the ball rolling.
Here’s how one Etsy seller manages and promotes her store as a side hustle. And I also have some tips for selling on Etsy.
Micro freelancing
Sites like Clickworker, Microworkers and MTurk give you the chance to earn a little cash in the form of microtasks.
Microtasks are any small jobs that can be completed online – usually part of a much bigger job broken up so that many different virtual workers can each take on a small part.
This can be data entry, correcting texts, categorising data and so on.
Another common one is simple research tasks. For example you search the internet for contact details of an accountancy firm, enter the required details and get paid for it. It’s really that simple.
Bear in mind though that these tasks usually pay pennies, so you’ll need to complete a number of tasks before you see a decent amount of money in your account. However, it is possible. I have friends who’ve earned over £40 in a few weeks with sites like these, and that’s only doing 1 hour a day.
Play video games
Love playing video games and love earning money? Combine the two and you’ve got the perfect cocktail of money earning potential.
People have managed to use their love of playing video games to earn thousands every month using platforms such as YouTube and Twitch.
It’s easy to get started with streaming equipment and capture cards available from Amazon and Ebay. All you need to do is upload content that people will love, whether that’s playing Minecraft or the latest Call of Duty game.
There’s now an emphasis on creating high quality content, with many people hiring editors to make sure the content is the best it can be. However, if you are just starting out you can do this for yourself without having to pay for someone else to do it.
Keep in mind that there is obviously a lot of competition, so you need to be prepared to stick with it and promote yourself!
Sell your old stuff
This is a classic way to make extra cash. Selling your old stuff online.
Yes, it’s been mentioned about a million times, but that’s because it works. Sorting and selling all those things that have been collecting dust for years is the ideal way to bring in some extra money.
Get rid of that old CD player or video game console that you never play with. Someone is bound to snap it up on Ebay or Gumtree.
Sometimes people leave it at that, but if you really want to earn money without a job then you need to use the money gained from selling your old stuff and start your very own flipping business. This means buying things at a low price and selling them high.
It’s best to start out with things that you know. So if you’re an expert on collectable teddy bears then start buying them cheap and sell them for a profit.
This way your money will snowball into larger amounts. Do this properly and you’ll never need to work a day in your life again!
Frequently asked questions on making money without a job
How to make money without working for someone else?
If you just don’t want to work for someone else, there are loads of options for making money on your own terms.
The easiest way to start is as a freelancer. Do you have any marketable skills? Good examples are writing, proofreading, coding, graphic design, translation, making websites, and so on.
Think about anything you do in your day job that you might be able to offer as an independent service. Maybe you are an expert in something that you can offer consulting or training on.
To find clients, you can approach potential customers directly, or use freelancer marketplaces such as People Per Hour, Upwork and Fiverr.
You can also make money by yourself with no boss as a blogger, ebook publisher, course creater, YouTuber, influencer, Twitch streamer and so on.
How to make money without working hard?
If you want to make money without working hard, you should take a look at ways to earn passive income.
Passive income is money that flows to you without actively working for it. You can wake up in the morning and find money in your bank account that you made when you were sleeping.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? But here’s the thing about passive income: to get started, you either need a lot of money, or a lot of time.
If you have cash to spare right now you can look into investing. In stocks, property or businesses – the choice is yours.
I’m not an investment adviser so I won’t comment any more, but if you pick wisely, your investment can make you money week in, week out without much further work.
Of course, remember that you can also lose money with any investment!!
If you have more time than money, you can set up a business geared for passive income, such as blogging, ebook publishing or the affiliate website model mentioned above.
This is a lot of work upfront, but eventually your business will start making money while you sleep. You’ll just need to do some mimimal upkeep to keep the money flowing.
You can also outsource many aspects of these businesses to make it even less work.
How to make money without a job in high school?
If you’re still in school it can be hard to get a job.
Perhaps you’re too young to work legally where you live, or maybe your school timetable gets in the way.
Don’t worry – there are still lots of ways to make money without a job in high school.
If you need some extra pocket money fast, a good way to start is by thinking of chores you can do for your family and neighbours.
Babysitting, dog walking, washing cars and mowing lawns are some of the most popular ways for teenagers to earn money without a job. But anything goes: gardening, cleaning, preparing meals, cleaning out pet cages/tanks, ironing – basically anything the adults around you don’t want to do themselves!
Check out my post on ways for kids to make money for more ideas.
If you have longer term goals to make money, think about starting your own blog, YouTube channel, TikTok or social media channel that you can monetise with sponsors, ads and affiliate marketing.
It will take time and commitment to build up a big enough audience, but it can pay off massively.
How to make money without a job in college?
If you’re in college, you’re actually in a great position to make money without a job!
You likely have a lot more free time right now than you will in a few years, when you enter the workforce.
You also probably have a flexible schedule with some free time in the middle of the day. This means you have a leg up on people working 9-5 jobs.
For example, you can be the first to hop on to first come, first served website testing opportunities and profitable surveys on Prolific. You can also take advantage of time-sensitive matched betting offers, such as daily horse racing.
There are also some opportunities that prefer college students, such as private tutoring (in person or online). Ok, tutoring might be a ‘job’ but you’ll be flexible and self-employed, so it’s a lot easier than working nights in a bar.
I have a post on online jobs for college students which has nearly 30 more ideas!
How to make money doing nothing at all
So you want to make money doing nothing? I’ll be honest – it’s possible, but you won’t make a lot.
There are a few clever hacks to make money doing nothing, such as passive income apps that you download to your phone or computer and run in the background.
Honeygain is one example of this (and you get $5 free when you sign up with that link!)
You can also try sites like Swagbucks and InstaGC that pay you for watching videos – pretty much like doing nothing.
Just be aware that you won’t make much with these sites. You get out what you put in, after all!
How to make a living without a job
Most of the ideas in this post are ways to earn a bit of extra cash – the sort of thing known as side hustles or beer money.
If you want to make a full time income without a job, this is possible, but you need to work hard!
In my case, I make a good full time income blogging.
I guess you can say that blogging is my job, but it doesn’t really feel like a job. I have no regular commitments or deadlines (other than those I set myself). I can sleep late or take days off whenever I want to. It’s definitely the best ‘job’ I’ve ever had!
Here’s my tutorial on setting up a profitable blog.
Out of all the other ideas listed in this post, the best things to look at to make a living without a real job are designing T-shirts, selling courses, affiliate marketing and publishing ebooks.
How to make money without a job: conclusion
There we have it, some of the best ways to make money without a job.
From earning money selling your old stuff, to creating an online business for passive income – however much (or little!) time and effort you want to put in to this, it is possible to make money without having to go to work.
It does require a little thinking outside of the box, but mix that in with some hard work and you’ll be earning money in no time.
Pin or bookmark this article for future reference so you can come back and try some of the best money making methods 🙂
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