There is a saying that states you need to spend money to make money. With a home business, that isn’t necessarily true. It is possible to start a business from home without having to invest much money. Sometimes, all you need to supply is time.
Using the knowledge, tools, and resources you already have, you can start a home business today. History is littered with successful businesses that were started with little or nothing, except a giant desire and the commitment to make it work, no matter what. In fact, commitment and tenacity are two of the most important assets to have in ensuring home business success. If you want the freedom and flexibility to work at home as your own boss, here are five ideas you can start now for nothing.
There is a saying that states you need to spend money to make money. With a home business, that isn’t necessarily true. It is possible to start a business from home without having to invest much money. Sometimes, all you need to supply is time.
Using the knowledge, tools, and resources you already have, you can start a home business today. History is littered with successful businesses that were started with little or nothing, except a giant desire and the commitment to make it work, no matter what. In fact, commitment and tenacity are two of the most important assets to have in ensuring home business success. If you want the freedom and flexibility to work at home as your own boss, here are five ideas you can start now for nothing.
Blogging
Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images
The most successful bloggers invest in a domain name and web hosting, which, of course, isn’t free. However, many of them started their blogs on free blogging sites, such as Blogger.
Once they started making money, they bought a domain ($10-$15) and forwarded it to their free blog URL. When they made even more money, they bought hosting and moved the site.
Along with affiliate income, you can make money blogging by using ad feeds, such as Adsense, through an email newsletter (you can get free email list services at MailChimp), and creating your own information products, such as ebooks and courses. All of these can be done free.
Service-Based Business
Hero Images / Getty Images
You can take nearly any skill you have and start selling it simply by telling people you can help them.
Are you handy around the house? Let your friends and family know you’re available to help them with repairs, painting, and other honey-do items. As long as you have the equipment already, it costs you nothing to access your network.
There’s a ton of service business ideas you can perform, from pet sitting to organizing to tutoring. Don’t want to leave your home to work? There are many service business ideas you can do from your computer, such as web design, tutoring, writing, virtual support, bookkeeping, and a host of other ideas. Simply pick a task you’re good at, then find people who need help and are willing to pay you.
Microwork
PJB/Getty Images
Microwork isn’t a home business as much as it’s freelancing, but it still allows you to work from home on your own schedule without paying money to start. While microwork seems like a lot of work for little income, it’s free and there are reports of people making $1,000 to $2,000 a month.
What is microwork? Basically, businesses need small, time-limited projects done, such as researching, proofreading, writing, and data entry, and they crowdsource the work to hire someone to get the work done.
There are many microwork sites, suck as Mechanical Turk and TaskRabbit. To maximize your income, you’ll want to join and work at several microwork sites.
Blogging
The most successful bloggers invest in a domain name and web hosting, which, of course, isn’t free. However, many of them started their blogs on free blogging sites, such as Blogger.
Once they started making money, they bought a domain ($10-$15) and forwarded it to their free blog URL. When they made even more money, they bought hosting and moved the site.
Along with affiliate income, you can make money blogging by using ad feeds, such as Adsense, through an email newsletter (you can get free email list services at MailChimp), and creating your own information products, such as ebooks and courses. All of these can be done free.
Service-Based Business
You can take nearly any skill you have and start selling it simply by telling people you can help them.
Are you handy around the house? Let your friends and family know you’re available to help them with repairs, painting, and other honey-do items. As long as you have the equipment already, it costs you nothing to access your network.
There’s a ton of service business ideas you can perform, from pet sitting to organizing to tutoring. Don’t want to leave your home to work? There are many service business ideas you can do from your computer, such as web design, tutoring, writing, virtual support, bookkeeping, and a host of other ideas. Simply pick a task you’re good at, then find people who need help and are willing to pay you.
Writing
While you can offer writing as a service as mentioned above, you can also write and sell your own works. This includes writing books, information products, and home-based courses. People go online for information and they’re willing to pay for it if it’s something they believe they’ll enjoy or that will help them.
Microwork
Microwork isn’t a home business as much as it’s freelancing, but it still allows you to work from home on your own schedule without paying money to start. While microwork seems like a lot of work for little income, it’s free and there are reports of people making $1,000 to $2,000 a month.
What is microwork? Basically, businesses need small, time-limited projects done, such as researching, proofreading, writing, and data entry, and they crowdsource the work to hire someone to get the work done.
There are many microwork sites, suck as Mechanical Turk and TaskRabbit. To maximize your income, you’ll want to join and work at several microwork sites.