Saturday, March 19, 2016

Online Weekend Jobs for Extra Money

Weekends are often thought of as a time to unwind and decompress from the previous work week. It’s also the time many of us run errands and get things done around the house like cleaning and yardwork. But, while it’s nice to kickback and relax on Saturday and Sunday, the weekends can also be a great time to make money.
When you’re falling behind on bills, trying to pay off debt, or simply need a boost to your bank account, a part-time weekend job can be the perfect solution. While giving up your weekends to work may sound less than ideal — hear me out. There are online weekend jobs that let you earn extra money on your own terms.

1. Writer/Blogger

There are plenty of online weekends jobs out there if you like to write! I’m not talking about super technical or boring copy (unless of course, that is your thing!)
When you sign up with a so-called content mill, like Textbroker, you can login, view available assignments and write as many articles as you’d like. Topics can include everything from health and beauty to automotive and entertainment.
You could also browse a niche job board, like ProBlogger, to see if anyone is looking for a freelance blogger on a part-time basis. Often, these kinds of gigs allow you to work whenever you want, as long as you get your assignments in on time of course.
If you want to sit down and write whatever comes to mind — no problem! You could join a revenue share site, like HubPages. There’s also the opportunity to get paid as a guest contributor for familiar sites and blogs or even earn as much as $100 for writing a top ten list.
See what I mean? 
There are seemingly endless ways to earn money as a writer — making it one of the most flexible online weekend jobs around.

2. Proofreading

With so much content online, there’s also a growing demand for online proofreaders. This can include everything from academic papers to website copy — if you’ve got an eye for detail and good grammar, proofreading may be a good fit for you.
There are a number of companies that contract with proofreaders and editors or you can go the freelance route by signing up on sites like Fiverr or Upwork. Going freelance gives you complete control over the assignments you accept and allows you to work only on the weekends (but not every weekend!)
Over at Proofread Anywhere, they “help proofreaders earn extra income from anywhere in the world — even if you’re starting from scratch.”

3. Virtual Assistant

The majority of people and businesses requiring virtual assistants usually need them to work normal business hours to help get things done, except one — Fancy Hands.
Fancy Hands is one of the most flexible options out there if you’re looking for online weekend jobs. I worked for Fancy Hands as a VA for six months and actually made a decent part-time living completing one task at a time.

The service was built around the idea that VAs should be around 24/7. So, when you work as a Fancy Hands VA you can login to your dashboard anytime, day or night, and start working on tasks. From personal experience, I always found work to be done whether I logged in at 2:00 p.m. or 2:00 a.m.
Many Fancy Hands VAs take the weekends off, making them the perfect opportunity to work a little extra money into your routine. The pay is $2 to $7 per completed task (on average) and a task shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to complete. Get started by heading over to their hiring page to learn more about the position and onboarding process.

4. Crowdworker

Micro jobs and short task sites are perfect for those looking for online weekend jobs that require the least time commitment as possible. Crowdworking tasks can involve just about anything from image tagging to writing a one sentence description or even answering a simple question. These can take as little as a few seconds to a couple of minutes to do.

The largest crowd worker platform is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. There are often thousands of jobs posted on the site at any given time. And since it’s such a large and popular site, many people have already figured out how to maximize earning potential on Mechanical Turk.
You won’t get rich but you can supplement your income just by completing tasks on the weekend.

5. Flipper

Do you love going to garage sales and thrift stores looking for treasures and other donated gems? Well, you can actually turn the treasures you find into a fun weekend job by selling them online for a profit.
The Goodwill, Salvation Army, garage sales and other sources of second-hand stuff can contain plenty of low-priced goods you can sell for a profit. Over at Thrift Store Flipping, there’s lots of advice on how to sell used items online as well as tips on common finds that can be worth a pretty penny.

My personal favorite way to make money as a flipper is selling used books online. The app, BookScouter, makes this a quick and easy thing to do next time you’re at a second-hand sale. All you have to do is scan a book’s ISBN barcode and BookScouter will give you an instant price quote of what it’s worth on various sites that will buy the book from you — easy, peasy. It’s not unheard of for me to find a couple of textbooks worth a hundred bucks in just one short Goodwill trip.

If used items and reselling them on sites like Ebay isn’t really your thing — no problem! You can also keep your eyes peeled while out running errands on the weekend for clearance items at your favorite stores.
Believe it or not, buying up clearance items and reselling them with the help of Amazon FBA easily makes some sellers six-figure incomes each year. The best part? You send your things to Amazon and they do the listing and shipping for you — no worrying about getting to the post office, how to package items or getting a fancy camera to take just the right product shot!

There is a TON of information on how to get started successfully with Amazon FBA many of which are ebooks you can find on Amazon. My suggestion? 

6. Transcription

I’m always amazed by the amount of transcription work out there — everything from medical, legal, general, and even utterances need to be typed up by highly-skilled ears.
While some people make a full-time living as a typist, many others opt to do the work part time to supplement their household income. The popularity of typing for a living is largely due to the availability of work and the fact that you don’t always need experience to get started. There are a number of transcription companies that will hire beginners who have the skills needed to get the job done but lack industry experience.

Keep in mind, you’ll need to type rather quickly to make decent pay since you’re often paid by the audio minute (which is a lot different than a standard minute of time). On top of a high WPM, you need to be able to produce virtually error-free transcripts — not always as easy as it seems.

7. Tutor

You’d think there wouldn’t be too much of a need for teachers on the weekends, but tutoring happens to be one of the most in-demand online weekends jobs. Most online tutoring sites don’t require previous teaching experience but you may need to hold a bachelor’s degree or be currently enrolled in school to qualify. For example, Chegg pays $20/hour for current college students to tutor their peers online.
Most sites let you take on subjects from calculus to creative writing — there are tons of opportunities regardless of your area(s) of expertise.

Another option is teaching English to non-native speakers. Cambly will pay $0.17 for each minute you spend speaking with a student. The only requirement is you have to be a native English speaker and be friendly enough to engage in conversation with someone who wants to practice their conversational English.

More Online Weekend Jobs

Working one (or more!) of these online weekend jobs can give you the flexibility needed to earn extra money without giving up full control over your weekends. However, if you’re looking for something a little more structured, consider contracting with a company like LiveOps. LiveOps provides customer service solutions to a number of different companies. You can schedule yourself for blocks of time as short as 30 minutes — one of the most flexible yet stable online weekend jobs available.

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