When my son was born, I took one look into those big beautiful blue eyes and I was smitten. I knew, despite all my feminist ways and not to mention my desire to develop my abilities, that I was NOT going to be able to spend all my waking hours away from that handsome snuggle goblin. But, I also knew that my husband and I had a crushing amount of student loan debt and that we’d need a steady flow of income every month to chip away at that debt. The solution? I needed to find a way to earn money without a job. I had to have more income coming in than just a typical 9-5 could provide. I could no longer simply trade my time for money (though, there’s still some of that too). 

Here are some of my favorite ways to earn money without a job:

INVEST IN REAL ESTATE

One of my favorite ways to earn money without a job is to invest in real estate. There are countless ways you can do this. Two of the most basic ways are investing in rental income properties (like duplexes, single family homes, apartments, condos, etc that you would rent out to tenants. We plan to do this with our HGTV house, details here) or flipping fixer upper homes for a profit.

Don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting around to invest in real estate? No problem. That’s the part where you can get creative. You can do all kinds of things to invest in real estate when you don’t have much money to invest– from mortgaging your properties to investing in crowd funded real estate companies, like Realty Shares.

RENT OUT A ROOM OR SOME SPACE. 

Perhaps you’re not quite ready to take the plunge in investing in more real estate… why not rent out the real estate you already have? You can rent out a room using AirBNB. This could be an especially lucrative way to make money without a job if you live in a college town or in a vacation destination.

If you aren’t comfortable renting out a room while you are also staying there, you could rent out your place and go stay with a friend or family member while your space is being rented! Earning passive income is a lot of thinking outside the box.

Our Airbnb pays for our mortgage every single month which you can read more about here. 

PAY OFF DEBT

Paying off debt isn’t *technically* a true way to make money without a job… but it kind of is. If you pay off debt, you won’t have any interest working against you. In other words, if you pay off debt, you’ll free up more money.

This is especially true if you have high interest debt, like credit card debt. If you earned 15% or more interest by investing in the stock market for example, you’d probably be pretty pleased. So when you are paying off that 15% interest on the debt you have, you are effectively doing the same thing.

If you’ve got debt and especially if you are having trouble getting motivated, be sure to check out the Paidback app. It’s free to download and has all kinds of motivational tools to get you paying off debt fast– debt tracking, social connection, debt calculators, and my favorite feature, you can ask a debt expert your debt questions so you know you are on the right path! Get Paidback here. 

REFINANCE DEBT

Another way to earn money without a job is to refinance your current debt for a better interest rate. You can save thousands (we literally saved hundreds of thousands on our student loans) by doing this. We used CommonBond to refinance our student loans because they offered us the lowest interest rate. You can check and see what kind of interest rate you qualify for by clicking here– it doesn’t cost anything or impact your credit.

Of course, refinancing is not limited to student loan debt– you can refinance almost any kind of debt, including credit card debt, for a better interest rate just make sure you are aware of any costs associated for refinancing. Usually refinancing your mortgage will cost a fee, unlike student loans which don’t.  (P.S. If you have student loan debt, consider using the Student Loan Planner to come up with a game plan about how to handle your student loans. I’m not exaggerating when I say a 30 minute consult with him saved us $200,000!!)

EARN CASH FOR THE SHOPPING YOU’RE ALREADY DOING

There are plenty of websites that allow you to make money for the shopping that you’re already doing. Some of my favorites are Honey, Rakuten, and Ibotta.

Rakuten gives you a percentage of cash back for purchases that you make online. It’s super easy to use– it’s completely free and you just sign up via their website and then do whatever online shopping you were planning on doing through their website in the search bar located on the top of the page. Plus, if you sign up using my referral link, you’ll earn an easy $10 just for signing up and making a purchase you would already be making anyway.

Honey is very similar to Rakuten, but with the added bonus that it will scour the internet for any promo codes that may apply to you and automatically apply them to your shopping cart. So you earn cash for shopping AND it helps you find the best deal. It’s the best thing ever. You just download their web extension or their app and get to shopping. Couldn’t be easier! Earn $10 now by getting started here.

Ibotta is also very easy to use. You download the app and unlock rebates at stores you shop at. Simply scan your receipt after you purchase the product you have a rebate for and money is almost instantly deposited into your account. All of the major groceries stores (like Target, Walmart) have rebates available for use. But one of my favorite things has been getting cashback on Ibotta with Groupon. It just feels like getting double savings! Just like Rakuten, you can snag a free $10 just for signing up with this link.

If you want more details on how to use Honey, Rakuten, or Ibotta, be sure to visit this post: How to Earn Money Shopping.

START A BLOG.

Another great way to earn money without a job is to start a blog. Some of the best ways to earn passive income with a blog are through displaying ads on your blog, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and selling your own products.

Almost anyone with a website can display ads on their site to earn a little bit of money. When you are just starting out, you’ll likely use Google Ads. As your blog and audience grows, you can work with companies who pay higher fees and display ads that are better and more relevant for your audience.

In addition, you can earn passive income from your blog by selling other people’s/company’s products. This is called affiliate marketing. When there is a product that I love, I can recommend it to my audience and earn a commission.

Another option to make money without a job on your blog is to get sponsored by a company in your blog’s niche. Say for example you had a blog about dentistry. You might get a big dental company to sponsor a blog post about the importance of dental hygiene. They’ll pay you a flat fee to write the post and sometimes to promote it.

Lastly, and most lucratively, you can sell your own products on your blog. Once you have a website up and running, the sky is the limit when it comes to how many products of your own you can sell.

Using these four avenues for income on your blog can generate you income for many years to come, all with only upfront work. It took me less than ten minutes to start up my blog. Learn more about how to start your blog here.

I personally used BlueHost for my web hosting starting out. It was extremely easy to get my website up and running with them. The faster you get set up, the faster you can start earning money without a job through your blog.

SELF-PUBLISH A BOOK

While writing a book will certainly take some initial work, once it’s written, you can sell an unlimited amount of copies, potentially allowing you to earn an unlimited amount of money! Especially if you use a self-publisher like Amazon which gives you access to millions of customers. Like any sales, the more you put into advertising, the more likely your book will sell.

CREATE A PRODUCT

Creating a product is another way to earn money without a job. You can create a digital product to save on production costs OR you can create a physical product. The most likely thing you would do is create a website where you would sell your product. If it is digital, you would have people download the product from your website. If it is a physical product, you could use drop shipping. Drop shipping allows people to order the product from your website and your system notifies your manufacturer who completes the order by shipping directly to the customer.

RENT OUT YOUR STUFF

Have skis? A snowboard? An ATV? A sumo suit? A bike? Literally anything else that someone else would want to use for a few hours? Rent it out!

INVEST IN DIVIDEND STOCKS

Probably the easiest and most overlooked way to earn money without a job is to invest in dividend stocks. I used to hear the word “stock” and immediately crumple into a ball and pull a blanket over my head because I thought it was too confusing to figure out. These days investing in the stock market is easy peasy!

Most divided stocks pay you on a quarterly basis. All you have to do is educate yourself a little bit on how to pick stocks. There are some good resources from Nerd Wallet and Retire by 40 if you are interested in learning more.

SELL STUFF ONLINE

Another fantastic way to earn money without a job is to start selling stuff online. You can sell your old stuff or you can sell stuff that you find at thrift stores or on clearance racks at your local grocery stores and supermarkets. I have a friend that made a full time income by purchasing things at the thrift store and selling them online. Learn more about how you can sell stuff online here.

OWN A BUSINESS AND OUTSOURCE

You could start a business and outsource literally every aspect of it to earn money. With the prevalence of virtual assistance and the internet providing access to people all over the world, out sourcing is easier than ever. Outsourcing will cost money, but if you are interested in earning money without having to do much work, this is a good route to go.

What about you? What things do you do to earn money without a job? Are you willing to try any of the above ideas? 

Stay in the loop! Gain access to all of my money saving hacks I’m using to help pay off more than $650k of student loan debt by subscribing to my newsletter here.

P.S. if you enjoyed any of these ideas on how to earn money with a job, share it with your friends!

P.S.S. Here at Deeply in Debt, we offer tons of personal finance advice based on our own journey paying off $650k of student loan debt. If you have student loan debt and aren’t sure where to start or what to do, I highly recommend the CFA’s over at Student Loan Planner to help you put together a solid financial plan for your student loan debt. We personally used them and it literally saved us over $200,000 on our student loans. You can check out the Student Loan Planner here.