Are you extremely bored in quarantine?
Do you want to make money from home as a high schooler?
Quarantine is the perfect time to start a remote side hustle! You can stay safe while getting that bread.
Here are 9 actual ways you can start earning money in quarantine as a student!
Grocery-Shop for Others
A lot of teens have turned to this (as seen on TikTok) and some have earned a couple of hundred dollars in a day!
Just sign up to be a shopper on an online platform like Instacart and start shopping for customers. There are no set hours, so you’re your own boss.
During quarantine, many people wish to stay home and away from grocery stores; this means there’s a lot of market here and you could make a lot of money from it.
Online Tutoring
If you have convincing grades and are good (or adequate) at teaching others, tutoring is a great option for you.
There are two options I can think of for online tutoring:
- Working for a tutoring place
- Providing private tutoring
I had a part-time job before quarantine at a tutoring place. As schools and other large places began closing, my job moved online.
Now, I work a couple of hours every week on this online job, and I earn good money from it.
The second option is offering your own tutor services as a private tutor.
You can choose your students and settle pricing (you can often earn much more than minimum wage as a private tutor) on your own.
Selling Digital Products
The digital market has become extremely popular, and especially now (in quarantine).
There are many platforms where you can sell digital products, but the most popular (and cheapest) I know are Etsy and RedBubble.
Selling on Etsy is very cheap. There are small fees for listing, transaction, payment processing, and advertising, but no monthly charge or subscription.
You can create digital downloads like planners, organizers, stickers, etc, and earn from each purchase.
RedBubble is almost exclusively for digital art– upload your art designs and they can be sold on shirts, mugs, stickers, posters, phone cases, etc.
You’re technically selling the right to use your art on RedBubble, so you get paid a royalty on each product sold with your design on it.
Selling Physical Products
Again, there are 2 types of selling physical products (that I can think of):
- create and sell handcrafted products
- sell secondhand items
The first type is very much like selling digital products: you create an online store and basically start your own business.
You can sell anything from handmade earrings to hand-sewn scarves. However, if your store grows big, you might have a very large workload.
Along with Etsy, another popular and powerful platform for online shopping is Shopify. Shopify is not free: it costs at least $29 a month plus additional fees.
Selling secondhand items is much simpler than selling your own crafts. Just find things you no longer need and sell them online.
Here are a couple online stores where you can sell things:
- thredUP (women’s & children’s clothing)
- Depop (casual clothing)
- Poshmark (brand-name clothing)
- eBay (really anything!)
You can look around the house for old things to sell, or attempt to go thrifting or vintage shopping to find things you can sell online for a profit.
Freelancing
Freelancing gives you a lot of freedom over what you do, how much you earn, and who you work for.
You can work as a freelance writer, designer, video editor, voice actor, social media manager, or whatever else you want to do.
Simply decide what you want to do (maybe it’s writing blog posts for bloggers), list your service online with (or without) a price, and wait for a customer to request your service!
The most popular platform for freelancing is Fiverr. Fiverr is free to join with no fees except 20% of each sales transaction (which is really good!).
If you like the idea of working for yourself and not having to make stuff, give freelancing a try!
Publishing an Ebook
While this can sound daunting, it might be a lot simpler than you think.
If you’re an avid writer, you can write a novel, novella, handbook, or whatever else you want to write, and publish it for free on Kindle Direct Publishing (powered by Amazon).
The process is completely free, and your book gets marketed across Amazon Kindle users (millions of readers might see your book).
So if you have some sort of writing project going on, complete it and start making money from it!
Starting a Blog
This one is definitely easier said than done (speaking from experience).
Here are some things about blogging that you should know before starting:
- You don’t make money just by writing posts
- It’s hard to start a blog for free (but it’s possible)
- It might be many months before you start making money
If you have some spare time, enjoy writing, and want to start a blog, go ahead! You can do it for free or for cheap on WordPress and Blogger or other platforms you can find.
Just know that making money will be a long and kind of complicated process (including ads, affiliate marketing, producing products, social media, and a whole bunch more).
Related Post: How to Start a Successful Student Lifestyle Blog
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing usually works best if you already have an established audience, whether on a blog, Instagram, YouTube channel, or another social media platform.
If you do have a large following on any of those platforms, affiliate marketing is a great option for you!
You can sign up on affiliate programs like ShareASale (one of the most popular) or from individual brands and companies.
Once you sign up, you can find links for products that you like and wish to recommend to your followers, and share them online!
If someone buys that product with that link, you get commissioned! It’s that easy.
However, commission rates are generally pretty low, so unless you have a large following and recommend products that many of them buy, affiliate marketing isn’t a get-rich-quick process.
Starting a YouTube Channel
I’m sure many teenagers have tried starting a YouTube channel and either gave up or want to give up. Of course, some have succeeded!
Starting a YouTube channel is no easy task and requires a lot of confidence, time, energy, creativity, engagement, you name it.
However, there’s a lot of freedom with what direction you go on YouTube: you can teach something you’re good at, create short films for entertainment, create tutorials for difficult tasks, etc.
There are also a lot of ways to make money as a YouTuber:
- Ads (duh)
- Sponsored videos
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling your own products/services
Of course, these methods can only bring a lot of money if you gain a large following.
Conclusion
Quarantine has given us all the time we need to do stuff. Why not use that time to earn some extra cash?
Some of these methods can take maybe years to develop into actual income, while others can bring you your first $100 in a month!
But all of these, you can start now. Which one are you going to try?