Ways to Make Money Remotely While Social Distancing

By: Vivika Kapoor ‘23

Do you have an on-campus job or work-study position that has been affected by USC’s response to the coronavirus? Are you forced to stay at home social distancing after losing regular income? With COVID-19 interrupting our everyday lives, many students and other part-time workers are being forced out of work with temporary restaurant and store closings. But just because you can’t leave your house doesn’t mean you can’t be rolling in cash. Check out these ways to start earning money right at home.

Taking Advantage of Your Skills

Do you have any special skills or talents that you’d like to share? You can use your skills to make money online, which can be incredibly fun and profitable. Whether you are a talented artist or really good at math, you can use your passions to help others and make money at the same time. 

Tutoring School Subjects

If you are really good at certain subjects or skills, you can easily start remotely tutoring others! Some websites that would allow you to tutor school subjects include Chegg, Tutors.com, Brainfuse, and more! Check out these links to find more resources to become a tutor online: 

• https://moneyconnexion.com/online-tutoring-jobs.htm

• https://wahadventures.com/best-online-tutoring-jobs-home/

Teaching your special talents and skills

You can also teach others skills that aren’t core school subjects, like art or music! These subjects can include singing/vocal classes, drawing or sculpting lessons, acting, dancing, instruments, and many more. Check out TakeLessons, Skillshare, or CreativeLive (this one is especially cool because you can make videos about communication, entrepreneurship, or other important soft skills). You can also google your skill with online teaching jobs for more specific opportunities (e.g. search for “dancing online teaching jobs”). 

Doing Freelance Work

This is an amazing common way to make money from the comfort of your house. This opportunity can range from doing small graphic design jobs, to editing or creating music videos for startups, to developing websites. You honestly don’t even need any specialized skill for freelance because there are so many random jobs for everyone. Plus, there are lots of websites and opportunities available for you to find jobs and get started. Some of the most popular general websites include FlexJobs, Fiverr, SolidGigs, and Upwork. Of course, this category and these websites are incredibly broad as there’s so many different types of freelance work you can do online (so please don’t shy away from this without actually checking these websites out). For some more websites that are a bit more specialized, check out this link for more information. 

Teaching English

If you’re good at teaching and English, this could be a great job for you. However, there normally are more requirements for these online jobs. You can check out different websites and opportunities at 

• https://travelislife.org/teach-english-online-companies/

• https://www.teachaway.com/blog/8-amazing-companies-let-you-teach-english-online-from-home

Just a warning though - a lot of these companies are looking for applicants that already have a Bachelor’s degree.

Becoming a Translator/Interpreter

Are you bilingual or multilingual? You might be the perfect fit for being a translator! Many companies offer translation/interpretation jobs, which are becoming quite popular. Honestly, googling “interpreter online jobs” or “translator online jobs” will already give you some great results. You can also check out this link for a long list of jobs with a variety of languages (or other freelance websites). 

You can also find online jobs through existing websites that specialize in translator/interpreter services such as Gengo, LanguageLine, or Smartling. More sites can be found here. 

Sharing your Interests/Hobbies

Do you have a fun interest that you’d love to share with the world? This is another easy way to make money while talking about/doing something you love!

Set Up an Online Course

If you have an interest or skill that you’re really passionate about, why not make a class about it? You can set up an online course with written tutorials, PDF downloads, and videos! Some websites where you can set up a course include Udemy, SkillShare, Zippy Courses, Teachable, and even more! If you want a more comprehensive review of some of the most popular platforms to start a course, check out this link for more information! Or if you want to start a bit more independent, try starting a YouTube channel and make some instructional videos to gain a following!

Get Paid to Answer Questions

If you’re an expert on a certain subject, you can get paid to share this expertise by answering questions online. Companies like JustAnswer, StudyPool, Experts123, and more. Check out these links for more information and resources:

• https://selfmadesuccess.com/paid-answer-questions/

• https://ivetriedthat.com/get-paid-to-answer-questions/

Create a Blog or Write Blog Posts for Companies

If you’re interested in starting your own blog, you’ll have a lot of fun writing about whatever you’re passionate about while still making money. This is also a great long-term option for making money online. Here are a few links for you to find some more information about your first steps: 

• https://problogger.com/make-money-blogging/

• https://www.ryrob.com/how-start-blog/

Have fun exploring this one and coming up with fun niches for your blog! 

If you don’t want to start your own blog, you can always still write blog posts as part of freelance work. Go ahead and google “remote blog writer positions” and you’re all set!

Random Jobs that Everyone can do!

These are some jobs that anyone can do regardless of skills/interests. All you need is time and motivation!

Do Freelance Work!

I can’t stress this enough: literally, anybody can do freelance work. I want to emphasize how many different skills can be highlighted with freelancing, including writing/editing papers, marketing, customer service, admin support, narration/voice acting, and more! You don’t just have to be an artist or engineer to do freelance work. Just check out the different categories in Fiverr and Upwork.

Be a Juror

Even though most people dread jury duty, you can get money for participating in this from the comfort of your bed. eJury is a website that basically helps attorneys prepare for trial by allowing them to see what a group of people (aka fake jury) thinks about their case. I was a bit skeptical about this opportunity so I did some more research and I found that it really is legitimate! You will get paid for each case that you will be a part of and it’s all done online! For reviewing a case and making a verdict, the company will be paying you $5 to $10 per verdict. The payment will be sent directly to your PayPal account. A case is typically 2 to 5 pages long and will come with 10 questions to answer. 

Complete Surveys

So many companies and websites need people to answer questions and surveys for research, so if you’re interested in doing this, you have a lot of options. Some popular options are Swagbucks (the largest and most reliable site), Survey Junkie, and more. If you have some spare time, I would definitely recommend completing random surveys once in a while! You can check out some more site options at 

• https://www.dollarsprout.com/paid-online-surveys/

• https://www.savethestudent.org/make-money/best-paid-online-survey-sites.html

• https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/surveys-for-money-site-reviews/

Have fun with this one, you can definitely do short surveys whenever you want, like while watching TV or listening to music.

Become a Virtual Assistant

This is something that is way more similar to a traditional job than a lot of other items on the list. Being a virtual assistant is more structured and a bigger commitment as some of the other jobs on this list are flexible with hours and tasks. However, the reward is higher than the other jobs on this list! 

Rather than giving you a direct link to where to sign up, I’ll give you some links that’ll show you how to become a virtual assistant for beginners (and these sites will also show you where to sign up and actually get paid): 

• https://www.dollarsprout.com/how-to-become-a-virtual-assistant/

• https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/insanely-organized-these-8-websites-will-help-you-find-flexible-work-as-a-virtual-assistant/

• https://horkeyhandbook.com/how-to-become-a-virtual-assistant/.

Sell your Photos and Videos

If you love traveling or exploring the world around you, you might have some really cool pictures of your experiences. Or maybe you have some fun photos of you and your friends, your work, or just your life in general. Well, you can sell your photos and videos as stock content with companies like Alamy, Shutterstock, iStock/GettyImages. You can earn a percentage of the sales (different companies will give you different percentages) of these images when you put them on the website, and you can check out this link to see some of the pros and cons of the best places to sell stock photos.

Review Things

If you have some free time and are willing to review things, you should check out some of these websites! ReviewStream will pay you money for reviews on nearly any product. SoftwareJudge will pay you up to $50 to review different software programs. UserTesting is another website that will pay for honest, clear video reviews. There are so many other websites that are perfect for this. You can find a larger list here.

These are just some of the best ways to make money online during our time at home social distancing. Hopefully this will help some of you that have been directly affected by COVID-19’s hit on business and the economy over the past few weeks. Or maybe you’re just bored at home looking for something productive to do! Either way, hopefully you find something interesting in this list that you’d like to explore! 

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