These days, you don’t have to go far to earn extra income — or turn a side project into a full-time enterprise.

In fact, you might not even need to leave your house. You certainly don’t have to spend all day at a rented office that eats into your bottom line.

Countless solo entrepreneurs have discovered the benefits of earning extra income at home. With these six reliable work-at-home opportunities, you can too. Which do you feel is best suited to your skills?

 

1. Tutor

All you need to power a successful at-home tutoring gig is a fast Internet connection, a video chat interface, and a reasonable amount of knowledge in your chosen subject areas.

Finding clients isn’t too difficult, either — most tutors use a combination of local word of mouth (referrals) and digital marketing.

 

2. Fundraising Distributor

Want to earn money and support the causes you care about?

Fundraising distributors sell effective fundraising products to charities, civic organizations, school groups, and others seeking to raise money for their work. As sources at ABC Fundraising tell us, full-time fundraising distributors can earn anywhere from $500 to more than $5,000 per month working from home.

 

3. Translator

Are you proficient in a language other than English? You probably have what it takes to work as a translator.

The nature of your translation work will depend on your skills (or what you’re willing to learn) and demand, but professional services providers (particularly public service law and medicine) always need help.

 

4. Customer or Tech Support Representative

At-home customer support reps are in high demand these days.

Why drive miles and miles to work at a dungeon-like call center when you could do basically the same job from the comfort of your home office?

All you need is a headset, a computer capable of running call-handling software, and a positive attitude.

 

5. Virtual Assistant

Speaking of a positive attitude: “virtual assistant” might sound like a remote, lowly gig, but it’s nothing to sneeze at.

The best virtual assistants are true jacks and jills of all trades — and the types who know what clients want before they do.

 

6. Specialty Transcriptionist

These days, transcription software is reasonably good at converting the (clearly) spoken word into text. It’s not so good at making sense of specialized jargon, however.

One of the top niches for specialized transcriptionists is medicine — turning providers’ rapidly spoken notes into concise, accurate summaries of patient interactions, radiological reports, and the like.

Don’t worry: you don’t need to complete medical school to qualify for one of these jobs; a few months of training will do.

 

Earn More, Pay Less

One of the biggest advantages of working from home is the overhead — or, rather, the lack thereof.

Sure, operating a home office requires some out of pocket expenditures: utilities, computing equipment, furniture, office supplies. But off-premises offices come with all those expenses, and then some. You don’t need to pay rent on your home office, and your 20-foot commute won’t cost you a dime.

Working from home has its drawbacks, too. Cost isn’t one of them. Are you ready to earn more while paying less?