01.No-risk matched betting
Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money from home (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It's completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone over 18 in the UK can do it (Not in UK? Skip to no. 2).
It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites through 'matching' them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome).
This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £100. Multiply this by how many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred pounds.
Owen walks you through how to make your first £13 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make £40/hr sitting at home, please let us know!
02.Online surveys
An increasingly popular way for students to make money online is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members worldwide to answer surveys and test new products.For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up to £3 ($5) for some surveys!
A few good ones to try are: Toluna, Branded Surveys, LifePoints, InboxPounds, Onepoll, i-Say, Opinion Outpost, YouGov, Prizerebel, Marketagent, Pinecone, Valued Opinions, The Opinion Panel, Populus Live, Mingle, Opinion Bureau, Maru Voice, Panel Base, Survey Junkie.
Also sign up for Swagbucks which rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.
Update: See our new full guide to the best paid online surveys!
03.No -Paid for searching the web
Interested in earning cash for doing what you already do online? This has to be one of the easiest methods of making money online without really any effort or change in your behaviour.This innovative idea by Qmee.com rewards you for searching in Google, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay. You just install a simple add-on to your browser and when you conduct a search there may be a few sponsored results alongside your normal search.
qmee paid search
Each Qmee result has a cash reward attached - if you are interested in it simply click on it and collect your reward.
The best thing is there is no minimum to cashout - our first one was just 72p wired to our Paypal account. You also have the option to donate it to charity.
Sign up now for free and start earning from your own searches! Click here to start.
O4.No- Online market trading
Whilst this isn't necessarily an easy way to make money, investing in stock markets can be lucrative if you learn to do it properly and safely. By the same token, you may suffer significant losses if you don't take it seriously.Today there is no need to fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market trading platforms.
Having spent many hours researching this new opportunity, I've been experimenting with the popular platform eToro.com.
eToro has over 12 millions users worldwide and offers free practice accounts. It has been featured in the BBC 2 documentary "Traders: Millions by the Minute" and sponsors several Premier League football clubs.
Trading stocks on eToro is currently not available in the USA.
etoro trading
One of the best things on eToro is the CopyTrader feature. This lets you literally see, follow and copy the investments of other top performing traders.
Follow George's complete guide to trading on eToro to learn more. I think $200 is a good amount to get the most out of the learning curve by trying out a few different markets. If nothing else you'll learn a great deal about various investments and industries.
Please be aware that all trading involves risk. eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers real asset ownership and high risk leveraged 'CFD' products. 67% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. This content is not financial or investment advice.
05.No -Start your own website
Interested in generating passive income? You need a website. It's THE way to make money while you sleep.
Starting a website with Bluehost takes less than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there are plenty of ways to monetise your site.
Save the Student is just one example of a successful website, started at university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since grown into a full-time and sizable enterprise.
Read Owen's step-by-step guide on how to create a website in 20 minutes from home. It's really one of the best assets you can have.
06.No- Become a delivery rider or driver
Got a bicycle, motorbike or car? What about a Smartphone? That's all you need to make some extra money by delivering food or people whenever you've got some spare time.Sign up to delivery specialist companies like Deliveroo who are always on the hunt for new riders. They allow you total flexibility to work when you want, delivering food from restaurants to the customers' door. You can make up to £16 an hour.
Double-up your opportunities by directly contacting local takeaways and bigger chains like Dominos to see if they have any delivery jobs going.
07.No- Write and publish a Kindle eBook
If students are good at anything, it's researching and writing. With the Kindle store, anyone can publish an eBook and make money on Amazon.And the Kindle app is now available on almost any device (laptops, iPads, smartphones and yes, Kindles) so your global market is huge!
List your book for £1.49 - £6.99 and you earn 70% of the sale. Considering Amazon is the ultimate selling machine (and remember people are looking to spend), that is a fantastic deal.
kindle ebooks
The key to success with eBooks is to create value, and write non-fiction. Simply bundling information you have researched and compiled on a common problem (eg. 'secrets' to finding a job) and then presenting it in an easy to digest format (an eBook) justifies someone spending a few quid on it.
Another big tip is to have a great cover designed (browse these) so it stands out, and once your book is live on the Kindle store it's really important to get some reviews so it shows up higher in results. Encourage readers to leave an honest review at the end of your book.
The best thing about this lucrative idea is that once you've invested the time (say 20 hours), you'll earn a passive income for years to come!
For more tips see our guide on making money from eBooks.
08.No-Affiliate marketing
awin affiliateIf you've got a good presence on social media or perhaps you even have a blog or website, you can start bringing in money immediately by promoting all sorts of companies, products, services and offers online.Sign up as a publisher on the Awin network, check their offers blog or browse the merchant listings to find something you think your friends would be interested in, grab your affiliate link and share it. If someone buys (can be within up to 90 days) using your link you'll make a nice commission.
To take it a step further, set up a website (read our guide) or a topical Facebook page and invite all your friends to join it and post your affiliate offers on there.
09.No-Part-time job
0A part-time job is the obvious first choice, opted for by most students looking to supplement their student loan. It provides a pretty steady flow of income and can enable you to gain valuable work experience.But good jobs are not always easy to find!
Start with our student job search, then check local classifieds and your university careers service for vacancies.
It's also worth signing up with CV Library, a free service which will match your CV with suitable part-time jobs and career opportunities.
Read our guide to finding a part-time job whilst studying for more tips.
10.No- Review music for money
If you love music, make it your business by reviewing unsigned bands and artists online for cash with Slicethepie.It can take a while to build up your reputation but some users of the site have said that they earn £40 a month. This may not sound like much, but if it's something you enjoy then it shouldn't be hard work and is another thing for your CV. Money you earn will be in $US but anyone can sign up and review.
To get started, head over to Slicethepie now or read our quick guide for more info.
11.No-Sell your notes
If you don’t mind sharing your notes with other students it’s a great way to generate a little extra cash. There are sites out there that you can upload your notes to, along with your price, and then when another student downloads them you get paid.Most of these sites like Nexus Notes and Stuvia are free for you to list your notes but tend to take a cut of your profit in order to handle the marketing etc so that you don’t have to go out there and promote your notes yourself.
You will most likely have to upload PDFs but it’s worth it for the return and you can submit handwritten notes but you’re likely to make more money if they’re typed up.
12.No-Buy and sell domain names
A domain name is just a website address (eg. 'savethestudent.org' or 'mysite.co.uk') and there are lots of extensions (.com, .net, .co.uk etc).They cost as little as $0.99 to register with GoDaddy.com yet premium domain names can fetch $1,000s if not millions when sold on. In 2007 VacationRentals.com went for a cool $35m!
Now you're probably not going to come across anything like that, but you can still turn a quick profit with a bit of searching. The trick is to find available domain names which have some commercial value, snap them up and then list them for sale on a site like Sedo.com.
13.No-Sell your photos
If you think you've got a good shot and a little creativity, try uploading your photographs for free to stock websites. A good starting point is Adobe Stock or Getty Images.Make more money selling photo subjects that have fewer search results but you feel would have some demand. It might be a good idea to test them out in print first yourself (get free photo prints here).
14.No-Freelance work
Perhaps you enjoy writing, managing Facebook pages or doing a little bit of graphic design in your spare time. There are so many freelance jobs out there that require simple skills or just time that someone else might not have.And the best thing about freelancing is that you can work for clients in the UK and around the world with just an internet connection from home, to your own hours whilst developing valuable skills.
A great place to start is with the leading freelance site Upwork.com. Or try using our student job search to find freelance jobs closer to home.
15.No- Sell your stories and videos
If you have an interesting story then you could try selling it to the papers. It could be anything from sleeping with a professional footballer to getting caught in a clothes horse!One of the Save the Student team was unfortunate enough to have a pigeon fly through and smash their window at university and sold the story to The Sun for a tidy £50.
You could also film your mates at all times and send it into You've Been Framed to net yourself £250 and a few seconds of fame.
16.No-Watch videos
If creating videos sounds like too much hard work, then getting paid to watch videos online has to be one of the easiest ways to make money, ever.Swagbucks.com and InboxPounds.com are the most popular websites as they literally pay you to sit back and watch things like adverts and videos hoping to go viral.
For more involved and rewarding opportunities, consider branching out as a freelancer typing up movie subtitles or writing film reviews.
If watching videos and movies is your thing and you want to make money from home, head over to our full list of ways to make money from watching videos.
