So you want to make money from home?
Guess what, it couldn’t be easier! But it doesn’t have to be in the way you think. Making money doesn’t always have to be through you creating an online business, although this is a fantastic way to create an additional income stream – it is also incredibly time-consuming.
In this post, I’ll be showing you the different methods you could use to make money from home, using what you’ve already got! As well as some that you CAN get if you’re willing to invest in yourself.
Let’s dive in!
Renting out a spare room!
Whether you own your home or are renting a house, it is simple to make money from home by renting out one or more of your rooms.
If you're renting
If you’re renting, it would be wise to speak to your landlord about this before doing this to avoid trouble.
Going straight to your landlord and telling them you want to make money from their property by renting out a room, probably won’t go down well.
Perhaps phrase it in such a way that makes your landlord see the benefit in you doing this.
For example – explain to your landlord that you absolutely love living in their house/flat and you find the area absolutely perfect. You are really grateful for the opportunity to live there. However, the rent is quite high and you are stretching yourself quite thin by doing it. Would they mind if you had a friend come to stay in one of the rooms who would help out with rent and bills?
This may be something that could bring you extra money that will help you to eventually buy your own home. The saving potential here is massive!
If you're a homeowner
One of the major benefits of doing this as a homeowner is that you don’t have to ask for permission. Please don’t feel discouraged if your home is small and cozy.
This is even possible if you own a 1 bed flat. You could rent the bedroom and put a sofa bed in the living room. That way if you get fed up with renting out the main room – you can turn your room back into a fully functioning living room.
This can be very lucrative if you’re living in a main city, as rents are usually much higher.
If you live in a multi-room house, the possibilities are far greater! One of my friends owns a three-bedroom house and rented out the other two rooms. This can be really useful if you have a high mortgage, lots of debt, or little money set aside for retirement.
If you don’t fancy a long-term tenant, you could always set up your house as an Airbnb. That way you’ll only intermittently rent out a room and still make money.
This is potentially the easiest way to make money from home.
Put your savings to work
Have you heard the saying ‘you’ve got to spend money to make money‘? Why not apply this same logic to your house. If you own your home, the value of that house generally goes up year on year. So simply by owning that house, more often than not, your net worth is going up. What an easy way to make money from home right?
Rather than putting all of your hard-earned money into a savings account that will give you a 0.35% interest rate that is far less than inflation. Why not invest that money back into your house?
This could be by means of extension, adding an additional bathroom, loft conversion, building an annex, or even converting your unused garage into a studio flat?
Although each of these ideas won’t be cheap – they are adding value to your property/ your net worth and giving you the opportunity to use those additions to make money from home.
It may take you a little while to make the money back that you put in, however, the income it generates will allow you to invest in your property even more!
Remortgage to gain an extra edge
We don’t all have the money to start doing work on our house, so how do we get around this?
If being able to save is something you’re interested in, please visit our post on how to save money.
I’m not a big advocate of borrowing money on my home, however, I would definitely remortgage a small portion to allow me to make an income from it! After-all this post is about making money from home. If I can turn my home into an asset, then I’ll 100% jump at the opportunity. This is also called a home equity loan.
Not only will it increase the value of your house, thus bringing up your net-worth. It will also bring in extra money to pay down your initial borrow and after time that will be 100% income! How can you say NO to that?
If you don’t like the idea of somebody else inhabiting your space – then perhaps converting your garage or building an annex would be a good option for you, if you have space. If not, putting someone in the loft might be a good option as they’ll have plenty of space and would only really need to share your kitchen area.
Borrowing money on your house to raise the value of your house and bring you an income sounds like a no brainer to me! But what should you do with all that extra money?
Option 1
Pay down your mortgage faster, leaving more money in your pocket!
Although it seems counter-intuitive, you can make money at home by paying more into your mortgage.
If you use the additional income to make mortgage overpayments (staying within your threshold), you can save thousands up to $70,000 in interest payments! Paying off your loan even faster and leaving more money in your pockets for the future!
Option 2
Invest the income
This could be done by investing the money you make back into your house, to develop it further or start saving for your first rental property. This may take some time, however, if you have a partner – business or life, you will likely speed this up in half the time. Either that or use the below method.
Invest in the stock market
One of the easiest ways to make money from home is to invest what you’ve got into the stock market. My choice would be to invest a minimum of 10% of your income in a low-cost index fund. I would set this up as a standing order then just let it happen. If in the UK, look into investment ISAs, if in the US, you should be looking at your IRAs.
If you’re willing to live on what you have, all additional monetary gains can be added here and it would build exponentially over time! Making money from home couldn’t be easier in this case. The compound interest will grow and grow!
If you use this as a retirement account, then you just let it grow and enjoy yourself when you hit your ripe old age!
If however, you want to use this compound interest to make more money for investments, it would make sense to leave this money for at least 5 years to let it really start building. The longer you can wait, the better. My advice would also be, don’t remove the whole lot! Take enough to help you get to where you want. This is not a savings account!
Disclaimer – please be aware of market fluctuations and do not sell when the market dips. Have faith, the price of your stocks will be worth more in time if you’re investing in index funds that is. Remember, I am not your financial advisor, this is simply an option that can be taken and is something that I would do.
Example
The stock market crashed heavily in March of 2020 due to the outbreak of the Corona Virus! However, 2 months later most of my shares either went back to normal or were stronger! Unless they were UK based (¬_¬).
This way you can have some passive income from your shares as well as creating some income from rental properties as well. Or even using some of the invested money to start-up your own business. You’ve now started to diversify your portfolio!
It is however a good idea when investing, to understand what you’re investing in. Why not do some reading to gain a greater understanding of index funds?
Claim back your tax
This last year has been devastating for a large number of people all over the world. If you are one of the lucky ones that have been allowed to work from home, this is a fantastic opportunity for you. You can make money from home by claiming your tax relief for using your home as an office.
This is something everyone should be able to do, even if they’re not registered as a sole trader or company. There will be an allowable amount for the use of a room in your home as an office. This should help with the extra utilities you’ll use while working from home.
Unfortunately, they won’t give money towards your food bill, even though you’re probably making a lot more trips to the fridge! It would be a great idea to start batch cooking. This way you can make a really large meal once and use it for several meals throughout the week!
This will help to keep costs down. You may even find that when we return to some kind of normality, this would be something you want to continue – it’s much better than spending a fortune eating out. Why not try our chicken paella? The portions are for 4 (big eaters), you could always double up and make it for 8!
Create a business from home!
There was no way we were going to leave this one out!
This could be any side hustle you can do from home. Our main one is our blog! If you can do this from home, you cut the overhead cost of needing to rent a space. If you have an online business, this is even better as your overheads will be incredibly low!
If you’re interested in starting your own blog/website – sign up for hosting using either Blue Host or Siteground. For starting out Bluehost will suit many of your initial needs more. However, Siteground allows for a lot more but comes with a higher price tag. Both options allow you to purchase your domain from them. This would be good as there is a lot less headache in doing it this way! We currently use Siteground.
When you start making money from your side hustle, especially if it is a relatively big income, the taxman will come sniffing around. If you register your side hustle as a company, you can take advantage of the benefits of tax write-offs! These will definitely save you money in the long run, thus allowing you to make money from home, on a much larger scale.
Make sure you do the above and claim tax back on using your home as a place of work! This could be anything from blogging to using your home as a daycare! Take advantage of the things that have been given to you!
Summary
If you want to make money from home, it doesn’t need to be hard. There are many things we already have in place that will make it easier! A little bit of research and willingness to begin is usually all you need.
Starting is always the first and hardest hurdle. Followed by hard work that may need to be added for things like creating a business from home. This is not easy, especially with a little one. It will also require a lot of discipline and time management to be able to get things done!
Keep working at whichever option you choose and your wealth will start to grow! After all, that’s likely why you’re reading this article!
Stay safe and keep hustling!
2 thoughts on “Now! How-To Make Money From Home Using What You’ve Got”
Some great tips here!
Glad you liked it 😊