by yerton

Created on: May 04, 2008

Well, I am sure that I must have tried all the supposedly easiest methods of making money online, while staying at home. I am an accountant, and during the day I dream of the big idea, the mother lode, that escape from the everyday drudgery of double entry book-keeping. Is their an easy way to make money online? Well, I suppose that depends on how you define "easy".

Certainly, freelance writing on Helium.com is great fun and it does seem to earn a little money, but I have my doubts that my standard of writing may not make great wealth in the short term. But, if you consistently write well, I can imagine that you might do very well on Helium.

Another way of making money that I tried once was to become a "mystery shopper". Every once in a while I would receive an assignment by email and I would have to visit a retail store or post office in my area, and then prepare an online report. This was a relatively sedate way of making a little cash, but again would not make you instantly rich.

A very rewarding thing to do is to de-clutter your home by selling your unwanted items on an auction website such as eBay. This costs very little as the goods are already bought and it is simply a case of taking the time to get them online and then, when sold, posted. Occasionally, you get a surprise just how much people will pay for an item. But, if you are not careful, the thrill of the online auction can become very addictive and you end up wasting more time than is worth the cash reward.

My wife, she is an author of two (third one due anytime) Christian novels. She has tried over the years to propagate the Gospel message through her writing, and over the internet, while caring for our four children. She has certainly never said to me that this has been easy, and regrettably I have seen no particular evidence of vast wealth.

Over the years, since about 2000, I have built a successful small business on eBay selling gift cards of my own design (user name yerton, the same as on Helium). I am an eBay Powerseller but I am far from very rich. I work away in the nights and at the weekends to try to make the great breakthrough. I do okay.

I think what I have learned about working online from home is that it is largely the same as any other business. You must control understand your business, control your costs, develop your product and work to a strategy or plan. Yes, you can always dream of suddenly making it big, but realize that it is only a very few who actually do have the big idea.

So, I believe that the really easy way to make money online while staying at home is to be consistent. Build your business by following a plan of growth, taking one stage at a time. By all means work with new ideas and experiment with different models of marketing and product sell-through, but over the long term you should remain true to the central core vision of your business idea. This way, you will later be able to develop your product or brand and thus increase your prices to make your earnings larger for a similar amount of work. And of course, one definition of "easier" is to earn more money for less work, so you will have succeeded in making money easily while staying at home.

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