How badly do you want to earn money from home? Maybe you need the money desperately. Maybe you just need a side hustle. But when you need to earn money online around your schedule, it helps to know which sites offer the flexible opportunities you need.

But wanting to earn money online with a flexible schedule doesn’t mean you need to accept low pay. You should know what your time is worth so that you aren’t accepting absurdly low pay for your efforts. There are lots of ways to make the most of the skills you have to offer.

These sites vary in what you’ll be doing, how much you’ll make for it and how fast they’ll pay. None of these pay in points toward a drawing or other rewards – you deserve real money when you do the work.

I also considered whether it’s likely to pay enough to be worth your time. I really don’t like to see people earning under minimum wage just because they’re working online. That’s not a good way to build an income, whether you want to live on it or just supplement what you already earn.

Always be aware of the signs of a work at home scam when you’re looking at ways to earn money online. You want to make money, not lose it.

1. Upwork

Elance and Odesk have merged, and now their main platform is called Upwork. It’s a general freelance site. You can offer many kinds of work as a freelancer there, such as web or mobile developers, designers, writers, customer service and more.

Upwork does not accept all applicants. If they feel there is not sufficient work in their marketplace, they will decline your application.

For this reason, I suggest that you list a range of skills. There are tons of writers on Upwork, for example, so you need to stand out as more than just a basic writer to get your application approved if that’s the kind of work you’re looking for.

2. People Per Hour

People Per Hour is a freelance site with a focus on web design, development, content and promotion. You can search for jobs and send proposals as you do on other sites, but you can also offer Hourlies, which are fixed priced jobs you offer that can be started quickly and completed in as little as an hour.

3. Etsy

If crafting is more your thing, you can open a shop on Etsy and sell them. You can sell handmade or vintage items there. Just take a look at the many things people sell there and think about what you can do. You have to be careful about making up not only the cost of the items you sell, but your time spent making or finding them when you sell on Etsy, but if you’re good at it, you can make a good profit there.

There are plenty of books and ebooks available that can help you get a good start at Etsy, such as Your Etsy Profit Machine or Etsy Empire. As with any business, there are ways to make your early days easier as you learn all the ins and outs of it.

4. VIPKID

Did you know that there are flexible teaching jobs out there? VIPKID doesn’t require a ton of experience, although they do expect you to have a Bachelor’s degree as well as at least one year of experience in teaching, mentoring or tutoring.

Perhaps the most challenging part of teaching for VIPKID is that the peak hours are often in the middle of the night. There’s a little more range on the weekends. Your students will be in China, so your availability has to be when they’re ready to learn.

Pay ranges from $14-22 an hour, and it’s a six month contract. You choose your own schedule. They recommend being available for at least 7.5 hours a week. Students book with you, so the more available you are, the more classes you will teach.

5. Appen

Appen hires people as social media evaluators. You have to commit to 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, with at least one weekend day, according to a current opening listing. The work is improving newsfeed relevancy on social media websites.

6. Lyft And Other Driving Jobs

Lyft, Uber and other driving jobs are extremely popular. It’s easier to earn money from them in some areas than in others, as there are simply more people needing you to drive them or run errands.

The great part about these opportunities is that you decide when you’re open to accepting opportunities. You don’t need a schedule as such, although there are better and worse times to be driving. Certain times may even be worth a premium.

The biggest challenge for some may be the age requirements for the vehicle you drive. If your car is too old, you simply may not qualify, regardless of how well you’ve maintained it.

Make sure you consider the cost of gas and maintenance when considering whether a drive is worth it. Sometimes it comes out on the low side.

7. Delivery Gigs

A similar alternative is to work a delivery gig. There are companies such as DoorDash, UberEats, Walmart Spark, and InstaCart. These jobs are super flexible and can pay well, so long as you pay attention to what you’re being offered for each job.

If you don’t mind something that takes more time, check out Amazon Flex. With Amazon Flex, you reserve a block of time you can do deliveries, pick them up and deliver. This is great if you have a few hours to spare at a time.

If you want to learn what people think about any of these delivery gigs, I suggest checking them out on Reddit. There are subreddits for most, and you get the driver’s side view of what the job is really like, along with advice on improving your earnings and hazards to look out for.

8. Fiverr

What do you have to offer that someone would pay $5 for? Fiverr allows you to offer a wide variety of products or services that you charge $5 for. They keep a share, so that is not exactly your pay, however. Anything you offer at that price needs to be something you can fulfill with minimal time and effort; however, you can charge more for addon services.

Some people offer some pretty unusual things on Fiverr, so much so that there’s an entire category called “Fun & Bizarre.” Prank calls, wild rants, psychic services and much more are listed there. You don’t have to stick to serious business offerings. You can have some fun.

9. Gigwalk

Gigwalk is a different kind of job. You download an app to your Android or iOS device, register an account and do gigs in your area. You might be sent to verify that a product is on the shelf in a particular store, check on a marketing event, and so forth, things that need to be done locally but that might be otherwise inconvenient for a company to check on themselves. Reports often need to include geotagged photos. Gigs can take from minutes to hours, and the pay range reflects that.

10. TranscribeMe

If you want to try transcription, TranscribeMe is a highly flexible way to get a bit of work when you want it. The audio you will be transcribing is less than a minute long. Pay is per audio hour, and you must keep that in mind when considering what you’re earning. It may be a bit challenging to get a good work flow going with such short files. You must have the Chrome browser to access the work hub.

The pay is not good enough for a professional transcriber, but if you’re just starting out, this is a place to try out for a time.

11. Quicktate

Quicktate is another transcription site, with audio ranging from a couple minutes to a few hours. There is a $15 fee for a background check, which is a negative, but Quicktate has a long record as a paying employer. Transcription work may involve voicemail, memos, legal or medical files, conference calls and so forth. They’re associated with iDictate, which you may also apply for if you test well enough at Quicktate. Your hours are completely up to you.

As with TranscribeMe, pay is not very good, but when you’re a beginning transcriptionist looking for work, it’s an okay start.

There Are Other Flexible Ways To Earn Money Online

While working at home is not always flexible, there are many other ways to earn money online on your own schedule.

Blogging is popular, but you never know if your blog will earn money or not. It’s super easy to start your own blog, however, and I strongly recommend you do so if it interests you at all. So long as you understand the risks it’s worth a try. It might just work out.

Freelance writing is another option. There are lots of companies that use freelance writers, beyond what I could ever keep up with on this site. And of course there are all kinds of freelance opportunities out there.

If you’re looking for still more work at home jobs, take a look at the Home With The Kids job board. There are hundreds of possibilities there, with new ones added on weekdays.

The post 11 Super Flexible Sites Where You Can Earn Money Online appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Many people who want to work at home are looking for something flexible. They picture being able to grab the kids from school, hit the gym in the middle of the day, or meeting up with friends. The disadvantages of a flexible work at home job aren’t fully considered. This can lead to problems at work as reality sinks in.

The simple truth of the matter is that even flexible work at home jobs rarely give you complete freedom to work when you want. There will be online meetings scheduled, for example. You may need to coordinate with someone on a project. There will be days when your flexible schedule isn’t so flexible.

Employers that let you work at home with a flexible schedule will have the same requirements of you as those who insist upon a regular schedule. They’re just more relaxed about which hours of the day you get your work done.

Your Employer Isn’t The Biggest Challenge – You Are

The worst of the disadvantages of flexible work at home jobs have much more to do with the employee rather than the employer. To put it simply, it’s hard for many people to keep to an appropriate work routine without a regular schedule.

That’s all on you as a flexible work employee. If you can’t handle the work required without someone else telling you to work certain hours, the job will not work out for you. You must prepare for productive work each day.

A flexible work at home job isn’t like high school or college where you can try to get the whole project done the night before it’s due. It wasn’t a particularly good idea then, but it’s an even worse idea in your job. Most projects at work are far too complicated to be done so quickly.

This is why no matter how flexible the job is, you should give yourself a regular work schedule. Don’t take advantage of the flexibility by working different hours every day unless you have a reason to keep changing. If you don’t work fairly regular hours, it’s much too easy to work too few hours overall.

Employers Aren’t Entirely Off The Hook

Much as the employees create many of their own problems with flexible work at home jobs, many employers create problems as well. They may expect “flexible hours” to mean that employees are available, practically on-call, at any hour. If that wasn’t in the job description, it’s a problem.

A good employer understands that giving employees flexible hours to get their work done doesn’t mean the employees have no lives of their own. To the contrary, employees usually seek out flexible work hours so that they can live their lives while earning a living. Employers must be realistic about how many hours a week they expect employees to work, and how much needs to get done during those hours.

Other employers have difficulty trusting flexible work at home employees. How do they know you’re productive and not goofing off? They need to track what flexible employees are accomplishing so that they know things are going well.

Communication Challenges

All work at home jobs have some communication challenges. It can be difficult keeping everyone up to date when you aren’t talking face to face. Tools such as Slack make this much easier, but it doesn’t suit everyone. Combine that with the many kinds of work at home schedules, and it can be difficult to keep up with each other.

Flexible hours make this into an even bigger disadvantage for people who work at home. Scheduling online meetings that everyone can attend becomes more difficult. You also can’t rely on the person you need to communicate with being available right when you need them.

Good employers will have plenty of options for keeping in contact, no matter how flexible your hours may be. A part of your learning curve may be learning how to keep up with everyone using these tools. Communication within remote teams has improved so much in recent years, but not every employer takes full advantage of the possibilities.

Friends And Family

Your friends and family can create their own disadvantages to your work at home experience, especially if they know your hours are flexible. Many will mistake that for you being available to them at any time.

They might think you’re available to babysit their sick child so they can get to work, or watch for a delivery while they’re at work. You’re home all day – why can’t you help them? Don’t you care???

If you have a flexible work at home job, teach your friends and family that there are limits to that flexibility. You will need to set many of those restrictions yourself. It may take time to teach them to respect your work hours just as much as they would respect the work hours of someone working outside the home.

The Fun Distractions

When you work in an office, coworkers and coffee breaks are acceptable distractions, within reason. When you work at home, there are quite a few more distractions that most people wouldn’t dare pay attention to in the office. Sometimes these may seem like they’re perks of working at home, but they’re as likely to be disadvantages.

Some people like to binge favorite shows on Netflix or other services, for example. It’s easy to get into the habit of streaming a show while you work. What many people don’t realize is how much time they lose to watching their shows rather than focusing on their work.

Kids and pets are fun distractions as well. One of my cats loves to get on my lap if she’s cold. She also sits on my head and chair headrest if she’s playful. It’s pretty distracting sometimes, even when it’s fun. Kids bring in homework questions or just want company.

Have a plan to deal with these fun distractions. Take advantage of your flexible work at home job, for example, and schedule yourself around when the kids may need you.

When you decide to work at a flexible work at home job, make sure that you’re ready to deal with the advantages and the disadvantages, especially the ones you have control over. If you aren’t committed to making the time for your work, the job won’t be a good match for you.

The post The Disadvantages Of Flexible Work At Home appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.