Monday 13 February 2017

3 Simple Ways To Work From Home


Last year I found myself out of work, made redundant from a much-loved career in education. I decided to use the extra time I now had to research and review different ways of making additional income. In this post are some of my findings, based on personal experience.

Rent Out A Room

The UK government have raised the threshold at which you are liable for tax on room rental to £7500 per year. I found lodgers through the excellent online website SpareRoom.com. This site is very easy to use, and can be viewed with or without setting up an account. Services can be accessed for free unless you want to upgrade for greater visibility or speed. I did neither and still found two lodgers within one month. SpareRoom offers a high degree of checking and verification services starting from £25, and you can download pro-forma tenancy agreements. They also have a lot of knowledge-based information within the site. I registered with another site too but only had one enquiry, whereas SpareRoom seems to be the go-to site everyone thinks of.

Interview prospective tenants with a clear idea of the sort of person you would feel happy to share your home with. If you don't want someone to be forever in your kitchen, steer away from people who are really into cooking. Also, think about your car parking provision - what size vehicles are going to be needing access to your property, and who parks where. 

All in all, I would recommend renting out a room or two as an easy, no effort extra income, especially if you choose prospective sharers wisely. I have made new friends this way and feel good about providing a home to people at an affordable rent.

Airbnb

This is another way of making income from your home, but instead, you offer short stays, with or without breakfast, via the excellent international website Airbnb. Again, you don't have to pay anything to search for accommodation on the site and can check out similar property types in your area and what they are offering. I researched the idea when I booked a couple of short breaks for myself and evaluated what the home owners were offering. I talked to them about their experiences of hosting to give me an insight and, as with a long term tenant, there are things to consider carefully. With Airbnb you may need to clean rooms quickly, have plenty of towels and linen sets, and be able to respond to email enquiries speedily if you want to get continuous bookings. I decided that this was a less workable option with my current lifestyle, but hosts I spoke to enjoyed meeting lots of new people who would only be in their homes a short time.

Affiliate Marketing

This is, in essence, being paid a commission for recommending a product or service. Most of us talk about our experiences of services and products to people we know, inadvertently adding further value or advice, but we don't get paid for it! More and more companies are now realising that reviews and personal experiences impact a decision whether to purchase or not. How many times do you look up reviews on something before you make your purchase? As an affiliate for a specific product or service you recommend and promote something you use. Have a look at the very bottom of a company website page - usually under something like Resources - and see if they list Affiliate. For example, the website GoDaddy (for domain names and website hosting) was one I stumbled upon recently. If you were in contact with a number of people needing that service, you could become affiliated to GoDaddy and get paid for recommendations as an additional income. (I am not an affiliate for them, so do not get paid for this mention!)

However, with affiliate marketing you can link up with as many companies as you want, and there are some very big ones out there, offering affiliate programs that could become a home-based online business and your main source of income. Amazon and eBay are amongst the largest names, but the leader is Clickbank which has been offering digital information products online for over 17 years. It is easy to research this topic on Google and I recommend you take the time to do so.

Conclusion

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) recently published data showing a marked increase in people planning their own home-based business this year, and the internet makes this so easy to implement. After reading the Sunday Times Business bestselling book 'Copy This Idea' by UK businessman and entrepreneur Andrew Reynolds, I was inspired to set up my own marketing business. You can get a copy of this easy to read guide and learn more about Andrew here