6 Ways Stay-at-Home Parents Can Make Extra Money

Even as a young girl, I had a very strong work ethic, and absolutely loved finding ways to earn a few extra bucks. Whether it was selling lemonade in a stand at the end of my driveway, babysitting for neighbors, walking local dogs, or having a garage sale, I enjoyed coming up with ways to add dollars to my savings account.

Honestly, in my wildest dreams I never imagined becoming the mother to eight amazing kids, especially after six very long and grueling years of infertility, but I was blessed with my small tribe and have never looked back. While we struggled with infertility we did live a very full life of career, travel, and enjoying our personal hobbies and interests. We were a double income couple who didn’t worry much about finances. Eight kids and a divorce (although amicable!) later, my financial picture changed on a dime.

I’ve been fortunate to work outside the home doing jobs that I absolutely love. As a writer and a professional fundraiser, I meet the most interesting people and am surrounded by exciting venues and events with which I get to work on a daily basis. As great as all that sounds, unfortunately, it doesn’t replace the income I had when I was married. I’m not complaining, but in addition to making different financial decisions that benefit my family, I’ve also had to find other ways to earn a side income from home.

Thanks to the incredible resources I’ve gleaned from my own circle of friends, as well as great advice from many online moms that I’m connected with, I’ve discovered a handful of terrific ways stay-at-home parents can earn some serious extra cash from the comfort of their own homes.

Mighty Mommy shares 6 terrific moneymakers that can earn families fast cash without punching a 9 – 5 clock every day.

Six Ways Stay-at-Home Parents Can Earn Income 

1. Flex Jobs
2. Cash Back Post Purchase
3. Rent Your Stuff
4. Sell Your Clutter
5. Type For Cash
6. Take Paid Surveys

Here they are in more detail.

1. Flex Jobs

Whether you’re a stay-at-home parent or a single parent, the key word to helping score some extra cash is flexibility. When I began my journey as a newly single parent, I struggled with balance. I wanted to spend quality time with my eight kids, maintain my life as a freelance writer, and have the ability to cultivate my important relationships with close friends and family members. Add into the mix trying to maintain my physical and emotional well-being—this was no easy feat.

One of my closest friends, recently widowed at the age of 45, introduced me to the world of flex jobs, the leading job board for telecommuting, part-time, flexible-time, work from home, and other alternative work arrangements.

Here’s the skinny on this very active site. They are committed to providing a scam-free resource for job seekers who need flexibility in their professional lives. Each job listed on their very active site is looked over prior to being posted, which ensures each job is legitimate and scam-free. Flex jobs is not a free site, but they do offer quality jobs at a reasonable price (as low as $14.95 per month) and they are committed to providing quality job listings within a wide variety of career areas. 

I subscribed to flex jobs soon after my divorce and found a wonderful job typing college manuscripts for $20 per hour. That was over five years ago, and to this day, I still get invitations to do administrative work from home in my spare time!

2. Cash Back Post Purchase

If you tend to be a tech-savvy consumer, why not earn a few bucks after you purchase something that your family needs. The world of today’s smartphones and other electronic devices offers shrewd family shoppers some terrific opportunities to score a bit of easy income after they’ve shopped.

Paribus is an online tool that scans your emails, tracks your purchases, and pays you the difference if it discovers a price change after you buy something. This clever app monitors 29 retailers, including family favorites like Zappos, Walmart, and Target. It’s easy money you otherwise wouldn’t get back and all you have to do is download it and hit the road shopping.

I’ve been using this clever tool for a couple of years now and have easily added several hundred bucks to my bank account literally doing nothing!

3. Rent Your Stuff

One great way to earn a few easy dollars is to turn your stuff into an income source by renting it through legitimate websites. I originally thought this was a bunch of nonsense until several of my friends started doing it. My college roommate rented her pool for someone’s family reunion last month and made $500 for one afternoon! A colleague rented his jeep for a day tour of our seaside community for $300. The list is truly endless.

Here are some sites that you can use to rent your gear:

• Rentything.com
• Babiesgetaway.com
• Peerrenters.com

Baby and kid paraphernalia are hot items to rent because families don’t want to haul this stuff on vacations or for other travel reasons. A hot, trending company to pursue is babyquip.com. Anyone interested can fill out a brief application and attend a free webinar to learn more about launching and running their baby gear business. Babyquip trains applicants in all aspects of running the business including baby gear safety and cleanliness, providing concierge-level customer service to families, sales, social media, marketing, and even public relations.

---

4. Sell Your Clutter

As parents, whether we like it or not, we tend to collect a lot of clutter once our precious baby enters our lives. Even the most organized families seem to accumulate piles of extra stuff once they become a parent. We have an unusual story going from no kids to four in less than three years, but even families who have one or two kids know how easy it is for all sorts of baby and kid items to creep into their lives. Once our family hit the eight kid mark, we were besieged with mountains of baby clothes, toddler items, toys, yard gear, car stuff, and everything in between. It truly was overwhelming.

We donated most of our extra kid stuff throughout the years because we simply needed to streamline and get rid of the massive amounts of clutter we accumulated in such a short period of time. Today, however, families are doing something very smart—selling their "stuff" for cash.

Here are some trusted sites that friends and listeners of the Mighty Mommy podcast are relying on to declutter and make a few easy bucks.

• Gazelle or DeCluttr.com are great apps to help you sell old computers, books, video games, smartphones, DVDs, and CDs.
• uBid – An online auction store. They sell everything from discount certificates to collectibles.
• Tradesy – Another place to sell bags, shoes, designers clothes, and accessories.
• VarageSale – An “online garage sale.” Anything that you would put in your garage sale, you can put on this site.

5. Type For Cash

As I mentioned earlier, the first job I landed for some great extra cash was typing college manuscripts for over $20 an hour! Because I type over 100 words per minute, finding gigs where I can produce typed content is usually the first place I look when I need some easy money. I work two full-time jobs that I absolutely love, but I still fill in the gaps throughout the year landing typing freelance work.

Here are a few places you can check out if pounding the keyboard is your thing.

• TDEC – Data entry is a popular occupation for anyone that’s looking to make money online. TDEC is hiring data entry specialists at their various locations and dozens of states.
• Scribie – If you’re a fast typer, working at Scribie is an excellent option for you. All that you have to do is watch a video and transcribe the audio. You can get paid anywhere from $5 to $20 per an audio hour.
• MegaTypers – This is another data entry site that offers a variety of services to their clients. If you work with MegaTypers, you could be entering data or transcribing voice to text. The faster you type, the more you’ll earn. You can make anywhere from $0.45 per 1000 words to $1.5 per 100 words.

6. Take Paid Surveys

Before you go rolling your eyes at this suggestion, let me tell you that taking paid surveys is a great fit for someone who has several free hours scattered about their week that might otherwise just be wasted surfing the net or mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. I myself have made hundreds of dollars taking paid surveys when my kids were younger and I was truly stuck at home for many hours a week.

Here are some legit sites you can visit to earn some money for your rainy day account.

• SurveyJunkie.com –  Survey Junkie's rewards program offers gift cards and cash payouts via PayPal. This was the first paid survey company I tried. It was easy and fun.
• PrizeRebel.com – With Prize Rebel, you can easily complete online surveys from your computer at home.
• SurveyRewardz – Create a free account. Take surveys. Get Paid.
• SwagBucks – SwagBucks is more than a survey site. They let you earn cash through watching videos, answering questions, shopping, and much more.
• MindSwarms – This is one of my favorites. It’s an interesting product review site. You video yourself using the product and reviewing it, and then you send it in.

What ways have you made some extra income as a stay-at-home parent? Share your thoughts in the comment section at quickanddirtytips.com/mighty-mommyor post your ideas on the Mighty Mommy Facebook page. You can also connect with me on Twitter @MightyMommy or email me at mommy@quickanddirtytips.com.  Visit my family-friendly boards at Pinterest.com/MightyMommyQDT.