Earn money from home – the ideal investment?
Petrol is getting so expensive it will soon be more cost effective to walk, so more people than ever are thinking up ways that they can earn money from home quickly. I suppose it follows on from the work at home Moms phenomenon that dominated the 90s, you remember all those ads in the local classifieds on how you can make money fast from the comfort of your own sofa? I’m not sure if people are more sceptical now or not, but there’s definitely a lot more people trying to work this business out for better or worse.
I call it a business but in reality there are so many people doing different things and it definitely depends on experience. A few I’ve been reading up on are:
- Selling on eBay
- Forex (stocks) trading
- Online investment clubs
I really have no interest in selling my junk on eBay (is there a big market for empty pizza boxes?) and also forex/stock trading scares me more than saw II. However the online investment club is a new one for me as I’ve been following it on another money blog at 4 hour workweek, Eric also gives updates on how much he’s making per month with it which is great.
It seems like he’s getting around 7% APR which is great considering how much most local banks our paying on interest lately. The basic principle is you make lots of little loans (as low as £20) to people based on their credit history and also what they are doing with the money. In theory only a small portion of the loans will go bad so the risk is spread out. The reason I’m including this as an online job is that working out who to lend to and how much takes time and effort in itself and I suppose it could be quite interesting too. It’s your chance to play bank manager! Like any investment though it’s not without risk and as usual the more risk you take the more you can make. But at the same time how safe are the banks anyway, even bank robbers have given up stealing from them.
How much can you make? Well some people are claiming up to 8-9% interest so for £10,000 invested you could make just under a grand a year which is pretty good. It does seem a lot safer than shares/stocks so might be an alternative for someone unwilling to head down that road. I do have to mention that if you’re in the UK you will need to try Zopa as that one Eric talks about isn’t available here.
Investing money is one of those tricky things I’ve never got to grips with, I once heard the saying “if you don’t understand it don’t put your money in it” by a famous stock broker. It’s true there are plenty of stories of people losing the house on this or that investment, but most of the time it comes back to the fact that they didn’t do their homework beforehand. It’s the same with any advice I give out whether it involves an investment of time or money, you gotta research it first, too many people dive into things based on “facts” by some anonymous internet nerd J
This may seem a bit Tony Robbins but you should also consider the things you’re teaching yourself as an investment. I mean lots of people (I didn’t) invest 1000s of pounds going to university in the hope of making big money 10 years down the line, it amazes me so many people can’t invest even a fraction of that time learning something new for free. Maybe it’s a case of where to learn as there’s no course on earning money online so how do you know who to listen too? Ultimately though it all comes back to trying things out and being prepared to fail because it’s the only way to succeed at anything. Most of the things I try don’t work and so can seem on the surface like a huge waste of time but it’s not. That knowledge acquired is only available to you and other people who have tried and failed and that does have value.
