Whether your hours have been reduced, you’ve been furloughed, or you’ve been laid off altogether, many of us have experienced some form of job loss due to the pandemic. Smart shopping expert, Trae Bodge shares practical tips for how you can start earning money from home.

Do you have a skill that doesn’t involve in-person contact, like graphic design, illustrating, or editing? Use a platform, like Fiverr.com to look for work opportunities. Categories such as ebooks, video and animation, music and audio, and gaming have been particularly popular during this time. Fiverr provides a safe place for people to find work, as everything is done digitally and online, and they were the first company to pledge support for the Freelance Relief fund, enacted by the Freelancer’s Union, which will offer financial assistance to freelancers of up to $1000 per freelance household.

How about teaching? Virtual instruction is perfect for right now, while we’re all staying home. While you’re used to teaching in person, you can tweak your lessons to teach virtually using platforms, like Zoom, Skype, or Facetime. Things like music classes, fitness instruction, and tutoring work really well this way.

How about a little spring cleaning? There are lots of items in your home that you can sell for cash! Tech is one of my favorite categories because it can be very lucrative. And It turns out that Americans have $43B worth of tech items they don’t use.  That’s almost $200 per person! You can sell items, like phones and laptops by using a site like Decluttr. It’s an easy platform to use, and they’ve instituted contact-less shipping, so it’s safe and simple to sell.

Are you the owner of a small business? If you’re new to e-commerce, eBay introduced a new program called “Up & Running,” which helps retailers without an e-commerce presence start selling online by offering a free basic eBay store for three months, no selling fees, educational resources and more now through June 30. Small business owners looking for ways to connect with customers can visit ebay.com/upandrunning to learn more. And to give you an idea, right now, items, like lighting kits, smart home products, and indoor cooking appliances, like bread machines, mixers, and fryers, are very popular. You can also sell your gently-used items on eBay, and it takes under a minute to list!

And for a little extra cash, try focus groups and surveys! The L’Oreal Consumer Testing Bureau and Pink Panel provide opportunities to test beauty products for free products and cash. And then there are focus group firms, like Advanced OpinionsG2 is another one that I discovered recently. You can complete reviews of specific tech platforms, like Zoom or Dropbox, in exchange for Amazon gift cards.

Visit TrueTrae.com for more information!