What Has Worked For You?

jmd4eva

We made quite a bit in 2012 by selling things on ebay, buying things from reduced/cheap shops and selling to other family (still less than retail!), quidco is a great earner for us, as is tesco clubcard. Shop and Scan pays us about £50 a month in vouchers which is awesome too. We have also done a few referrals through credit cards, insurance, ec that pays £10 a time too.

This year, we're going to try and get onto more research panels (e.g. Kantar ones) and sell more on ebay. Thinking about buying bulk and selling at markets/car boots and stuff too.

gb12345

These aren't all no-spend methods of making money, but as the outlays are fairly low, thought I'd include them.

1. I've recently got back into affiliate marketing - bought 5 domains in Sept/Oct for a variety of topics. All 5 have started generating income, with 3 of them having covered their year's registration/hosting costs already (1 is at double the amount).
2. eBooks with Amazon KDP - started with producing an eBook version of a couple of old out of copyright books, then went on to my own material. varying levels of success, but my latest (a technical book that I published a week before Christmas) has already earned $30 royalties without any promotion yet.
3. self-publishing - the next step after eBooks. Decided that my technical book was good enough to justify being a proper book, so decided to publish it. Used Amazon's CreateSpace service and paid $25 for extended publishing option. So far I've sold 2 copies at £7 royalties each, again with no promotion and without it being available through all channels yet.
4. Freelancing - signed up for a couple of Freelance sites in August when I was between contracts. Have made about £700 so far, doing PHP coding and MS Office projects. Haven't got so much time for this now, as I was only out of work for a month and a half, but definitely worth doing if you have the time.

I also do the usual surveys, but the earnings from them are obviously lower than the potential earnings from the other methods (although I am lined up for a phone survey soon that will pay £70 for a couple of hours work).

My plans for 2013 are to produce more websites, write more books/ebooks (next one is under way) and actively promote the books.

The_Hurricane

Are ISA's worth it? I would be depositing a small amount (£2000) and even at the best rate (3.1%) it's only a return of £62.

mkooo

The_Hurricane wrote: »

Are ISA's worth it? I would be depositing a small amount (£2000) and even at the best rate (3.1%) it's only a return of £62.

In my opinion not particularly although you get what you are prepared to risk, ISA's are pretty much 0% risk so the reward is next to nothing.

The_Hurricane

mkooo wrote: »

In my opinion not particularly although you get what you are prepared to risk, ISA's are pretty much 0% risk so the reward is next to nothing.

What do you recommend instead?

EeViL_WeEvil

First direct do an 8% regular saver that you can put 300 per month in as long as you don't touch the money for 12 months. Add that to the 100 switch fee and you get about 250 over the year. Ish.

Whilst isa rates are not amazing atm (the best is about 2.8% last time I looked) don't overlook the fact that if you don't use your isa allowance for the year you lose it forever. Isa rates won't be so low forever and you may regret not taking up on your allowance.

The halifax account is brilliant. £5 per month for free!

You should definately take all that money out of your current account though as stated above.

The_Hurricane

I've decided to plug £2k into the Coventry ISA (3.1%) at least this now gives me a little base in relation to savings and along with this I've £200 invested (if you want to call it that) in Premium Bonds.

I'd still like to tighten things with my affairs, what else does everyone suggest?

Lynnelle

hese aren't all no-spend methods of making money, but as the outlays are fairly low, thought I'd include them.

I've recently got back into affiliate marketing - bought 5 domains in Sept/Oct for a variety of topics. All 5 have started generating income, with 3 of them having covered their year's registration/hosting costs already (1 is at double the amount).
eBooks with Amazon KDP - started with producing an eBook version of a couple of old out of copyright books, then went on to my own material. varying levels of success, but my latest (a technical book that I published a week before Christmas) has already earned $30 royalties without any promotion yet.
self-publishing - the next step after eBooks. Decided that my technical book was good enough to justify being a proper book, so decided to publish it. Used Amazon's CreateSpace service and paid $25 for extended publishing option. So far I've sold 2 copies at £7 royalties each, again with no promotion and without it being available through all channels yet.
Freelancing - signed up for a couple of Freelance sites in August when I was between contracts. Have made about £700 so far, doing PHP coding and MS Office projects. Haven't got so much time for this now, as I was only out of work for a month and a half, but definitely worth doing if you have the time.
I also do the usual surveys, but the earnings from them are obviously lower than the potential earnings from the other methods (although I am lined up for a phone survey soon that will pay £70 for a couple of hours work).

My plans for 2013 are to produce more websites, write more books/ebooks (next one is under way) and actively promote the books.

Hello PB

How does the affiliate marketing work? I put websites together myself so would be interested in this idea of earning some extra income?

also the freelance websites - which ones did you use.

I have an idea for two books to sell too and am in the process of writing/researching them - thought I'd look in to the self publishing area of publishing.

Lynnelle

Lynnelle

apologies I meant to put in the name GB but got your name wrong.

gb12345

Hi Lynnelle,

Affiliate marketing works by paying you a commission each time a visitor referred from your site makes a purchase (or in some cases just clicks on a link - although this is less common).

The actual process can range from a simple banner on a blog to mini-sites designed to advertise a particular product,category or merchant.

The one guiding rule is making the adverts relevant to the content of the blog/site.

I've found that very few surfers click on banners any more, so I concentrate on content rich sites with product reviews and links to sites where visitors can purchase the product.

There are individual merchants running their own affiliate programs (such as Amazon), but most work through affiliate networks such as TradeDoubler, PaidOnResults and Commission Junction.

Regarding the Freelancing, I'm signed up with Freelancer.com and Elance. You need to be careful at first as there are a number of fake projects posted such as scammers looking for people to sell on eBay for them, but you can soon identify them. Also, you need to remember that you are competing with freelancers from places like India, who can afford to work for a couple of dollars an hour - so don't expect to immediately earn mega bucks - you need to gain a reputation.

Createspace is definitely a very easy and cheap way to self-publish. The provide a Word template for formatting your book, which you then save as a PDF and upload. You can then use their cover designer to design your cover (very easy - no technical skills required). As they're also a part of Amazon, they also make it very easy for you to generate your book as a Kindle ebook as well. It took me about 3/4 of an hour to publish my book in physical and eBook form and both versions were listed in Amazon within a couple of days (eBook almost immediately)