Times are tough for the average household at the moment, as a cost-of-living crisis is compounded by disastrous market responses to the government’s latest ‘mini-budget’. As household budgets are stretched ever thinner, more people are seeking simple and effective ways to increase their monthly income. What can you do to create a robust second income stream from home, on top of a salaried role?
Dropshipping
E-commerce has become a central tenet of modern retail, with smaller independents following in the footsteps of contemporary retail giants in offering online storefronts and next-day delivery as standard. The ubiquity of services like Amazon has created a new opportunity for budding at-home entrepreneurs, that enables you to benefit from the convenience of online shopping without having to build a logistics network behind it.
This opportunity is known as dropshipping, a practice that describes the opening and management of a digital storefront without having to buy and store the stock you sell through it. Instead, you network with a wholesaler or manufacturer, and negotiate the sale and delivery of items straight from the wholesale warehouse to the buyer. In essence, you are a middleman between supplier and buyer, able to earn commission from e-commerce while taking responsibility for marketing, customer service and little else.
Trading Currency
Consumer solutions have not just been revolutionised with regard to e-commerce, though. There has also been a democratisation of sorts with regard to trading platforms, with foreign exchange markets only really accessible to the average citizen through bureaus de change.
Today, though, retail trading platforms enable you to engage directly with the forex market whenever you like – allowing you to build a flexible side-hustle growing your savings through observing and trading through currency pairs. More experienced traders can use CFD trading to speculate on the movement of the market, with the possibility of earning large profits through minimal initial investment.
Blogging
The internet is a gift that keeps on giving with regard to the act of making money at home. Ever since the early days of dial-up internet, there have been those making a comfortable secondary income from creating online content; indeed, blogging is practically as old as the internet, and remains today a lucrative method of earning.
By building a following through regular web or social media blogging, you can build a personal brand and attract investment from advertisers in a number of ways. If owning your own website, you can sell space on it to generate advertising revenue; if on social media, you can seek sponsorship contracts with other brands wherein you are paid to feature their products and services in your content.
Investing
Lastly, perhaps one of the simplest ways to seek an additional income source is to invest your money. By placing a tranche of your savings in an index fund, you can grow them passively with the stock market. Alternatively, you can futureproof your money by investing in property – an evergreen investment that promises to continue to grow in value, and offers additional income possibilities through renting.