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So, you’re stuck at home and you have some downtime. Maybe you’re thinking about trying your hand at some money-making activities online while you’re not doing much else. If so, you might be wondering how you can make actual cash from your computer. The good news is, there are safe and legitimate ways to make some cash right now, without leaving your chair.

Let’s look at some reliable ways to make cash from home.

Getting Paid to Take Surveys

Yes, companies do actually pay for people to take surveys. That’s not something your buddies made up to fool you! If you’re stuck with some downtime and short on cash, survey-taking is a great way to get a bit of spending money flowing to your pocket.

This is relatively easy work, too. You just answer (a lot of) questions and survey companies pay you for your effort. You might be wondering why this even pays out. Information gathered from survey-taking is used by ad agencies and other companies to inform their advertisement campaigns and their product development. As such, they’re happy to pay survey collectors for the data, resulting in a cool payday for survey takers.

Mechanical Turk

Another option is to work through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. The work through this platform is often pretty much menial labor: you’ll sort things, categorize photos, input data into forms, and various other repetitive tasks. While these don’t pay out a ton of money, it’s a reliable and consistent source of income.

For people looking to bring in side-money, Mechanical Turk is a great way to consistently pull in work. You don’t need to go looking for jobs: they’re constantly updated through this portal. Just be warned that this doesn’t pay out a ton of money, and sometimes you might encounter tasks that are a bit unsettling. Some medical research tasks, for example, could include unpleasant imagery.

Secondhand Sales

Have you got a good selection of older items you’d like to offload for a profit? This is an easy way to clear some cash from your computer. Just go to a site like eBay or Craigslist and list the items you’re looking to sell. Prospective buyers will come to you! Then, it’s just a matter of shipping or meeting the buyer.

Be careful meeting with anyone you meet online. Arrange a meet in a public place, and make sure you exchange the money for the item at the same time so no one feels ripped off. Bring a friend with you, too, if you want to feel more secure!