I’m regularly asked by friends and family how I make money as a student, especially during the current pandemic when the usual options such as bar work are not available. In this post, I’m going to give some general details of ways that I have made money over the last few years and then I will write a few more specific blog entries about individual methods that I have found that actually work for me. The first thing I’m going to say is that on their own, many of these methods are not going to make you rich, but they are worth doing as many of them are pretty much free money.
Blogging
At the time of writing this article, this blog is not actually monetised as I don’t feel there is currently enough content for it to be approved by Google for AdSense and I haven’t had the time to search out relevant products to link to. But I do have a couple of other blogs on niche topics that I have adverts and affiliate links on, which earn me between £50 and £100 per month.
Tutoring
If you are happy teaching children and other students then tutoring is well worth considering. I used to do face to face tutoring locally, but now I do it via video calls. My students are all local to me and I don’t work through a platform, but there are a number of tutoring platforms out there that will match students to tutors and provide the infrastructure and payment facilities for you.
Vlogging
I’m going to start of by admitting that I have had no real success with vlogging, but that may just be because I haven’t spent the time to successfully build a channel and dedicated followers. There is definitely money to be made from YouTube in terms of advertising revenue and sponsorships, but it does require a lot of time and effort to make your channel stand out from all the others that are out there.
Surveys
This is an area that is definitely not going to make you rich, but there are a plethora of survey sites and similar out there. The premise of most of them is the same, answer a few questions and get paid a small amount of money for your time. Earnings are usually less than £1 per survey on many of the sites, but those survey usually only take a few minutes of your time to complete, although there are sites that will offer larger payouts for longer surveys on more technical subjects.
Focus Groups/Web Testing
I’m lumping these together as the idea is similar, you get paid for providing feedback on a website or a product. These are usually undertaken via video conference and involve giving your feedback on the navigability of a new website that is under development or your impression of packaging for a product that is being marketed. They are similar to surveys, but usually take up to an hour and will pay £15 – £25 for your time.
There are many other ways that you can make money as a student, and I would love to hear your suggestions, so if you have a method that has worked for you, leave a comment.