Freelancing

Freelancing is an excellent way to work on your own terms. There are sites designed to help you find freelance work. There are some that charge membership fees, but there are ones that are also free. They charge the provider (person or company who listed the job) a percentage of the fee. So, let's say the provider posted a job with a budget of $20.00. The freelance site charges the provider a service fee based on the budget amount for the job. The provider would be charged $22.00. You still get paid $20.00.

There seem to be tons of web design and IT related jobs posted on these sites. This is not my area, but I tell you, I wish it were. If you are a web design guru, you need to check it out. There are also data entry jobs, graphic design, software development, and too many others to list.

I have recently started working with oDesk. The great thing about oDesk is they have a policy that guarantees you will get paid for the work you do. They do have a program that you download and run while you are working. It basically tracks your time, which project you are working on, etc. This is good for both you and the provider.

elance is another freelance site to check into. They have a both free and paid memberships. The free membership limits how many keywords you can put in your profile,amount of proposals (applications) you can subit at one time, etc. To me, it is just not worth the money to pay for membership, unless you begin to complete enough jobs to cover the cost and still earn money. There is always the option to upgrade later on.

Other freelance sites include: guru, gofreelance.com, and allfreelancework.com. There are also many others out there geared toward specific industries.

Another related site is Amazon Mechanical Turk. This site is run through Amazon.com, so you know it's legitimate. You create a free account with them and work on what the call HITs, or Human Intelligence Tasks. There is a huge list of these HITs on their site. Most do not pay much at all, but are very easy to complete. You submit you HIT for approval and are paid into your account. Then, you can either transfer that into Amazon gift cards or have it transferred to your bank account. Examples of the HITs I have done are: finding the origin and meaning of a name, locating email addresses for hotels, and things like that. This is a very easy wake to make a little extra money. If you love Amazon.com, like I do, you will really appreciate the gift card option.