Every now and then, I allow someone (or a brand) to guest post on LottyEarns. The rules are 1) I have to like them and 2) They need to know more about a subject than I do (and I bloody know everything! haha).

So my friend Jon from over at The Money Shed is a money making pro – and does it in ways I don’t. Reading this has made me think I need to up my game, although I’m doing pretty well with JobSpotter at the moment.

Here’s Jon’s story on how he makes thousands (SERIOUSLY) of pounds from the internet. And no, he ain’t selling Younique on Facebook.

Some people would say you can only earn a pittance online. Muddling around for low paying surveys to click sites paying you 2p a click but let me tell you that isn’t the case and I am LIVING PROOF!

My name is Jon and I run the UK’s largest community website dedicated to earning money from home called The Money Shed so I like to think I’m in a good position to tell you all about how I went from earning next to nothing online to making £2500+ a month without any trouble.

I started out on my money making journey about 12 years ago now doing surveys for 50p and being amazing when I managed to make an extra £10 a month! I decided to start looking into selling on eBay and I remember having to get up early on a Sunday to go the local car boot sale and hoping I can make some money from the slightly less-than-tat things I would buy.

I think a low point came for me when I decided it would be a good idea to import some clothes to sell and bought 100 pairs of blue socks which were as thin as anything and also 50 pairs of LUMINOUS hotpants!

It was around this time that I decided there must be other ways to earn money from home that don’t involve having to flog hot pants and I discovered a text Q&A company called ChaCha.

They were offering to pay a whopping 3-7p per answer that you provided when people text in a question. You would answer them from your laptop so it only took a minute or two each time but I spent around 10 months slogging away with them before they withdrew from the UK market and I was left with nothing again.

If there is one thing earning money online from home has taught me it’s that you should never have all your eggs in one basket. Companies and contracts that you depend on can be ended at any time and it’s important you don’t fall into the trap of feeling too comfortable.

I was now at the point if being more determined than ever to earn a decent amount from home and so took my text Q&an answering skills to Bongo/63336 who paid a heck of a lot more than ChaCha were and also I also worked for Web Search Evaluation firm Leapforce who pay WAY above the UK Minimum wage. I was earning around £1000+ a month now but wanted to have more ‘irons in the fire’ in case one of them went.

Alongside all this, I had also started to dip my toe into traditional mystery shopping. It was great getting meals out paid for and things I wanted from shops but those reports sure took their time to write. I remember getting a paid for trip to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest and having to mystery shop some retail outlets there and the report for those visits must have taken me about an hour to write!

A few months later I discovered the smartphone task apps such as Task360 / Roamler / BeMyEye / StreetBees / Field Agent which were paying a HUGE amount more than traditional mystery shopping from the likes of Market Force / Retail Active etc.

Using these apps you can do multiple store visits in a day as they are just a case of going into a store, taking a photo or two and leaving. I remember one evening I took 10 tasks on Field Agent that involved visiting a Weatherspoons pub and buying a vodka and coke, taking a photo of it and then leaving and I was getting paid £10 a time and I did around 12 of them! £120 for a few hours work was very impressive!

The last two pieces of the puzzle were risk-free Matched Betting which brings in an easy £1000+ a month without any trouble and of course running The Money Shed and getting into blogging.

It seems ages ago now when I was sat at my laptop earning 50p for a survey but it just shows the more you expose yourself to these sort of opportunities the more you will earn in the long run and there’s NO BETTER WAY than joining up to our forum on The Money Shed which has over 4500 users and over 96,000 posts all from people in the UK talking about how they earn money online from home.

Hopefully this post has helped inspire you to take a look at what else is out there when it comes to earning money from home and give yourself a much deserved pay rise!

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