8 Ways to Make Additional Income Living in Your Car!
Although living in your car can be a great way to save money an reduce the cost of your living expenses there will still be some costs you can’t avoid unfortunately. To help you meet the cost of living pressures we’ve compiled some of the best techniques to make additional income, these include:
- Free Lancing
- Crypto Faucets
- Surveys & Studies
- Seasonal work
- Photography
- Remote Work
- Selling Adult Content
- Start a small business
Freelance platforms
The ‘Freelance’ culture has recently exploded with people being able to work when and where they want. There have been plenty of platforms connecting employers and employees together to complete work on a freelance basis.
Fiverr & Upwork are some of the most common places for finding free lance positions with the most common roles being in IT, Sales & Marketing, Admin & Customer Support, Finance & Accounting and Writing & translating.
If you are looking for a more hands on role or something away from a computer Airtasker, Ride share & Food Delivery sites are great platforms for making some extra cash.
Crypto Faucets
Crypto Faucets are websites or apps that allow users to earn free crypto currency rewards, typically after completing a simple task. Since the rise in interest of crypto currency as a whole there has been a wide variety of free faucets popping up all over the internet.
Freebitco.in is one of my favorite crypto faucets and has been around for many years and as the name suggests you can receive bitcoin for absolutely free. Now there is a catch, the amount of Bitcoin you receive is actually quite small and you are limited to collection to every hour.
The amount of Bitcoin a user receives typically ranges between around 10 – 120000 Satoshi as it fluctuates with the price of bitcoin at the time. It uses a random number generator with the higher the number giving you a greater payout, up to $200 USD per spin, you can also get bonuses from playing high or low which increases the payout amount. Below is an example of the site:
We have been using this on and off since 2018 and have accumulated a fair stack of Satoshi which now generates a small amount of interest which is great to watch (around 4% per year). If you are looking to start earning your first free crypto make sure to checkout the website here.
Make sure to be careful when looking for free faucets as there are many scams in the space, most importantly never share your private keys!
Selling Adult Content
This may seem silly to some, but plenty of people (both male and female) are making a decent side income from selling adult content on online platforms. With the rise of platforms like OnlyFans, Feet Finder & Patreon the ability to safely and securely sell adult content online has become easily accessible.
These platforms allow for subscription base pricing model allowing for subscribers to pay reoccurring amounts that can quickly add up. This is definitely not for everyone, but with the right audience, content and some marketing to get yourself out there it can help cover some of your costs.
If you are uncomfortable selling adult content some of these platforms allow for the sale of other types of content. OnlyFans in particular allows for the sale of Ebooks, private messages and physical products allowing a greater variety of content creators to monetize their audience.
Seasonal Work
Picking up a seasonal job is another great way to help boost your income when living on the road. Most seasonal jobs include harvesting fruit on farms, theme park operators in peak times or hospitality jobs. There is a lot of flexibility with seasonal work making it ideal for those looking to live the nomadic lifestyle and travel the country picking up work along the way.
Seasonal workers are in high demand with almost an additional 1 million seasonal positions posted in the USA alone in 2021 (Source: Bloomberg). This style of work is a great way to keep fit and meet new like-minded people that are also travelling, particularly foreigners on a visa.
There are many places advertising seasonal work positions with the US Department of Labor offering a great resource on their site, seasonaljobs.dol.gov. This site allows to filter by location and classification and often require little to no experience.
Survey & Online Studies
There are plenty of online platforms now days giving out money upon completion of surveys. Although the pay can sometimes be dismal and inconsistent, some websites can offer a consistent way to pick up a few extra dollars in the form of cash or gift cards.
With a low barrier to entry to complete online surveys, this is a great way to make some additional income whilst travelling. You will need a steady internet connection and phone, laptop or tablet to be able to sign up and complete surveys on most platforms.
Some of the biggest survey platforms include Swagbucks, Branded Surveys, Marketagent & Survey Junkie. Rewards can vary with payouts as low as $1 USD to upwards of $10 USD depending on the platform and the length or purpose of the survey.
Photography
Whether it’s taking portraits for families or product images for small businesses, photography is a great way to make additional income. If you have a passion for capturing life’s precious moments or a knack for camera equipment this could be ideal for you.
A downside of photography is the competitive nature and the saturation of people fighting for peoples business. Having a good portfolio to provide customers and businesses is a great way to stand out along with a website or social media account for added authority.
If you don’t want to deal with customers directly there are many places to sell your images online now days as stock images and receive a commission on each sale. One of the biggest platforms doing this is Adobe Stock with a 33% royalty rate for all images sold, you can sign up to be an Adobe contributor here.
Remote Work
In recent times remote work, either casually or on a more permanent basis has become increasingly popular. This is great for everyone involved from the freedom and flexibility for employees to work from where they want to, and employers having a greater pool of staff to recruit from not limited by distance.
Remote work is often offered by traditional employers and can be contract, casual or part/ full time. Remote work is typically for fields that rely on the use of a computer and internet connection to complete the task at hand.
Common remote work positions include accounting, marketing, administration, virtual assistants, customer service representatives, data entry and graphic designers. Most job advertising sites will now allow you to filter by position listings that are solely remote which is a lot easier than trying to negotiate working arrangements with employers.
Start a small business from your car
Although this may be one of the most challenging and labor intensive methods of making an income on this list it can definitely be one of the most rewarding.
Space is going to be one of the biggest challenges depending on what industry you wish to start a business in, making some options better than others. Running a consulting service, digital marketing or running a drop shipping store are common picks that don’t require much more than a laptop and a steady internet connection.
Consulting businesses are great if you are highly specialized in one industry or have plenty of experience in a particular field. Some of the most common fields for consulting include Marketing, Financial, HR, Legal and IT.
Drop Shipping is great for those who love marketing and promoting products without the traditional issues of purchasing and storing goods prior to sale. A basic website and social media accounts for advertising are typically used with many platforms allowing for free trials such as Shopify.
Conclusion
Using one of these techniques for making an additional income whilst living out of your car is a great way to fund your trip or day to day expenses. If you’d like more information on expenses associated with living in your car make sure to checkout our article on The true costs of living in your car.
If you are looking for a more traditional ‘boots on the ground’ or remote job as a source of income make sure to read our guide to How to get a job while living in your car.
