Have you ever thought about what you could do with an extra $2000 a month? What would you spend it on?
Would you save for a vacation? Ape into crypto? Maybe throw a huge end-of-the-year party with clowns and one of those bougie chocolate fountains?
Heck, if you know how to live cheaply, two grand might even cover all your monthly expenses.
It’s fun to dream about these things. The hard part is putting in the work.
Fortunately, I’ve got some ideas to make that work easier. Here’s how to make $2000 a month from home (or really, anywhere).
I’ve personally used a combination of these methods to build a five-figure-per-month income, and I’ve met people having success in every one of these methods.
Let’s go.
Table of Contents
The pros and cons of earning on your own terms
There is no such thing as 100% upside. If you want to make 2000 dollars a month from home, you’re going to make some sacrifices. Here are some of the pros and cons.
Pros:
✅ Flexibility. Work when you want from wherever you want
✅ No commute. Bye-bye traffic jam friends — catch you on the flip-side.
✅ Time. Make a schedule that works for you.
Cons:
❌ Increased solitude. Hello Darkness, my old friend.
❌ Balance. The line between work and home fades.
❌ Less social interaction. If you’re an introvert, this actually may be a pro.
How to make $2000 a month from home (11 ways)
Whether you want to become a digital nomad or make money from the comfort of your home, here are some of the best ways to do it.
Note: Most salary data comes directly from the ZipRecruiter database.
1. Virtual assistant
If you have no idea what you want to do, then become a virtual assistant. This is a great way for you to dip your toes into the work-from-anywhere pool to figure out if it’s for you.
You’ll constantly be working on new tasks. Virtual assistants may be editing writing projects one day and booking travel arrangements the next.
You need a passion for learning new things, and you’ll learn the ins and outs of self-employment.
How to make $2000 a month online as a virtual assistant
It’s not unheard of for entry-level virtual assistants to make $300 to $400 a month per client (depending on responsibilities).
If you want to make $2000 per month from home this way, you’ll need at least 5 clients. Or one mega-client that you dedicate more energy towards.
VAs with certain specialties can charge more. For example, a specialist in video editing, podcast management, or SEO may be able to charge extra because they have high-value in-demand skills.
If you love this kind of work, full-time virtual assistants average $67,000 a year in the US, according to ZipRecruiter.
To get started, check out these best virtual assistant courses.
This free VA masterclass is also a perfect starting point.
I’ve taken loads of virtual assistant courses, and here are reviews of my two favorites:
Increase your income streams
Is being a VA the end of the line? Are you stuck there forever?
No.
Keep specializing in bigger and better skills.
Niche down and become the go-to expert in your industry.
Start a blog or YouTube channel to talk about your virtual assistant career.
Once you build a brand, you can create your own products like courses. Building a name for yourself will also make you more attractive to clients. Instead of a no-name nobody, they’re hiring an influencer who knows their shiz.
2. Internet scoping
Scoping is a little-known gig, and it’s often confused with other types of work. A scopist transcribes legal proceedings using a court reporter’s shorthand and the audio recording.
You basically take what the court reporter transcribed live, and you clean it up — making you a hybrid between an editor and a legal transcriptionist.
Since most people haven’t heard of it, it’s not as crowded as other more popular online gigs.
There aren’t nearly as many people after this kind of work as there are bloggers, YouTubers, or freelance writers.
To learn more about this curious job, check out this guide on internet scoping jobs.
How to make $2000 a month from home as a scopist
Full-time entry-level scopists earn roughly $30,000 a year, while experienced scopists can earn twice as much.
To hit our $2k per month mark, let’s do some quick math.
A full-time entry-level scopist can pull in $2,500 per month. So you’ll need to put in roughly 32 hours a week to hit your income goal.
The speedier you get at your work, the fewer hours you’ll need. Experienced scopists can earn up to double these rates.
Now, I must mention that since you’re dealing with the legal system and different types of scoping software, this isn’t something you can start overnight. It’s an actual career, and it requires a bit of training.
The easiest way to get trained is with an accredited online scoping school. But before diving in head-first, check out this free scoping mini-course to make sure it’s right for you.
Increase your income streams
Once you master your scopist skills, picking up part-time work as a freelance proofreader should be easy.
You can also make extra money as a legal transcriptionist.
If work ever dries up with one facet, you can easily pivot into one of the others.
3. Blogging
I love blogging. It’s the ultimate way to earn money from home. It’s so versatile.
It takes time and patience to get off the ground, but once it does, you have a platform capable of multiple revenue streams
A blog owner has to wear several hats. You have to build and maintain the website, plugins, themes, etc.
You need to create content, be your own SEO, your own social media specialist, and most importantly, your own boss. A blogger is responsible for building their brand, keeping track of their books, and paying their own taxes.
It’s a challenging venture. But it’s also one of the most rewarding.
How to make $2000 a month blogging
According to ZipRecruiter, the average annual salary for a blogger is a little over $45,000 a year, which breaks down to a bit more than $3,750 a month. Averages aren’t super helpful in this case, though.
If your goal is to make $2000 per month, you have tons of options.
There are many factors involved, but let’s say you earn half from ads ($1000) and half from affiliate marketing ($1000).
Ads. With an average of $20 per 1,000 visitors, you’d need ~50,000 visits per month to hit $1000. (Many niches actually earn much more than this — potentially even double or triple — so in reality, you might not need nearly as much traffic to hit $1000).
Affiliates. Recommend helpful products in your content and earn commissions when people buy using your links. You can recommend tons of products and services, and eventually, they all start to add up and snowball — especially with recurring commissions.
To keep things simple, say you recommend one product that pays a $100 commission. You’d need 10 referrals to hit $1000.
Blogs aren’t about hourly income. It’s about creating content, monetizing, and allowing that single piece of content to generate income forever. It’s a combination of active and passive income.
The average is $38,000 per year, but many bloggers earn six- and even seven-figures (many also earn nothing if they give up too easily or don’t follow a proven plan).
Increase your income streams
Bloggers rarely blog and do nothing else. You can create a YouTube channel to repurpose your content and build an extra income stream (just like I do with Project Untethered!).
If you have a unique writing style, freelance writing could also be an opportunity to bring in extra money. I’ve had freelance clients who’ve hired me specifically because they liked my blog.
There are many strategies for building a money-making blog, but this one is my favorite (free course).
4. Freelance your skills
Freelancing is one of the fastest ways to start earning money from home, assuming you have a skill to offer. (And if you don’t, you can learn one of these beginner-friendly freelance jobs pretty quick!)
You can be a writer, proofreader, virtual assistant, editor, or anything else you can think of that someone would pay for. Seriously. You can even make money talking to lonely people and being an online friend (more on that shortly).
Just poke around Fiverr for a few minutes, and you’ll find some of the gigs are bizarre (to put it mildly).
If you’re brand spanking new with limited skills or experience, you can speed up the process by investing in a course — just make sure it’s a reputable one.
Speaking from experience, a good course can significantly cut down your learning curve (and the time it takes to start earning good money).
But if you’re confident in your skills, you can certainly move straight to picking up clients on your own.
How to make $2000 a month freelancing
Similar to VAs, freelancers across the board earn a national average of $68,958 a year. This largely depends on your experience and the specific service you’re offering. But for simplicity’s sake, that breaks down to roughly $33 an hour.
If your goal is to make 2000 dollars a month, you’ll only need to work about 60 hours a month, or 15 hours a week.
HOWEVER, remember that it’s not fair to compare a freelance rate to an employee rate apples-to-apples. Freelancers have to pay self-employment taxes, don’t get paid vacation or sick days, have to buy their own equipment, spend unpaid time on admin tasks, etc.
All of this should be built into your rates.
Increase your income streams
Any kind of freelancer can increase their income streams easily. You can blog and create a YouTube channel about your experiences to make even more money per month.
Let’s take freelance video editing to use as an example. Create your own YouTube channel and make videos. Talk about how you work, why you do certain things, video editing tutorials, and how you help content creators make a quality finished product.
You can do something similar with a blog and repurpose content into other avenues. Not only can this diversify income streams, but it can drastically increase your ability to be seen by potential clients.
If you’re specifically interested in freelance writing, I created a free course showing how to make your first $1000 as quickly as possible. Grab it below 👇
5. Photography
Being a photographer is something many creatives dream of doing professionally. There are multiple ways of making money.
You can work on your own time, create your own schedule, and build your own client roster as well as portfolio.
It’s also possible to branch out even further. Recently, I stumbled on a somewhat weird way “photographers” are making money — selling foot pictures. That’s right. Taking pics of their feet, then selling them.
Yeah, it can be weird. But surprisingly, it doesn’t have to be.
How to earn $2000 per month as a photographer
This all depends on the type of photography you do, your experience, and the demand for photography in your area.
For example, if you make a name for yourself in the lucrative wedding niche, you could potentially earn your full $2000 for shooting a single wedding per month.
Or if you want to make a quick $300 here and there, specializing in senior photos can be a great side hustle — at least during senior photo season.
If you decide to go the foot pics route, quality feet pics can potentially bring up to $25 a pop. I know, I was shocked too.
To hit $2000, you’d need 80 pics for a single client. But what if you had 8 clients? You could sell the same 10 pics to 8 different customers.
You can also sell stock photos for more passive income. As a photographer, you have many options, and you’re free to choose more than one.
Increase your income streams
Start with Instagram or a simple website to show off your work. Build out your portfolio. You can eventually put up ads, affiliate links, and sell prints or filters.
A website is nice because it’s essentially your own piece of online real estate. That said, plenty of photographers build their business on simpler, third-party platforms like Instagram.
If you’re looking for an extra revenue stream, freelance modeling is another gig that meshes well with photography work.
HOLD UP. Why settle for $2000 per month? Don’t sell yourself short. Here’s how to make $3000 a month.
6. Teach English
There are almost 8 billion people in the world. The vast majority of these folks are from countries where English is not the native language.
As these people get older, many of them need to learn English for school or work. You can help make this happen by teaching English online (or even in person if you like to travel).
Some platforms have no requirements while others, especially legitimate tutoring services, may require a degree or TEFL certification.
When it comes to TEFL certifications, you usually get what you pay for. You can pick up dirt-cheap certifications that are essentially a slip of paper, without any real training. Or you can take comprehensive courses that teach you to be an effective teacher.
I went the comprehensive course route (here’s a free helpful brochure from the company I used).
That said, if you’re not 100% sure it’s for you, you can either:
1.) Test the waters on platforms that don’t require a TEFL (like Cambly or Palfish)
2.) Pick up a budget TEFL certification to open up your options a bit more
How to make $2000 per month teaching English online
Entry-level jobs start in the $10 to $15 an hour range, with bonuses that can push you up over $20. Without a TEFL certification, you’ll likely fall on the lower end of the range.
Experienced teachers who find their own private students can earn upwards of $50 per hour. Remember, there are people (and multinational corporations) with deep pockets who want to learn English around the world.
At $20 an hour — a doable rate if you have a TEFL certification — it will only take you 100 hours to make 2000 dollars a month — or roughly 25 hours per week.
As you build your skills, you can cut out the middleman platforms to earn more.
Increase your income streams
By now, I bet you’re starting to see a pattern…
To maximize earnings, you can start a blog and YouTube channel or start a course to help people follow in your footsteps.
Whenever you start a new project, it pays to document your progress and share it with the public. You may be surprised by what it grows into.
Apart from that, many English teachers earn extra income as affiliates for the platform they teach for. For example, they’ll create videos on tips for getting hired by XYZ company, then they’ll share their affiliate link for anyone who wants to sign up.
7. Amazon
How do people who aren’t Jeff Bezos make money off Amazon?
The easiest way is with the Amazon affiliate program. You can use a blog, Youtube channel, or other social media platforms to promote almost any product imaginable to earn commissions.
You can also start your own business with retail arbitrage, start a fulfillment service, or sell handmade items Etsy style.
One of the most scalable models is selling private-label products.
You basically find a product that’s selling well (with as little competition as possible), create your own brand, source the product from a manufacturer, ship it to Amazon’s fulfillment warehouses, and slap it on Amazon.
This is commonly referred to as the Amazon FBA business model.
It’s obviously easier said than done, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could make some costly mistakes (speaking from experience here). To help avoid any pitfalls, check out this free Amazon FBA masterclass.
And for even more handholding, take a looksy at my Marketplace Superheroes review — an inside peek at my favorite Amazon training program.
How to make $2000 a month on Amazon
This all comes down to the strategy you choose, but let’s stick with private labeling.
Let’s say that after deducting all expenses (buying inventory, shipping, Amazon fees, ads, etc), you earn $10 for every unit you sell. To make $2,000 per month, you’d need to sell 200 units, or about seven per day.
With the right product, this is perfectly doable.
For example, just think of how many people search Amazon for yoga mats each day. If your listing showed up first, you’d make truckloads of sales. (Yoga mats are ridiculously competitive, by the way, please don’t actually choose it as your product).
Best of all, you can sell as many different types of products as you want, and you can even sell the same product in multiple countries.
Once everything is up and running, it’s fairly passive. Just make sure you don’t run out of stock.
Speaking of stock, that’s the biggest downside to this business plan. You need some money upfront to invest in your first inventory shipment. If this model sounds interesting to you but you lack startup funds, here’s how to save $5000 in 3 months (or less).
Increase your income streams
Again, if you start making decent money from any of these Amazon strategies, there are plenty of people who’d be interested in learning how you did it.
That means Youtube, a blog, a course, or even an eBook could bring in some extra income.
If you perfect the process, you may even be able to charge for consulting or coaching.
Once you get the feel for eCommerce, you could also branch off and try to sell your product outside of Amazon, eliminating pesky Amazon fees from your bottom line.
8. Rent out your stuff
Make your stuff work for you.
Have an extra room in your house? Rent it out on Airbnb.
Have an extra vehicle? Rent it on Turo.
An RV? Check out Outdoorsy.
A parking space? Neighbor or CurbFlip
Storage space? Storeatmyhouse.com (or also Neighbor)
If you own something you think others might like to rent, Google to see if there is a platform to list it on.
How to earn $2000 a month renting out your stuff
There are many rental combinations you can use to reach $2000, but let’s keep it simple.
Turo claims that people renting out their car on the app average $500 a month. If you want to make 2000 dollars a month this way, you’ll need four cars to make it happen.
Yes, people actually buy fleets of cars to rent out. It’s a legit business.
Or if you go the real estate route, Airbnb hosts rake in an average of $1,150 a month. Combine that with a car rental, parking space, and some storage space — and you have a relatively passive two grand per month.
To keep things realistic, however, you’ll probably need more than a spare bedroom if you want to make $1000 a month on Airbnb. Regardless, it’s a savvy way to leverage your extra space.
Increase your income streams
You don’t have to limit yourself to the stuff you already have.
Once you prove your business model works, you can start buying more things to rent out.
As mentioned, Turo has an entire section on its website that shows how you can start your own mini car rental business.
9. Customer service
Customer service representatives have some of the highest turnover rates in the country. It takes a special kind of person to find success in this field.
Because of the turnover rates, customer service gigs pay a decent wage, and the folks who stick with it can rise the ranks relatively quickly.
Best of all, companies are now offering more work-from-home positions. You can get all of the benefits without having to go into the office.
How to make $2k a month from home in customer service
According to ZipRecruiter, the average pay for a full-time customer service agent is around $35,000 a year. Or roughly $17 an hour.
For today’s exercise, you’ll need to work roughly 30 hours per week at that rate to cross the $2000 threshold.
Increase your income streams
It’s going to be a little more difficult turning this main project into multiple income streams.
My best advice is to find a side hustle (like anything on this list) or a monetizable hobby with the extra free time.
Or if you have another day job, invest your customer service income to put your money to work.
10. Virtual friend
How friendly are you? Are you a great listener? Do you have an interesting life — full of mystery, suspense, and intrigue?
If so, lonely people want you to be their friend.
And they’ll pay you for it.
Virtual friendship is a thing. I wrote a whole blog post on it showing how to get started.
If you consider yourself a friendly person, this can be an easy side hustle.
How to earn 2000 dollars a month as a virtual friend
Virtual friends can make as much as $50 an hour, though you’ll likely start closer to the $10-per-hour mark.
Trying to make $2,000 per month is going to be a cakewalk if you can master the art of friendship. If you crack the code to charging $50/hour, it will only take you 40 hours per month to hit your goal.
You chat, you play games, and you share virtual experiences — not a bad way to earn a living.
The key to this kind of work is to stay safe. Don’t hand out too much personal information.
Increase your income streams
Friendship is a beautiful thing. If you find success, you could always start branching out and create your own friendship agency.
You also never know who you’ll meet or what opportunities will come your way (but again, safety first!).
If being a virtual friend seems weird to you, there are plenty of other ways to earn money chatting online.
11. Twitch
Sometimes, people just want to come home from work and relax. Maybe all they want is a cold beer and a night of gaming with the homies.
Why not turn this into money?
It has the potential to surpass what you make at your full-time job.
Some gamers make seven or eight figures professionally streaming. This is not a realistic goal for 99.9% of gamers, but it goes to show how much money is in this business.
And you can do more than stream games.
You can start a video podcast, tell jokes, do interviews, or react to other videos.
How to make $2000 a month on Twitch
There are many ways to earn on Twitch. One of the most popular is through subscriptions. You have to reach a certain threshold to get to this point, but once you do, you’ll receive roughly $2.50 per sub.
To earn $2000 a month on Twitch, you’d need at least 800 subscribers. Some people go their whole streaming career trying to hit that level. Some get it in under a year.
Diversifying your income streams is the real key to success when it comes to gaming for money.
Increase your income streams
Streamers have access to subscribers, donations, affiliate marketing, brand deals, ads, YouTube, as well as building their own websites for information as well as merchandise.
It’s one of the most versatile businesses that a gamer can start without having to be a professional gamer in the tournament scene.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on your rate of return. To generate 2000 a month at a 5% annual yield, you’d need to invest $480,000. At a 10% return, you’d need $240,000. And at a 20% return, you’d need $120,000 invested.
Two thousand dollars a week is a big jump from $2000 per month. Basically, take anything on this list, and either work four times more hours, raise your rates by a factor of four, or grow your audience by a factor of four. Not easy, but not impossible either.
Earning 2000 a month as a teenager is a bit trickier because you have to squeeze in work around school, friends, sports, etc. Two promising options would be freelancing a high-paying skill (copywriting, web development) or building an audience (Youtube, blog). Neither will happen overnight.
To make 2000 a month as a kid, you’d have to create your own business. This involves securing a business license, which usually requires parent approval. Many kids have created lucrative Youtube channels. You could also start an in-person side hustle, providing some sort of service.
To make $2000 a month working a full-time, 40-hour-per-week job, you’d need an hourly wage of $12.50. To make $2000 working 20 hours per week, you’d need an hourly wage of $25 per hour, a perfectly reasonable freelancing wage, for example.
Your subscribers do not directly determine how much you make on Youtube. More important factors are the number of video views, your channel’s niche, and how you monetize. If you earned a reasonable $4 per 1,000 views, you’d need 500,000 views to earn $2000 from ads alone.
Mitch is your typical nomadic backpacker. Or at least, he was. But after stopping in Colombia to take “one week” of salsa lessons, his life took a sharp left turn. He met a cute Colombian girl in dance class, fell in love, and got married. Over half a decade has passed since he left his career to travel the world as a digital nomad, and he’s never looked back.
Nowadays, he’s the blogger behind Project Untethered — where he runs an awesome email newsletter and Youtube channel teaching adventure-craved wanderlusters how to escape the rat race, earn money from anywhere, and build an “untethered life”.
His advice has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, Yahoo, MSN, Reader’s Digest, Condé Nast Traveler, and more.
Mitch's Travel Recommendations:
Travel Planning Resources - Everything you need to plan your trip on one convenient page.
Going Cheap Flights Newsletter - Get flight deals from your airport up to 90% off sent straight to your inbox.
Safetywing Insurance - This cheap travel insurance has saved me over $15,000 in medical bills.
Booking.com - Book accommodation without adding your credit card (in case you need to cancel).
Trusted House Sitters - Take care of pets in exchange for free (sometimes luxury) accommodation.
Flexjobs - Find remote jobs without having to sift through crappy ones.
Skillshare - Free trial to take unlimited classes that teach digital nomad skills.
Wise - Send and receive money abroad cheaply (great for freelancers).