In 2020, I quit my office job and began traveling the world as a digital nomad, making money with a laptop. And there are so many ways to do this, from landing freelancing gigs to finding remote work.
How To Make Money With A Laptop
1. Try Freelance Writing
In 2023, while living in Thailand, A digital nomad I met in Ao Nang told me about her journey with Freelance writing and I was blown away. At the time, she was still somewhat new to freelance writing. She had a few clients and was earning anywhere from $0.05 to $0.10 per word for the various contracts.
All-in-all, she was making about $2,000 a month from freelance writing, while not having to put in too much work.
The most attractive perk of freelance writing, in my opinion, is that you can gradually increase your rates as you become a better writer, land more clients, and specialize in a niche. Which honestly, shouldn’t take you too long, compared to other traits like programming, for example.
After about a year and a half, we reconnected and she told me that she now had a few more clients and was earning $0.15 to $0.25 per word with some of them! At this point, she was making about $4,000 to $6,000 per month from her freelance writing.
2. Start a Niche Blog
Another awesome way to make money with a laptop is to start a niche blog.
Starting a niche blog is a smart way to make money online, though it requires patience and effort. It often takes several months to a year before you start seeing significant income, but the benefits make it worthwhile. A niche blog allows you to cater to a specific audience, making it easier to attract and engage readers who are genuinely interested in your content. This focused strategy can also help you rank higher on search engines.
There are several ways to make money with a niche blog, such as through affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, selling digital products, and running ads. By focusing on a less competitive niche, you can establish yourself as an expert, which can lead to better earning opportunities. Choosing a niche helps you create content that resonates more with your audience, making it easier to build a loyal following and stand out in your area of expertise.
Take the famous make-money online blog WebMonkey, for example: according to the author, the blog was created back in 2018. And in its first year, it only made $1,700. However, fast forward a few years, and WebMonkey made $272,000 in 2022! Which just goes to show how profitable blogging can be.
My favorite thing about blogging is that you have tons of ways to generate an income from it. From displaying ads on your site, marketing affiliate products, paid sponsorships, and guest posts, and selling your own course or product.
For example, a lot of bloggers I’ve met make their money by selling E-books around their core topic or offering coaching programs and online courses. All of the above can of course turn into a great way to generate passive income, like with online courses, as you need to create those only ones and can sell repeatedly without additional effort.
3. Make Money Freelancing
One of the best parts about working with your laptop is that you can gain location independence. In fact, a big chunk of the people I’ve met during my digital nomad travels were either freelancers or remote workers.
Some of the most popular remote-friendly jobs that people I encountered were working in:
- App Developer
- Software Developer
- Digital Marketing
- Graphic Design
- Video Editing
- Travel Photography
- Social Media Management
- SEO expert
- App Developer
- Virtual Assistance
Nowadays, almost any position or field can be done remotely and the diversity is huge.
If you’re just starting out, you can either figure out your strengths from the experience you do already have in the work force and offer it as a service/gig on freelance websites like Upwork, Peopleperhour, or Fiverr. Or, search on the mount of different remote job websites and find a remote-friendly company that’s looking to hire someone with you experience!
4. Grow Investments for Income
Thanks to the power of technology, investing for income is easier than ever. This could be a pretty decent passive income that anyone can start and live off of.
If you build up your portfolio in advance, and then move to a low-cost-of-living country, it could even be enough to sustain you pretty quickly.
While traveling in Thailand last year, I met a couple of Digital Nomads who literally lived off their investments (which they accumulated pretty fast, by the way).
For example, some popular investing options include:
- Crypto: Staking or HODLing
- Investing in dividend stocks and ETFs
- Buying and selling Domains (more on that later)
- Opening a high-yield savings account (companies like Current pay 4% APY and have a $50 sign up bonus)
- Buying Online assets (websites, blogs, Instagram accounts etc.)
There’s no single right or wrong answer for how to get started. Your investing timeframe, goals, and risk tolerance all play a role in determining what’s right for you. But I do love the fact that just about anyone can start putting their money to work without needing a fortune and only with their laptop.
5. Play Games for Money
If you like spending time gaming on your phone or laptop, you can start earning with GPT sites.
This isn’t a very lucrative side hustle. But it’s a reliable way to get some easy money and gift cards in your spare time.
These sorts of GPT (Get Paid To) sites won’t make you thousands of dollars. However, if you’re just interested in making some pocket change, these sites can pay a few bucks an hour.
A few of my favorite sites that I’ve tested out include:
- Freecash: One of the top GPT sites, which has tons of offers to earn by playing games on your phone, testing apps, and answering surveys.
It’s actually pretty easy to make $100 per month on Freecash, some users even reach $1000+ each month! I’ve used this site a lot since first started my journey and made around $80 for just a few minutes a day for a month! Not bad, huh? - Buff: Earn passive rewards for playing leading PC games like League of Legends and Valorant!
- Gamehag: Enjoy free Steam games, gift cards, and in-game prizes for playing games with Gamehag.
- PlaytestCloud: One of the best ways to find user-testing gigs that pay you for testing new apps and websites.
- Earnweb: A new rewards website from the same company that runs Gamehag.
6. Sell Your Internet Bandwidth
Did you know you can actually make passive income just by sharing your internet with other people?
The two main companies that offer this kind of service are Honeygain and Pawnz. The way it works is by simply turning your mobile device or laptop into a node in their VPN networks and then securely utilizing your unused bandwidth for data intelligence tasks, such as content delivery. Your privacy is protected in many ways, and you earn credits for the data shared.
I used both these apps during my travels, and though they won’t make you reach, they do run completely on autopilot so it makes an easy way to accumulate some decent passive income.
However, they both have great referral programs which can buff up your earnings on the app.
For example, if you refer a friend to Honeygain – your friend will earn a $3 signup bonus, while you get 25% on their earnings & 1,000 credits once they request their first payout! Pawnz, on the other hand, pays $3 on each new referral you make, and also offers other ways to earn quick cash with their app – up to $100 per game offer, $5 per survey, and 10% recurring revenue share from your referrals!
This can ramp up very nicely if you have a network of friends willing to share their internet, or some sort of audience you can share it with!
7. Trade Domain Names
Similar to trading Crypto or Stocks, buying and selling Domain Names can be a very lucrative side hustle for those with a knack for spotting trending or valuable web addresses.
As with any kind of trading, the basic rules apply – purchase a domain at a low price, hold onto it for a while, and sell for profit.
Luckily, there are many sites that offer brokerage services for this kind of venture:
- Namecheap Marketplace
- GoDaddy Auctions
- Sedo
In the ever-changing world of technology, new trends are constantly emerging (2023’s AI boom anyone?). Spotting these trends early on can potentially earn you thousands.
8. Online Business Flipping
You probably heard of people who make money by Flipping Houses / AirBNB’s. But did you know you can also flip online businesses?
Blogs, eCommerce stores, Amazon stores, and even Apps can be bought & sold for easy money.
As with any investment, this requires putting some money upfront, and it doesn’t fit everyone.
You should definitely do your research, and understand the profitability of the business and its potential, and the risks involved in such investment.
Flippa is an all-in-one platform dedicated exclusively to helping investors buy & sell profitable online businesses. It offers all the tools and data you need. Each business for sale features instant benchmarking insights, direct data connectivity, a deal room for discussions, call scheduling and more, due-diligence options, legal services, financing and integrated payment services.
They also offer brokerage services to ease up the process.
9. Become a Mystery Shopper
People who enjoy online shopping and have excellent attention to detail can become online mystery shoppers. This cool side hustle lets you get paid to evaluate services nad products anonymously.
The popular companies where you can find this type of work:
- Secret Shopper
- Market Force
Working as a mystery shopper offers a variety of benefits, including extra income, flexible hours, and free products.
10. Sell Stock Photos and Videos
If you love photography or are just a traveler who snaps with their phone at every possible moment, you can actually make some decent money with it!
Now, you may ask: Is selling stock photos profitable? Yes, making money from stock photos is possible. While there are plenty of stock photographers who make a decent living, there are easily as many more who do not.
Despite the fact that you may not be able to earn a full-time living from it, it’s usually not too difficult to earn a few hundred dollars per month.
It’ll take a while (unless you’re incredibly lucky) and you’ll need to upload a lot of images, but with a bit of perseverance and dedication, $200-$500 a month is definitely doable.
As with every business, niching down is key.
Do your research, find out what the market needs and actively looking for, and niche down on it.
While writing this blog post, for example: short, vertical videos are in huge demand. Thanks to the rise of TikTok and Instagram reels, a lot of creators are searching for background videos for their content. And, as it’s a relatively new medium, the market isn’t oversaturated with photographers offering this type of video.
11. Start a YouTube Channel
Now, I know what you’re thinking – YouTube is oversaturated, and making money from it is impossible.
When you think of it, this may be true for every platform or industry nowadays. But remember what I wrote in the previous method?
Niche. Is. Key.
Obviously it would be extremely difficult to rely on YouTube monetization as the only source of income. And it’ll be near impossible to get to 1,000 subscribers you you’re going to do what everyone’s doing.
Think about what YOU can offer to the industry you’re in, how you can talk about specific expertise you have from your experience, and maybe you’ve had some unique experience while going to a very unusual travel destination?
For example, I’ve met a guy who makes $1000’s from ad views on his channel where he screenshots his playthroughs in an all time PlayStation game hit. The game was released in 2018, and this guy generates 100’s thousands of views each month by simply showing very specific quests or solutions to difficult spots people encounter in the game.
While it’s true it can be optimal to get paid a steady stream of income just by getting views to your videos, there are tons of other ways to make money from it. And you don’t have to have a huge following to do so.
Finding a niche specific pain point of an audience and answering it could help you stand out. And you don’t have to get tons of views to make money from it. For example, you can refer to a specific product offering the solutions to the problem the user is having, and put an affiliate link in the description of the video, or offer an online course you can easily create that guides the user through the issue.
Let’s say you can get 500 people to view 1 video you upload.
Most pain points can be answered in 3 different ways and angles. So you make 3 videos approaching some problem. That’s already 1500 views.
Now take the average conversion rate for digital products which is between 1-3%. One percent of 1500 is 15. If 15 people are buying your product from these 3 videos, and you offer a product worth of $65 – that’s $1,000 right there! See the potential?
And that’s only 2 ways you can make money with a niched down Youtube channel.
12. Launch a Print On Demand Business
You’ve probably already heard about how e-commerce is one of the best ways to make online money.
However, many e-commerce businesses may involve logistics and in-person fulfillment, defeating the purpose of working just with your laptop.
That’s where POD (Print-On-Demand) companies come in.
These companies take care of the manufacturing and shipping parts of your business and release you from worrying about designing products and marketing your store.
Some POD providers that are very recommended for beginners are Printify, Printful, and Art of Where.
You obviously need some graphic design and marketing skills, or very clever ideas for this kind of business. But it’s definitely something you can do remotely from anywhere in the world with just a laptop.
So, How to Get Started?
Now that you know how to make money anywhere with your laptop, here are a few tips to keep in mind to increase your odds of achieving success on your new path.
Play To Your Strengths: Choose a skill or interest of yours, and see if you can apply it to making money online. For example, I started out my journey 3 years ago with only digital marketing as a freelancer. This suited me since it’s something I’ve been doing in my 9-5 job for years, came easily to me, and gave me time and space to work on my other side hustles and build the income I need to continue living as a Digital Nomad.
Set An Income Goal: Different hustles have different income potential. Take the time and figure out what’s your goal for making online money. Is it to save up for a vacation, or make full time income?
I’ve grown my online side hustles to generate between $2-3K a month, because I knew that’s what was needed for me to maintain the lifestyle I wanted in countries that I wanted to live in, such as Thailand and Vietnam.
Understand Your WHY: My main reason for earning money with only my laptop and remote side gigs is the fact that I can slow-travel wherever I’d like. This helps me see new places around the world at my own pace, and keep costs low by living in certain areas where my dollar goes farther.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this guide on how to make money with your laptop inspires you to make the leap and begin earning an online income, or even become a Digital Nomad like me!
I know from personal experience that it can be freaky to jump ship from a “safe” office job and go fully online. As far as I’m concerned, the freedom and higher earning potential are worth the risk.
And who knows, you might find that this sort of laptop nomad lifestyle is what you’ve been missing and never go back!