Make Money Online In The UK

How I Started Off....

I don't know how you came to be reading my blog but you could be me a couple of years ago (if that makes sense!). I began using searching Google for ways to make money online in the UK and wow, what a journey the last year has been.

Presently, I make my living working from home in the UK on the internet. Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? To me it is, I have to keep pinching myself because I can't believe what I've done.

It's only now that I feel "qualified" to put pen to paper, so to speak. Indeed, qualified enough to offer advice to other people who are in the situation I was a year ago.

I'll introduce myself first.

My name is Carole and I'm in my mid forties. I've lived in the UK all my life and currently live in Yorkshire. I'm married with 3 children, plus I keep an eye on 2 elderly relatives. We have all the usual trappings, including a mortgage, pets and a couple of cars to run etc. At the beginning of 2008, our family fortunes changed pretty dramatically, meaning that we needed to reassess our finances pretty quickly. When my children were very small, I had a good career in banking, but for the past few years I had been in the enviable position of being able to stay at home to look after my children and relatives. I'd done a few small jobs within the family business but none involved the 9-5 grind which I'd previously endured.

Our financial crisis meant that I would have to start pulling in an income. Our modest savings, coupled with our existing income, meant that I had around 6 months to sort myself out and to decide exactly what I wanted to (and indeed, could) do. The ideal situation was for me to work from home. I really needed the flexibility and spent many a sleepless night worrying about how we would cope as a family if both my husband and I were out at work all day, as he was doing a job with no flexibility.

We were on holiday during Easter 2008 and had rented a house with internet access. I spent virtually the whole holiday looking for ways to make money online. Now if you've done this yourself, you've probably come across all the things I did.

Here is the list of "things to investigate" which I came home with:-

• eBay seller of "things I could pick up from the £1 shop" (!)
  
• Paid survey completion
• A "no-lose" system of playing roulette on the internet
• Dropshipping
• Buying old books from charity shops and selling them for a fortune on Amazon
• Buying old muscial instruments and selling them on eBay
• Importing goods from China to resell
• Picking up mis-spelt bargain items off eBay and reselling
• Ebay seller of second-hand clothing
• Being a "secret shopper"
  

Now if you're honest, you have maybe looked at some of these possibilities. Let me tell you what happened with them in my case:-

• The £1 shop items flopped. I bought a selection of recording pens, foldable backpacks, disposible baby bibs and a few more things. I did sell some, but I still have a number of these items languishing in the cupboard.
• I did lots of paid surveys-at best I would make a few pence per hour. At worst, I would get to the end of a long survey, only to be told I wasn't eligible-charming!
• The "no-lose" roulette system ranks as my most embarrassing blunder. After reading several "reviews" of this no-fail system, I rather scarily loaded up my new account with some super casino (yes, yes, they saw me coming) with £100 and off I went. Suffice to say, it was not a "no-lose" system. It did, however, teach me a valuable lesson about parting with hard-earned money!
• Dropshipping sounded good-you simply bought a website loaded up with goods and you never even had to own a product. You sold. They dispatched. However, a closer look at this made me realise that like most things, this was too good to be true and only now, do I understand the many flaws this can have. How on earth would "my" website get found?
  
• I never got going with the Amazon thing. I had been inspired by the story of a lady who apparently made about £30k a year scouring second hand shops and reselling the books she bought. I was put off by a comment from her husband about the house been cluttered up with books-what with 3 children and a full house to start with I couldn't bear the thought! (Plus she wanted about £50 to reveal the "secrets" of her success...hmmmm!)
• I actually visited every second-hand shop in Wakefield in an attempt to find some old brass musical instruments (just look at eBay-they sell for a bomb!). However, I came away with a new-looking bright yellow musical instument stand and figured that it might sell. After 2 goes on eBay, it still sits nicely in our garage.
• The "goods from China" thing. Well, surprisingly, I actually did this quite sucessfully. I ordered a consignment of chicken coops (yes, you read that correctly) in May and they finally arrived in December, when I was wishing they wouldn't as I was very busy working on my then-successful business by that time! However, they have actually sold very well and whilst it might not be for everyone, this was profitable for me,
  
• I didn't bother buying mis-spelt items off eBay. They seemed to be few and far between and I couldn't find anything worthwhile.
• I had a go at selling second hand clothing. I raided both ours and a relative's unwanted stocks and did make a few pounds. My conclusion was that this was good for making a few pounds but no good as a sustainable income.
• When I looked at the income of "secret shoppers" the potential just wasn't there to make the full-time income I needed so I never took it any further.
  

I don't know if you've found it yourself, but I found that the more I looked for ways to make money online, the more I felt that there was a "secret" which was eluding me. I was 100% sure that some people were making big money on the internet, but what the heck were they doing????

Carole

"No Content Online=No Money"