So you wanna know about making money online? Yeah, everyone does. I lost my part-time job last winter and figured I’d try this internet cash thing. Let me walk you through exactly what I did, step by messy step.
First, I started clicking those “Get Paid to Take Surveys!” pop-ups everywhere. Signed up for like twelve different sites. Filled out endless profiles about my toothpaste habits and dog’s birthday. Spent three whole days clicking bubbles for maybe $1.80 total. Absolute garbage. Wasted weekend watching progress bars crawl.
Then I saw TikTok videos about dropshipping. Thought “Hey, I can do that!” Googled “cheap wholesale stuff,” found some electronics supplier. Built this ugly website in one night – product photos looked like they were taken in a dark closet. Paid $50 for Facebook ads targeting “people who like shiny objects.” Got 87 visitors and zero sales. My cousin actually bought a phone charger to pity-support me, then demanded a refund when it arrived broken.
Got desperate after that. Joined a freelance writing platform promising “easy money for beginners.” Wrote twenty-five product descriptions for cat furniture at 80 cents per piece. Took me four hours to describe a “premium scratching post with jute fiber integration.” The client rejected half of them because I used “scratch” instead of “paw maintenance surface.” After platform fees, made enough to buy a mediocre sandwich.
My “big breakthrough” came when I found a subreddit for reselling vintage clothes. Dug through grandma’s attic and found hideous 1970s polyester shirts. Spent weeks taking artsy flat-lay photos on my bedroom floor. Sold exactly one neon yellow jacket to some art student in Portland. After shipping costs and PayPal fees, netted $3.75. Still have eighteen floral nightmares piled in my garage.
Right now? Yeah, still broke. That whole “side hustle” phase cost me about $200 in subscriptions, ad spends, and shipping supplies. The only concrete thing I learned? Everyone selling “online money courses” is actually just making money off suckers like me buying their courses. My garage smells like mothballs, and I flinch every time I see a survey link. Would I try again? Hell no – unless you count selling these polyester disasters to you readers?
