10 easiest ways to make money from home - Specially for students

On this page you'll find all the best ways to make money in your spare time whilst at university based on our own experience. We'll keep adding new ways to this page so go ahead and bookmark it. And please do share your own ideas in the comments!

1) No-risk matched betting

Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It's completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone can do it.

It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites through 'matching' them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome).

This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £200! Multiply this by how many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred pounds.

Owen walks you through how to make your first £15 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make £30/hr sitting at home, please let us know!

Online surveys

2)Online surveys

An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members to answer surveys and test new products.

For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up to £3 ($5) for some surveys!

A few good ones to try are: Toluna, YouGov, Vivatic, MySurvey, Crowdology, Valued Opinions, IPSOS, Global Test Market, The Opinion Panel, Pinecone, OnePoll, SurveyBods, PopulusLive, Hiving, PanelBase, MintVine, Opinion Outpost, Harris Poll, Mind Mover, New Vista, iPoll.

Also sign up for Swagbucks which rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.

3)Paid for searching the web

Interested in earning cash for doing what you already do online? This has to be one of the easiest methods of making money online without really any effort or change in your behavior.

This innovative idea by Qmee.com rewards you for searching in Google, Bing or Yahoo. You just install a simple add-on to your browser and when you conduct a search there may be a few sponsored results alongside your normal search.

4)Online market trading

The historically hard-to-break world of investing in stock markets and currencies has been cracked wide open. Today there is no need to be a fat cat or fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market trading platforms.

Having spent many hours researching this new opportunity, I've been experimenting with the two biggest platforms: Plus500 and eToro.com.

Both offer free practice accounts, and Plus500 also give you a free £20 (without depositing, terms apply) for their CFD service which is worth taking up. Overall I prefer eToro with over 4.5 million users worldwide. It was recently featured in the BBC 2 documentary "Traders: Millions by the Minute" and the Financial Times.One of the best things on eToro is the CopyTrader feature. This lets you literally see, follow and copy the investments of other top performing traders.

Follow George's complete guide to trading on eToro to learn more. I think $200 is a good amount to get the most out of the learning curve by trying out a few different markets. If nothing else you'll learn a great deal about various investments and industries.

Disclaimer: CFD trading can be volatile and you can lose your entire capital, so don't throw your life savings into it! Trading CFDs may not be suitable for you. Please ensure you fully understand the risks involved.

5)Start your own website

Interested in generating passive income? You need a website. It's THE way to make money while you sleep.

Starting a website with Bluehost takes less than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there are plenty of ways to monetise your site.

Save the Student is just one example of a successful website, started at university by Owen Burek in his first year, which has since grown into a full-time and sizable enterprise.

6)Review websites & apps for cash

Well it seems like you're pretty nifty with a web browser, so perhaps it's time to turn pro and browse websites as a paid and fun job!

Introducing UserTesting.com – a new platform that pays everyday people to review all kinds of websites. Each review takes around 20 minutes and bags you $10 (£6.50) via Paypal.

7)Write and publish a Kindle eBook

If students are good at anything, it's researching and writing. With the Amazon Kindle store, anyone can publish an eBook and make money.

And the Kindle app is now available on almost any device (laptops, iPads, smartphones and yes, Kindles) so your global market is huge!

List your book for £1.49 – £6.99 and you earn 70% of the sale. Considering Amazon is the ultimate selling machine (and remember people are looking to spend), that is a fantastic deal.

8)Affiliate marketing

If you've got a good presence on social media or perhaps you even have a blog or website, you can start bringing in money immediately by promoting all sorts of companies, products, services and offers online.

Affiliate Window logoSign up as a publisher on the Awin network, check their offers blog or browse the merchant listings to find something you think your friends would be interested in, grab your affiliate link and share it. If someone buys (can be within up to 90 days) using your link you'll make a nice commission.

9)Become a 'Clickworker'

The Clickworker.com concept is based on 'internet crowd-sourcing' where businesses advertise specific, scalable tasks they need completing quickly. And for us, it's an easy way to make fast cash from our couch.

There are a variety of tasks, but most commonly they involve mindless data entry, web research or form filling. You are rewarded and paid in cash (via Paypal) for the work you do, and you can choose for what and when you work. Give it a go. [If you're US based, also try Amazon's 'Mechanical Turk'].

10)Review music for money

If you love music, make it your business by reviewing unsigned bands and artists online for cash with Slicethepie.com.

It can take a while to build up your reputation but some users of the site have said that they earn £40 a month. This may not sound like much, but if it's something you enjoy then it shouldn't be hard work and is another thing for your CV. Money you earn will be in $US but anyone can sign up and review.