How To Make Money At Home If Your Disabled

If you're living with an illness or a disability that prevents you from getting a job. And looking for an easy way to earn money from home. Then this post is for you.

Trying to provide for yourself, your family, and make money while being disabled can be tough. I understand this struggle better than anyone.

A few years ago, my mom was in an accident. While crossing the road, a bus literally ran over her. After going through several surgeries she survived but it left her disabled. She couldn't walk or even stand.

My mom lived and worked in the UK. She provided for herself and our family here in Sri Lanka. Her accident affected all of our family.

It affected her mentality more than anything because she is an energetic person who worked with a passion. Being disabled made her powerless and unimportant. As a result, she was diagnosed with depression.

Luckily, since she was a UK resident, she received a small disability benefit from the government. It was barely enough for her to afford food.

I know for a fact that most other countries don't have such facilities in place to support disabled people. So, in a way, she was lucky. Because there are many people out there who struggle to make money while being disabled.

I wish I could've helped my mom when she desperately needed it. At the time I myself was struggling as a freelancer. It took a few years for me to be able to take over the expenses of my family from her and support her.

I never want to see anyone go through the same struggle that we had to experience. So, I dedicate this article to all of you who experienced that pain.

Let me be clear. Being disabled does not make you useless or unimportant.

Don't let a disability or an illness hold you back. You can still stand on your own without having to depend on others. Take my mom, for example. Even being disabled, she lived in the UK alone in a tiny apartment. She managed everything all by herself.

I couldn't help my mom at a time she needed me the most, but I'm here to help you. So, if you're looking for a way to earn some extra money while waiting for the disability benefits check or if you're looking for a way to support your family, here are a few strategies you can follow.

1. Become a Freelancer

become-a-freelancer

Freelancing is the best way to make a living from home, especially for the disabled and people with chronic illnesses. I'm now working full-time as a freelance writer and provide for my entire family without even leaving my home.

There aren't many easy careers for people with disabilities and freelancing is one the few.

To become a freelancer, you'll need to find a marketable skill. You use this skill to create a service that you sell to your clients.

For example, if you can write, you can offer a service to write eBooks. Or, if you know how to code, you can develop websites. If you're good at Photoshop, you can offer graphic design services.

You can get started by joining a freelance marketplace, which are filled with jobs posted by clients, and then contact those clients to offer your services. Once you get accepted for a job and deliver your assignments, you get paid.

Most of you may not have a marketable skill that you could use to create a service at the moment. That's OK. There are ways you can learn skills online. Thanks to websites like Skillshare, Udemy, and EDx.org, you can now easily learn new skills from the comfort of your home.

After learning a skill and practicing it, you can create a freelance profile on a freelance marketplace or browse online job boards to find jobs related to your skill and contact clients. If the client thinks you're a good fit for the job, they'll hire you and pay you for your work.

If you're willing to invest time in starting a career in freelancing, learn a skill to create a freelance service. If you need guidance, check out my book Freelance Like A Pro.

Also, feel free to send me an email. I'm happy to help.

2. Find Transcription Jobs

transcribeme

Transcription jobs are one of the easiest jobs you can do. These jobs involve listening to audio or video content and then converting everything spoken in the audio into text format.

This is quite a popular and an in-demand job, especially thanks to the boom in podcasting. Many podcasters hire transcriptionists to convert their podcast episodes into text format so that they can publish them on their blogs.

A great strategy you can use to find transcription jobs is to browse a podcasting platform like iTunes or Stitcher and pick a few new podcasts that you like. Then contact its creators and ask if you can provide transcription services to them.

Or, you can try looking for transcription jobs on these sites:

Transcribeme
com
Way With Words
Scribie
Daily Transcription

3. Write For A Blog

tuts+

There are blogs that actually pay you to write articles for them.

If you're skilled at writing and have a way with words, you can write online. Even if you haven't written any content before, you can start writing for blogs without past experience.

Although, I would recommend that you test the waters by writing a couple of articles. You can write and publish a few articles of your own using a platform like Medium. Then ask for feedback from your friends and the community. Then improve your writing.

Once you're confident about writing, try pitching to these blogs and start writing:

Listverse
Travel Writer's Life
Cracked
Metro Planet
Tuts+
SitePoint
More

4. Become A Virtual Assistant

fancyhands

Virtual assistant jobs are a bit challenging to manage than most other jobs.

Thes jobs usually involve managing the schedules of your employers, answering their emails, and sometimes managing other people who work for your employer.

For example, if you get a virtual assistant job for a successful blogger, you will have to manage her blogging schedule, reply to emails, manage the writers who work under her, and more.

Remote.co
Indeed Remote Assistant jobs
Fancy Hands
Assistant Match

5. Get A Social Media Gig

workingnomads

If you love using Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest and know your way around these platforms, then you can make money from these skills.

Most small brands and entrepreneurs often don't have the time to invest in managing their social media accounts. So they hire people to manage the different social media accounts for them.

This means you will have to create unique posts and images for different social networks, reply to comments, respond to messages, and publish posts according to a schedule. You will need some skills in Photoshop and online photo editors like Canva to be successful at this job.

Look for social media gigs on these sites:

Working Nomads
Jobs In Social Media
Entertainment Careers
Indeed Social Media Jobs

6. Test Mobile Apps

usertesting

This is one of the jobs that don't require any skills at all.

If you know how to install an app on your phone or use a web app on your computer, then you are qualified for this job.

This job involves testing unreleased apps and services and then providing your feedback for the companies and developers. If you find bugs, issues, or difficulties with app features, you just report them. Some app testing jobs pay more than $10 for a successfully submitted test.

User Testing
Tester Work
Test Birds
User Feel

7. Become A Voice-Over Artist

If you have a great voice and good grasp of English speaking, then this could be a great career path for you.

Voice-over artist gigs involve lending your voice for video and audio content. For example, you'll get hired by podcasters to do ad bites for their advertisers, you'll get hired by video content creators to create introductions, and there are many other possibilities.

You can look for voice-over jobs using these platforms:

Voice Bunny
Voices
The Voice Realm
Indeed Jobs
Mandy

8. Join A Customer Service Team

skooli

Customer service jobs are quite easy. You simply work as a representative of a company and respond to customer inquiries and questions related to sales and technical aspects. Although, finding these jobs is the difficult part because there's aren't many.

Try looking for gigs on these sites:

Indeed Live Chat Jobs
co
Site Staff
Apple Jobs
Live Person

9. Do Translations

gengo

Know a second language? Then you can do translation jobs.

This involves translating documents, articles, and even eBooks from one language to another. For example, if your native language is German and you also know English as a second language, then you can translate English documents to German and vice versa.

You can find various translation jobs online by browsing sites dedicated to translators. Landing the first couple of jobs will be tough, but after that, it will be like a walk in the park.

Gengo
Unlabel
Scrybs
Translator Cafe
Translator Pub

10. Become A Tutor

skooli

Don't let your college degree or work experience go to waste. If you're good at helping students and teaching, you can become an online tutor.

Online tutoring is much like getting a teaching job at a school. There are sites dedicated specifically for finding online tutoring jobs. You simply register for a teaching profile on these sites and help students with their studies.

Here are some of the sites you can join for tutoring jobs:

com
Skooli
FlexJobs Tutoring Jobs
Tutor Hub
My Tutor
Home Tutor Site

If you have past teaching experience or great qualifications, it'll be much easier to join these sites.

11. Become a Proofreader

proofreadingservices

Proofreading work involves reading long documents such as reports, case studies, and articles to spot the mistakes, spelling errors, and grammartical errors.

if you have a strong grasp of the English language, you can definitely do proofreading work. Even if you're fluent in a foreign language, there are proofreading work to be done in many different languages.

You can look for proofreading jobs on online job boards and freelance marketplaces.

Proofreading Services
Indeed
FlexJobs

In Conclusion

After staying indoors for more than 5 years and going through a great amount of therapy, my mom can now barely walk using clutches.

I'm grateful that I have such an inspirational mother in my life, who not only stayed strong during a struggling time but also{"type":"block","srcClientIds":["ad95f0bd-cb52-4183-ab39-85a67d2a5c18″],"srcRootClientId":""} motivated our entire family to stay strong.

She's the reason why I work hard every day to make my freelancing career work.

I hope you'll find some inspiration in my story to make a brighter future for yourself and your family.

As the great Martin Luther King Jr. once said:

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward."

Did you find this article useful? Then you should check out my book Freelance Like A Pro. It includes 21 lessons and 5 secrets from my freelance career to help you supercharge your journey as a freelancer. Click here to learn more.