How To Successfully Make $0.00 Online While Working A 9-5

Are you ready to start a side hustle and begin making money online while working a 9-5? Not really sure where to start? I’ve got you covered!

Discover this full – and thorough – tutorial that will leave you just as broke as when you started. Where we’ll help you save three stressful years of your life by showing you that we did everything the “Internet Experts” said to do…and we’ve still made $0.00.

*Insert encouraging photo of a smiling person holding mounds of nothing so you feel excited like this could be you too.*

This post may include affiliate links.

Please read my disclaimer page for more info.

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

Step 1:

Have a dream and get inspired.

It all starts with an, “Oh my gosh – wouldn’t it be cool if…” and the daydreaming takes off from there.

• What if I could do this instead of…
• What if I could be free to…
• What if this takes off and I make lots of money from…

*Insert your own dream*

Step 2:

Watch all the videos, search Pinterest and the internet. Build your plan, and pick your niche.

Step two is the part where you make plans to make step one happen. You’ll notice a lot of YouTube videos really hone into finding your “why” and they make a lot of promises that all is possible if you have your “why” and just do exactly as told. Because if they can, you can. Promise.

While I certainly haven’t watched everything out there, I’ve watched a lot of videos on YouTube during this step. Most videos out there are just the same story, with a different author telling it. I could tell you all the videos I didn’t like…but that’s not how we roll…so here are some videos I recommend for this step. This should save you a lot of time searching on YouTube for videos.

Also FYI, a lot of the videos out there are just for the purpose of bringing in views to their channel. They make a lot of promises, but it doesn’t mean that by following their super secret content plan, you too will be successful. Some of their success is coming from you clicking and viewing that video and then subscribing to their channel to follow along on that journey. Because everybody who wants to start a YouTube channel wants somebody to tell them how to do it right from the beginning. So that’s a solid video to make if you want to guarantee someone is going to search for it.

Some videos/channels I recommend:

• For all things blogging: She Dreams All Day – she has a lot of videos on setting up a blog, planning content, step-by-step guides, etc.
  • Why her videos over others? I like the introvert approach. My thought about “starting a side business” is you don’t have the time and energy to fully devote to it – especially if you’re working a 9-5. So an introvert-friendly approach should mean you can maintain “the hustle” without all the hustle.
  • I also find her videos more enjoyable to watch and there’s more information to learn from.
• For setting up Pinterest: Katie Grazer – there are a ton of videos for setting up Pinterest, the algorithm, Pinterest SEO and what have you, but I always find myself going back to Katie’s videos if I want to dive deeper into Pinterest. She has lots of Pinterest freebies to get you started too!
• To help point you in the right Pinterest direction: Pinterest Trends
• For YouTube: Should you start YouTube? A video on YouTube settings I found helpful, How YouTube can change your life (according to this YouTuber)
• For algorithm info: Social Media Study from Metricool

For anything else, I’d say wait and ignore it for now. Don’t overwhelm your plate. Pick one direction, not six, and deep dive into that topic. Every video/Google search out there gives you seven more rabbit holes to go down, but try to focus on one thing at a time.

Step 3:

Follow that plan – ahem, to the best of your ability.

You’ve done the research, now it’s time to get started. It’s time to design your space…and spend money.*

*I guess I should say, if you’re planning to start a website/blog, you’ll probably spend money. You may not have to spend money if you’re starting off on YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest instead and aren’t planning to have it point back to a website.

You’re going to need:

• A domain and website host – I use Bluehost and WordPress.org
  • I’ve also heard great things about GoDaddy, but have no personal experience with it outside my 9-5. My boss recommends GoDaddy to all our clients, and I can say they have great customer support!
• A website theme – I use and recommend 17th Avenue Designs, they have so many stunning themes!
  • You’ll also need to budget an extra 1.5 months to set up the theme/your site or pay $300 to $500+ for someone to do it for you.
• Create your social media platform(s), like Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
  • Remember to set up your profile and boards with all the keywords and other important details.

After all that is set up and going, it’s time to start creating content and sharing it with the world! By “world” I mean the 2.5 family members who read/interact with your stuff.

Ideally, you’ll want to be consistent and keep this up for the next 3-6 months before changing anything. For me, I committed to posting one blog post every week. That was my only beginning goal, all social media posts were sporadic.

Step 4:

Reassess.

After six months of hard work, it’s good to take a step back and see where you’re at and what’s working for you. Is there anything you want to change or improve on? Anything you should remove, or increase your posting frequency?

Now’s a good time to make a list of all the things you want to do.

Some good goals would be:

• Setup your email list
• Create a freebie
• Create some kind of digital product to sell on your website

Step 5:

Feel internet shame and pressure.

Will your 9-5 even allow for room to change and grow? Because mine doesn’t always.

My favorite part about content creating, is how “Internet Experts” tell you that you just need to get up earlier or stay up later so you can devote time to your dream. It will all work out if you just figure out how to devote every single minute of your day to the important things, like sleep, your 9-5, and your side business.

Forget about a social life, your loved ones, the laundry. Just get up four hours earlier every day and go to bed three hours later. Ditch exercise. There’s not really time to eat now either. And if you’re stressed, you best shove that down because we don’t have time for that either.

You know, simply pull time out of thin air. That’s how you’ll be successful.

Excuse you for being too busy to put in more hours into your dream when you have a life.

Step 6:

Binge-watch more YouTube to see what “Internet Experts” are saying and doing…or say they’re doing (Yes, I think there’s a difference).

Get inspired because they’re all making money.

But also, get freaked out a little because some “Internet Experts” tell you about needing to protect your blog and get the legal papers. Scary stuff. You’ll probably do a lot of research about that as well and learn that somebody here got sued because they didn’t have the proper legal papers to protect their blog or their products. Maybe somebody got their products stolen and couldn’t fight it.

*Que internet fear settling in.*

Let me just stop you right there and say, if your total audience is made up of 2.5 people and they’re related to you, maybe pump the breaks on the legal bus and wait on this for a bit. You can’t be sued if you have no audience and no one is reading your stuff. So file this in the back of your mind and wait until you start to get a little more traffic to your site.

I’ll link below in the Money Spent section what legal bundle I purchased + recommendations for this.

Step 7:

Commit to a challenge so you can grow.

“Internet Experts” say you’ve really got to go all in and commit to a challenge to see some change. Like posting on social media every single day for a month.

This is going to be exciting! Things are finally going to start working for you. It just takes 30 days of consistency to make this work. Just 30 days. You can do that and it will all work…Right?

I posted every day for 30 days and here’s what it got me – ahem, nothing. Okay, well technically, I got 3 followers who only liked one video each and have never engaged with my account again. But still…

So…don’t feel pressured to do something if you don’t have the time or capacity to. To be able to complete that challenge, I had to drop other things. And I just don’t think my decision won out.

Step 8:

Get burnt out and realize that things aren’t working for you like they appear to be for everyone else.

That burnout was inevitable. You had it coming from trying to juggle your side business, your 9-5 job, daily life responsibilities, socialization, a love life, etc.. Trying to be a fully functioning human and work and start a new business simultaneously is exhausting.

But still, in the middle of your burnout, you’ll find room to ask yourself, “Why isn’t it working?” Unfortunately, you won’t find many answers.

*Que the self-pity parade.*

Although I do believe there are a lot more of us out there who make $0.00 online than we’re lead to believe. If this is you, please let me know in the comments so I can prove this theory and know I’m not alone!

Step 9:

The wait period.

It’s time to try to overcome your burnout and self-pity and limp along. “Internet Experts” say you just have to keep going. There really is no time for self-care.

Thus begins the waiting period. In which we believe it will all work out if we just keep going. So here we are, waiting for the belief to come true.

Step 10:

Get invited to join a social media group:

It was about at this time that I got invited to join a social media group on Instagram so I could grow. How exciting.

It’s not buying followers. It’s people supporting people – at least, that’s how it was presented to me.

Here’s how it works:

• You get invited to join a group – which will eventually lead to you joining several other groups, not because you asked to, just because they keep adding you for some reason.
  • This will be presented to you as a safe space for content creators. You all follow each other, you all like and comment on each others stuff…or you get kicked out.
  • Things to know – there are always rules:
  • You must follow everyone in the group
  • You must interact with everybody’s posts – hearts and comments, please.
  • You must maintain participation, or as mentioned above, you’ll be removed from the group.

Step 11:

Realize that social media is fake.

*Get overwhelmed.” I lasted 2.5 days before quitting the group. I also realized how fake social media is.

That list from before looks different after the first 24 hours:

• You must follow everyone in the group – if you look at the group members tab you may find that there are hundreds of people in this group!
• You must interact with everybody’s posts – Remember, that’s interaction with hundreds of people’s posts – some people post multiple times a day!
• You should know that Instagram has rules about how many times you can comment, post, follow, like, etc. in an hour – to prevent spam. So, do with that what you will.

Do you have a headache yet? Because I think I have a headache from all of that.

I don’t know about you, but with my 9-5, I don’t have time for that. I hardly have time to create my own posts, and now I’m supposed to spend all my free time doing mandatory social media interaction?! *Gagging noises.*

While we’re here, I’ll give you some cons to playing the follow-for-follow game.

• People who play the follow-for-follow game are only interacting with your stuff if you interact with theirs. Meaning when you stop, they stop.
• If you’re trying to get genuine comments, connections, clicks to your website, or even sales, these people aren’t going to do it for you. They do not care about you. They have no interest in your content. So they are not going to be profitable for you.

What you need is a community, not a large number of followers or fake interactions.

The only benefit I can see to playing the follow-for-follow game is you can quickly get to 1000 followers, which is required to join certain affiliate sites, like Shopify. But again, if you play this game to get your numbers up, but these people don’t care about you, they’re never going to click on your links and you won’t make any money.

Step 12:

Your eyes have opened.

Once your eyes have opened to all that Step 11 has to say, it’s really hard to unsee it in other areas of your life and on other social media platforms.

Like oh – did you know there’s a thing called “rage bating” that creators do to get their views/interactions way up? Because the algorithm can’t necessarily tell the differance between good/bad comments, just that you got millions of comments/views. So some creators intentionally do something that irritates the viewer to get them to interact with the video.

Or, if you watch this video (the whole thing is good, but specifically around minute 51), Joe Rogan and Dr. Shawn Baker talk about how social media influencers are getting paid to recommend junk food to you.

Step 13:

Question your niche.

What if all the people on the internet that were successful – were successful because of the niche they picked? By that I mean that they picked a niche they knew would work. They’re not necessarily unique.

Do you ever notice that the “successful people” on the internet are all teachers (showing you how to be successful) or are all promoting fast fashion, talking money, or other very specific niches that 1000s of other people are constantly searching for?

That’s great and all, but…they’re not different. They’re blending in.

When you do your niche research, “Internet Experts” tell you to really zero in on what makes you you and to pick a niche you can happily make content about for a long time.

I don’t know about you, but I am a person with many interests. So I don’t want to write about only one topic. So some of us pick a niche that screams “me” and what next? It doesn’t always take off just because we “niched down.”

I feel like trying to “make it” on the internet helped me to understand and respect/appreciate my brother-in-law more. He’s been teaching me a lot these last few years. It’s been especially cool to learn from someone who has a very unique niche/brand. He has so much value to offer me, and it’s not coming specifically from someone on the internet whose identity is solely showing you how to succeed perfectly without hardly trying.

He used to post videos more regularly on YouTube and then slowly started to take a break from it.

Now he’s a lot more active over on X and is putting out some really cool content! (One of his videos from a few months ago is still stuck in my head, in a good way.)

For a while, I wondered why he was taking a break from YouTube. I mean, I just watched a video last week about how “you’re only one video away,” so clearly you don’t want to take a break from the hustling.

After picking his brain a little on a recent trip to the US, combined with my booming success – you know, the whole, “how I make $0.00 online” thing – it all started to make a little more sense and I get it. If you don’t yet, keep reading this post, you will.

P.S. This is my super cool and amazingly talented brother-in-law, Joe, so please go over to his YouTube and X account, give him a like/follow and tell him Doors And Floors Blog sent you so I get bonus points for being the best sister-in-law. Also, gold star for you if you find the video with Cloudy in it…

All this to say, if you “niched down” and picked something that was more a “you-based” topic, you might find that it’s not growing quite the way you thought it would. Also, I’m not saying that you should necessarily change it. Keep doing you. Make content that you’re proud of, not for the trends and the algorithm.

If you decide to pivot your niche at all, I recommend doing it slowly, don’t drastically change anything. My brother-in-law suggested I try to deep dive a little into my content. So I’ve been trying to show more life abroad and what it’s like working remotely from a foreign country. Both are still within my niche spectrum, but a little less broad than “travel” and “Perú.” Although I’m finding that there doesn’t seem to be a huge interest in life abroad in a third-world country compared to life abroad in pretty touristy places, e.g. Europe.

Step 14:

Get inspired to try affiliate marketing.

Perhaps you were able to start this at a different step than I was, but this was not in my first few steps, building a community was in my first few steps. And that’s going really well for me right now, so I figured we should squeeze this into my already packed schedule.

• Do your research first – here’s a freebie on affiliate marketing from Making Sense Of Cents, she also offers a full course on this topic, which can save you months of searching YouTube for that info.
• Now try to sign up for allll the brands you love – because omg it will work for us when nothing else has yet.
• Spend lots of time preparing content to put your affiliate links in.

Hey, before you put too much effort into this step, maybe read Step 15 below.

Step 15:

Pause and realize…

That to make money online you have to have an audience and someone to click on your affiliate links or purchase your products. Getting everything set up and linked is only the first step. A first step that will take a hot minute before it’s truly profitable – and also takes a lot of effort to put in place.

Step 16:

Have more realizations.

• Realize that maybe YouTube is full of a few people who “made it,” and a lot of people commenting and watching who are still trying to. People who have possibly even been trying to “make it” for years.
• Realize that everyone has different amounts of time and a different life. What they do won’t necessarily work for you just because it worked for them – or because they said it did.
• Realize that “Internet Experts” usually have a team.
• Realize that if someone is preaching that they did something in so little time, they were able to do so because they don’t have the same factors that normal people do. They’re probably starting another new channel, not their first channel. Meaning they’ve tested things and know what works. So at that point, they have time, money, and freedom on their side to be able to make everything come together and work.
• They’re probably not battling a 9-5, driving to and from work, errands, family, etc..
• They may have whole days and no distractions to make it happen.
• They may have started in the middle of the pandemic when everyone was stuck at home.
• Or, maybe they’re leaving out how much time and effort was actually put into making this happen.

If you are tempted to compare yourself and embrace self-pity because things aren’t working for you like it is for people on the internet – stop. Because you’re not getting the whole picture. The internet is full of edited versions of life. Little glimpses, not all the behind-the-scenes.

What takes me three-plus years to make happen, may happen faster (or slower) for you. But we’re not in a competition. We’re just two people with our own dreams. Remember your dream and keep going after it.

Step 17:

Reassess – and take back your life. Make it work for you, stop working for it.

Before you know it, time will have flown by. Chasing your dreams can take a lot out of you. Especially if it’s been years and it still doesn’t seem to be working out.

My suggestion is to try to figure out how to make it work for you. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to make the dream work and distracted by all the little things here and there that working on it can be frustrating.

Instead of spending your days stressing yourself out only to make $0.00 online, change how you’re doing things. Make the plan work for you. Set boundaries and limits so you don’t spend your whole weekend stuck inside after a long work week creating content for hours on end.

If what the “Internet Experts” say to do doesn’t work for you – ahem, don’t do it!

Tips I’ve Learned

• Stop editing your content on your phone.
  • It takes so long to do it that way, pick a platform on your computer so you can use a mouse and edit your videos faster. I don’t know that this is the best platform, but I’m using Canva right now for this. I can edit them there, add music, and resize anything I make to post on other platforms.
• Use copyright-free music in your videos.
  • It’s great and all to use the trendy sounds, but if you try to repurpose the videos on other content, you’ll have to replace the music or face copyright claims, they may even mute your videos. It’s just a lot of annoying extra steps. To save myself time, I’ve started using copyright-free music or making my own with Udio.
• Then schedule that content to all your platforms at once. I use Metricool for this. It saves me a lot of time because I don’t have to log in to every individual account and post it at a specific time.
• Be consistent, but on smaller levels.
  • Look, you’re working a 9-5, and I’m proof enough that even if you are consistent and do all the things, you still may not be able to make all the $$$. So I recommend being consistent but finding a comfortable smaller level to be consistent at.
  • I had heard early on that you have to be consistent and post one if not two (good) blog posts a week (plus all the social media stuff) if you want to grow. But after three years of doing that and sticking to my goals, I still have the same 2.5 people reading my blog posts that were there when I started. So don’t burn yourself out. Make your own consistency rules. More isn’t always better or profitable.

Actually I’m not sure if that’s even true. Are there even 2.5 people reading? Are you reading consistently? …Let me know if you’re out there…

Freebies To Save You Time (And Money):

• Pexels – royalty-free pictures.
  • This is important, you can’t steal pictures from anyone on the internet. To use anyone’s pictures – even product pictures – my understanding is that you need explicit written permission to use those pictures. So either take your own, or utilize Pexels! You’re welcome!
• Metricool – for scheduling content.
  • I researched a ton of different websites before signing up for this one. Metricool ultimately won because it had the best overall to offer – on the free plan.
• Canva – For all your designing needs.
  • They have a paid version too, but there is so much you can do on the free version, like create social media posts, freebies, or PDFs to sell on your site.
• Affiliate Marketing Ebook from Michelle at Making Sense of Cents
• Mailchimp – for your email list
  • It’s free up to your first 500 contacts. In three years I have successfully gotten 11 subscribers! And two of those are my own email, for testing purposes…I should probably remove those since I’m getting super close to maxing out my list.
  • But also hey – do you want to join my email list? Click the pretty button and let’s be friends! 👇

• ChatGPT – AI help.
  • I have mixed feelings about ChatGPT. I think it can point you in the right direction and get you thinking, but I don’t use it for everything. I like to use it to help rework my blog post title into 10 new ideas. Sometimes I also use it to give me ideas for content, but the ideas are usually half-formed.
  • I recommend this video from She Dreams All Day if you want ideas on how to phrase your questions for content creation.
• QuillBot – for paraphrasing.
  • If you use ChatGPT to help write blog posts, you should run it through QuillBot before posting anything to help rework what The Robot wrote for you so it sounds more human. You should still proofread to weed out any funny sentences. But just because The Robot spit it out, doesn’t mean you should be posting it.
• Ideogram – free AI-generated pictures.
  • It’s a lot of fun to play with! I used it to create this post for my May The Fourth Be With You Cinco De Mayo Trivia. Beware of funny-looking fingers.
• Udio – for AI music. It’s amazing!
• Rakuten – a Chrome extension that can save you money online by finding coupons and giving you cashback.
  • I mention it here because it’s free to sign up for, and some of the above-mentioned freebies also offer paid versions. So if in the future you decide to get the paid version of Canva or Mailchimp for example, you can get cashback on those purchases (not to mention your regular, everyday shopping).

Money Spent

Gosh, I’m going to have to dig for receipts for this.

• Website/Domain: I’ve made two payments so far. Last year: $307.75, and this year: $348.93. I purchased through Bluehost.
  • From what I recall, my first year was free (or very cheap). I tried to find proof of this, but apparently, Bluehost doesn’t send receipts for $0.00. I remember when checking out that I had the option to choose how many years I wanted to purchase for, and I would pay that total when it auto-renewed. The three-year option was tempting, but I had opted for one year because an “Internet Expert” said something like, “What if you don’t like it and you don’t stick to it?”
• Website theme: $69.00 from 17th Avenue Designs, I got Audrey.
• Courses – “Internet Experts” say you have to “put in/spend money” to “get out/make money.”
  • I bought a beginner guide to blogging for $9.00
    • But, it felt like a waste of money, so I don’t want to link to/name the actual course. If you want something similar – and better – for free, I recommend this video.
  • Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing: $157.60
    • This course covers a lot of info about affiliate marketing. If you’re ready to jump in and get started and you really want something that will walk you through the whole process – I do recommend it. But, I want to say that if you have already watched tons of YouTube videos about affiliate marketing, it may be an unnecessary purchase. So basically what I’m saying is, start with this course, it will save you so much time!
    • My only major complaint about the course is it’s a written course that you have to read. Which means it took me longer to go through than a video course does. I like to listen to my courses while I’m sewing and I couldn’t do that with this one.
  • She Dreams All Day: I’ve bought a couple of courses, including:
    • Her Passive Income Dream: $227.00
    • The Dream Is In The List: $97.00
      • One thing to note is that when you buy a course from She Dreams All Day, she gives a lot of extra freebies/bonuses to go with it – which is amazing and I love! Each course comes packed with so much info.
      • Note: per a recent (2024) YouTube video, I believe Mia is pivoting and may be getting rid of some of the courses I mentioned above, so I didn’t specifically link to them, just to her site.
• Legal stuff: – I think I bought this bundle for $197.00, plus the ADA & WCAG Compliance Bundle for another $63.50.
  • A couple of things:
  • You don’t need the biggest bundle if you’re just starting out. I’ve only ever used three pages from what I purchased. You’ll need a Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, and Disclaimer.
  • Second of all, like I said earlier, if you only have 2.5 people viewing your website regularly and they’re related to you, maybe hold off for a little bit. Save your money and take care of other important things.

Have I bought anything else?? I don’t know, that’s all I can think of for now.

Total: $1476.78

Money Earned (so far)

• From Amazon: $5.82 – but, Amazon requires you to earn $100 (for check payout) or $10 (for direct deposit) first before you can be paid…so, that’s where I am.
• All other affiliates I am approved for: $0.00
• Products sold on my website: $0.00

Total: -$1470.96

Welp…there you have it. It really is possible to make $0.00 online!

Before you go, check out some of our other blog posts that are a little affiliate link-happy:

• The Most Important Travel Items For Your Next Trip
• No More Beef With My Skin: How Tallow Transformed My Skincare Routine
• Amazing Essentials To Thrive In A Remote Work Environment
• The Truth About Working Remotely In Perú

Help a girl out, maybe click on some things, and confuse my click/conversion rate. It costs you $0.00 for clicking, but if you purchase something I may be lucky enough to earn $0.23 from it! (I know – wow!) As “Internet Experts” say, “it all adds up after a while.” However, that prompts the question to be asked…how long is that “while” before the $0.23 has added up enough to be worth it?

I hope you found this helpful. If you made it this far – let me know in the comments! Plus, tell me what other topics you’re interested in reading about.

Explore other recent posts:

• What You Should Know About Your Money Before Moving Abroad
• More Great Sewing Projects To Use Up Leftover Fabric
• How To Successfully Make $0.00 Online While Working A 9-5
• How To Make A Satin Lined Beanie From Fabric Scraps
• The Most Important Travel Items For Your Next Trip

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Playing trivia is a great way to keep your mind active and have fun with your crafty friends and family while busting out those seam ripping, crocheting, and other time-consuming, but necessary, crafty tasks.