Extra income: how to get additional income at home

Extra income usually starts not with a big idea but with the question “what can I do in the evenings or at weekends to get another few hundred euros a month?”. The answer depends on how much time you have, what you can do and whether you have a main job.

This part of the guide covers ideas for extra income by skills and life situation: for those working full-time, for students, for parents at home. It also covers how much time it takes and when extra income becomes an activity that has to be registered.

Extra income by what you can do

Extra income at home

For many people it matters that the extra work is done from home – while raising children, caring for relatives or simply not wanting to commute. Extra income at home usually comes from three sources:

• Services over a video call – lessons, consultations, training. Bookings for sessions and payment can be handled through mr.lt.
• Computer work to order – texts, design, translations, administration that you can do when you have time.
• Affiliate marketing – you recommend products on your social media and get a commission. It needs no fixed schedule.

If you work full-time

The biggest limitation is time and energy. Choose a way that has no strict schedule (freelance orders, affiliate marketing, content) or takes up one clear evening a week (lessons, consultations). Also check your employment contract: some contracts restrict competing activity in the same sector.

A practical rule: set aside fixed time in your calendar for extra income – for example, Tuesday and Thursday evenings. That way the activity will interfere with neither work nor rest.

Extra income for students

What suits students best is what fits the lecture timetable and builds experience at the same time: tutoring, freelancing in your own field of study (programming, design, marketing, translations) and affiliate marketing, if you have an active social media profile. The money earned here also becomes an entry in your CV.

How much time it takes and how much you can earn

With services, income depends on the hours and the price – the more experience and reviews you have, the higher the price you can ask. With affiliate marketing and content, income may be low in the first months, but later the posts you have created earn without new work.

A realistic goal for the first month is a first client, a first sale or the first few things sold. Once a way proves itself, increase the time or the price, not the number of ways.

Extra income online: where to start

If you are asking how to make extra money without changing the rhythm of your life, start with one small step that takes no longer than a weekend:

1. Write down three things you can do better than most people. It may be a language, a piece of software, recipes or knowledge about cars.
2. Choose one form: a service (someone pays for your time), a product (someone buys what you have created) or a recommendation (you get a commission for a sale).
3. Announce it where you already are: on your social media, in groups of people you know, to colleagues at work.

Extra income online usually starts not with a search for a platform but with people who already know you. The first clients and the first sales almost always come from your closest circle.

How to combine it with your main job and family

• Choose asynchronous ways. Texts, design and affiliate marketing do not require you to be reachable at a particular time.
• Set the price straight away. Negotiating with every client eats up more time than the work itself.
• Automate what repeats. Bookings, reminders and payments can happen without you – booking systems are suited to that.
• Look at the numbers every month. How many hours you put in and how much you earned – this shows whether it is worth continuing.

When extra income becomes an activity

A one-off sale of your own item is not an activity. But when you regularly provide services, receive commissions or trade, it is already an economic activity that has to be made official. Most often people choose self-employment under a certificate or a business certificate – their differences are explained in the ACS.lt article “Self-employment: a certificate or a business certificate”, and the tax can be worked out with the personal income tax (GPM) calculator.

Frequently asked questions