The internet provides a seemingly limitless range of opportunities and prospects, many of which provide the opportunity to earn extra money, whether you are looking to supplement your income and earn extra cash, or even start a full time business. These opportunities can be particularly attractive to mums, as the internet allows them to earn extra cash despite flexible and unconventional working hours.

Here is a selection of work at home opportunities that don’t require huge start up costs or demanding hours, they can be slotted into odd hours during the day when the kids may be at nursery or school. The list is not comprehensive, working online can encourage you to be as creative as you wish, and you can choose your own hours and type of work to fit your schedule.

Freelance Writing and Editorial Work

Through its continual expansion the internet has a never ending thirst for content. Websites may be full of professional design and imagery but there is still the need for text. A number of opportunities therefore exist to write articles on a freelance basis. These opportunities can range from those requiring relevant qualifications or degrees in certain subjects, to articles that don’t require any necessary expert status at all. Writing these articles will often include passing a short simple writing test to show you can hit certain grammatical standards.

If you feel you don’t want to write articles but have a good understanding of punctuation and grammar then there are opportunities online to do editorial work. This will simply involve proof reading, correcting spelling and punctuation, and perhaps adding subheadings where required.  Time limits for completing the work will usually be set in days, so once you have claimed a job to do you are then free to complete it at a time convenient to you.

Selling Items Online

Many people are often surprised at what can be sold online. Mums often have many unwanted items, simply because their children have outgrown them. Items that you may traditionally have thought of selling at boot sales such as children’s clothes, prams and pregnancy books, can be sold online to other parents on auction sites. Being more creative, you can also sell items online that you have made yourself, for example greetings cards, jewellery or gift boxes.

Online Questionnaires

Market research is big business and there are a lot of companies that require people to complete surveys and questionnaires. These opportunities online will often take about 10-20 minutes and pay between 50p - £2. Although this doesn’t sound a lot, fitting several surveys a day into odd hours that you may not have much else to do can quickly add up and serve as a welcome boost to your weekly/monthly disposable income. You can sometimes be entered into competitions as well and have the chance to win a great prize.

Always be careful to read exactly how the procedure works. You should never have to part with cash yourself and should understand exactly how you are going to get paid. This commonly works through paypal so you may need to set up an account, and you may need to reach a set target before payment is transferred, for example £10.

The best ways to view the above examples are either as a way to boost your income around your other responsibilities such as childcare and part-time work, or as a short-term income source whilst you launch a grander Work From Home Business. You can search for these opportunities through any search engine such as Google, although it is best to set the search for UK results only.

This article has been contributed by Matthew Nunn, who works at Work From Home Jobs, a website providing you with opportunities to complete paid online surveys as well as information and resources on other work from home opportunities without the scams.