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What are some ways I can earn online ($200-$300)? Just enough to buy a new PC.

16 points by sygeek ↗ HN
My current specs are: Pentium 4 2.40 GHz 376MB RAM Intel integrated 82845G

I've been using this PC for the past 10 years. The only games I can run are outdated and I've played them tonnes of times. I can now hardly run current games like minecraft (playing for 6 months) and warband. It has become increasingly frustating now.

So, HN please help me buy myself a gaming PC. I'm all for online jobs recommendations but being in a non-US country has made it very difficult. I've tried most of the programs but all of them were unsuccessful. My goal is to get $200-$300.

20 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 51.0 ms ] thread
mtgx
Try to win a few projects on https://www.elance.com or other freelance sites. Bid only the minimum price if the project isn't too large (until you get more experience and projects under your belt on the site).

There's also http://fiverr.com, and you can sell almost any type of service you can think about for $5. Check the ones that already exist for inspiration.

sygeek
I tried fiverr.com but none of my projects gets any buys.

Not sure about freelance though, will it work without any programing experience?

jmmcd
> without any programing experience?

Are you sure you're on the right website?

mpeg
He's been asking for months, instead of going out and, you know, getting a job.

I guess he's expecting someone to give him the money.

tluyben2
oDesk.com is much faster / safer to do so. Elance is hard to score in my experience as starter, while my sister went, on oDesk, without any tech skills, from a few $/day to $100+/day and gets many referrals.

(If you didn't get it from the above; this will work without programming experience; you can write/translate/be an assistent/do basic testing/etc/etc. You don't even need a computer for a lot of things, but you will have a high phonebill or need to travel if you choose those jobs. Depending on where you live, there are local assignments as well, which pay out very fast and usually quite a lot as they 'see your face').

esbwhat
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2818128

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3958812

how did you go from being 14 to being 16 in less than a year?

Very fishy

true_religion
I remember when I was 14, it was cool to say you were 18---not 16, but then again, I'm not from the UK.
esbwhat
Just a bit suspicious since this is the fourth or so thread this user has been either indirectly or directly asking for money
sygeek
Heh, I'm not asking for money this time, just that sometimes my threads gets buried. HN is great at giving suggestions from what I've seen and I've indeed received some useful one this times. Again, sorry if I sound suspicious, I can add my system's pics if you want.
sygeek
I'm actually 15, I mentioned 16, because of the same reason people look differently at 17 year olds and 18 year olds.
yummyfajitas
I wrote this blog post, and just to see what would happen I turned the book links into Amazon affiliate links. I made $291.99.

http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/leaving_academia.html

frugalfirbolg
That's pretty impressive. If you don't mind me prying, how long did it to take to rack up those earnings (guessing 2 months since it was posted) and where did most of your traffic for that post come from (rss subscribers vs search engine referrals)?
yummyfajitas
1 month. Amazon takes a while to deliver payment, and I just got my first payment a couple of days ago. However, earnings went way down after the first month. This month I only made $17.

HN was the biggest source of traffic, followed by reddit. A bunch more came from twitter, facebook, google+, as people shared the article.

frugalfirbolg
Still a nice bonus for taking the time write some original content. Thanks for sharing the info.
mrgreenfur
Get a job and save your money? Man, I wish I had a downvote button.
[dead] Neelix
Man, I wish I had a shut the fuck up and fuck off button.
jdietrich
There's a great deal of fairly unskilled work available on oDesk - copy editing, transcription, basic web design and so on. Odesk have their own system of skills tests, so you can assess your own abilities and demonstrate them to prospective employers.

Pay is generally quite low because of the competition from workers in low-income countries, but if you make the effort to develop good relationships with clients and earn good feedback you could easily make several hundred dollars a month in your spare time.