Hehe
When I was a student, I also made money online. There are many legit & socially acceptable ways to do it. Here are some ways that I tried and tested, either by myself or by my close friends.
- Selling stuff on Ebay. This earned me good money throughout my university years. I had lots of 2nd hand stuff, but you don't necessarily need to. Check out
http://www.shoplindasstuff.com/. This lady started out selling her 2nd hand designer stuff and then turned it into a business. Now, people send her designer items and she takes 50% of the sales price. This way, you have no initial outlay for the goods you sell, so the risk is low.
Running a good and profitable ebay business takes effort, but you grow into it quickly. Try to choose a product category that you're very familiar with (e.g. designer clothing, baseball card, whatever).
- Selling stuff on Ebay (Part II)....trendy new goods & gadgets. If you're planning to sell new goods, adding Amazon as a sales outlet is a good idea. You can import good that are popular in other countries, but haven't become easily available in your country yet. Before you import/sell them, check if it's legal to import and sell them. How do you find these products. Go on Quora and ask people for the favorite toy/gadget/food/cosmetic item etc. from their home country. You're likely to get a list of thing you've never heard of, but that are very cool.
I have several friend who mass-import good from the US that are not easily available in Europe (often; because the companies selling them in the US don't ship to Europe, or shipping is ridiculously high) and sell them with high mark-ups.
- Translations or proof-reading (depending on how many languages you speak)
- Sites like elance and fiverr have been mentioned before. There, you can advertise all sorts of skills.
- Etsy. I'm becoming more and more fond of that site and have even considered selling some of my crafts there as a hobby. For this year, I've decided to buy all my clothes there, because I'm fed up with all the low-quality mainstream stores. So, if you have things that you can craft, then that might be a good idea.
- KDP Publishing (Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing). Please don't go for the cliche 'get rick quick guide' but if you can write romantic fiction, then you should do well. Just check out the Top 100 in Kindle books
- You could become an online tarot card reader. A friend of mine at university did that. You don't make much money, but I guess that kind of work can be rather entertaining.
- There's all sorts of stuff you can do with affiliate programs, but I personally don't know much about that.
- Take an online job/telecommute. There are some companies that let people - usually in customer service - work from their own home in their own time. I think that in some cases, you get paid according to how many customer service requests you answer. Something like that would let you determine your own working hours. Even reputable companies have such customer service positions. If you're studying, that could also look good on your CV for the future.
If I may add one thing:
If I were in my late teens again and about to go off to university, then I would have acquired some basic accounting qualifications. I don't know where you're based in and how easy it is to get an accounting licenses to be a basic freelance accountant. In my home country, there are about 6-8 stages of qualification, but the first two are quite simple and allow you to work as a licenses accountant for booking simple transactions and organising the accounts.
This kind of work is great freelance work (if you have small businesses as clients for example). It's safe and stable and you earn ok money and you can find you clients online.
Hope to have inspired you a little.
