5 Money-Making Uses for Your Daily Commute

Getting up at 7 am to then get on the train for between half an hour and an hour, to then arrive at work for 9 am. Commuting can be a long process, no matter how well you have managed to orchestrate it.

You can easily lose hours out of your day to public transport or the dreaded traffic. And what do you do with these hours? Answer: waste them.

Scrolling through social media, endlessly staring out of the rainy window and other such broody behavior is all well and good. But, does pretending to be the protagonist of a novel really get you anywhere in life? Probably not.

For that reason, here are the best money-making uses that you can get out of your daily commute.

You won’t become a millionaire overnight by any means, but this extra time could put you on the path to your next career move.

1. Complete Freelance Assignments

This is probably the simplest and most productive use of your commute, particularly if it’s 30 or more minutes long.

After all, one of the biggest issues many people have with freelancing is fitting it around the rest of their lives. Between a day job, family commitments and simple fun it can be hard to fit in more work.

Therefore, your daily commute is the perfect opportunity to squeeze this money-making endeavor back into your day.

Online magazines, blogs and physical publications all look for writers on a regular basis. If you are particularly good then you could get yourself a weekly or monthly gig easily, even your own contributor section depending on their structure!

Or you could also create a plethora of marketing materials for various businesses across the world.

Of course, freelancing isn’t only restricted to writing. You could complete graphic design assignments, data entry or admin, translation, website development or whatever else you may be skilled enough to offer on a freelance basis.

Whatever skill you have that makes money and can be completed on a laptop (or another travellable device) should be done on your commute.

Read also: How to Find Writing Assignments as a New Freelance Writer

2. Earn a Qualification

Top 5 Online Jobs That Begin Paying Immediately

Now, this is perhaps the only option on this list which isn’t an instant money earner. But, there is plenty of worth to be found in earning additional qualifications on your commute.

After all, the more qualified you are the more likely you will be able to achieve better promotions, pay bumps at work and your C.V. easily becomes more attractive to potential employees.

Free qualifications you could go for including HTML coding, social media strategy, data analysis training (excel and spreadsheets), inbound marketing and even project management.

There are also plenty of other, more traditional, subjects to study, but these could be particularly beneficial when applied to your career.

Ultimately, a wasted commute is one where you do nothing at all. So, even if you are only learning by listening to a podcast or reading a book then you will be on your first step to achievement.

3. Craft Something

Do you find your commute boring? With no one to talk to and your phone only offering the mornings dreary news, it actually makes a nice change to do something different.

So, why not take the opportunity to craft on your commute? From knitting to jewelry creating, what you craft only depends on the time you have to spare (and materials that won’t be ruined by the hustle and bustle of a bus, train, etc.).

Handmade designs are totally in at the moment, with a pretty price tag to go alongside them.

Online commerce sites such as eBay and Amazon are also very easy to set up. So, all in all, you could be making a nice little bit of money on the side with little time or effort invested at all.

Read also: 5 Apps and Services That Pay You Money

4. Buy, Then Sell

Similar to the crafting route, but without as much hard work on your part. Searching the internet for bargains, perhaps cleaning them up a bit and then selling them on can be a fun hobby. It can also net you a tidy profit if you have an eye for a bargain.

If you’re going to spend your commute on your phone, then at least be productive and search online for some good deals on eBay and similar.

Not everything you buy will be a goldmine but there is certainly some potential.

With at least two hours of your day spent commuting there is plenty of opportunities to turn over a profit by doing this, so try not to waste your time.

Pro tip: try to buy relatively small items at first.

This is both for the practicality of storage and shipping costs, the bigger the item the more money you will lose sending it to buyers. So, think small and only grow so long as your little hobby is also growing.

5. Write

Writing is probably one of the easiest and most productive things to occupy your commute with.

The beauty of writing during the spare hours of your commute is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a novel.

After all, not everyone is the next Ernest Hemingway. Instead, you could pen the script to your next money-making podcast, write a movie script, start writing an op-ed piece, or even write a song which may become the next advert ‘jingle’.

It all depends on what you aspire to in life.

Writing is flexible and can lead to a number of different, but equally fantastic, opportunities. So, if you do nothing else on your commute then consider writing. You never know what it might lead to!

Read also: How to Write and Publish Your First eBook in 30 Days or Less

Conclusion

All in all, getting to and from work doesn’t have to be an exhausting waste of your time and energy. Instead, you can transform it into a productive and even profitable part of your day.

Either by earning directly from your commuting activities or by starting on a path that inevitably will bring you to more money in the long term.

In both scenarios, you are still achieving more than simply scrolling through cat pictures on Facebook (no matter how much we may truly love them).

So, tomorrow morning put your phone on silent, pull out your chosen endeavor and work your commute away. Who knows where you will end up?  

About The Author

Zack Halliwell is a freelance writer in the business and marketing niche, giving advice on anything from the perfect branding to finding the perfect chartered surveyor for your property. When not writing he can be found on long mountain walks with his dog, Batman.

About The Author

Lidiya Kesarovska

I'm a blogger, author, course creator and the founder of Let's Reach Success and it's my mission to share my knowledge in lifestyle design, blogging, business and personal development with you so you can manifest all your desires and serve your purpose as a business owner.
I've been named one of the top 10 course creators and experts to watch in 2021 by Yahoo! Finance, have written for TIME magazine, have been featured on Thrive Global, Disrupt Magazine, and more, and quoted on publications like Entrepreneur, Fit Small Business and Fundera.
After turning my blog into a full-time online business, I now teach others how to do the same because financial freedom doesn’t need to be just a dream.
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