People can make decent money online but it's not that easy. Ideally, you should have some value to add out there. If you have a skill that you can market, whether that's in the form of marketing a product or writing for a specialist format, then you can make workable money. But it will take a bit of time to build up decent income streams. In many ways it's similar to being offline - if you try to sell something at a market, it's got to be something that people are willing to buy at a premium price.
I could not have said it any better myself. I mostly work online to cover a couple bills here and there and to have some extra spending money. I have not found the secret to quitting day job and working online full time. I make decent enough money, but not enough to live on.
One thing I would like to stress to everyone is this, you need to take account of what your daily living expenses are. If you live in a third world country, then all you really need to make is about 20-40 usd a day to live a normal life. That covers food and rent in the Philippines. But if you live in the USA, $40 usd won't even cover your daily food expenditures. So there are a lot of people that I know of that have moved out of the US just for that reason alone. They can make a great living in third world countries where you can have a house maid for about $65 usd a month.
I can't even imagine living somewhere in which all you would need to survive is around $20 US dollars a day. It would be like a dream. Here in America everything is so expensive and our country is driven on consumerism. I do online work to earn extra money that my normal paycheck just does not provide. If I could make my wages and live in a 3rd world country, I would live like a queen, but there would be countless downfalls to doing that.
Great point. However I do think you are exaggerating a bit on the US food prices... $40 is not enough for one person for a day?! Just for fun I looked at pizza hut's menus.. about $10 per meal. I imagine a lot of fast food joints being around the same, about $10 per meal. So yeah, if you eat out 3 times per day or go to a proper restaurant each day then you might be spending $40 or more. If you cook food at home with the occasional take-away... I think $40 would be PLENTY of food for 1 person.
I'd have to agree. I have relatives and friends in the US and they surely don't spend more than $40 per day on just meals. Maybe if one is on the high maintenance level, $40 would not be enough to cover a whole day's meal. I live in the Philippines and yes indeed, even $20 a day is a big amount for an average person. The minimum wage here is around $8-$9 per day. It's not enough to feed a family with kids but Filipinos have the talent of making do with what they have.
