21 Real Online Jobs for Military Spouses Overseas

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When your spouse gets military orders overseas, you’re hit with a wave of emotions. Excitement, fear, sadness, joy – all valid, and all very common. And once the initial shock has worn off, one of the first things many military spouses do is start to research online jobs for military spouses overseas.

As a military spouse who is currently living overseas (we’re stationed in Japan) I know what it’s like to move across the world. After almost a decade as a military spouse and 4 overseas moves, I’m quite experienced with the many struggles military spouses face when it comes to finding a job.

It can be difficult enough to find employment as a military spouse when you’re stationed stateside, let alone overseas. Here in Japan, jobs on base are incredibly scarce and when they do open up, competition is fierce.

For these reasons, online jobs for military spouses overseas are one of the best ways to make money. Online jobs are flexible, can usually be done from anywhere in the world, many have great earning potential and perhaps the best part – you don’t have to leave when your spouse gets orders.

If working online sounds like something you’d like to do, keep reading. Below, you’ll find 21 online jobs perfect for military spouses who are stationed overseas.

21 Real Online Jobs for Military Spouses Overseas

Virtual Bookkeeper

If you have a knack for numbers and enjoy balancing your books, then working online as a virtual bookkeeper might be the perfect job for you.

What Do Virtual Bookkeepers Do?

Virtual bookkeepers do the same as traditional bookkeepers – they are responsible for things like recording transactions, reconciling accounts and producing financial statements and reports. The only difference is, a virtual bookkeeper does all of this online, via various software programs.

How Much Do Virtual Bookkeepers Get Paid?

Pay varies, but according to Ben Robinson, a CPA and creator of Bookkeeper Business Launch, a virtual bookkeeper can make as much as $60/hr.

How to Become a Virtual Bookkeeper:

If you think that virtual bookkeeping sounds interesting, then the best place to get started is Bookkeeper Business Launch. Ben Robinson, the creator, has put together a free, 3-part training program which gives you behind-the-scenes look at exactly what a virtual bookkeeper does, to help you decide if virtual bookkeeping is the path you want to take.

Freelance Writer

Freelance writing was one of the first online jobs I had and I highly recommend it if you love writing. It provides great freedom and can be very lucrative.

What Do Freelance Writers Do?

Most commonly, freelance writers write articles for publications. This can include online publications like blogs and company websites, and traditional print publications like magazines and newspapers.

If you’re interested in niching down, you can also find work doing things like copywriting, ghostwriting eBooks and writing email sequences.

How Much Money Do Freelance Writers Make?

According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a freelance writer in the United States is $42,120. However, because freelance writers are self-employed and responsible for finding their own clients and setting their rates, this amount can vary wildly.

Beginning freelance writers who don’t have a solid portfolio may make $25 for a 1000 word article, while experienced freelance writers with an impressive portfolio can make as much as $1.25 per word.

How to Become a Freelance Writer:

Start by enrolling in a freelance writing course run by someone who has been successful as a freelance writer. Gina Horkey’s freelance writing course fits that bill and is the course I enrolled in when I first got started freelance writing.

Online English Teacher

Teaching English online is a rapidly growing work-from-home career that provides a flexible schedule, a fun working environment and the opportunity to earn good money from the comfort of home. And the great news is, you can work from anywhere in the world!

What do Online English Teachers do?

Online English teachers teach English via webcam to overseas students. Most commonly, online English teachers help young Chinese students improve their English in either a 1-on-1 or small group setting.

How Much Money Do Online English Teachers Make?

Depending on the company you work for, online English teachers can make, on average, between $16-$22/hr.

How to Become an Online English Teacher:

Palfish

Palfish is one of the best online English teaching companies to work for if you’re looking for a flexible job that pays well and does not require you to hold a bachelors degree (of course, if you DO have a bachelor’s degree you can still work for Palfish. It’s just not a requirement.)

Palfish pays up to $22/hr with bonuses including things like a $15 props fee and one of the best parts – you teach completely from your smartphone or tablet. That means you don’t need to have access to a computer to teach with Palfish (and it also means teaching with Palfish is highly portable.)

Click here to apply to teach with Palfish.

EF Online

**Due to COVID-19, EF is not currently hiring new teachers. Please check back in a few months. 

EF Online is a trusted company that hires online English teachers. EF Online hires native English speakers from the USA and UK. Unfortunately, they don’t hire citizens of other English speaking countries like Australia, New Zealand or South Africa.

The pay is broken down as follows:

• Base Pay Rate: 2 lessons per hour ($13.20/hr).
• Surge Hours: Teach at 6-8:30am & 9-10:30pm EST (+$2.80/hr).
• No Shows: Do not cancel class within 24 hrs of start-time (+$2.00/hr).
• The “45”: Teach 45 or more ½ hour classes within a month (+$2.00/hr).

Click here to read my full review of EF online.

VIPKID

**Due to COVID-19, VIPKID is not currently hiring new teachers. Please check back in a few months. 

VIPKID is the #1 platform for online English teaching in China. The company was recently awarded #1 position on Forbes magazines “Best work from home companies” list in 2018. Teachers can earn as much as $22/hour working on the VIPKID platform.

Facebook Ads Manager

If you spend a lot of time on Facebook then you might enjoy working from home as a Facebook Ads Manager.

What Does a Facebook Ads Manager Do?

As a Facebook Ads Manager, you’ll be running lead generation campaigns for small businesses using the Facebook Ads manager. Facebooks ads can be an excellent tool to increase leads and sales, but many small business owners don’t have the time or expertise to be running their own profitable Facebook ads.

How Much Does a Facebook Ads Manager Make?

According to Indeed, the average salary for a Facebook Manager is $17.74/hr. Freelance Facebook Ads Managers have the opportunity to make more money by setting their own rates, but of course, as a freelancer you’re responsible for finding your own clients.

How Do I Become a Facebook Ads Manager?

Your first step is to enroll in a course that teaches you how to run successful Facebook ad campaigns. Mike Yanda is a dad and a successful Facebook ads manager who started his freelance career a few years ago. He quickly scaled to a full-time income and teamed up with a friend to create Facebook Side Hustle, a course designed to teach others how to start their own profitable Facebook Ads Manager business.

Virtual Assistant

If you’re tech savvy then working as a virtual assistant can be a lucrative online job. Virtual Assisting is a rapidly growing career field. Traditional businesses are starting to realize the many benefits of hiring a virtual assistant, and with online businesses cropping up at never-before-seen rates, there’s never been a better time to become a virtual assistant.

What Do Virtual Assistants Do?

As a virtual assistant, your tasks can vary wildly. Most virtual assistants are freelancers, meaning that they can choose the types of services that they offer clients. Having said that, there are some common services that virtual assistants offer. These include:

• Email inbox management
• Editing/uploading blog posts
• Scheduling social media
• Moderating Facebook groups
• Pinterest management
• Creating graphics
• Managing affiliate programs

How Much Do Virtual Assistants Make?

Depending on your skill level and the services you offer, the average hourly rate of a US-based virtual assistant is $25-$50/hr.

How to Become a Virtual Assistant:

The first thing I recommend doing is watching the free web class offered by Kayla Sloan, a highly successful virtual assistant and creator of Ten K VA.

In the free web class you’ll learn the three secrets to making up to five figures per month:

• without having to go back to school
• without having to spam your friends and family on social media
• without having to move to a bigger city
• in less time than you think!

If you’d like to jump right into learning how to start your virtual assistant business, then Kayla offers a in-depth course call Ten K VA where she shares how to start your own business and the steps she took to earn over $10,000/month. 

Proofreader

Consider yourself a member of the grammar police? If so, then proofreading might be the perfect work-at-home job for you.

What Do Proofreaders Do?

Proofreaders read through documents and make sure there are no spelling, grammatical and typographical errors. As a proofreader, you might find yourself proofreading an entire book one week and then a series of blog posts the next.

How Much Money Do Proofreaders Make?

According to Caitlin Pyle, the founder of Proofread Anywhere, the quality of your service and the amount of time and effort you put into your proofreading career are the primary factors that determine your income.

For this reason, it’s difficult to say exactly how much a general proofreaders earns. However, as a ballpark figure, Caitlin says that the going rate for proofreading a non-fiction book that’s between 15,000-35,000 words is between $100-$500.

General proofreaders usually earn less than niche-specific proofreaders (think proofreading for court reporters,) so if you’re after a higher pay rate, consider choosing a niche to specialize in.

How to Become a Proofreader:

The best way to get started as a proofreader is to enroll in Caitlin Pyle’s free workshop. In the free workshop you’ll learn the 5 signs that indicate that proofreading might be the ideal career for you, how proofreading can provide lifestyle freedom and financial security, and the surprisingly easy way to attract proofreading clients.

Related: 10 Legitimate Places to Find Proofreading Jobs for Beginners

Blogger

Blogging is incredibly popular, with 2 million blog posts being written every day. However, what a lot of people don’t realize is that blogging can provide a lucrative income, completely from home.

How Do Bloggers Make Money?

Blogs make money from a variety of different sources. It’s up to the individual blog owner to decide how they want to monetize their blog, but some of the most common monetization options include:

• 3rd Party Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Sales
• Sponsored Posts

How Much Money Do Bloggers Make?

Like affiliate marketing, there is no set amount that bloggers make. Experienced bloggers can make anywhere from a few thousand up to $150,000/month.

How Do I Become a Blogger?

I’m a full-time blogger and make 4-figures a month via affiliate marketing. You can learn more about my #1 recommendation on how to get started by clicking here.

Scopist

Scoping is an interesting, little known career field which anyone interested in true crime and the legal system will likely find interesting.

What Do Scopists Do?

Scopists edit legal documents for court reporters. In a nutshell, the court reporter writes and the scopist edits. To work as a scopist you need to have excellent punctuation, word use, and vocabulary skills.

How Much Money Do Scopists Make?

According to professional scopist, Linda Evenson, the average earnings for a scopist are $30,000-$50,000/year.

How Do I Become a Scopist?

Scoping is a specialized career field, so it’s best to enroll in a scoping course. Internet Scoping School is the most thorough and effective training program available. If you’d like to learn more about scoping, then you can enroll in the free intro course.

Niche Site Owner

If you have a passion for writing and have a topic you feel like you could talk about for hours, then starting a niche site might be the perfect way for you to make money from home.

What is a niche site?

A niche site is slightly different to a blog. As opposed to a blog which is regularly updated and tends to cover a broader topic, a niche site generally covers a very specific topic in great depth. A couple of examples might be massage equipment or bird feeders.

How do you make money with a niche site?

There are several ways you can make money with a niche site. These include:

• Display ads
• Affiliate marketing
• Sponsored posts
• Sales of your own product

How do I start a niche site?

If you’re confident in your tech/website building abilities or have the time and desire to learn, then you can start your own site from scratch (if you’re new to building a website, I recommend getting a free membership with Wealthy Affiliate.)

If you have some initial capital to invest and want to avoid the sometimes tedious and frustrating process of creating your website from scratch, you can buy a premade niche site.

Amazon Virtual Employee

Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the United States and as such, they’re always hiring. Amazon has an entire page dedicated to hiring virtual employees.

How Much Does Amazon Pay Virtual Employees?

Your rate of pay is dependent on the position you’re hired for. According to Indeed, the average Amazon salary ranges from $22,156/year for a customer service rep to $133,524/year for a support specialist.

How to Find Amazon Virtual Positions:

Check out the Amazon virtual job listings page.

Serious About Getting a Job With Amazon?

If you’re serious about working for Amazon, then check out this Kindle book – How to Get a Job at Amazon, written by a former Amazon hiring manager who has helped hundreds of people get employed with Amazon.

Hint – you can read the book for free on your smartphone or Kindle if you get a free 30-day trial of Kindle Unlimited.

Search Engine Evaluator

Have you ever wondered how Google determines which web pages snag the top positions on their search engine results page?

Part of this is done by a powerful algorithm but there are also real people, called Search Engine Evaluators, who work to determine the relevance of a web page and where it should land in search engine results.

There are a number of companies who hire search engine evaluators, including Appen Butler Hill and Lionbridge.

If this sounds like the type of work-from-home job you’d like, here’s a full article about how to get paid to search the web.

Stock Photographer

If you’re creative and have a talent for photography, then selling stock photography can be a nice income earner. And being stationed overseas gives you the benefit of having unique locations and scenes to photograph.

There are various sites including iStockPhoto, Adobe Stock and ShutterStock that allow you to upload your photos for free.

These sites are where online business owners, news websites, online magazines, etc., go to find stock photography to complement their articles. Anytime someone purchases the rights to use your stock photo, you’ll receive a commission.

Digital Photography School has a great selection of reasonably priced courses for beginner and intermediate photographers.

SEO Consultant

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the amount of website visitors a website receives through organic (free) search engine results.

The goal of virtually every online business, website or blog is for their website and/or articles to rank in the top organic position on Google for the keyword they’re targeting.

For example, a website like PetSmart would likely be aiming to rank in the top position every time someone types “buy dog food” in Google.

As an SEO consultant, you’ll be employing various practices to help websites reach that top position.

If you’re not familiar with SEO but it sounds like something you’d be interested in, I recommend starting with a course like Stupid Simple SEO.

Stupid Simple SEO focuses specifically at SEO for bloggers. Go through the course, master the content and then start offering your services to bloggers.

Online Translator

If you’re fluent in a second language, then why not put that to use by working as a translator?

VerbalizeIt is an online translating company that hires freelance translators.

If you’re hired, you’ll be sent work notifications when there’s a translating job available. After accepting the job, completing your work and submitting it for review, you’ll receive a completion credit and get paid via PayPal on the 15th and 30th of every month.

Listicle Writer

A listicle is an article that is written in the form of a list. If you’re a regular Buzzfeed reader, you’ll be familiar with listicles.

Listicles are a popular form of content, with well-written listicles having the ability to drive viral traffic to a website.

Listverse is one of the most popular listicle sites on the web, featuring “Top 10” lists on virtually every topic you can think of.

Listverse pays contributors $100 per published listicle. To have your listicle accepted by Listverse, you’ll need to ensure that your content is unique and well-written. Additionally, Listverse only accepts listicles from native English speakers, and they require you to have a verified PayPal account to receive payment.

ModSquad Moderator

If you’re an avid internet user and you’d like a fun and flexible freelance job working with some of the top brands in the world, then consider working from home as a moderator with ModSquad.

As a moderator, you’ll be tasked with helping companies engage their audience across a variety of digital channels, including forums, helpdesks, email, live chat, social media and more.

This is a highly flexible job – not only do you get to choose the assignments that best fit your needs, you also get to choose your own schedule.

Click here to learn more about becoming a ModSquad moderator.

Website Tester

Website testing is a flexible side job where you’ll be analyzing and reviewing websites for things like user-friendliness, functionality and overall appeal.

UserTesting is one of the most respected website testing companies, and they’re always on the lookout for new user testers.

To be hired as a website tester with UserTesting, you’ll be required to submit an application and complete a test project. If you’re successful, you’ll be added to the pool of user testers.

You’ll receive an email notification every time a new assignment is available – these go fast so it’s essential that you respond quickly.

How Much Does UserTesting pay?

The pay is $10 per completed review, so while you’re not going to make a full-time income as a user-tester, it can be a good part-time online job for military spouses overseas.

Travel Writer

If you’re a talented writer, living overseas gives you the perfect opportunity to work as a travel writer, writing about your tips and experiences living abroad.

Transitions Abroad is a respected online guide to travel, work, study and living abroad who accepts writing submissions from freelance travel writers.

According the their writer submissions page, “Payment for freelance articles is upon acceptance, ranging from $75 to $150…” with the average payment being $100.

World Nomads is a travel insurance company that also has an active travel blog, and is regularly hiring freelance travel writers. They pay $0.50/word and keep an updated list of upcoming featured destinations that they’re currently accepting pitches for.

Paid Expert

Are you a proven expert in a particular field? Perhaps you have an advanced degree that you’re unable to put to use while you’re stationed overseas? Then you can make money online by providing expert advice and helping customers solve everyday issues on JustAnswer.

JustAnswer is an online expert question and answer website that hires experts in over 175 categories, including everything from Law, Medical and Finance to Mechanics, Animal Behavior, Homework, Veterinary and dozens of other fields.

How Much Does JustAnswers Pay?

The starting rate of pay for an paid expert with JustAnswers is 20% of the question fee, with the opportunity for an increase to 50% of the answer after a period of time. In general, the highest paid fields are Law, Medicine and Engineering.

How Do I Become a Paid Expert with JustAnswers?

Click here to go to the application page, choose your area of expertise and fill out your application. If you’re successful, you’ll be required to submit proof of your expertise, which can include things like diplomas, licenses and state registration papers.

Video Editor

Online video content is growing at a rapid pace. According to Cisco, by 2022 online video will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic.

Thanks to this insane growth, lots of people are looking for skilled video editors to edit their raw content into something professional and “viral-worthy.”

Final Cut Pro is the premier photo editing software that most professionals use, so it’s a good idea to master the use of this software if you want to work as a video editor.

The Complete Final Cut Pro X Course will take you from complete beginner to editing videos like a professional.

Content Editor

Have an excellent eye for detail? Always find yourself noticing spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors?

Then you might want to consider becoming an content editor. As a content editor, you’ll be planning, reviewing and revising content for publication.

Employers typically require content editors to hold a Bachelor’s degree in English, communications or journalism and previous experience in writing or proofreading.

RemoteJobs.co is an excellent source for virtual content editor positions.

As you can see online jobs for military spouses overseas are plentiful, you just have to know where to look!

How I Make a Living Online

I personally created a 4-figure monthly passive income stream as a stay-at-home mom with no experience, no audience and without having thousands of dollars to invest upfront.

If you’d like to learn how I created a passive income stream like this and how you can do the same, then click here. I’ve created a special video that explains everything to you.