If you are one of the many Americans who have recently lost their job because of the current economy, you probably know by now that jobs are hard to find out there.

If you can’t find a way to make money, don’t sit around waiting for someone to dump something in your lap. Make it happen. Doing nothing but hoping will not pay the bills. But action will.

Consider making money on the internet. Many people make money every day online. But there are some things to be aware of before you begin. If you go to Yahoo or Google and type in “Make Money Working At Home”, you will find thousands of websites that promise to show you how to make tons of money doing practically nothing. In fact, I did a Yahoo search for this phrase and got 1,380,000,000 results. That’s 1 billion, 380 million!

Most of them are scams. And if they aren’t full blown scams, the majority of them won’t make you the money they promise. I know, I’ve tried many of them.

“Make $300 to $2,000 a Day Typing At Home.” Or “Earn $5,000 a Day Filling Out Surveys”. And, “Bring In $10,000 A Day As A Rebate Processor”. And on and on.

I have personally tried many of these strike it rich methods of making money from home and guess what? None of them earned me a penny. But they all had one thing in common. They all ripped me off for money that I couldn’t afford to lose.

Oh, sure, they all offer a money back guarantee. Like the one I failed to read carefully that said they would refund my money as long as I didn’t quit their program. Well, I couldn’t get my money back if I was still using their program and because I didn’t read the fine print, I couldn’t get my money back if I did quit their program.

Be very careful before you plunk down your money on something that promises to make you a ton of money while only working a couple hours a week. We all know down deep that this isn’t possible.

Recently I paid $197.00 to become an Affiliate Rebate Processor. The website told me that there were thousands of companies out there that paid $15.00 for each rebate I could process. All I had to do was fill out a form that only took a few minutes to complete.

They made it sound like for every rebate form I processed, I’d earn $15.00. So the more I processed the more I’d make. Sounded pretty good. Fill out 10 rebate forms and make $150.00. And this would only take about an hour. Wow! I could make $150.00 an hour!

Of course this turned out to be totally false. After paying them $197.00, I learned that I had to place ads all over the internet. If someone bought something I would earn a percent of the price of the item they bought. Then, I would “rebate” them some money and what was left, $15.00, was mine to keep.

I tried this one for several weeks and made absolutely no money. I’m still waiting for my $197.00 refund.

The fact is that every online work at home system that I bought failed miserably. They all claim to have a secret that will make you rich. And they all make it sound so good! Don’t believe it.

Still, I was determined to make money online. I found out that there are legitimate ways to make money online. It does take some effort and time, though.

The best way I have found is to have or create your own product. Now I know what you are thinking. That you have no product of your own to sell, and have no idea how to create any.

Are you an artist? Do you love gardening? Love to cook? Have a hobby that you know a lot about like building bird houses, candle making, dolls, juggling, model trains, soap making, magic, pottery, bird watching and identification, photography, scrap booking, treasure hunting, winemaking, wood working, writing, ceramics, crocheting, making jewelry…

Still not there. How about fashion design, painting, drawing, quilting, sign language, archery, back packing, camping, fishing, golf, hunting, horse back riding, inline skating….

Have I hit on something you know about yet? Martial Arts, running, sailing, leaf collecting, snow boarding, swimming, tennis, dancing, building go carts…

There’s got to be something you are good at and know a lot about. Mountain biking, paintball, skate boarding, scuba diving, billiards, chess, coin collecting.

We all have hobbies or things that interest us. Why not write an e book or a hard copy book about what you know?

A cook book full of your grandmother’s special recipes. A detailed book on how to make beautiful candles, or fishing lures, or whatever your area of expertise is.

I’m an artist. I draw pencil portraits of just about any subject you can imagine. First, I started selling my drawings on eBay. That went very well. I still do that. Since then I built my own website and have written eight books on the subject of drawing. Now I sell my books and my drawings from my website. I haven’t become rich yet, but it has provided an extra income for my family.

Don’t know anything about building a website? I didn’t either. But you can learn. It’s not that hard to do. In fact, it’s fun.

You can build a website for free through Yahoo Geocities. Or you can create an awesome website for around $25.00 a month though website providers like Site Build It.

I have also found an online company called Café Press that prints my drawings onto all kinds of cool items. Coffee mugs, t shirts, hats, mouse pads, tote bags, coasters, even baseballs!

My little art business has grown. But the point is that I took action and got started. Take the action you need to make money online by creating your own product. Keep working on it. It might not happen overnight. Maybe there is more than one thing you know a lot about. Great, now you can add two or three new streams of income.

There are several types of products you can sell online. Information products, hard products, service products. An example of an information product would be my How To Draw books. A hard product would be my drawings. A service product would be if I did drawings for someone to use.

I other words, you might know a great deal about making jewelry. Create an information product, like an book or e book, about how to make jewelry at home. You can even include in your book how to sell the jewelry you make. Your hard product would be the jewelry that you personally make and sell. Your service product would be if you created jewelry for someone else to sell.

eBay is a good place to start selling your products. Whether you are selling information or hard products, you can sell them on eBay.

I remember back when I used to draw just for the fun of it. Now it’s really fun because I’m making money to boot! You can do the same thing by creating your own products. The more products you create, the more money you will make.

So, forget about selling someone else’s stuff. And definitely forget about all those “Make Tons Of Money At Home” scams. They don’t work. Be your own boss. You will find that it’s fun and exciting to create and sell your own products. Good luck!