Side hustles are gaining traction as a lucrative way to earn some extra money. Some ideas may earn enough to turn from a side hustle to a permanent source of income, while others are just fun ways to sock away a few dollars each month.
1. Publish Your Book
Think you have the next best seller? Publish it for free to Amazon Direct Kindle Publishing.
This online book platform is a great way to get exposure for your book and earn you a little coin each time it is downloaded. Kindle handles everything (except the writing) for free.
2. Make a Change
In today’s digital world, putting your spare change into a jar won’t get you very far. What if there were an app that lets you round up your purchases to the next dollar and put the difference into investments instead?
Enter Acorns, your virtual money jar. Acorns takes your change and squirrels it away for you. You won’t notice any real difference in your spending, but you will notice one in your savings.
3. The Write Way
People are in the market for elegantly written pieces, from place settings to invitations and envelopes. These are most commonly used for weddings, but there is plenty of other work as well.
Calligraphy is the writing of choice for these jobs, with its distinctive and classy details. Finding work as a calligrapher can pay you some serious money, with an average of $2 to $5 per piece.
4. Draw Your Way to Cash
If you’ve got a flair for drawing, painting, animating, or any other artistic platform you can market those skills online. Business owners, authors, blog owners, and many more are always looking for unique work to brand themselves, or to illustrate their sites. If you’ve got a knack, check into selling your work as a freelance artist.
5. More Doodly Opportunity
All those years of doodling all over your school work may finally pay off. You can sell your doodles online for those seeking designs for t-shirts, greeting cards or more. Freelance doodler sounds like a perfect side hustle!
6. Phone the Bank
You use your cell phone all the time, so you might as well get paid to do it.
AppKarma lets you earn points for what you already love to do on your mobile devices; watch videos and play new games. The Karma points you earn can be traded in for gift cards to your favorite retailers like Target, Amazon, PayPal, Walmart and iTunes.
Android devices can access AppKarma through the Google Play Store, and iPhone users can download it through the web app. After you finish your first task, you will automatically receive 100 Karma points.
7. You Too can YouTube
If you have an eye for the absurd or a talent that needs to be shared, shoot some videos and upload them on the world’s most famous video platform, YouTube. You can earn money for the videos using Google AdSense or other advertising campaigns to boost their views. Your odds of being discovered may be slim, but you can certainly have fun and make a few bucks along the way.
8. English as a Second Language
Since 2015, QKids has been teaching English to kids online, ages 5 to 12, as a second language.
Teachers hired for the platform report that earnings can be up to $20 per hour, and the sessions last about a half hour each. The best part to this sweet side hustle is that you don’t need to make lesson plans; they are already set for you. All you need to do is follow them and guide the kids along the way.
While you don’t need to have teaching experience for this side gig, it is preferred. Other qualifications?
- A bachelor’s degree, or proof of enrollment in a college program
- Native English speaker from the United States or Canada
- Bring enthusiasm to the online classroom
- Be digitally literate
- Available six hours per week
9. For Teachers Only
As a teacher, you probably already have a ton of old lesson plans laying around. You can sell them to other teachers at Teachers Pay Teachers. The site caters to teachers selling quality lesson plans to be bought and used by fellow teachers across the globe. Consider this your brush with immortality!
10. Give your Voice to Someone Else
Voiceover artists are in demand. These are the voices you hear on radio commercials, narrating YouTube videos or other similar things. The recommended platform for voiceover gigs is Voices.com. Not sure your voice is voice-over worthy? You never know until you try!
11. Here’s the Scoop
Everyone loves furry critters with wet noses and wagging tails. What they don’t love is cleaning up after them.
You can make a very lucrative side hustle by running a pooper-scooper business. Rumor has it that cleaning up poo can get you between $40 to $45 per hour if you have several regular clients lined up per hour. Pretty good pay for taking care of someone else’s…errr, crap.
12. Low Cost Investing
Stash is an inexpensive way to get started investing. It doesn’t require any extensive knowledge of the stock market, and you can get started for as little as $5.
Your account can be maintained at $1 a month for balances under $5000.
You are given a set of portfolios to browse through, pre-picked by professionals in the stock market trade. You simply choose which options fit your style of investing, and Stash does it for you.
13. Drive to the Bank
Bestmark is the secret shopper of the car world. They will pay you money to go to dealerships and test drive cars. Since it is all secret you will have to listen to the salesman try to sell you the car, but it’s worth it for what can reportedly be up to $60 per test!
14. Secret at the Bar
You’ve heard of mystery (or secret) shoppers who get paid to rate stores and merchandise? If beer is more to your liking than clothes or groceries, check out Secret Hopper. Secret Hopper pays you money to taste beers in local breweries and give your opinions. Yes, you read that right; get paid to taste beer. This is not a get rich quick scheme, but you’re getting paid to drink beer; isn’t that the perfect job?
15. Sit Your way to Success
If you love furry critters, feathered critters, or even critters with scales, there are always people in the market looking for pet-sitting services. You can choose to stay at the client’s home while they are away, have the pet stay with you, drop in for visits, offer dog walking and exercise services; your only limit is your imagination.
Rover and DogVacay are two sites that potential pet sitters can register with to look for work. You can also advertise on your own to your local pet owners. This is a wonderful, lucrative opportunity for pet lovers to cash in on doggie kisses and cat cuddles.
16. Put Your Grammar Police Skills to Good Use
If you cringe every time you see a social media post with improper grammar, this is the job for you.
Proofreading is a fun and potentially very profitable job opportunity for the right person. Some proofreaders can make over $17 an hour if they can read up to fifty pages an hour.
Proofread Anywhere offers a free how-to course for the aspiring proofreader, and a quiz to see if you’ve got what it takes.
17. Declutter your Life
Clothes or other items you don’t use, need, or even want any more can be sold at buyback sites such as Decluttr. Decluttr is also offering $5 additional payment for your items when you use the code FREE5.
Letgo is a localized version of Decluttr and can be used to sell all unwanted items within the locations you select.
18. Rent Your Room
Listing your spare room on Airbnb may be a way to turn that extra space into extra money in your wallet. If your house is located centrally or in an in-demand area, you could easily fatten your bank account by hundreds of dollars.
Successful Airbnb hosts suggest being picky about your guests, and not overcrowding your home to the point that your neighbors will complain. Some suggest that you label everything for guests to be able to easily locate whatever they need while in your home. Additionally, hosts can save money by stocking hotel toiletries that can be bought on sites like Amazon.
Be sure that you follow the laws and guidelines specific to your state or city when hosting with Airbnb.
19. Snap all the way to the Bank
How many pictures do you currently have on your cell phone? Chances are, you may be sitting on a small goldmine of potential profit for some of them if you upload them to sites that feature stock photographs, like Foap. These sites don’t pay much, some only $5 per picture, but it all adds up.
You can also have a nice source of income by becoming an exclusive stock photographer with a better-quality camera.
20. Cash Back for Signing Up for Cash Back
Certain cash back shopping websites, like Ebates, give you cash back for signing up for their cash back programs. Ebates is currently running a special: free $10 gift cards from some of your favorite retailer such as Macy’s, Kohl’s, Target and Walmart.
Signing up is fast and easy and allows you to get real cash back on the things you buy every day. If your favourite retailer isn’t on the list of approved cash back retailers, Ebates can point you in the direction of the one that closest suits your shopping needs.
The only downfall to some of these sights is waiting 30 days to see your money, but since it’s found money anyway, it doesn’t really matter.
21. Give up the Nine-to-Five Grind
Telecommuting is a fast-growing industry. Usually, all you need is your computer to work from home.
Signing up on sites like Zip Recruiter will keep you informed when these opportunities open up, but you need to apply to the jobs quickly because they are always filling fast.
22. Invest Like a Millionaire on an Average Budget
The secret to financial success can be found in smart real estate investing. Sadly, most of us can barely afford the houses we already have, much less invest in more properties.
Fundrise Starter Portfolio can get you started for as little as $500, allowing you to invest in United States properties.
The platform splits your investment into two different portfolios. The platform allows you to keep track of all your properties, whether it’s an apartment building in North Carolina or townhouses in Washington. You can watch your investments grow without spending money like Warren Buffett.
23. Give Someone a Lyft
If driving is more your speed, you can try driving with Lyft. Some drivers report making over $700 a week with the popular driving service. Lyft has flexible hours; drive whenever you want, as often as you want.
Lyft has a few standard requirements, though:
- Your car must be at least a 2007, although there are some car rental agencies that cater to Lyft drivers.
- You must pass a background check
- You must be over age 21
24. Rewarded for Responsibility
MoneyLion is a free app that rewards you for being responsible and developing healthy financial habits such as paying your bills on time. You can also receive points just for downloading the app and connecting to your bank accounts. These points can be exchanged for gift cards to amazing retailers like Walmart, Amazon and Apple.
Learn responsibility and be paid for it? Yes, please.
MoneyLion offers rewards to help you develop healthy financial habits and will literally pay you for logging onto the app.
You can earn points in the rewards program by paying bills on time, connecting your bank account or downloading the mobile app.
You can redeem those points for gift cards to retailers like Amazon, Apple and Walmart.
25. Don’t be Crafty
Etsy is the local hub for people to market their home-made crafts. If you’re not exactly crafty enough to sell on Etsy, there is another niche to be found on the site.
Etsy allows for non-traditional products, meaning not vintage or hand-made, to be sold if they are considered supplies or tools for crafting. For example, you may not sew, but you can purchase patterns and supply them to Etsy users for a pretty significant mark up, depending on where you are purchasing your supplies.
26. Grocery Shop for Others
Let’s face it, many people hate going to the grocery store. If you are someone who enjoys grocery shopping, you are in the minority and you could get paid money to do it for someone else.
Apps for grocery shoppers, like Shipt, allow you to take someone else’s list to the store, and their money to the bank. Each shopping trip averages about an hour to complete. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it requires no set schedule. Reports of shoppers making over $17 an hour are enough to keep you in line at the bakery.
27. Start your Own Small Business
Put your talents to good use by starting your own business to help other small businesses. If you have a knack for numbers, take a look at Bookkeeper Business Launch to help you start your own online bookkeeping business.
Small businesses are always searching for professionals to do the jobs they don’t want to do, or don’t have the time to do. This can be managing social media postings, copywriting, or other niches related to running a small business. For a motivated person, this can become a lucrative work from home position.
28. Order by Order
Uber is currently in the business of delivering more than just people to their destinations these days. Uber Eats picks up food from local restaurants and delivers it to hungry customers in their homes. The hours are completely flexible, tips are available, and you can make some serious cash. There are other delivery services available as well, with more flexible car requirements than Uber might require.
29. Writer’s Contests
If words are truly your talent, you can enter themed contests for poetry, non-fiction, and fiction of all kinds. Some of these pay very good money, but the competition is stiff. Here are five contests to look at:
http://www.wolfoundation.org/guidelines/
https://princemerepoetryprize.submittable.com/submit/63945
https://pen.org/content/penrobert-j-dau-short-story-prize-emerging-writers-2000-12-writers
http://www.writejobs.info/2016/08/philosophy-through-fiction-short-story.html
30. Matchmaker Money
Some people seem to have a real knack for pairing up their friends and families. What they may not know is that there is a huge market for these services. You can start your own matchmaking service and get paid bringing love into the lives of others…awwww. People who have started these services report some significant earnings from them.
31. Find unexpected Funds
Checking with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators may yield some unexpected and welcome results. The US treasury has billions of dollars in unclaimed funds, and some may belong to you. Follow the link and click on the link to take you to your state’s site.
Make sure that you are on a legitimate search site to protect yourself because there are a few scammer sites as well.
32. Amazing Amazon
If you have a product you are looking to ship out to customers, look no further than trusty Amazon. You can sell products through their Fulfillment by Amazon services. With FBA, you only provide the products; Amazon handles everything else including shipping, storing, and making sure the customers are satisfied. This is a great option for someone looking to start an online home-based business with physical products.
33. Amazing Amazon…Again
Amazon Flex is a delivery service that picks up packages from Amazon locations and delivers them to customers to fulfill their one-hour delivery promises. With flexible hours and a pay scale of $18 to $25, this is a fantastic way to make some serious cash on the side.
34. Survey Your Options
There are many ways to make your voice heard for some extra pocket money. You certainly won’t get rich fast, but there are some reputable sites out there that do pay for your opinions.
- VIP Voice: These surveys are on the shorter side, and with regular visits to the sites, can earn you points to be exchanged for gift cards and cash. Users claim that logging in a few times weekly can earn you a pretty easy $30 per month.
- Swagbucks: This is a staple for most survey users, and it offers you more variety in money making avenues on top of just taking surveys.
- MyPoints: Like Swagbucks, MyPoints offers points to be exchanged for gift cards for completing things such as surveys, polls, or a wide variety of online services.
35. Lose Weight, Gain Money
HealthyWage is a gambling site, of sorts. You bet money that you can lose a certain amount of weight within a certain time frame, and if you do your gamble pays off, sometimes in a big way. Who knew gambling could be GOOD for you?
36. In-theater checks
In-theater checks are the way the film industry tracks ticket sales, popular show times, previews, and more. They use average movie-goers, like you, to gather information about movies and the theater experience.
Certified Field Associates is the largest mystery theater shoppers there is, and the application is simple. Almost everyone from the United States and Canada will be eligible for hiring.
This is not going to buy your Hollywood mansion, but with a pay scale of $10 to $20 an hour it is a pretty fun way to make some coin.
37. Automatically scan your Email Receipts
Paribus tracks your online purchases and gives you money back if the price on your product drops. It’s really that simple. Paribus features several retailers that it monitors for purchases, and if the price of your item is lower than what you paid, it will help you receive a refund for the difference. It also helps with getting your money back for pesky late deliveries when you paid for guaranteed shipping.
Paribus pays you to do what you do every day, and requires you to do nothing more than download the app.
38. Go Goofy for Disney
If you love all things Disney, you can cash in on your passion by:
- Disney-themed Travel Agency: This is a fun work at home business to get into if you love planning trips to the many Disney parks and attractions.
- Professional Party Princess: This is a fun way to be a princess for a day. There is money to be made in dressing up as a beloved princess for little girls’ parties.
39. Ode to Dough
Roses are red, violets are blue. If you love to write, this hustle’s for you!
Did you know greeting card companies are paying people just like you to contribute poems or sentiments for their cards?
While the card companies can be quite picky, choosing only a small percentage of entries, it can be a worthy way to make a few dollars.
Here are seven companies that accept submissions:
- http://www.shadetreegreetings.com/actual-pictures
- https://www.cardgnome.com/shops/submit_art
- http://www.nobleworkscards.com/
- http://www.sps.com/
- http://www.smartalexinc.com/pages/artist_submissions/124.php
- http://www.viabella.com/index.php
- https://www.calypsocards.com/AboutUs/Submissions
40. Earn Money for Walking into a Store
Shopkick lets you earn points just by walking into your favorite retailer. These stores are the ones you shop at regularly, such as TJMaxx, Target and Walmart. Your points, called Kicks, are exchanged for gift cards to your favorite retailers including Starbucks, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon and more.
Once downloaded, this app pays more Kicks for purchasing items in the stores with your attached debit or credit cards. Watching ads can up your Kick points as well. You may not get rich, but you will get money for shopping the places you already shop.
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