Introduction
Let’s face it, the economy right now sucks. The inflation rate, as I write this, is 3.7%. Last year it was 7.7% at this time1. I don’t really understand this when my favorite bag of cheese puffs went from $1.99 to $3.99 in the last year and my salary only went up 2%. It’s hard to believe inflation is what they say. That’s why I think a lot of us are looking for ideas for some side income.
I think a majority of Americans are experiencing hardships and financial struggles. It is becoming harder and harder to save, and many are struggling to make ends meet. In comes the side hustles. Maybe you clicked on this article because you’re looking for some extra cash. Maybe you want to pay down loans, put some extra money in the bank, or just put some food on the table. Either way, what you’re looking for here is some extra cash.
What’s hard about finding side income is you don’t know what you’re signing up for until you’re into it. You don’t know how much effort some take, and how little money you make on others. The hope with this article is to break down these income ideas for you so you have a better understanding of what each side hustle is and what they entail. Please keep in mind as you read this that not everyone gets the same results. Some people have online stores that explode with traffic in the first year while for others it can take years.
In my experience, the idea of putting in very little effort and making a lot of money is extremely rare. With some luck, I do hope your source of side income exceeds expectations, but don’t expect it.
So are you ready? Let’s see if any of these side hustle ideas are right for you.
1. A Second Job
Time Invested: Medium
Income Earning Potential: Medium
I wanted to start with a regular job because it seems like everyone is looking for a quick way to get rich online. If you are serious about making some extra money, and have the time, look for a second job. This is one of the easiest, and most consistent ways to make extra money (guess what, I have one!). A lot of other extra income ideas on this list are not as guaranteed as the money you can make from a second job.
When I drive down the street I see Now Hiring signs everywhere. If you are willing to sacrifice a couple of nights or mornings a week, you can make a nice steady flow of income. (I work an average of two nights a week after my regular job). If you’re looking for flexible schedules, check out driving and delivery services like Uber and DoorDash. Keep in mind that you will very likely not be making the same amount of money you are making at your regular job. Unless you have a specialized skill that you can find a nice side hustle in (such as coding or programming), you will likely be starting at a minimum or almost minimum wage.
It’s important to keep your goals in mind. Does it seem demeaning to sling pizzas on Friday nights when you’ve had a nice healthy career for years? No. No job is demeaning, no matter what point you are at in your career. If making those pizzas gets you a step closer to your financial goals then keep that in mind as you head to your second job every week. You may even find a second job you truly enjoy.
2. Print On Demand Store
Time Invested: High
Income Earning Potential: Medium to High
What is print on demand? This is where you take a design that you make yourself and use another company to print and ship the product for you. You can sell these products through Etsy, Shopify, Woo Commerce and more. There are quite a few print on demand companies out there, with a variety of products to sell to your ideal customer. Setting this up can take a long time. This is not a get quick business. If you start to research, you will see stories of Etsy print on demand owners who made $100,000 in their first year, or Shopify owners who nailed their marketing and replaced their income in the first month. This. Is. Not. Normal. Be prepared to invest a significant amount of time in this business before you start to generate regular income.
In addition to spending time setting up the business, you will also be spending time learning about the business. Most shops are not successful for several years, and some are not successful at all. What you need to learn is how to get your store visible, understanding how searches work so that your items show up, and so much more. If you put in the work and the time, within several years you could be making a decent income, but be prepared to put a lot of elbow grease into it.
3. Drop Shipping
Time Invested:
Income Earning Potential: High
Drop shipping is when you sell items on a website, that you yourself do not keep in stock. You create a site to sell on, and then use a drop shipping company, such as SaleHoo, AliExpess, Doba and more, to send those products out. You choose what items you want to sell from these companies, set them up with some nice photos on your site, and when someone places the order, the drop shipping company works on fulfilling your order. This differs from print on demand in that with drop shipping, you’re not generally uploading a unique image or design to the product, you are just selling the product itself.
Once again, this is a lot of work! You have to set up the site, figure out how to market people to your store, handle customer service and more. There is every chance it won’t be successful, but it can be. And if you can find the magic formula, you can make quite a bit of money.
4. Copywriting
Time Invested: High
Income Earning Potential: Medium to High
Copywriting is not for everyone, but those who excel at it can make a significant amount of money. You know those little blurbs you see on magazines, or on promotional and marketing materials? Those are ‘copy.’ And the person who writes them? You guessed it, a copywriter.
There is great money to be made in copywriting, but you have to learn to do it, and do it well. You also have to put yourself out there, and grind to find work, but once you’re going, you can make very decent money with this. Companies pay a lot of money for copywriters. The best part is, this job can be very flexible. You can work as much, or as little as you want, and you can do it from anywhere so long as you have access to a computer and internet.
5. Donating Plasma
Time Invested: Medium
income Earning Potential: Medium
Most mid-size and up cities have multiple plasma donation centers where you can freely give away your plasma for some extra cash. As long as you can stand needles and drink a lot of water, donating plasma is a pretty easy gig. Depending on how busy your center is and how fast your blood flows, you can be at the center for anywhere from one hour to three hours (usually if it’s that busy, I don’t go in).
I take the time while I’m sitting in my chair donating to catch up on some reading, listen to podcasts, take online courses and watch Youtube. Every center is different with their payouts, but I make about $100 a week at mine. There is a limit to how much you can donate, and there are certain qualifications you have to meet, but overall it’s a pretty effortless gig.
6. Focus Groups
Time Invested: Low to Medium
Income Earning Potential: Medium
Okay, for some, this may end up in the high income earning category, especially when you look at how much you could make per hour (I follow a girl on Instagram who makes $1000 plus a month for very little time). A lot of studies pay between $40 and $60 per hour, but I included this in the medium category because, at least for me, I spend a lot of time registering for focus groups and rarely get selected.
Sorry, I should have probably started with explaining what focus groups are! Focus groups are studies where researchers pay you for your opinion or perception on a particular topic. You sign up with a pre qualifier survey and, if selected, are contacted by the researcher to set up a time for a video call. Some cities conduct these in person. I have been invited to studies that are conducted one on one and some where I am part of a group. These focus groups do pay very decently, it’s just a matter of how many you can qualify for.
7. MTurk
Time Invested: Low
Earning Potential: Low to Medium
Also known as Amazon Mechanical Turk, this is a site ran by Amazon, where workers can complete “hits” for a set amount of money. I’ll be very honest about this one, the startup is very time consuming for very little pay. When you start out, you qualify for very few hits, and most of them are quite a bit of work for very very little pay. However, as you start to make new qualifications, you start to qualify for higher paying hits. Most of the one’s I do now are about ten cents a minute.
This will never be a get rich quick scheme, but if you enjoy completing studies, I highly recommend this site over others. Unlike other survey sites, I very, very rarely start a survey and it says I don’t qualify. And like other survey sites, the amount you can do is limited by what’s available. Be prepared that you may log on and not have any high paying hits available. That being said, I like to check out this site if I’m sitting on the couch or on a short break. I make $3-5 a day, which can be almost $1000 a year!
8. Survey Junkie
Time Invested: Low
Earning Potential: Low
I won’t go into every single website similar to this one, so we’ll just focus on Survey Junkie and go from there. There are plenty of similar sites like Inbox Dollars, Prime Opinion and Swagbucks that are very similar. To be honest, I do not like sites like these, but they are on this list because a lot of people love sitting around and taking the surveys (I prefer MTurk). Personally, I seem to spend a lot of time working through the beginning of surveys, and then not qualifying for any of them. It’s a lot of time wasted, and some days I don’t make any money.
With Survey Junkie, you take surveys for points, and then redeem those points for gift cards. At the beginning of each survey is a screener, which usually includes your demographics. These surveys are never going to make you rich, but over time they can be good for a quick few bucks here and there, assuming you qualify for more than I ever did. I recommend Survey Junkie just for those times when you have a few spare moments, or if you really enjoy taking surveys. Beyond that, there are better options on this list you can pursue to make you a lot more money in the long run.
9. Rover
Time Invested: Low
Earning Potential: Medium
Love dogs (or cats) and have some free time? Rover could be the side hustle for you. Rover is a peer to peer site for pet sitters and dog walkers, where locals can book your services for dog walking, dog sitting, boarding and more (and yes, cats are included as well!). To sign up to be a sitter, you complete a short profile, which includes a background check, and then set your own hours and pay!
Those looking for your services will reach out with a request, and once you accept, you are booked! After completion, your payment is ready to be transferred within two days. Does it get much easier than that? This gig is perfect for pet lovers. Once you build up some good ratings, you can increase your prices a bit and make some decent cash. Some people even use this as their career. The best part? It’s free to sign up!
10. Transcription
Time Invested: Medium
Earning Potential: Low
With sites like TranscribeMe, Rev and GoTranscript, workers can sit in the comfort of their own home and type away for some quick cash. With these sites, you turn audio into text by being the transcriber. Most sites require you to take an intro test, and once approved, you can immediately start signing up for work. This is another task in which I will warn you, you will likely not make much money! It is, however, something simple and convenient you can do from the comfort of your home. In some specialized fields (such as medical transcribing), workers can make more money than others.
If you have a good ear for audio, the ability to concentrate, and are a decent typist, you could work your way up to some well-paid gigs in the transcription world. Most users, especially newer ones, report that they make less than minimum wage transcribing, but I suppose that is to be expected. These are side gig sites, not full jobs, and I think, like with anything, once you are good at it, you can qualify for higher paying work.
11. Odd Jobs
Time Invested: Medium
Earning Potential: Medium
If you are lucky to live in a city that has TaskRabbit, then I am jealous. If not, there is always Craigslist. And if you are really ambitious, you could always put up your own signs or take out an ad in the paper (yes, people do still read the paper). People are always looking for someone to finish odd jobs for them. Sometimes it is because they lack the skill, and other times because they lack the time. You’d be amazed at how much you can make just by putting together someone’s new furniture because they didn’t feel like it.
TaskRabbit is a great site where people can find gigs, and put themselves out there to help other people with those tasks that they just cannot do. Craigslist is another great place to check out. There is a whole section just for gigs. Most of these will require you to leave the house and do some labor, but it can be a great way to pick up some extra cash, especially if you need some on short notice. Just be sure that you can actually do the job before signing on (don’t agree to put together furniture if you don’t know how to use a hammer).
12. Fiverr and Upwork
Time Invested: Medium to High
Earning Potential: Medium to High
If you like to do online gigs, and you have type of specialized skill, I strongly recommend being on Fiverr and Upwork if you aren’t already. People browse these sites looking for workers for anything from building a website to running social media to creating online store ads for them. If you know how to do any of these things, and you’ve got the time, being a worker on these sites can make you some serious extra cash. It can take a bit of time to build yourself up, people do tend to look at your reviews, but once established, you will likely see gig requests start to roll in.
You start by creating a profile, a catchy cover photo, and describing your skills and services. You get to choose your own fees, and they even allow a tiered structure for different packages. Those looking for your skills can even reach out and you can create a custom package, just for them. Once you accept a gig, and complete the work, you receive a portion of the paid amount. Fiverr gives workers 80%, while Upwork charges a 10% freelance service fee. This may seem like a lot, but it can be difficult to find work on your own, and these sites are the top to go to for people looking for these types of services.
13. Write a Blog
Time Invested: Medium to High
Earning Potential: Low Medium High
Blogging is one of those, you get out what you put in gigs. You can spend as much, or as little time as you would like making your blog look good. You can spend hours researching SEO (search engine optimization- basically how sites like google find you), or just wing it with you writing. Once you have some people checking out your blog, you can sign up for basic ad companies to make some cash, or you can really dive in on the different ways to make money with your writing.
A blog is a website where you can write articles about yourself, or a specific topic, that people will want to read (this one is about finance, if you haven’t guessed). You don’t have to be the best writer for your blog to be successful, but you do have to write relevant, relatable articles. Blogging is also a long-term solution to building extra wealth. You can’t be expected to write a blog for six months, make some money, and then just stop. It does not work like that. It takes constant work, constant research, updating, and writing, to keep that income flowing. If you like to write like I do, I suggest you look more into blogging. This option is also not free. You do have to buy a website.
Conclusion
There are many different ways to make money these days. Whether you want to get out of the house or find a gig that you can do exclusively online, there is work for everyone. I tried to be as realistic as possible on this list. I have heard of people making a full time salary on TranscribeMe, but a majority of people claim to make pennies on the dollars. You can complete odd jobs for some quick cash, or you can find a way to build it into a business. I didn’t want to just pitch these ideas to you and then have you wasting your time only to discover you spent so much of your valuable time making almost no money. Not only is it discouraging, it’s a waste of time!
Whatever your financial goals are, we hope these extra income ideas help you make the right decision for yourself, whether you want to make some extra money going out and working, or just watch a movie and complete some easy surveys. Not all of these ideas will bring you passive income, but they will hopefully bring you enough money to pay off debt faster, start investing, or just make some extra income to spend however you please. What are your favorite ways to make extra money? Comment below!
See related article How to Save 1000 Dollars
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