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Are you struggling to make ends meet with your current job but don’t want to pick up extra hours just to afford the bills?
Join the club of people all over the world who have opted for side hustles over getting a second job or more hours at their current one to give them the money they need (and maybe some extra) every month.
Side hustles are so popular because they’re flexible. You can do them as much or as little as you want and right from the comfort of your home.
There’s no reason to leave the family behind to make some extra cash, and the right gigs can be even more lucrative than overtime hours at work.
They are also way more plentiful than you might realize. Here are 39 ideas of side jobs you can start at home to get an extra $100, $500, or more every month.
Table of Contents
1. Online Survey Sites
For quick, easy cash, my go-to gig is online surveys.
They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but I find that they give me some extra spending money with little effort by using the best-paying sites to maximize my time.
They’re also fun because they’re all about you and your likes/dislikes, hobbies, family, etc.
Among my favorites are:
2. Online Focus Groups
Online focus groups are like surveys except that the opportunities come a little less often, but they also pay more.
Think of them like an in-depth survey that could take anywhere from an hour to several days to complete, but participants get paid anywhere from $20 to thousands of dollars to complete them.
Online focus groups have you participate either via the website, webcam or over the phone and you can choose what opportunities you want to complete.
Check out Engage Studies and e-Focus Groups for these gigs.
3. Freelancing
So many ways to freelance, so little time!
Freelancing has become one of the most popular ways to work around the globe because it’s flexible, remote, and lets you work for yourself.
Several websites like Upwork, Guru, and Fiverr let freelancers find clients to work with who need their skills.
Just a few ideas of work you can do as a freelancer on your own terms are:
- Blogging/Content writing
- Web design
- App development
- Tech support
- Photography
- Social media
- Tutoring
- Virtual assisting
- Graphic design
- Online chat services
4. Photography
You probably have a friend or two who dabbles in photography outside of their typical workday (I have several!).
It’s fun work if you have a passion for it and selling just a couple of photo packages each week could put several hundred dollars in your pocket every month.
Some photographers opt for selling the photos they take instead of scheduling photo sessions.
Stock photography is used by professional bloggers and businesses and places like Foap and Alamy let photographers get a share of every photo they sell.
5. Video Creation or Editing
Whether you want to start a YouTube channel about something you love or be behind the scenes shooting or editing videos, there’s a lot of money to be made in videography.
YouTubers make money by growing their subscriber list and monetizing their channels through advertising, while other YouTubers might need your help shooting and editing their videos to build their own subscriber base!
6. Dog Walking
Rover and Wag! are just two apps that help dog walkers match with dog owners who need a human companion for their furry friends.
Sign up for either (or both) apps, find owners near you who need a dog walker, and get paid to take adorable pups around town.
7. Customer or Tech Support
Businesses all over the world outsource their customer and tech support jobs to people who work from home because it’s cheaper for them to go that route than pay for office space.
You don’t have to do it full-time, either. There are plenty of part-time gigs you can find on job search sites like Indeed or go the freelance route by signing up for Upwork and finding support jobs there.
8. Party and Event Planning
You don’t even need a home office to plan an awesome party or event! Turn your weekends into party central by planning and throwing parties for friends and family.
With anniversaries, baby showers, birthdays, promotions, holidays, and other special events, you shouldn’t have a shortage on dates to celebrate for extra cash.
9. House or Pet Sitting
Taking care of neighborhood homes and pets can be a lucrative side business if you have enough people you know who are willing to pay you to do it.
Even if you start out with one or two neighbors, you might soon have more people knocking at your door when they tell their friends about the excellent job you did.
You can even make it easier to find opportunities near you by signing up for Housesitter.com and Petsitter.com.
10. Caregiving or Babysitting
Check out Care.com for local caregiving and babysitting opportunities that you can do while you’re home from work.
If you have other kids in the home, you might even consider starting an in-home daycare each week during hours that work with your schedule.
Just be sure to check out local laws first because you’ll usually need to have licensure depending on how many kids you watch at a time.
11. Delivery Driving
Some restaurants are switching to freelance delivery services by outsourcing their delivery driving to people like you who want a flexible side gig.
GrubHub lets you deliver to people all over your town from their favorite restaurants and you can keep 100% of the tips you get! DoorDash is also becoming quite a popular option for food delivery drivers.
UberEats comes from the popular Uber, offering you yet another way to make money with your car (or bike, skateboard, or any other way you love to travel).
Speaking of making money with your car: Have you considered joining the rideshare trend yet?
This gig is best for people who live in large towns and cities who can find a lot of people in need of your services. Try Uber or Lyft, two of the top, competitive companies in the business.
13. Car Repair
Maybe you like working with cars in a different way by repairing them. This can be a lucrative side gig with a lot of customer potential (one of my neighbors makes a living by fixing neighborhood cars in his garage!).
You’ll need to check with your local laws before starting up this business because some areas have restrictions about working on vehicles in a residential area.
14. Microtasking
Microtasking, or short tasking, provides ultimate flexibility for a side gig.
I know several people who use Amazon Mechanical Turk – probably your best option for this type of work – to make extra money outside of work hours.
The great thing is that you can pick and choose the tasks you want to do to make it fun for yourself.
MTurk has such a variety of tasks, from data entry and image tagging to more in-depth transcription and translation tasks that pay more, that virtually anyone can find the right gig for them.
15. Personal/Virtual Assisting
Another varied gig is personal or virtual assisting. Virtual assisting is the same as personal assisting work, only you can complete it all on the computer, so it’s an excellent option for those who strictly want to work from home with virtual clients rather than meeting with them face-to-face.
From setting up appointments to making phone calls on behalf of your clients, your daily work as an assistant can vary drastically, so it’ll never get boring.
16. Online Consignment and Resale
Do you like finding hidden gems at yard sales or antique shops and seeing how much you can get for them?
Maybe you have a bunch of things in storage in your home that need to go. Either way, you can have ample earning potential by starting an online consignment gig.
I love Swap.com for selling used or new clothing, but you can also use Worthy for selling jewelry, Kidizen for old toys, and Gazelle for reselling old electronics.
17. Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping lets you pretend you’re a regular customer to see how stores interact with you. The information you gather helps companies exceed at customer service.
You can mystery shop by visiting stores or calling them, making this a gig that can fit just about anyone’s lifestyle and personality.
18. Make Money Renting Stuff
Do you have extra space in or out of your home (an extra bedroom, a garage you don’t use, or even a parking space)? If so, you can easily make $100 or more every month just by renting your extras.
- With Pavemint, you can rent your unused parking space.
- Spacer lets you list unused garage space and matches you with people who need it.
- Spareroom helps you find people who need a place to stay in your home for a month or two.
- You can even rent out used baby gear to travelers with BabyQuip!
19. Crafting
From handmade jewelry to framed photography or printed mugs, your crafting hobbies can become a money-making side gig – or even a full-time job if your products become popular enough.
I’ve seen plenty of Etsy shop owners start their businesses as a side gig and end up being able to quit their full-time jobs to craft full-time from home.
Etsy is a great place to start, but you can also sell your creations at local flea markets or craft fairs.
20. Online Tutoring
You can earn $30 an hour tutoring students all over the world, right from your home office. This list of online tutoring jobs will get you off to the right start and many of them don’t require any previous experience as a tutor or a teaching degree.
21. Private Tutoring
Private tutoring is another option if you don’t want to go the online route.
Instead, set up appointments for students to come to your home for private tutoring sessions, or you can even do group sessions with children of the same age groups.
22. Sell Unwanted Gift Cards
You may have an unused gift card or two laying around that you’ll probably never use. You don’t have to beg your friends and family to buy them off you. Instead, sell them to Cardpool to get part of its value back!
Cardpool also has an app with discount gift card offers that help you get free cash by buying gift cards for your favorite stores.
23. Lose Weight
Losing weight? Make money off your lost pounds!
Apps like HealthyWage and DietBet let you bet against yourself or participate in weight loss challenges for a chance at winning more money at the end. It’s the perfect motivation to get fit.
24. Editing or Proofreading
Freelance editors and proofreaders are always in-demand by businesses, bloggers, online coaches, and anyone else who has important printed or online materials that they distribute to an audience (which is just about everyone in business!).
Find work on Upwork, or you can always email your favorite brands or bloggers to see if they need help.
25. Accounting or Bookkeeping
All you need is excellent math and organization skills to become someone’s personal accountant.
Start a small business from your home office and find friends, family, and local business owners who might need your help.
26. Blogging
So many people have started blogs over the past decade and it’s easy to see why. It’s possible to make money from it, even enough to replace a full-time income!
Bloggers who write helpful, engaging content can gain a vast audience and monetize their blogs with advertising, sponsored posts, affiliate links, selling digital products, and more.
When you sign-up with Bluehost through our link, you can get a special deal of hosting for just $3.95 with a free domain name your first year. That’s only $48 per year to begin blogging.
SmartBlogger’s Beginner’s Guide to Making Money Blogging is an excellent resource to read when you’re new to the game.
27. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one way to make money blogging, but I’m also adding it to its own category because you don’t need a blog to market with affiliate links.
You can also use your best social media accounts to place affiliate links and draw in cash.
Some people do this by linking to their favorite products with Pinterest pins. Others place links in Facebook or Twitter posts.
Here are some of the best affiliate networks to start with:
28. Social Media Management
If you love social media, you might as well take over other accounts and turn your passion into a business.
Look for bloggers or brands who seem to be struggling to grow their accounts or to post frequently enough to gain an audience and pitch your services.
29. Advertise on Your Car
If you have a long work commute every day, you could make $400 a month or more just by placing business ads on your car.
Your vehicle should be new-ish, in excellent condition and reliable, and be driven several miles each day to qualify for car wrap advertising.
Carvertise offers campaigns with partial and full car wraps that pay every month via direct deposit!
30. Play Video Games or Watch TV
Make money in the most fun ways possible: Playing games or watching TV!
Perk.TV lets you watch all your favorite TV shows and get money while you do it just by letting ads run on the app and watching its videos or app trailers.
You can even play games like Swag IQ on your phone for cash, or use an app like AppLike, which pays you to download and play new games on your phone or tablet.
Check out these other apps and sites that pay you to play.
31. Online Coaching
There seems to be a coach for anything online nowadays, from popular bloggers teaching new bloggers how to monetize their blogs to expert programmers teaching newbies how to develop their first app.
Think about your interests and skills and combine them to create online courses for which people can pay to learn your skills.
Udemy is a great place to start with course creation because it even markets your courses for you!
32. Landscaping
You can’t necessarily make money landscaping at home, but you won’t have to look farther than your neighborhood to find paying work.
Offer services that change with the seasons, so you’ll have continuous cash flow, like shoveling snow, raking leaves, fertilizing grass, or planting a new flower bed.
With a pickup truck, you can even haul large landscaping materials like fencing and rocks.
33. Website Flipping
Just like you can flip homes, you can flip a home on the web. Flippa lets you make money by auctioning your domains or websites that you no longer want or need.
If your site is currently making money every month, you could end up reaping a great profit from selling it.
Turn it into a regular gig by buying sites at low prices, building them up with content, and flipping them for profit.
34. Antique Flipping
Get into the business of flipping antiques you find at yard sales and flea markets.
You can search for low-prices pieces that can sell higher to the right buyers (think: collectibles and rare parts of sets), or you can refinish or repurpose the antiques you find to sell as something entirely new for buyers.
35. Web Designing
There’s so much you can do as a web designer who wants a side gig, from creating blogs for your friends and family to designing websites for businesses and entrepreneurs.
Sell premade designs on your site or charge more for custom themes. You can even open an Etsy shop and sell your services or premade designs there.
36. Electronics Recycling
If you’re like me, you have a huge box full of old electronics, like video game systems, cell phones, or tablets, tucked away in storage.
Instead of letting them sit there, you could trade them in for cash at places like Gazelle, Swappa, or NextWorth.
37. Transcription
Pulling words from audio clips takes skill, but if you’ve already excelled at small transcription tasks you’ve tried on Amazon Mechanical Turk or other microtask sites, then you could pull it off as a side gig.
Rev.com is one of the most popular spots for freelance transcriptionists.
Consider investing in transcription software and a foot pedal once you make some money. They’ll ramp up how much work you do, maximizing your earnings.
38. Translation
Bilingual people can opt for translation work, which can be written or verbal.
Rev.com also offers translation tasks, but you can also find translation gigs on freelance marketplaces and microtasking sites. Translation tasks usually pay more than transcription for the same amount of work.
39. Website Testing
Test business websites with a set of instructions and speak your thoughts into a microphone to record for the client. Several sites offer this gig – UserTesting, Userlytics, and Enroll are just a few – and pay testers an average of $5 to $10 for about 15 to 20 minutes of work.
You shouldn’t expect frequent assignments, but active testers can usually get an opportunity or two every month.
Final Thoughts
What are your favorite ways to make extra money outside of your job? Have you started any side gigs or businesses from home? Tell us your favorite ideas in a comment below.
