Everybody is looking for a way to make more money on the side. Inflation, increasing housing costs, increasing everything costs! means the dollar doesn’t go as far anymore. According to a recent bankrate.com survey, almost 40% of US adults have side hustles and out of those, 44% of them believe they will always need one to make ends meet.
Some of these side hustles you are very familiar with and some of them might be new to you. In no particular order, here are some of the highest earning side hustles.
1. Rideshare
Driving for Uber or Lyft is so commonplace now that many are doing it as their main source of income and it’s proven to be very lucrative. But if you already have a full time job, you can still do it in your free time and earn extra cash to pay down debt, pay for an upcoming trip, or save a little extra every month for retirement.
The requirements for this side hustle is that you have a well running car, a smart phone, a clean-ish driving record, and be able to pass the background check. An average earning for rideshare drivers is $19.43/hour, which is more than double the national minimum wage.
2. Social Media Management for Small to Medium Size Companies
Almost all businesses use social media for marketing but not all of them can afford to have an in-house marketing department. That’s why most of these jobs are outsourced on sites like Upwork and Fivver.
If you love being on and posting on social media and have a good eye for what makes great content, give this side hustle a try. You will likely be in charge of scheduling social media posts, doing research on trends, creating marketing content, and more. You can take on more than one client at a time and if you get really good at it, this can even turn into a full fledged social media marketing company. You can expect to earn anywhere between $20 and $58 an hour depending on your experience.
3. Baking
Have you seen those cake videos on social media of everyday bakers creating amazing cakes in their homes and selling them? If you love baking, that can be you! Baking has become even more popular in recent years thanks to all those baking shows on TV and streaming services and more and more people are taking it up as a side hustle.
Most people start out by baking a cake for a friend or family’s event to get noticed and pass out their business cards or contacts at small events. You can take as many orders as you can handle and work from your own home, at your own time.
And you don’t have to limit yourself to baking cakes only. You can do all types of dessert and even be in charge of the whole dessert menu at events.
The cool thing about this side hustle is since baking videos have become so popular, you can also make videos of your creations or as you bake and grow your social media following. You can earn money through your videos as you make money with your baking! The earnings vary with skillset, but you can easily make a few hundred to thousands of dollars each month depending on how much work you take on.
4. Selling ANYTHING on E-commerce Websites
Remember in the beginning of this video I mentioned one side hustle where some people are making an inside amount of money? This is it!
Websites like Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Cartel are still helping new side hustles launch everyday and you can sell pretty much anything you are good at selling.
This woman makes as much as $20,000/month selling print on demand t-shirts on Etsy. She does research every month on trending t-shirt designs and creates her own version of these trends. The great thing about what she does is that she’s only responsible for the designs and the company she works with takes the orders, prints the shirts, and ships them. So she spends a minimal amount of time creating new designs and marketing them.
And there are those who sell handcrafted items and this can be more time consuming, but you can charge a premium price for them. The earning for this side hustle is again wide ranging, but most people make between $500 and more than $10,000/month doing this.
Let me know if you have a side hustle and how it’s been going for you in the comments, would love to hear about your experience.
5. Rent out Your Spare Storage Space
Did you know that you can make money every month renting out extra storage space you have? It’s like airbnb but for stuff.
Through the app Neighbor, you can offer that extra garage space you have or extra parking space for those in your neighborhood for a fee. There is obviously very little work involved in this and you can earn an average of $300-$600 a month doing this. That’s enough money to cover a car payment or max out your ROTH IRA investing every month, so not bad!
6. Car Washing and Auto Detailing
Have you seen those on demand car wash businesses that show up to wherever you are to wash and detail your car? You can have one of those businesses as a side hustle and earn a good amount of money.
If you enjoy cleaning and cars, you can make your own schedule and have repeat clients doing this side hustle. If it’s profitable enough, it can even be your main gig that you can expand by hiring others too. A mobile car wash can cost the customer anywhere between $25 to $60 but it can go up to $100 to $175 depending on the type of service provided, so this can add up depending on how many you do a month.
7. Online Tutoring
If you’re really good at a specific subject like English, math, science, a musical instrument, a foreign language, almost anything, you can set up an online tutoring business. This means you work from your home, virtually, and set up your own hours. If you find it difficult to find your own students, you can sign up for online platforms such as Chelsea International Education, Wyzant, or Varsity Tutors and find your students there.
You can expect to get paid anywhere from $20/hr to $80/hr depending on how you price your services.
8. Party Planning
If you love working with people, are great with meeting deadlines, and have a talent for planning events, then why not take up party planning on the side? There is no equipment you need to buy or investment you need to make to get into this side hustle, just your super organized self and enthusiasm.
You can start out small by helping plan birthday parties or baby showers and move up to the big leagues like planning weddings. The earnings for this side hustle range between $12 and $75 per hour plus the commission you can make off vendors.
9. Sign up for TaskRabbit
If you’re a busy body that loves to complete this task over here and that task over there, why not make extra money by signing up to do other people’s tasks on TaskRabbit? These tasks can range between hanging TVs, cleaning, living heavy items, moving, etc. When you pick a task after signing up, TaskRabbit will show you the hourly rates for the most qualified taskers.
Then you can set your own price per hour. You can make as much as $70/hr for a task.
10. Freelancing
Freelancers are people who work for themselves rather than being employed by a company, but the skill sets vary greatly. Most freelancers find gigs on sites like Upwork and the compensation can be $20/hr or $100 plus an hour.
If you’re great at catching grammar or spelling mistakes, you can find work as proofreader. If you’re great at writing, you can find work as a blog writer for different entertainment or corporate websites. If you’re good at video editing, you can find work editing videos that range from company videos to family videos.
If you are great at data analysis or website design, these gigs are out there too. You get to set your own hourly rate or project rate and work from home, at the most convenient time for you.
