Passive income helps you fulfill your goals early and within time. A side hustle is a way to make money outside of your 9 to 5 job. Dropshipping, becoming a freelancer, affiliate marketing, selling photography, and print-on-demand are all side hustles you can start with little money.
1. Freelancing
Freelancing is a tried-and-true way to earn extra money and deserves a top spot on any list of easy side hustle ideas.
Freelancers deliver work on a per-project basis for one or more clients and you can schedule it in your spare time.
Freelance graphic designers, writers, editors and website developers are in high demand, and other fields offer freelance opportunities as well.
Skilled mechanics, trained bookkeepers, video editors, interior decorators and even licensed real estate agents can find flexible project-based work within their skill sets.
Costs and platforms: Market your freelance skills to your personal network for free via email and social media accounts.
You can also reach potential clients using freelancer portals such as Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer.com, which handles project management and payments for you.
Marketing skills on your own website adds professional polish, plus lets you offer convenient online invoicing and payments via Square or another online payment provider.
Freelancing means to have different jobs or short-term assignments or contracts with number of companies, websites, organizations, etc., without any long-term contract.
The Internet has greatly expanded opportunities to earn money working as a freelancer. Approximately 10.3 million Americans work for themselves, a number that is expected to grow in the future.
Freelancing can be freeing, as the name suggests, as well as empowering and challenging.
Freelancing jobs are as broad as the work force, and you need identify what it is you want to do before you can begin to do it.
Part of doing freelancing as a way to earn real money means setting up a system for charging and receiving payment.
Before you reach out to potential clients and start actually doing the freelancing work, be ready for it.
Freelancing can be a great way to earn money, but it can also take a considerable amount of time to build up.
Make sure that you are 100% committed to investing your time and effort into freelancing before you decide to quite your other job(s)
Polywork Through Selling Your Photography
If you have got a camera and some basic Photoshop skills, photography can become your side hustle.
If you like taking pictures of your city, you can sell your photography to your local publications such as a city newspaper or blog.
Sites like Foap allow you to sell your pictures on its platform, and you can earn money with every photo you sell.
If you’d rather not make money with your pictures, you can add your photography to products like canvases, T-shirts, and phone cases to make even more money.
How much money can you make as a photographer? If you sell your pictures online, you might make an extra couple hundred or thousand dollars a month.
If you venture into wedding photography, you could make a couple thousand dollars or more per event.
Good second jobs in this niche include working as a weekend photographer or running workshops in your spare time.
Even if you’re a photography enthusiast but don’t consider yourself a professional, you can still make money with your hobby.
Create profiles on Adobe Stock and Shutterstock and upload your photo backlog.
Landscapes, office spaces, and people working on laptops or phones are some of the most popular types of stock images. Stock photo sites typically pay for each download of your image.
If you can build a portfolio of popular images, you could bring in consistent extra income each month.
Create a membership website
Membership website are where users pay a monthly fee for access to the information and resources on the site.
Resources could involved video lessons, monthly printables, and coaching, among others. Membership sites exist in nearly every niche — art, life coaching, budgeting.
I’ve even personally signed up for a membership site that’s all about how to find and use hashtags on Instagram.
Setting up a membership site isn’t as technically involved as you may think. You can use a platform like Teachable or Kajabi to get your membership site up and running in less than a week.
Become an event planner
If you love to plan parties, becoming an event planner may be the way to go. You can plan birthday parties, weddings, anniversary celebrations, corporate meetings, and other special events.
Teach others what you know
Do you have a hobby that others may want to learn about? If you play the guitar, for example, you can teach beginners how to play. If you’re an outstanding home cook, you can show others how to cook basic meals. Pretty much any area you excel in can translate into a teaching side hustle.
After you’ve nailed down what you want to teach, create a website and some social media accounts to start advertising yourself and your services.
Once you’ve found a few clients, and if you do a good job, your clients are likely to refer you to their friends and family.
Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the most effective ways to grow this type of side hustle.
Work as a tour guide
If you’re a people person and don’t mind being on your feet, you can make extra income as a tour guide.
Being a tour guide is a great way to show off your city and give visitors a unique experience and insight they might not receive from a traditional tour.
Research what’s already available in your area, and consider reaching out to other local tour guides and companies.
Get to know people who work in the industry to build rapport in the community. They can be great resources for growing your side hustle.
When you’re ready for your first clients, create a Groupon and a profile on TripAdvisor to attract people visiting your area.
Ask customers to leave you reviews on TripAdvisor or your Google Business profile to give your side hustle business more credibility and exposure.
Invest in dividend-paying stocks
Some companies pay out a portion of their profit to shareholders in the form of dividends.
One way to make extra money passively is to invest in companies with dividend-paying stock.
Dividends are usually paid every three months, but it varies depending on the company.
This isn’t a get-rich-quick method. you need money to start investing in the first place, and you’ll get the most from your dividends if you reinvest them rather than cashing them out.
Sell art in cafes or restaurants (Passive income)
Most artists don’t have their own galleries where customers can walk in and buy their work. They’re expensive to maintain and require a steady flow of foot traffic.
Instead, many artists will have their work put on display in cafes or restaurants, where there are lots of people coming in and out every day.
You would typically pay the cafe or restaurant owner a small commission on each piece of work that sells.
Get a Part-Time Job (Passive income)
If you’d rather trade time for money, you might choose to get a part-time job.
Side job ideas to make money include dog walker, babysitter, restaurant server, receptionist, administrative assistant, or barista.
You can also find part time jobs online within your industry. Maybe you’re a full-time marketer who takes on a part-time social media gig.
The only downside to a part-time job is that you need to invest your time for money..
How much money can you make with your part-time job? Most part-time jobs float around the minimum-wage mark.
However, you can find a few higher-paying side hustles if you dig around a bit.
Part-Time Job Tip: You can browse job sites to find side jobs you can do on evenings and weekends.
Remember: After you work a full day, you’ll likely feel tired and exhausted, so pick a part-time job with a flexible schedule.
If you have to work a four-hour shift Monday through Friday after an eight hour day, you could eventually burn out.
Blogging (Passive income)
If you enjoy writing and sharing information with people, consider starting a blog focusing on a niche that interests you, such as travel, food, beauty or fashion.
As you attract traffic, you can monetize the blog with ads or affiliate sales. Ads pay per view or per click while affiliate sales pay you to promote a product or service.
When someone clicks on an affiliate link, you get paid a commission if they complete a purchase.
Costs and platforms: Expect to spend $50 to $100 per year to run a basic blog.
You’ll need to buy a domain and build a blog website using a WordPress hosting service or web builder platform such as Wix or Squarespace.
All offer user-friendly design tools and attractive blog templates so you won’t need to pay a designer or developer.
Follow these 6 steps to learn how to start a blog and make money today:
1. Pick your blog’s name and niche
2. Get your blog online (web hosting)
3. Design your blog with a free WordPress theme
4. Write your first blog post
5. Promote your blog and get readers
6. Make money from your blog
Choose a profitable niche
Scale your blog content
Build a reputation
Promote and grow
Advertise within your blog
Offer paid subscriptions
Sell merchandise
Become an affiliate
Write sponsored content
Provide consulting services
Self-Publishing Ebooks (Passive income)
Self-publishing ebooks is another side hustle idea that’s perfect for writers, but you don’t need to be a skilled wordsmith to cash in on this opportunity.
If you can craft a creative story or explain how to do something, you can hire ghostwriters and editors to complete and polish your work.
Then, you simply publish to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and other ebook platforms such as Smashwords, Barnes & Noble Press, Lulu and others, and wait for the royalties to roll in.
Costs and platforms: Self-publishing ebooks can be very low-cost if you write your book and develop your own cover art.
But most serious authors tap cover design and editing pros for the finishing touches and spend upwards of $100 per title to publish.
Ghostwriters can cost $200 or more to develop a complete manuscript, based on book length and topic.
Publishing to most ebook platforms is free, but these outlets take a percentage of the sale price, plus marketing adds costs as well.
The more time and effort you put into your eBook, the better it will be – and therefore the more you can charge for it.
To create a high-quality eBook, you will need to be willing to spend months (or even years!) writing it, and then proofreading and editing multiple drafts until it’s up to scratch.
Once your eBook’s ready for publication (yay!), the hard work is nearly over. The next step to take when considering how best to monetise your eBook is to research which publishing platform you could make the most money on.
Just as it pays off to spend time writing your eBook to as high a standard as you can, it’s also worth putting a fair amount of your energy into marketing your eBook.
Online Courses and Coaching (Passive income)
Do you have an area of expertise? You can cash in on your knowledge by creating and selling online courses and coaching programs in your spare time.
Thanks to user-friendly, low-cost online course platforms, this is another side hustle idea that’s easy to launch.
Plus, combined with social media marketing, ebooks, YouTube promotion and blogging, online courses and coaching side hustles can grow into a lucrative business.
Costs and platforms: Online course platforms such as Udemy, Thinkific and Podia walk you through the course creation process and help you pair courses with personalized coaching.
Most have monthly fees or retain a portion of the fee when you sell a course.
You can also add online courses and members-only content to website platforms including WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and others to create your own branded platform.
Common expenses involved with selling online courses include web hosting, software subscriptions, advertising costs, maintenance costs, and content production costs.
1. Choose a popular course topic The first step to making money selling online courses is to determine what topic you want to cover.
There are several selling platforms out there to choose from.
Three popular ones are iSpring Market, Udemy, and Thinkific. iSpring Market is best suited for those who want to start selling courses online quickly while enjoying full control over design, marketing, and sales.
Creating and selling courses online to make money is one sector that has seen significant growth recently.
The demand for authentic and credible courses is extremely high, and it is going to grow: by 2026 the global eLearning market is expected to reach $375 billion from less than $200 billion in 2019.
In fact, the course selling market is gigantic and there are hungry buyers out there looking for quality courses to upgrade their skills so they can excel in their career and personal development.
Digital education has provided a breakthrough. At least 33% of college students take at least one eLearning course.
Why? Because it’s cost effective and they learn 5 times more than they do from a formal course in college.
And it’s not just students – companies are also focusing extensively on Web-based courses to train their workforce.
Research shows that this helps organizations increase revenue and boost employee productivity and effectiveness.
The success of your business relies on the content – it is the core product and it has to be valuable and useful.
Course development starts with identifying a specific niche in your field.
To do this, define an issue your target audience is facing. Ask yourself, what problem will your course resolve?
YouTube Channel (Passive income)
YouTube side hustles are a great way to make money in your spare time by sharing what you know, discussing current events or providing entertainment.
YouTube is free to use, and you can monetize YouTube videos once you’ve reached at least 1,000 subscribers and average over 4,000 video watch hours per year.
This can take a while to achieve, but with work, it’s possible to earn many thousands each month.
Many dedicated side hustlers have turned their YouTube channel into a highly profitable full-time gig.
Costs and platforms: YouTube is free to join and you can upload unlimited videos for free.
You can also create videos for free using a smartphone with a good camera and free video editing apps such as iMovie, Loom, Canva and AdobeSpark.
To grow your YouTube channel, you can tap low-cost YouTube ads and share videos on your blog and social media accounts.
1. Become an Affiliate and Review Products (Passive income)
In order to earn from ads, you may need to have massive subscribers.
In your initial phase, you cannot rely completely on advertisement revenue as it may take a lot of time to achieve a considerable subscriber base.
However, associating with brands and reviewing products to earn commission is one of the most effective ways of making money from YouTube.
You can generate decent revenue by looking for companies who want to invest in affiliate marketing if you have an engaging and loyal audience on your channel.
A perfect chance to grab a percentage of sales made by sharing your unique affiliate links in your video description.
Earn from Ads (Passive income)
The biggest source of revenue from YouTube is becoming a YouTube partner and yielding returns from ads.
Many professionals are earning an impressive amount and that’s why it is considered to be the most essential revenue stream if you want to make a living from YouTube.
Merchandise Sales
Selling your merchandise products to your relevant audience is one of the greatest ways to yield immense revenue.
You just need to offer a service to the viewers and let them know about the products by providing them with a link in your videos.
You can sell any physical product, downloadables including e-books, art prints, etc. However, ensure to use a seamless and secure PAYMENT GATEWAY before you advertise your products.
Get Your Fans to Pay You Directly (Passive income)
You can set up a process that allows your fans to support your channel by paying you.
A lucrative opportunity is waiting outside your door. If you are already good at informative or educating people about a specific topic, you can earn a decent amount showcasing your videos.
Become an Amazon Influencer (Passive income)
Becoming an Amazon Influencer will not only help you get recognized globally but also maximize your YouTube presence and allow you to generate ample money via Amazon recommendations.
Rent your spare room on Airbnb. (passive income)
Airbnb offers a great resource for people that are willing to rent out a spare room or even their entire home. If you’re in a bind for some fast cash, Airbnb offers you an avenue for creating a great side hustle.
You’ll get paid 24 hours after a guest checks in, which is to avoid any problems or potential scams that might arise. Some people earn their primary income just by renting out their real estate on Airbnb.
Photographer
National average salary: $3,027 per month
Primary duties: Photographers capture images for a variety of purposes.
They may specialize in certain areas such as wedding or engagement photography.
Some photographers choose to capture subjects that interest them and sell their prints at craft shows, markets or online as stock photos.
Start a Dropshipping Business (Passive income)
Dropshipping is one of the best side hustle job ideas. It allows you to sell a product directly to the customer without having to buy any inventory.
Why’s that great? You don’t need to have a big startup cost budget keeping your risk low.
The manufacturer not only carries the inventory but also ships it directly to the customer for you.
Your main focus should be marketing and customer service – the lifeline of the business. If you have a strong marketing background and want a side hustle that plays to your strength, this is it.
It’s one of the rare side jobs that allows you to scratch a true entrepreneurial itch. You get to be the owner of your very own business.
How much money can a dropshipper make? That depends on how much effort you put into your business and marketing. You can make an extra couple thousand dollars or more.
Start a Wholesale Business (Passive income)
If you like the idea of running an online business but would prefer to be a little more hands on, starting an online store using wholesale could be perfect for you.
This business model means you buy products in bulk at a lower price and then sell at a higher retail price to your customers.
Because you’re hands on with your products and suppliers, you’re able to keep a close eye on the quality of your products.
Unlike dropshipping, you handle the packing and shipping, which means you don’t have deal with one of the downsides of dropshipping – the long shipping times.
Instead you can take advantage of getting those products into happy customer hands faster.
Affiliate Marketing
With affiliate marketing, you earn a commission by being a company’s affiliate. This is one of the most common side hustles.