best side hustle ideas

25 of the Best Side Hustles To Try

Gain financial freedom with these creative money-making side hustles.

With COVID-19 unemployment stimulus benefits running out and jobless claims plateauing, people are hungry for new ways to make extra money. Whether you’re unemployed or working part-time or full-time, it never hurts to test your comfort zone and explore the wide range of side hustles available out there. You can easily start a side hustle from the comfort of your home, and the best part is that side hustles can look good on your resume.

Even if you’re a busy person, each of these is possible to try and see if they work for you. If not, then just know that everything happens for a reason and take what you learned from the experience and move on to the next! Just know that you can work to achieve your financial goals with passive income and these simple side hustles! You just have to try!

25 of the Best Side Hustles in 2020

See if these creative ways to make money are right for you!

Sell on Amazon

We are big fans of making money on Amazon. When everyone was quarantining this year, it became apparent that E-commerce is a vital and necessary aspect of our lives. So why not capitalize on it and open your e-commerce storefront? Anyone with a computer and initiative can start their own Amazon marketplace.

The key to selling on Amazon is retail arbitrage. Buy items in retail stores at a lower price and then sell them online in your Amazon store. People who do this typically use large online marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay to resell their items for a significant profit.

Marketplace Superheroes and Your Money Geek are offering a free webinar to introduce you to a training course from two individuals who built a multi-million Amazon FBA business.


Play Games for Money

We have written pretty extensively about the best ways to make real money from simply playing games on your phone, but we also have a favorite app. Anyone with an Android phone should download Mistplay today. What are you waiting for?

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Download for FREE and start playing and earning!

Making money on Mistplay is as easy as downloading the app, playing games, earning Mistplay units, and cashing out on gift cards. To maximize your income potential, make sure you take note of the games that offer higher value rewards.

Find out more about Mistplay in our review of the app


Become a Virtual Assistant

Becoming a virtual assistant can be a lucrative way to start making money from home. You can set your own hours, run your own business, and be your own boss. Work from the comfort of your own home and combine your skills as a freelance writer, transcriber, or bookkeeping knowledge to attract higher-paying virtual assistant jobs.

The key to becoming a virtual assistant is being good at managing your time. You’ll be working either hourly or task-based roles, and your clients will expect the job to be handled in a timely fashion.

You can find virtual assistant jobs on virtually every job hunting source on the internet. Check out our handy guide to becoming a virtual assistant. 


Start a Blog

Blogging can be a full-time job, but it can also be an incredibly flexible and fun job. The key is to have a solid strategy and theme for your blog and knowing your market. With a little effort, you can start reaching people and monetizing your blog within a few months.

Don’t expect your blog to become a boon overnight, but do expect that you can start attracting ads and affiliate programs for your blog in a short period of time. Learn how to Start a Blog in 10 Easy Steps. 


Drive for Uber or Lyft

Uber and Lyft aren’t exactly going to make you quick money, but if you love driving and you don’t mind driving people around — then it might be the perfect side hustle for you.

They are excellent gigs if you’re looking for a job that lets you set your own hours, and if you live in a metro area, where a lot of people use ride-sharing apps, you can make some decent money. Be sure to check out the other apps that can make you money while you drive-share. 

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Walk Dogs

Wag! and Rover are two of the best apps for dog lovers looking for a side hustle. They’re easy to use — download the app, create your profile, and sign-up to become a dog walker in your neighborhood!

Depending on where you live, there may already be a lot of dog walkers, but it’s worth checking it out. Some users have reported making almost $4000 a month walking dogs part-time!

Dog walking is one of the best side hustles to pair with exercise apps like Sweatcoin


Become a Freelance Writer

As a freelance writer, you can become your own boss and choose who you work for and when you work. Freelance writing is perfect for topic experts, resume writers, copywriters, proofreaders, and almost any written media creators. There are so many different apps that have been created to cater to freelancers, but you can also find listings on the typical job finding sites.

Being a freelance writer requires a lot of initiative. You need to be following every lead, following up with potential clients, and prowling social media for jobs to jump on. It’s a highly competitive field, but there’s also a place for everyone in the market.

Related: Fiverr vs. Upwork vs. Symposium


Perform Tasks Locally

You can do this side hustle whenever you want to and make some quick cash. TaskRabbit is one of the largest platforms centered around running errands, assembling furniture, and doing virtual jobs for other users.

Rates vary, but some tasks start at $15 an hour, paying all the way up to $100 an hour for more specialized jobs.

Check out these quick and painless ways to make cash today.


Deliver Food & Groceries

These apps are a little inundated with workers, thanks to COVID-19 making grocery delivery a vital part of our day-to-day lives, but there’s still room for you.

If you have time to kill, and you’re looking for a part-time or full-time gig, check out  Instacart, DoorDash, Postmates, and Uber Eats to become a professional grocery shopper and food delivery service.


Utilize Airbnb

Do you have a spare room in your home? Or maybe you have a second home that sits empty throughout part of the year. You could be capitalizing on that space and making some decent money on the side.

The real key to making money on Airbnb is having a property in a highly sought after location — a city center, near a convention center, or a popular destination. People will turn to Airbnb for extended business stays or off-beat vacation rentals, rather than turning to chain hotels.

So what are you waiting for?


Start a Graphic Design Business

Is graphic design your passion? (Bonus points if you get that reference) Then you may be able to monetize that passion and turn it into a marketable side hustle. Create yourself a website, showcase your portfolio, and start tracking down potential clients. You can search for businesses that are advertising the need for graphic designers or track down small businesses that look like they might need a little graphic design TLC.

If you’re not in the market to start up a whole side business, 99design might be the best side hustle site for you.

Check out these other hobbies turned money-makers.


Flip Real Estate

Real estate flipping isn’t as easy (or as painful) as HGTV, and DIY shows make it out to be, but it does take a lot of patience, work, and a willingness to play the long game.

You can choose to invest in turn-key properties that can quickly be turned in rental properties, or you can look into investing in quick-sale fixer-uppers that need a lot of money invested in updating them. Here is everything you need to know about real estate investing.

If house flipping is a little daunting, check out how to flip cars for profit.


Become an Expert Consultant

Clarity is a lifesaver if you think consulting is the best side hustle for you. With Clarity, you can consult on a wide variety of topics (business, tech, product design, and more) and help entrepreneurs with their start-ups. The process is fairly straightforward after you’re set up on Clarity, a client will reach out to you about the specific topic you specialize in, you schedule a call with them, consult, and then receive your payment.

Most people start out at $60/an hour, but many consultants report making upwards of $300/an hour for their services through Clarity.

If Clarity doesn’t seem like a fit for you, you can always launch your own consulting business.


Teach English Online

English language teachers are in high demand, and you can easily become a teacher from the comfort of your own home. There are dozens of websites that help match you up with kids from all around the world who are looking to learn English. If you’re a native English speaker with a Bachelor’s Degree, teaching experience, and can pass a background check, what’s stopping you from becoming a teacher?

Last year, VIPKid was ranked as one of the Top 10 Places to Work by Glassdoor. New teachers in the program start out with a base pay of $7.50, but that amount increases as the number of classes you teach increase.

You can also check out DaDa, Magic Ears, or market your skills as a freelancer!


Run Facebook Ads for Small Businesses

Becoming a Facebook Ad Manager might seem like a daunting task, but it’s easier than you think. Are you well connected in a small town? Does your best friend run their own small business? Do you frequent mom-and-pop shops that need a little marketing boost? Then you may already have the right leads.

Despite the controversial nature of Facebook, it continues to be one of the largest tools for small businesses to market themselves, and now is the time to capitalize on it and turn it into the best side hustle for you. Some of the key aspects of managing Facebook ads is understanding the market, knowing the right keywords, and being able to produce quality copy and graphics to engage in potential customers.

Who knows, you might even turn Facebook ad management into social media manager job, which happens to be one of the best side hustles to do from home. 


Rent Your Car

Has your unused RV been camped out in your driveway? Do you have a spare vehicle you haven’t let go of yet? Then renting your car out might be the best side hustle for you. There are several user-friendly apps out there that will help you start renting out your car by this weekend.

Getaround, and Turo make renting your car simple. These are the perfect apps for users who might have a second car that sits idle most of the time or someone who lives in a tourist destination that wants to make money off their vehicle. You can easily earn upwards of $500 a month keep your car running!

RV Share and Outdoorsy are specifically geared towards users who own RVs. If you’re an RV owner, but you only use it part of the time, why not list it and make money letting someone else use it? Some users report making over $300 a day renting out their RV! The great part of Outdoorsy is that they have a 1 million dollar insurance policy to cover their users.


Become a Mover

We mentioned TaskRabbit above, which has plenty of moving jobs listed, but if you have the strength, you can make moving a cozy part-time job. Sign-up for Dolly and start making upwards of $300 a month, helping people move in and out. If you have a truck to help move larger pieces, you might even make a little more money than the average mover.

Always keep an eye out on Facebook Marketplace and NextDoor too, people are always looking for paid help to move!


Take Surveys

Survey Junkie is one of the most popular survey-taking websites in the market. Survey taking is far from a get-rich-fast scheme, but it is a great way to rake in supplemental income when you have free time.

The key is matching quickly with surveys that are looking for people like you to take them. This is a great way to make some extra money while watching TV, commuting, or over a cup of coffee. Sign up today!

Survey taking as a side hustle is one of our favorite topics to talk about at Your Money Geek, so be sure to check out the Ultimate Guide to Getting Paid to Take Surveys

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Sign up today!

Turn Your Hobby into a Business

There are so many ways to make money off your hobby if you have the patience to build your own mini-empire. Whether you create quirky stickers, knit geeky scarves, woodcraft, or embroidery, Etsy makes it easy for you to turn your hobby into a lucrative business, but did you know you can also easily teach your hobby online?

You can turn your hobby into online workshops and start drawing in a steady income from fellow hobbyists looking to refine their skills or learn something new. Check out Teachable and Udemy and find out which one fits your personality best.

Youtube is also a valuable asset if you’re building a hobby-focused brand, and you have the time and skills to create and upload videos regularly. You wouldn’t believe how much money YouTubers are making thanks to ad revenue, affiliate programs, and sponsorships.

Related: From Hobby to Dream Job


Re-sell Domains

If you own a website, never forget to renew your domain! Some people make a living by buying up domains that people have forgotten to renew, and then they essentially ransom them at insanely high price tags (depending on the website, I’ve seen between $300 and $5000). But fear not, we are not advocating that you become a domain pirate — exactly.

Spend time looking for unpurchased domains that may have long-term returns. Focus on domains that might logically become a brand, socially-minded organization, or popular keywords that may one day entice someone into contacting you to buy it. Do your research, and don’t start spending a ton of money on domains. Make strategic choices!

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Create a Course Online

If teaching English wasn’t the right match for you, but you have the passion and skills to teach other courses online, then this might be the best side hustle for you. Especially with so many people looking for ways to learn new marketable skills or looking for alternative education for their kids online, this has the potential to be a highly lucrative hustle.

Some people report making upwards of $90,000 a year teaching online.

It’s pretty easy to find online teaching jobs, but you will need a few key skills to get into the market. First, you will need to be proficient in a desirable field — do research, check out what courses are available online, and see which ones are sold out and have a clear demand. You will also need to have a decent computer, video recording and editing abilities, and the discipline and time to teach at a distance.

We already mentioned Teachable and Udemy, Thinkific and Skillshare are two more user-friendly sources for teaching online. Be aware that there is an overhead cost associated with these sites, so check each out and see which is the best match for you.


Upcycle Furniture

Have you ever been browsing Facebook Marketplace and come across someone practically giving away perfectly good furniture? Or maybe you’ve seen a piece listed for $5 that just needed a nice coat of paint and some TLC? There’s actually money to be made in strategic upcycling. In fact, there are entire websites — like Freecycle — where people list pieces of furniture, trinkets, and electronics for free!

If you’re a creative person, you could easily take a free kitchen table and transform it into a $200 piece with some paint and elbow grease. Keep an eye on thrift stores, too; you never know what sort of pieces you can find that would be perfect for flipping for a profit.


Become a Mystery Shopper

Companies all around the world hire mystery shoppers to give them feedback on their businesses. In exchange for money, theses companies hire individuals to go into their stores and purchase specific items and services to rate and review their employees and product accessibility. Becoming a mystery shopper is easy and can even be done as part of your usual shopping habits.

Jobs2Shop lets you become a mystery shopper overnight, while Field Agent matches you with nearby gigs while you’re out driving around. Typically the Field Agent jobs simply involve checking out store displays or checking on product inventory. While neither will get you rich, they’re another great side hustle to help bring in some extra cash.


Start Dropshipping

Dropshipping can make you upwards of $5000 a month, but it does require a little effort to get into. To get started, you will need to set-up an eCommerce store (we recommend Shopify or WordPress) and then start selling stock straight from the supplier. Instead of shipping the products yourself, you simply purchase goods from a wholesale manufacturer, and then they package and ship directly to your customers. 

Each platform charges a different amount, so it is essential to do your research before trying to create a dropshipping business as a form of passive income.


Start an OnlyFans For Your Content

In 2020, OnlyFans has proven itself as a great form of income for its users. If you have an online following and want to post exclusive content under a paywall, then this is one of the best side hustles for you. There are a wide variety of creators on the website from fitness coaches to cosplayers, travel bloggers to adult models; and popular influencers to Do-It-Yourselfers, there’s a niche for you.

This might be a great secondary resource if you’ve started building a successful brand for yourself on Youtube, as a blogger, or a successful Twitch streamer. One adult content creator on the website, Monica Huldt, makes over $100,000 a year on the site.

Your “fans” subscribe to your content at a monthly or yearly rate, so you must keep producing quality content to keep them happy with what they’re paying for. You can set up Amazon wishlists for them to buy things for you and send you additional tips.

Check out the blog on OnlyFans and learn more about some of the website’s most popular fitness gurus and how they’ve been managing home workout routines during the quarantine.


Launch Your Side Hustle

Launching a successful side hustle requires planning. There are a ton of factors you need to consider such as how to structure your taxes and how to protect your side hustle and assets.

Daniella from I Like to Dabble has released the best courses we have seen in regards to starting a new side hustle.

Check out her course here! Launch your side hustle

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Back at the beginning where I was piecing together articles and info from google to start my side hustle, I was so worried I was going to do something wrong. Everything online had such conflicting info and the more I read, the more confused I would get.

The Launch Your Side Hustle course is the most in-depth course you will find to help you launch a legit side hustle and small business. It is everything I wish I had when I started. In 38 lessons, 7 videos, and 19 worksheets, you will learn everything from idea to action, to profit.

We go through everything from the conception of your idea, mapping out how it will actually work, to identifying your customer, how you can serve them, what you can offer them, and even how to price your services and products. We can’t forget about the legal and tax paperwork either, which is why I brought in an actual lawyer and accountant to walk us through those modules (since I am neither).

There are tons of bonuses too like how to use social media to build your brand awareness, if you need a website, and how to add more income streams over time (including passive income strategies).

This course is no-nonsense with no fluff. Forget online get rich quick schemes or MLMs (multi-level marketing schemes). This course is NOT that and if that is what you’re looking for, this course is not for you. However, if you are in this for real – let’s do this.

I am excited to see what you create! –Daniella

The Bottom Line

There are so many unique ways to make money online, and at home, the key is finding the best side hustles for your lifestyle and schedule. Hopefully, we have helped you find some new ways to bring in a passive income or a new way to showcase and profit from your passions.

What is your favorite side hustle? Be sure to comment on how you’ve been making money on the side.

This article originally appeared on Wealth of Geeks and has been republished with permission.

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