Top 25 Online And Offline Side Hustles To Try

Everyone needs some extra money these days – that is for sure. But many people out there struggle to get started for all kinds of reasons. Some of them are personal or mental barriers, though for many it’s simply a lack of idea and confidence on when and where to start.

No worries no more about that though, as we’ve compiled a list of 25 legit ways for you to make some extra money – whether that’s offline or online. This list is placed together from the fastest to start to the slowest – though let’s be honest, these are very simple to put together and many of the “slow” gigs do tend to pay out more in the long term.

The only thing to note is that some of these may not be the most sensible to do in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic has restricted what we can and can’t do to a degree.

Selling Used Clothes

Selling used clothes that you haven’t worn in years is a fast way to start making money. There are local consignment shops that you can consider or you can look to ThredUp and Poshmark, which are sites that have plenty of buyers for clothes.

If you’re going online, you want to have well-lit photos of the pieces and do some research into what others are selling similar items for.

Selling Phones, Electronics Or Other Tech

Another quick option to look at is selling your old phones and other electronics. There are always people looking for parts or, at the very least, those who prefer older technology, rather than having the urge to have the latest and greatest. Some online options to consider are eBay and Amazon’s trade-in program. You can also look at Swappa or Gazelle.

Driving For Uber Or Lyft

With more delivery services out there, as well as third party taxi companies, you can earn money by driving people around. The only thing you need to keep in mind are the gas and maintenance costs of your car. On top of that, to qualify you’ll need to agree to a background check and have your driving history reviewed by the company.

Delivering For Amazon Or Uber Eats

By the same token, you can look into taking part in other delivery services. There is a steady growing market for these kinds of services with Uber Eats, Postmates, Instacart, DoorDash, Amazon Flex and many others. You get paid based on the amount of deliveries you do and can even earn tips.

The beauty of this is that a car isn’t always necessary. Take Postmates and DoorDash, where in some cities they allow you to use a bike or a scooter to make deliveries. Though you’re still going to need to have a background check done as part of the deal.

Dog Sitting Or Walking

If you’ve got love for dogs, you can either become a dog sitter or a dog walker. You can always ask around the neighbourhood if anyone has any pets that you could look after. There is also the online route, which has apps like Wag! and Rover, which can help with finding you this job. The only catch with this is if you live in an apartment or condo, you’ll need landlord approval first to determine whether you can use your space for overnight dog boarding.

Babysitting

Beyond dogs, you could also look after other people’s children as well. Word-of-mouth referrals from friends and family are a good way to start, but you have other options as well through care.com and Sittercity. You can also market yourself further if you have CPR certifications or experience with special needs children too.

House Sitting

You can even look after someone’s house as well when folks are away. All that you need to do for the job is perhaps feed the pets, water some plants and take out the trash. It’s a pretty relaxing gig all things considered and it’s easy to get into. Tap into your personal network first or you can consider housesitter.com, which connects homeowners with housesitters. Many have been able to make $25 to $45 a day based on the company’s site.

Selling Unused Gift Cards

While selling these in person could be sketchy, there are lots of websites around where you can sell these. Cardpool, CardCash or Gift Card Granny of the few that immediately come to mind. These are good options as these sites will pay you up to 92% of the card’s value. What’s also nice is some of these sites offer trade-ins, allowing you to exchange one gift card for another gift card you’d actually use. Others might also have kiosks where you can exchange cards right on the spot.

Freelancing

Getting into the longer lengths of making money, one consideration is taking up freelancing.

Sites like freelancer.com, Upwork, and Fiverr offer many opportunities to do all kinds of freelance jobs. Upwork is one of the best ones out there, but each platform has opportunities if you’re looking to get into writing, programming, design, marketing, data entry or to become a virtual assistant.

Other considerations are Gengo or One Hour Translation, which are translating services. So if you are fluent in a second – or more – languages, check it out.

The only other thing to keep in mind is keeping track of your going rate for the type of work you’re doing. This will help you to know whether you’re charging too much or too little.

Testing Websites Or Apps

Sites like usertesting.com will pay you to share your thoughts on how well – or poorly – certain websites or apps worked. You’re going to need to pass a short test first to determine if you’ll be accepted. After that though you’ll be paid $10 for every 20-minute test. These tests also involve a recording and answering four follow-up written questions as well. It sounds decent enough, but you have another option of earning up to $120 to participate in a video conversation with a customer after the test too.

Using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

Even with automation making our jobs so convenient and replaceable, there are many that still need a human touch. As a result, many companies often outsource those jobs through all kinds of services. One such company is Amazon who outsources work through their Mechanical Turk program.

As a “worker” in that department, the tasks you can be assigned are generally tedious ones, but can take either a few minutes to a few hours to complete. Examples of work are tagging images, transcribing videos, or classifying receipts.

Temporary employers – also called requesters – are the ones that set the prices for each task and get to approve the completed work before paying you. Because of that setup, you could easily get scammed, so you’ll want to do research first before accepting. Right out the door you can look to communities like MTurk Crowd forum, MTurk and Turker Nation subreddits, which steer you away from shifty dealers. Furthermore, those communities can also answer questions and give you an idea of what kind of money you can expect to make.

Putting Your Spare Bedroom On Airbnb

You can also consider renting out your living space in certain instances, thanks to companies like Airbnb. Through this vacation rental site, you can make a spare bedroom – or the entire house – into a way to make a side income.

Of course, there’s going to be costs to it with you having to clean and keep up the property.

You’ll also need to replace home goods and pay other service fees potentially. If you’re offering up a spot that you are renting yourself, you’ll also want to look at your rental agreement as well to see if you can get away with this.

Renting Out Your Car

Beyond a living space, you can also rent out your car too. If you live in a big city, you often have no use for a car for days or weeks at a time. Rather than letting the car idle, you can convert that into money. Services like Getaround and Turo allow you to rent out your car per hour or day. You take away the majority of the earnings from that while these sites also protect your car while it’s being rented out.

Taking Surveys

Online surveys is another avenue to consider as well, though unlike the ads from these companies suggest, you won’t be rolling in money. Survey sites rarely offer huge payoffs with many offering you gift cards, rather than money. Some of the sites that come to mind are places like Swagbucks and Survey Junkie.

Signing Up To TaskRabbit

What’s this site about? Well, as the site kinda suggests, this is all about doing small tasks for other people. Tasks like waiting in long lines or putting together Ikea furniture and so on. This particular site can connect you with folks who are looking for all kinds of tasks like moving, cleaning, delivery and general handyman services.

Selling Photography

You don’t need to have a top of the line camera these days in order to take great pictures.

With the cameras in our phones being better than most point-and-shoot cameras, you can get away with taking shots from your phone and selling them to various sites.

One site that comes to mind is Fine Art America, which allows you to upload your images to the site and sell them off in various forms. You can also look to sites like SmugMug, 500px, and PhotoShelter as other options too. Do note that some sites will have a subscription fee, but they provide pretty good features beyond selling. Some will have cloud storage, password-protected galleries (so people can’t just copy your photos and not pay you for them) and give you a website that you can customize how you like.

Being A Tutor

Tutoring is another great opportunity for making lots of money. There are sites like tutor.com or you can check out care.com again for this. You can also look to offering your services through Craigslist as well.

Beyond that, you can look at advertising your services to local schools, community centers – all depending on your education level.

Affiliate Marketing

Getting into slower options, the first is affiliate marketing. This is where someone clicks on a link and buys a product via that link. As an affiliate, you’ll be paid a portion of those sales. It might not sound like much, but many bloggers out there build their business around this stuff, offering plenty of affiliate links through their blogs and sending massive traffic to their site already.

It’s a slow way of making money, but it’s not out of the question to build your livelihood around something like this on the long-term.

Selling Products On Etsy

If you have a crafty side that you want to explore, you can consider Etsy, a marketplace where artisans sell home goods, art, and other cool things. There are roughly 48 million active buyers who have spent about $5 billion in 2019, according to the site, so there is lots of potential out there for you to make some good money there reliably.

Getting Ad Revenue From Blog Or YouTube Channel

One of the most classic ways of making money online is generating ads on your content. If you’re able to bring a large amount of traffic to either videos or your blog, you can make money from advertising.

Although Youtube’s ad revenue program has changed a lot over the years, you can still make decent money from it as a side-gig long-term. Our suggestion is to look for other income sources to compliment it if you’re looking to live off these sorts of things.

Becoming An Influencer

Whether it’s on Twitter or Instagram, it’s easier to become what is known as an influencer.

These are basically people with a large – and highly dedicated fan-base – on the platform. The idea is that once you build your follower base, you can represent other brands’ products and get paid to do so.

How you can go about this is up to you, but if you’re looking for good leads, we’d look to platforms like FameBit or Open Influence starting out.

Monetizing Twitch Channel

Many Youtubers are doing this as a means of supporting themselves, since the ad program on Youtube has shifted. It’s a good option in this case, but you can also do it on its own. Gaming has evolved so much over the years up to now that people today are paying others to stream games and provide live commentary.

Broadcasters on Twitch can receive donations from people and also get a portion of the money from subscriptions and ad revenue if they reach Affiliate or Partner status. Overall, it’s a highly lucrative way to be making money these days that is worth considering.

Becoming A Mystery Shopper

Businesses are always looking to know how they’re performing from a customer’s point of view. Thanks to sites like IntelliShop, BestMark and Sinclair Customer Metrics, businesses can go through these companies to find what’s known as mystery shoppers. Basically these are shoppers who are the company’s eyes and ears in regards to this. The only thing to be mindful of is to be aware of scams and do research of the sites and companies before signing up.

Seasonal Working

If you only need a gig for a few months, seasonal labor can yield good results. This can take on the form of being a lifeguard, cleaning up snow, mowing lawns, or working as a retailer during peak times of the year. Usually employers increase staff a month or two in advance of the busy season, so you’ve got a chance to plan ahead and get some money from that.

Getting Your Drone To Do Some Work

The final option we’ve got for you is putting your drone to work. Drones are expanding naturally and there are those that can do all kinds of things these days. Companies are taking advantage of this as well by offering jobs like aerial inspections, photography and land mapping.

If you’ve already got a drone – or several – you can look to getting it or them a job. The only thing you need to do is register the drone with the Federal Aviation Administration and get certified, so you can use your drone for commercial use. After that you can start applying for gigs as a drone pilot.