A stable full-time job is crucial for making ends meet, but pay raises only come once a year while prices are growing constantly. Having one or a few side hustles is a crucial safety net to have for your family. It isn’t something to build a career around, but it can be profitable and fun.
Be aware that the landscape of side hustles is changing as more and more people are looking for additional income sources. Some hustle opportunities, like ride-hailing, are becoming less profitable, while online side hustles are still booming. The choice depends on your market, skills, and preferences.
How to Choose a Side Hustle?
No side hustles are profitable from day one. They all require preparation even before starting the actual work. That’s because, in most cases, you won’t be employed and will function as an entrepreneur or a freelancer.
The best strategy for success in side hustles is to treat them as a business venture. Evaluate your own skills and resources when measuring potential profits. Since this won’t be your main job, consider whether you’ll be able to handle the side hustle idea while committed to other responsibilities.
Assess Your Skills and Interests
Everyone comes from a different background with their own skills and interests. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that not all side hustles are for everyone. Often, the most profitable side hustles are those that you are most skilled at, but this might be your daytime job already.
For side hustle opportunities, it’s a good idea to consider your interests more. If you don’t like dogs, then dog walking won’t be a great side hustle – no matter how profitable and easy it will be. A perfect side hustle should balance what you can do after work and what you like.
Consider the Time Commitment and Resources Needed
Some side hustles heavily rely on material goods for you to succeed. Earning from Airbnb, for example, might be easy, but you need to have the real estate first. Other side hustles might require special software, a vehicle, expensive gear, or simply lots of money. Sometimes, it’s just an initial investment, but usually, it’s continuous.
Time is also a resource, and usually, side hustles that don’t demand lots of material capital or money will require you to commit time. Consider whether you are flexible enough to dedicate the time it takes to succeed. Depending on your situation, the best side hustles will allow you to succeed without sacrificing too much.
Evaluate Profitability and Market Demand
Side hustles are not hobbies. Your hobbies can be transformed into side hustles, but they must become profitable. Painting portraits, for instance, might be fun, but if you can’t find potential clients and earn at least to cover the costs, it’s not a viable side hustle idea.
You must complete at least a basic market research before getting into a side hustle. If it’s a freelance job, look into platforms like Upwork and Fiverr to evaluate the demand. If it’s related to local businesses, check social media. You will need to take risks, but thorough research can minimize it.
Balancing a Full-time Job With a Side Hustle Without Burning Out
Although an increasing number of Americans turn to side hustles for extra income, they aren’t for everyone. Only a few have enough energy to deliver pizzas after work. Besides, most side hustles aren’t paid that well, so you feel better off resting before the next workday begins.
Successfully balancing your full-time job with a side hustle rests on making it either very fulfilling or very profitable. Often, fulfilling side hustles are unrelated to your main job, while profitable ones play on your best skills. Both types of side hustle ideas become easier to balance with full-time employment once you get used to it.
Automation and Outsourcing
One of the best ways to make your side hustle more profitable and less time-consuming is by automating various tasks. This can be social media management software, AI assistant, web scraper, or any other automated tool that helps you with tedious tasks. The more efficient you are, the more you will earn.
Even though automation has come a long way, not everything can be automated easily and efficiently. Hands-on side hustles, like home cleaning, can’t be fully automated yet, so you’re better off hiring a person to help you than buying better equipment. Similarly, many tasks from online side hustles can be outsourced to workers overseas.
10 Side Hustle Ideas to Try in 2024
No one can predict the future, but we can find the trends and jump on a successful path before anyone else. The list here is all about what’s working this year. Most side hustle ideas were profitable many years in a row and will be in the future if you find the right tactics.
Many side hustles listed by other sources aren’t profitable anymore simply because they are too well known. You can outsmart the competition with clever tactics, but it might require your full attention in such cases. Our list selected side hustle ideas that are most likely to bring profits for a side hustler.
Monetize Your Social Media
Despite heavy competition, influencing on social media platforms is still a profitable side hustle. YouTube, for example, paid out over $100 billion to creators in the last three years. It doesn’t mean you’ll get millions from your YouTube channel, but it certainly means that you can make money on YouTube, especially with YouTube’s partner program.
Such statistics don’t account for other social media platforms and various monetization opportunities, such as affiliate marketing. Creating good content and understanding how to monetize it is a difficult skill to acquire, but once you have it, it’s one of the most profitable and fulfilling side hustles there is.
Writing and Transcribing
The AI boom has dissuaded many from starting a career in freelance writing. Some signs really do point out a lowered demand, but it’s likely because fewer writers now do more work. The demand for quality text hasn’t gotten anywhere, and if not writing, then proofreading AI texts is still in high demand.
Jobs in transcribing audio content or non-digital media are still available for those who want to feel safer against AI writers. Even if AI does a lot of the work, companies still need the seal of approval from a knowledgeable writer. Look for such work on common freelancing platforms, such as Upwork, Fiverr, or Linkedin.
Online Courses and Tutoring
Anyone has something to teach others. If your skill is needed in a workplace, you can easily create an online course on a platform like Skillshare or Udemy and profit from your knowledge. If you are better at university or high school subjects like history, math, or languages, consider becoming a tutor.
Preparing high schoolers for exams is one of the best side hustle ideas for college students. They have recently gone through the same system and successfully graduated. Such informal tutoring is often the most effective, and platforms like Wyzant, TutorMe, Italki, and others are full of people looking for tutors.
Unused Bandwidth Sharing
Passive side hustles are typically challenging to start, as you need prior capital and knowledge. Sharing your unused bandwidth can give you passive income without much investment. All you need is a stable internet connection with a dedicated IP address and a device – smartphone or PC.
Pawns.app takes care of everything else. You simply install the software, and your device becomes an access point for others to surf the web. Customers can access the internet as if from their location to bypass restrictions, and you earn $0.2 dollars for each gigabyte you share. It’s a win-win for everybody.
Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is a self-employed worker who offers part-time administrative services to companies. Often, the work of virtual assistants consists of tasks that the company’s full-time employees can’t be bothered with. Data entry, bookkeeping, presentation making, meeting management, and many other tasks are common for virtual assistants.
One of the biggest benefits of being a virtual assistant is that it’s a completely remote side hustle. Companies are looking for such assistants precisely because they are working in a different time zone and for lower pay. If you have some valuable office skills, you can earn quite decently by working as a virtual assistant.
Paid Online Surveys
Perhaps the easiest way to earn money on the side is by answering paid online surveys. With Pawns.app, you can share your opinion on your PC or phone wherever you have an internet connection. So, while one survey generally takes around 30 minutes, you can complete it at the time most convenient to you.
Companies and non-profit organizations will always need direct opinions from their customers, so paid surveys are likely to stay among the most profitable side hustle ideas. Completing just a couple of surveys per day is likely to earn you around $10 per month. The best part is that you don’t need any qualifications to participate – sharing your opinions is enough.
Car Detailing
Car detailing goes beyond simple cleaning and tackles not just stains but also scratches, rust, restoration of paintwork, and many other elements of a car. A good detailer will give the car a fresh feel, and customers are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for such a service.
Traditionally, car detailing is considered a side hustle for men, but there are many women who have successfully turned it into an additional income stream. All that is really needed is proper equipment, free time, a bit of marketing, and an interest in working with cars. None of it is gender dependent.
Flipping
In the context of side hustles, flipping refers to the practice of purchasing an asset and quickly reselling it for profit. Originally, the term was used for real estate resellers, but with the advent of online platforms, almost anything can be resold for profit quickly.
Cars, furniture, handmade items, clothing, shoes, electronics – anything can be resold as long as you are knowledgeable in the field. You can earn even more if you put some work into the assets. A simple restoration or a repaint might significantly increase the value of your goods.
Pet Sitting
One of the most traditional side hustles on our list is pet sitting. Most pet owners face a difficult dilemma when traveling or out of the house for other reasons. Leaving pets alone is dangerous, and friends or family might not be willing to take care of your pet. That’s why pet hotels are paid very well for even a temporary stay.
Dog walking often falls under the same umbrella, although it might be a bit easier as you don’t have to take the animals into your house. It lowers the initial investment and might be a good way to test whether you like to work with animals. If you are passionate about it, move on to creating a per hotel at your house for more profits.
Makeup and Nail Care Services
Most women are already good at doing makeup and nail care for themselves, so it’s a natural side hustle for women who already possess these skills. Such side hustle is usually done on a freelance basis or in cooperation with local businesses, such as spas and beauty salons.
You’ll need some social media marketing skills to find clients, and equipment might cost quite a bit. Often, both problems are quite easily solved by purchasing equipment for oneself and finding potential clients among friends, family, or neighbors. Such a communal start makes beauty services one of the best side hustles, even in today’s digital age.
Easiest Side Hustles to Start with Minimal Experience
Out of the side hustles we listed, filling out online surveys, pet sitting, sharing unused bandwidth, and transcribing have a low barrier of entry and almost no startup costs. The best part is that all of them also have an almost instant earning potential.
Depending on the assets and skills you currently have, other side hustles can also be considered easy to start. Here are some that didn’t make it to the top ten list.
- Renting rooms for Airbnb
- Food delivery
- Selling arts and crafts online
- Handyman work
- Home cleaning
- Becoming a local tour
- Babysitting
- Data entry
- Ride-hauling
- CV writing
Even if they aren’t your dream side hustles, they are worth trying as a stepping stone to something you might enjoy more. Sometimes, getting into the habit of having a side hustle might be more important.
How to Make $2000 a Month with a Side Hustle?
Now that you have found your dream side hustle and tested if it’s working, the next step is to scale it into being more profitable. The exact steps to take depend on your niche, but generally, this is the route you should take.
- Start by defining your financial goals. If your goal is to earn $2000 per month from your side hustle, then you should aim to earn around $67 per day from your side hustle.
- Adjust for expenses. A common mistake when scaling your side hustle is forgetting that expenses can also grow exponentially. If you play your cards right, you can also save money by scaling your side business.
- Price your services strategically. Side hustles, like any other business venture, require you to compete with others for clients. Lower prices to enter the market and increase them when you earn a good reputation.
- Use multiple platforms or combine different side hustles. There’s nothing wrong with using different opportunities to your advantage. If you aren’t employed officially, you should care more about your own profits.
- Use automation and outsourcing methods to cut costs. Hiring overseas assistants and leveraging automation tools are the best ways to increase efficiency. They practically pay for themselves since more efficiency means more profits.
- Invest in your skills. Set aside part of your side hustle profits to learn new skills and build it into a business. Continuous education is a must for staying competitive.
- Work on sales strategies. Finding new clients is a job in itself. You must fine-tune your strategies for getting new leads and retaining old contacts.
Conclusion
No matter what business idea you have, it won’t come to life if you don’t try it. The best time to do it is when you don’t actually need the extra income. Using the safety of your full-time job, you can test out different side hustle ideas freely. You only need to take action.
