54 Side Hustle Ideas To Make Money Fast
Source: The College Investor
If you’re looking for side hustle ideas that actually work, it can feel overwhelming. There are a lot of options.
While some things can take a long time to see earnings, there are other gigs that can pay you the same day.
There are millions of ways to make money – especially extra money side hustling. If you have the drive and the passion to earn money, you CAN do it. But sometimes we struggle to figure out what to do that will actually earn us anything. We simply hit a mental wall and we can’t think of side hustle and money making ideas.
So, instead of staying roadblocked, here is a list of ways to start side hustling, earning your way out of debt, or using extra money to invest.
No matter what your skill set is, or how much time you have, you should be able to find something on this list that you can do this week to make some extra money. Even (and perhaps especially) if you’re a college student looking to make more money, a lot of these tasks are perfect for you.
Also, make sure you check out our list of the best side hustles, where we compare our picks based on earning potential, scheduling, and growth.
For most people, an online side hustle is the easiest way to get started; you can find free WiFi a lot of places and the startup costs are minimal.
If you have some time to spare online, you could spend it filling out online surveys. There are sites that will pay you to do so and it’s very easy. All you have to do is register, and these companies will contact you when they have a survey that fits your profile. Typically these are online market research surveys for big brands.
Let’s be honest, these side hustle ideas won’t earn you much money, but they’re quick, easy, and you can do them while doing other things.
Some of the most popular online survey sites include:
Income Potential: $50 per month
Do you search the Internet? Want to get paid for it? Swagbucks is a site that rewards you for doing various online tasks like taking surveys, watching videos, and using their search engine. When using their search engine, you get reward points after several searches, usually in the amount of 10-15 points. You can start cashing out rewards at the 500 points mark. Read our full Swagbucks review here.
If you Swagbucks you can earn a $5 bonus!
Another option is InboxDollars. Similar to Swagbucks, they offer cash bonuses for searching the web or shopping online. Just by signing up with THIS LINK you can earn a $5 bonus!
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $50 per month
DoorDash is a delivery service that has been growing nationwide. It’s an alternative to not having people in your car but still getting paid to deliver. The great thing with DoorDash is that you get to keep 100% of the delivery fees! DoorDash makes money by charging the restaurants, not you!
More and more restaurants are signing up, so you can likely find gigs in your area.
Plus, with DoorDash, you don’t have to have strangers in your vehicle!
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Blogging is a great side hustle because you can do it at your own pace anywhere you want. It’s not a quick and easy way to make money, but there are a lot of ways to make money side hustling while blogging. You can sell advertising, become an affiliate for other people’s products, sell your own online product, and more. It does take time to build up an audience to be able to make a decent amount of money, but once you have a large following, you could earn over $15,000 per month or more (we do).
Food for thought – this site started on Bluehost and was soon earning over $1,000 per month. It’s grown much more since then. We love Bluehost because you can get started for just $2.95 per month with our special code. Check it out here.
If you want to start a blog, check out our free guide on How To Start A Personal Website Or Blog. We used Bluehost to start because you get a free domain name and cheap hosting at just $2.95 per month.
Tool To Get Started: Bluehost (Get a free domain and $2.95 hosting with this link)
Income Potential: $1,000 per month within 1 year
Do you have old books, CDs, or DVDs? Then you should consider selling them on Amazon. It’s incredibly easy to list your items to sell, and you’d be surprised how much you can get for old stuff sometimes.
If you’re a college student looking to sell your old textbooks, you should compare the Amazon prices to your bookstore buyback prices. Amazon is often a better place to sell.
I’ve been regularly selling my old stuff on Amazon for about 8 years. It can be a great side hustle.
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $300 per month
Adrian Brambila
Fiverr is a micro-selling site where you can sell all kinds of random projects, from design work to simply recording yourself on video talking about a brand. We just wrote an article about how you can earn $10,000 by starting a Fiverr gig. It’s possible!
If you don’t know where to start, browse the site for a little bit. You’ll quickly realize two things:
A cool gig that I recently purchased was a woman who was selling travel plans. She’d traveled to many cities and was passionate about planning, and would make a travel plan with sites to see, entertainment, restaurants, and more. It shows that there are gigs for everything!
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $300 per month
eBay is a great place to sell stuff and earn money, especially if you have something collectible.
One of my favorite ways to side hustle on eBay is to go to estate sales and find items that you can purchase for cheap, then resell online. Just make sure that you keep the fees in consideration.
At my peak, I was making over $2,000 per month buying items and reselling them on eBay. You can read my full story about starting a side hustle and selling on eBay here.
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Julie Berninger
Are you creative? Maybe selling your own creative products is the way to go.
You could open a shop on Etsy and sell your crafts to others who are looking for unique products. You could sell paper goods like cards and invitations, or even home decor products themed around the holidays.
My sister in law regularly sells items on Etsy. She creates stationary and other decor and sells them. For the investment in her time and minor costs of crafting supplies, she’s able to generate a decent side income.
Julie Berninger sells Etsy printables to the tune of $1,000s of dollars per month – and she created an Etsy Sellers course to show you how to do it as well!
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Beyond blogging, you can also become a coach or consultant for others, especially if you have some skills that people are looking for. Maybe you’re a social media maven, or you have great online business skills. Selling your time and hopping on a Skype call or Google hangout is a great hustle.
A good platform to get started with this is Clarity.fm. You can get paid by the minute for your consulting calls. If you’ve established yourself as a thought leader in your industry, you could also make yourself available on platforms like LinkedIn as well.
I haven’t made much using this, but if you have experience in a field, you could easily earn $50 per hour or more for quick calls that you might actually enjoy.
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $100 per month
There is a lot of freelance work online. You can sign up for sites like UpWork, or you can even become your own online freelancer like I did. I’ve made over $10,000 on the side by online freelancing, and I share my story, as well as resources to help you get started, here: How To Get Paid To Write Freelance.
One of the more popular ways to make money freelancing right now is by doing SEO consulting. If you’re a little savvy and analytical, you can make $75/hr or more. Check out this free SEO Consulting Course to get started.
You could also do something like proofreading or transcription work. Many bloggers and authors need proofreaders to make sure their writing is on point. You can learn how to get started proofreading for bloggers and others here.
For podcasters, having a great transcription can be huge. When you hear the term “show notes”, who do you think helped put that together? Learn how to transcribe from home here.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $5,000 per month within 1 year
Mike Piper
Have a story you want to tell? Maybe you should write an eBook and sell them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Michael Piper has made a living selling eBooks about financial topics online, and we recently wrote 14 Ways To Get Paid For Writing Online.
I’ve met several authors you’ve never heard of that sell tons of eBooks on Amazon every year. One author has almost 100 different books he’s selling on Amazon.
If you don’t want to put together a blog, you could go this route of selling your content online or even traditional book publishing.
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $750 per month
Perhaps taking pictures is your forte. If you are a great photographer, you could possibly sell your photos online. Sites like iStockPhoto are always looking for contributors, who get paid a royalty every time their photo is purchased. This could be a great way to turn your art into some extra cash.
Even if you don’t like to take pictures, more and more stock photo sites are also looking for digital art as well. If you’re strong at creating digital images (like the one we’ve used for this article), you could also consider selling your work.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Another micro-task site is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The gigs on this site pay incredibly low amounts – less than a nickel typically. However, they take seconds, and you can earn around $6 per hour if you keep at it.
This is one of the first side gigs I started doing in college. I would sit in the back row of my college class while on my laptop, and do random tasks on Mechanical Turk. I wouldn’t make much, but I’d make something.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $50 per month
Did you know that you could get paid to try out a new website and give feedback?
Sites like UserTesting.com are always looking for users to rate and give feedback about websites. Website owners post gigs to the site, and you simply login and give feedback and usability ratings on different websites and online apps. You can earn up to $10 for each test you participate in.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $100 per month
Do you have something you can teach? You can teach something online at sites like Udemy.com. There are courses online for just about anything, and you can charge whatever pricing you feel is right for your instruction.
You’d be surprised on what topics are out there that people want to learn about. Maybe you don’t think that you can teach anything, but it’s possible that you have a skill that others want to learn. You just have to create a course on it!
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Do you enjoy writing, social media, and blogging, but don’t want to start your own blog? You can find virtual assistant jobs where you help other people run their sites and social media accounts. Depending on the amount of time you have, this side hustle could even become a full time gig.
I’ve been using virtual assistants to help me with this website for years. It’s great to have someone help me with tasks throughout the week and keep the blog on track. You can make great money as your skillset improves as well.
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $3,000 per month
Are you a teacher? Or do you at least have a bachelor’s degree from an American college or university? If so, you could teach children in other countries English online!
VIPKid is an innovative platform that connects native English speakers that have a degree with children in other countries like China or India. You can setup a “class” time, and people will sign up for your class online. You get paid when you teach.
The cool thing is that teachers are making $14-22 per hour online, from the comfort of their own home!
Tool To Get Started:
Income Potential: $1,000 per month
These ideas are a little different than the typical hustle – they are more based on entrepreneurship and asset leveraging to make even more money for you. These can lead to passive income over time if done well.
Harry Campbell
I love the idea of ride-sharing as a side hustle because it’s one of the few “jobs” on here that you can truly do 100% on your own time. If you want to drive in the middle of the night from 2am to 6am, you can!
All you need is a car and some spare time. Just sign up with Uber and once you are cleared as a driver-partner, start driving people around. You’ll make what you put into it.
To maximize your earning and profit potential, you need to sign up for both Uber and Lyft and use both apps at the same time.
Harry at The Ride Share Guy has a lot of great resources about getting started, including a course about starting to RideShare for Profit.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: Varies by market and driver
Don’t like the idea of having people in your car? Then maybe delivering food is the best avenue for you to take advantage of your car and make extra money.
Or, maybe you don’t even have a car? You can make money with delivery with Uber Eats with a bike or scooter in some cities as well!
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: Varies by market and driver
If you’re not feeling delivering from restaurants, you can also deliver groceries. Right now, this is a hot trend, as people are looking to have groceries delivered for their families.
Instacart is one of the most popular grocery delivery services nationwide.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: Varies by market and driver
If you travel a lot, you have the potential to list your house while you’re away on Airbnb. Or, maybe you have a spare bedroom, loft, camping area, or other place where people can stay.
The bottom line is, if you have a space for people, you can probably list it and potentially make some extra money each month.
Our friend Paula Pant at AffordAnything.com shares how she is averaging over $500 per month listing an apartment.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Do you have a vehicle that you’re not using a lot that you’ve thought, “hey, wouldn’t it be great if I could be earning some extra money versus paying on that…”
Well, with a service like Turo, you can do just that. Turo allows you to make your car work for you – by listing it for rent in as little as 10 minutes.
Getaround is another renting service that is a bit newer that Turo but gaining traction.
Depending on how often you rent your car, you could earn a nice amount of money!
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
If you have extra space in your driveway (or side yard), you could rent that space out as well to people looking to store property, like boats or RVs. In many areas, there are HOAs that prevent people from parking this type of equipment, and you could help solve that problem for them while earning a little extra cash.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $100 per month
Sometimes, working offline when you side hustle is a more lucrative prospect – especially depending on your skill set. However, these gigs don’t mean you’ll never touch a computer. You might still need to list your side hustle project online or market it online to get leads and customers.
Being a Loan Signing Agent is a great side hustle because you can make $75 to $200 per hour-long appointment working for yourself on your own schedule. Retired people, working professionals, and students can be signing agents and earn extra cash when they want. The best part is you need nothing more than a notary commission (which can often be attained by simply filling out an application)!
You can automatically get loan signing jobs by simply putting your name in a database and they’ll call you when there’s a pre-set appointment in your area. Once you get a loan signing job, you just need to know how to walk a homeowner through a set of loan paperwork.
Can you say…”sign here, date there!?”
If you want to make $75 to $200 per hour long appointment working for yourself on your own schedule, be sure to get the proper training. One of the top rated courses we found that is really impacting how people make money is Loan Signing System.
Loan Signing System is an A to Z course that teaches you how to get your notary commission, how to do a loan signing, and how to get loan signing jobs. Here’s a complete rundown of why it’s a great side hustle for part-time work.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month or more within 6 months (top earners are making $13,000 per month)
TaskRabbit.com is a place where you can sign up and run small tasks for others. It can include anything from picking up the groceries to cleaning or helping people move. Typical tasks take a few hours, but there are a lot of tasks available in most large cities.
This is a very hybrid online/offline gig, but all of the work you do will be offline.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $300 per month
Do you want to side hustle just on Friday and Saturday nights? Well, you should team up with a catering company, as they often need servers and wait staff just for the events they host on the weekend. Many companies are “call-in”, which means you can work when you choose to.
If you don’t know where to start, head to the Craigslist Gigs section where jobs like catering help will be posted. You can earn a nice flat fee per event.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $300 per month
If you like to clean, you could help clean houses. These can be ongoing side hustles, like a weekly or bi-weekly service, or one time deals (such as for when people move). Or even something like car detailing. You could even join forces with some friends and tackle larger projects.
Plus, with a new service that Amazon has launched (Amazon Home Services), it’s easier than ever to get these kinds of gigs.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $200 per month
This is one of the original side hustles. People have been baby sitting and getting paid for it since the dawn of time.
The great thing about it is that can earn you upwards of $100 per night! Many people start baby sitting in high school, but there’s no reason that college students and other young adults can’t keep in the game, especially if you have neighbors or relatives with young children.
Plus, with online services to connect sitters with parents, it’s easier than ever to get bookings.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Are you an organized person that’s good with data entry? Would you like to work from home on your computer making sure another business’ income and expenses are entered correctly online? And even better, get paid for it?
Small businesses (especially online businesses) are looking for bookkeepers to help them stay financially organized. You can learn to become a professional bookkeeper online and learn how to market yourself with a program like Bookkeepers.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $1,000 per month
Recycling can be a great way to earn some extra money. I’m not talking about becoming a bum at the park rummaging for cans (although you can do that) – I’m talking about encouraging your friends and neighbors to leave their cans and bottles aside for you.
If you want to take it up a notch, look for recycling metal and scrap to get even more money. This is even easier if you have a truck and are willing to haul for others.
Income Potential: $150 per month
Are you working at a company right now and see a lot of resumes? Do you hire people? Maybe you’re in HR or a hiring manager.
Perhaps you can help others with their resumes and cover letters (for a fee, of course). If you want an example of what you can do, check out our Professional Resume Templates For College Students.
You could even do this gig virtually over email and Skype for many candidates.
Income Potential: $200 per month
Do you have friends or neighbors with dogs? Do they work in the day? Maybe you can offer your services to them as a dog walker. Not only is this a great side hustle that can earn you a little extra cash, but it also gets you exercising every day.
If you don’t know who’s dog you could walk, online services are making it even easier to connect with clients.
And if you’re willing to pet sit for long periods of time, you could make even more money!
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $300 per month
Instead of just selling stuff on eBay, you can also host estate sales. I used to host estate sales online and offline, and it can earn you a nice amount of money if you have customers with a full house of stuff.
This was one of the early side hustles that I did to earn extra cash. I would resell items on eBay and Amazon, and eventually went on to conduct estate sales.
To be successful, though, you’re going to need to get some friends involved to help.
Income Potential: $3,000 per estate sale
Do you have a knack for home repair? Then you could side hustle as a handyman on nights and weekends to earn a little bit of extra money. Just be up front about your skills set – repairing fences, doing small plumbing jobs, whatever it happens to be.
You could also help a contractor out with labor as needed. You can find all sorts of handyman gigs online.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $1,000 per month
One of the easiest side hustles to do: simply sit and sleep in someone’s house while they are out of town. This is a great side hustle, but too bad it’s usually not a consistent revenue stream for most.
The only part is – it does take time out of your life. You’re committing your time to being in someone’s house and taking care of things.
If you don’t know where to start, online services like Care.com make it easy to connect with people looking for house sitters.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $300 per month
Do you have a truck? You could sell your services helping other people haul stuff to the dump, or even picking up large items at places like Home Depot.
Don’t have a truck? You could work at a hauling company and do the manual labor for others. You can find all sorts of these labor gigs online.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $600 per month
This is the side hustle for the good looking people of the world. You can go to school or work, and still take modeling jobs at night and on the weekends.
For many models, there isn’t always a steady stream of work, but if you have success at a few gigs, this could become very lucrative. Check out our jobs for college students job board and see if there are any gigs near you.
If you don’t know where to start, check out online classified ads.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Depending on where you live, you could become an extra on a TV show or movie. Many studios are always looking for a steady stream of extras, and you can get paid a couple hundred dollars for just standing or walking around in the back of a movie set.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $200
Do you enjoy fast food or going into retail shops? Many companies hire mystery shoppers to test the customer service of their stores. A common one is Subway, which hires mystery shoppers to ensure that “Sandwich Artists” are following all the franchise guidelines. If you have time and can travel to different places, this could be a good side hustle.
The cool thing is that mystery shopping has transitioned almost exclusively online. You can do most mystery shopping on your smartphone. Check out these apps to get started.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $100 per month
If you love pets, taking care of your friends’ and neighbors’ pets while they are out of town can be a great way to earn some extra cash. It can be fun to make a new furry friend and get paid for it at the same time.
The only hard part of pet sitting is that you’re waiting for people to travel, which can be tough. Luckily you can use the Internet to help you find customers. Rover is an app that connects pet sitters with those looking for help. Check it out here.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $200 per month
Have you walked through a college campus and seen the flyer for research studies and focus groups? Companies are always looking for people’s opinions about products and services, and for sitting in one of these groups for a few hours, you could earn upwards of $100.
Some of these groups have moved online as well. Check out these tools below and see if you qualify.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $200 per month
If you have time on the weekends, and are okay lifting heavy boxes and furniture, you could join up with a moving service and get paid to help people move. It’s not easy work, but most people tip the movers as well.
This is another one where if you don’t know where to start, check out online classified ads.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $400 per month
A lot of entrepreneurs got their start mowing lawns, and it’s still a great side hustle today. If you live in an area where people need gardeners, knock on doors and offer your gardening services. It’s a great way to earn some extra cash.
If you don’t know where to start, check out online classified ads. There are always gardeners looking for help with their existing projects and clients.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $400 per month
Painting services are another common side hustle for college students. If you have time on weekends and during the summer, you can paint houses or join a painting company. It’s not easy, but it can pay well in the right neighborhoods.
If you don’t know where to start, check out online classified ads. There are always painters looking for laborers to help with their existing projects and clients.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $400 per month
Pool cleaning is another one that can be easy money, as long as you know how to do it. Matt Giovanisci started cleaning pools, and then turned it into a great side hustle at SwimUniversity.com.
If you don’t know where to start, check out online classified ads. There are always existing pool cleaners looking for help with their existing projects and clients.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $500 per month
Did you know that you could actually be paid to be someone’s friend for a period of time. We’re talking strictly platonic stuff here (although we’ve heard that being a sugar baby can be extremely lucrative).
Maybe someone wants to go see a movie but they have a phobia of going alone. You could be that friend for them!
Check out RentAFriend and see if you can find a friend that will pay for your time.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $100
In the winter, shoveling snow can be a lucrative side hustle depending on where you live. If you’re able bodied, have a truck, shovel, and/or snow blower – you could earn a nice side income.
While you used to go door to door and see if your neighbors wanted to pay for your services, there’s now an app that can help you find work and get paid.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: Up to $50 per hour
This is one of the more interesting ways to make money. You go to your local blood bank or plasma donation center, and they will pay you a small fee for your blood plasma.
It doesn’t sounds amazing, but if you need extra money, this could be a great way to earn it. You can expect to be paid anywhere from $20 to $50 per donation.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $20 – $50
One of our favorite unique ways to make money, this can earn you several hundred dollars or more for being a guinea pig.
A recent study that a friend participated in was to get her knees numbed over night – a different numbing drug in each knee. She then had to tell the doctor which one wore off first the next morning. Odd, but it paid over $1,000 for one night.
Tools To Get Started:
Income Potential: $1,000 or more per trial
Sometimes, side hustling isn’t about starting something else, but it’s really about making better use of the job you currently have.
These examples below are ways that you could potentially earn extra money at work – without doing any of the “stuff” we’ve talked about to this point.
If working online or doing odd gigs isn’t your thing, don’t forget about these more “traditional” ways to make extra money. They’re still side hustles!
If you are working at a job, this might not be a true side hustle, but it is a way to earn some extra money fast. In many companies, you can volunteer to work longer and earn extra pay.
If you don’t have an idea on what side hustle to do right now, this could be an option. I remember when I was younger I would always volunteer for the overtime opportunities. Not only did you get paid well, but you would stand out to your manager, which would also reward you at review and raise time.
Again, not a true side hustle, but a great way to earn extra money. Many companies offer referral programs where you can earn anywhere from $25 to $1,000 per employee you refer. That could go a long way.
If you know someone who would be a great fit for your company, refer them and see if you can get a bonus for the effort.
Many companies also offer tuition reimbursement programs to help pay for school. Maybe your short term hustle is to better your education. Why not have your company pay for it while you’re at it?
Check out our guide to understanding a tuition reimbursement plan.
Finally, if you don’t want to work for yourself, go spend your time hustling for someone else at a part time job. While not ideal for some, it can be a great way to earn some extra money in your spare time.
Career accelerators like Pathrise are a way to jumpstart your career and increase your starting salary. Pathrise, which provides people early in their career with one to one coaching and tools to get a better, higher paying job, can help you get an increased salary of over $12k for fellows who complete their 8-12 week part-time program.
Not only will you make more the first year, but this advantage will be the base for all your future salaries, resulting in higher salaries ever year after as well…
Have you tried any of these side hustles? What’s worked for you and what hasn’t? What did you use the extra money for?
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