12 Mar, 2020

10 Best Side Hustle Ideas to Make an Extra $1,000 a Month

Money. Who couldn’t use a little bit more of it? Whether you’re saving for a down payment, planning a wedding, trying to pay off debt – ugh, will those student loans ever go away? – or putting some money aside for a rainy day, a little bit of extra cash can go a long way. Your day job might help you pay for the essentials. But a side hustle from home, that’s the game-changer that’ll make a difference in your wallet while giving you the freedom you’ve always wanted. So, here are the best side hustles that’ll help you make more money.


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What Is a Side Hustle?

A side hustle is a way to make money outside of your 9 to 5 job. It allows you to make more money that’ll give you the freedom to pursue your passions, buy things you need or want, and lower any financial worries.

Truth is, most 9 to 5 jobs don’t pay the bills. Especially if you’re just starting out in your career.

When you calculate the cost of rent, food, bills, and transportation, you might realize that you barely have anything leftover. What a bummer.

The worst part is that your financial growth is always capped. Maybe you get a bonus of a couple of hundred dollars a year with a 1 percent salary increase on your $30,000. But is that really enough to live the life you dreamed about? Maybe, but probably not.

So, you start a side hustle to make a couple extra hundred or thousand dollars a month. Something that can either help you make more money today, tomorrow or five years from now. Something that will change that $0 bank statement into something greater.

Let’s dive into the best side hustle ideas that’ll help you make more money while working from home.

How to Develop a Successful Side Hustle

So, you have decided that a side hustle from home is the best way for you to make money online, but you don’t know where to start. Look no further, we have a list of steps to follow for you to develop a successful side hustle today!

  1. Make a list of what you’re interested in.
    You need to love what you are doing as a side hustle for it to be successful for you. This job will be done on your own time and outside office hours if you have a day job, so it will take a lot of energy and motivation to make it stick. Only something that you are passionate about will drive you this much. Brainstorm side hustle ideas around your interests and skills to discover the best ventures to start or see if you can turn a hobby into a business.
  2. Decide early if you will invest money.
    Side hustles shouldn’t cost too much money, but they may require some investment upfront for things like hosting, branding, and tools. You may decide that you want to do advertising to find your first customers. Whatever your growth and expansion plan is for your side hustle, you need to be aware of your spend before it happens. Plan your spending accordingly, and measure your success to know whether you should continue.
  3. Make sure there are no conflicts of interest.
    If you have a day job or have connections that could lead to a conflict of interest with your side hustle, then it is not a good idea to continue with it. Sometimes, the best advice is to try something else or to shelf your idea for another time so that you don’t end up doing something you regret. Starting a side hustle with a conflict of interest could lead to costly lessons learned.
  4. Schedule time for your side hustle.
    A side hustle takes time out of your schedule daily, so ensure everything is going right. It is not possible to set up your website, schedule your content, and forget about everything until next month. Set aside time in your calendar regularly for your side hustle, and outline actionable goals for this time to ensure what you are doing is valuable. If you have a day job, aim to give three to four evenings a week and perhaps some hours on the weekend to your side hustle, depending on what it is.
  5. Don’t forget about your day job.
    If you are setting up a side hustle while also having a day job, remember to put 100 percent of your energy into your day job when you are there. A side hustle will give you some money, but you rely on a check from your day job that you need to pay the bills. Don’t try to juggle your day job and side hustle within your 9 to 5 hours, as this is a recipe for disaster.

10 Best Side Hustle Ideas That’ll Make You Money

#1. Start a Dropshipping Business

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 costs 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.

With dropshipping, you can start a business within any of your favorite passions. Do you love stocking your kitchen? You can sell kitchen equipment on the internet. Maybe you’ve found this unique solar-powered, smartphone-cooling accessory. You can start your own one product store and implement these store ideas. If you love doing your makeup? You can sell beauty products and build an audience who follows along to your makeup tutorials. Almost any niche can be pursued with dropshipping. Plus, if you’re a creative type, you can run wild with unusual business ideas. After all, as the owner of your own business, you’ll always have final say, which makes this a great side hustle to start out.

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.


#2. Begin Freelance Writing

Good side hustles, like freelance writing, allow you to make money working from home by trading your time. Since you’re trading time for money, you’re capped at how much you can make. Still, if you’re looking to hit, say an extra $1,000 a month, freelance writing is a side hustle that can allow you to predict how much you can make. The secret to succeeding as a freelance writer is to charge clients based on the value you’ll bring. Most freelance writers undercharge, which results in fast burnout with little payoff.

How much can a freelance writer make? As a side hustle, a freelance writer can make an extra $500 to $3,000 a month, depending on what their article rate is and how many articles they can produce in their spare time.

Freelance Writing Tip: The best freelance writing opportunities are on ProBlogger. It’s the platform I used to find freelance work here at Oberlo. I also landed a few other top clients from the website. On average, the best paying freelance jobs are on there. However, if you’re just starting out, you might want to focus on building your portfolio and skillset on Fiverr, Craigslist, or Upwork first, as it’s easier to land your first few clients on those websites.

#3. Become an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is one of those side hustle ideas that can either make you a lot of money or nothing. It’s not just about finding the right product to sell, but also finding the right brand to partner with. If you chose to be an affiliate marketer for ecommerce stores, your commission will likely be a lot lower than if you were to just dropship them yourself. However, there are tech companies that will pay a hefty price tag to affiliates who bring them new customers.

How much money can this side hustle make? It depends on what product you’re selling and what affiliate network you use. For example, if you were an affiliate marketer for a tech company like Shopify, you could potentially make an extra $2,000 for every merchant you refer. Sweet!

Affiliate Marketing Tip: Ask the affiliate program or content creator for assets you can use to help you market their product. For example, there may be a lead magnet or free tool you can use to incentivize people to purchase the product. Oftentimes, a piece of content can help ease a potential customer from a cold lead into a warm one, giving you a better chance of succeeding with this side hustle.

#4. Be Part of the Gig Economy

Does your 9 to 5 job pay fluctuate? If you don’t have a predictable income, you might need more money for some months and a little less others. If this sounds like you, you might choose to take up side gigs. These could be gigs that you create on Fiverr or the occasional freelance project on Upwork. You might create T-shirt mockups for a client one week and help someone build their social media following the next. The type of projects you work on could vary drastically. But if you love the variety and switching things up, this side hustle could be perfect for you.

How much money can you make with this side hustle job? You could make anywhere from $50 to $2,000 a month depending on the side gigs you take on and the platform you use.


#5. Start Blogging

Blogging is one of the best side hustle jobs to do from home, or anywhere else in the world. It allows you to build a personal brand while owning your own asset. You can even write about your passions. Having a singular niche that you write about such as yoga, business, beauty, or cars allows you to build an audience who shares the exact same interest due to the singular focus. You can monetize your blog in a few ways: affiliate links sponsored posts or adding a shop link where you sell dropshipping products.

How much money can you make trying a side hustle like this? In the beginning, you’ll make nothing. But some bloggers who stick it out past the first few years have made enough money to quit their job and do it full time.

Blogging Tip: If you’re passionate about blogging, create an online store that you can monetize and add a blog onto it. This allows you to start monetizing your asset before you’ve built your audience. Plus, the combination of content and commerce is a powerful one. As your blog grows, you can use retargeting ads to monetize your blog traffic to land even more sales. If you pump out regular, quality content, you’ll quite possibly have a few home-run posts that bring you a ton of traffic that’ll be easier to monetize than if you were hoping for a few affiliate sales.

#6. Sell Information Products

If you’re looking for side job ideas to make money, why not trying selling information products? This side hustle requires some research, invested time, and marketing skills for you to flourish. Are there topics that are really popular right now that you know a lot about? Did you find a popular topic that there isn’t enough information about? Monetize these opportunities by creating content around it. You can publish books on Amazon or sell courses on Udemy.

How much money can you make selling information products? It depends on the niche, your marketing execution, and a variety of other factors. But a side hustle like this can result in a few thousand dollars each month. However, most often, they usually have created several different pieces of content (ebooks, courses).

Selling Information Products Tip: With this side hustle, focus on niches where people have a huge problem they need to solve. If you’re in the fitness niche, you can create a fitness workout course or a diet plan with a recipes ebook. If people are desperately trying to solve a burning problem, there’s an opportunity to provide value by helping them solve that problem. The content you create can guide them towards a solution. Best part: You could make money while helping people.

#7. Become an Instagram Influencer


Is being an influencer a good side hustle? Well, the average influencer charges between $200 to $400 a post. This can vary based on your audience size, so feel free to check out “How to Get Followers on Instagram.”

Instagram Influencer Tip: Be consistent in the type of content you post, how often you post, and when you post. You’ll gain new followers if people know what they can regularly expect from your page. You won’t be able to monetize right away, so invest your time into growing your followers by posting several times a day, every day.

#8. Become a Virtual Assistant

Top side hustles have one big thing in common: There’s a high demand for them. A virtual assistant is an assistant who works in a remote location, as opposed to a company’s office. They can help with tasks such as administration, social media, bookkeeping, and more. There’s been a growing demand for virtual assistants from business owners who need help on various projects. As a virtual assistant, you can specialize in countless areas. In the past, I’ve hired virtual assistants for social media and customer service. And there are countless other businesses around the world that rely on virtual assistants to grow and maintain their brands.

How much money can you make as a virtual assistant? Most virtual assistants trade their time for money, so you might get capped based on the number of hours of work you can do each week. You can choose to set a total monthly earning or get paid by the hour. Some make minimum wage while others might make $35 an hour depending on their skills and experience.

Becoming a Virtual Assistant Tip: When starting this side hustle job, you can find clients on popular websites like Upwork. However, you could start to see better results when you branch out on your own as an independent contractor. Starting up might be a bit harder, as you need to find clients, but you could earn more money this way. You can join popular Facebook groups for businesses or online retailers to offer your services.

#9. Sell 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. And if that’s not enough, you can even seek clients to venture into wedding photography, pet photography, or product photography.

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.


#10. Get a Part-Time Job

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 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. And time is your most valuable luxury. Part-time jobs don’t scale as well as an online business would. That means your total earnings get capped.

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.



Want to Learn More?

What’s your side hustle? Comment below!

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