FINDING A SIDE HUSTLE

A side hustle is just something you do besides your normal job to generate some extra money. Ideally your side hustle is something you enjoy doing and which is in line with your interests. By creating a side hustle, you will be able to learn more (learners are earners) and potentially also develop your passion further!

Everyone of us should have a side hustle! Why not figuring out a way to make money whilst doing what you love?!!

Finding a side hustle - how?

It might take some time finding a side hustle that feels right but the cool thing is that you can try different things until you find what you really love and where you can add value to others. You can start out with anything, even just for the money but if you want to get the most out of it and really excel and enjoy your side hustle, you should spend some time first to figure out what it is that you would ideally like to do. If you are not sure about where to start, check out this post: Finding your Passion – you HAVE Greatness within! If you are just in it for the money, any hustle will do but you will have a much harder time to shine unless you thoroughly enjoy what you do!

Before you kick off your journey as a hustler (in a positive way), I would recommend that you go through our Wealth Section. There are always numerous ways of having more money in your pocket but the first and maybe easiest one, is to take control over your costs. That is why I would suggest you do that first, before finding a side hustle.

A side hustle is great but if you start making that extra money you need and continue spending it like you have always done, the risk is that nothing will change and you will still feel like you don't have any money. First thing is to take control over your current expenditures (check out our Savings page). Then increase your income by finding a side hustle and use both the experience and the money wisely to take you to the next level you want to go.

Remember to always add more value to your customers than what they expect. This will make them great ambassadors of yours and that is one of the best ways of generating more business and new customers! Always try to sell additional services once you make a sell. I would say that this almost always works as you then know what the customer needs and can "tailor" your offering accordingly and the customer knows how much value you bring to them.

My promise to you is that if you have issues finding a side hustle that matches your knowledge/experience and your interests, drop me a line on Facebook and tell me what you like/love to do and I will give you a few suggestions! Hopefully you will not only start making more money but also developing a true passion for that hustle.

Below, we have listed some ideas which hopefully will give you some inspiration for finding a side hustle. Ideally I would like you to try find or create something that is unique and true to you. Something that really matches who you are and what you can offer in a true and authentic way. What you love to do, is completely unique to you and by putting the pieces together, you should be able to add something truly unique to the market place. This is how you build greatness.

Side hustles within the online world:

This might be the natural way to start off as the only thing you need is your computer or even just your phone and an internet connection. The advantage with this category is obvious, you can be wherever you want (unless you are working real time with individual clients and you are in different time zones) and potentially work whenever you want and still have a massive market to approach.

Personally I find this “world” very appealing due to the flexibility it gives along with the market access AND if you create something which can be sold passively, it can work for you 24/7 and become your cash-machine! In most cases your startup costs will be close to zero or at least very low. If you want to get started on a shoe-string budget, the online world might be where you should try finding a side hustle.

General thoughts on selling your competencies online:

We all have different skills and the cool thing is that you can offer them all over the word, there are no limits (as long as you can communicate with your client!). Regardless of your area of expertise I am sure there are others who would pay for your services (given you are really good at it).

How? The easiest way is to join online groups who might be interested in your skills. It can be groups anywhere in the world or local Facebook groups. The cool thing is that you can also join loads of groups and see what people are asking for, what kind of help they need and then offer your services to them. Make sure your information is written in an interesting and appealing way and try to figure out how you can stand out. Also make sure you have references upon request, in particular when you are starting out (might be a friend or a relative whom you have helped).

Post your services on your own social media pages as you might have friends or even friends of friends, who would need your assistance. Let the world know what you can do and even ask your friends to share it with people they know, ideally to people they think would benefit from your service. By doing this, you are sort of coming by reference directly which makes it a lot easier. Basically, the sell is done for you.

There are numerous other places where you can offer your services. For instance, there are broader market places like Craigslist but there are also more focused sites for your particular field, you just have to find them (maybe you even know about them already). These sites are likely to charge you for their services so make sure you use a platform that serves your needs and that makes financial sense to you.

A couple of popular platforms within the graphic and online world are established platforms like: Upwork.com or Fiverr.com. They already have the target audience as they are a market place where one can search and compare work done online. The downside is of course that the price competition is extremely high as you are competing with people from all over the world… This might be an easy route to get started but at the same time this is not the route I would recommend unless you truly offer something unique that you can charge for. You do not want to get in to the business of selling your services for five bucks!

On these sites, your services could be related to a number of different things which others might need (and of course depending on your skills), like: design work, proofreading, editing, teaching, researching, content writing etc.

Online side hustle ideas (there is an infinite amount of opportunities):

If you happen to be a good photographer, you can sell your photos via: https://www.istockphoto.com/. You might not have to be great, you just have to manage to catch some telling images and that might be enough. You get paid when they sell (royalty) so as soon as they have been uploaded your work is over and it becomes just another potential passive income stream (which we love).
Start selling on Amazon, as they offer a variety of ways to sell via their platform. You can sell your own old stuff (not skills but still), you can start buying products in other places or platforms and sell them on Amazon. This is getting tougher now for each day so you will have to sell something you love and enjoy so that you can get that message through because it will require some work.
Start a Merch account with Amazon and start selling your own t-shirts with NO cost. Amazon does everything for you, but keeps a cut of all the sales. Basically, you create the text or picture for the t-shirt and then Amazon prints and sends them on demand to the customer. You don't have to hold any inventory nor handling any shipping or refunds. Currently it might be tricky to get onto this now as there seems to be a very high demand for getting up and running with a merch account. This might change though.
Write an e-book (or self-publish but that requires a bit more work and potentially involves extra costs). You probably have a story you would like to tell and writing your own e-books have never been easier (as you know I have written several).

Depending on the length of the book and the format etc. there are different ways to do it. If you like you can just write it in kindle format and sell it on their platform (Amazon), that's probably the easiest, quickest and cheapest way of doing it. If you want to sell it in a PDF-format, a tool like www.canva.com can come handy if you want to play around with the design and layout and they also offer a free version. If not, just write it in Word and send the document to someone on Fiverr or Upwork and let them do the editing and proofreading for you!.

The great thing with an e-book is that once it has been done, no more work is needed (besides marketing of course) and it has a great potential to earn you a passive income. I really like this one because you share something you love in your own way and with your own words, put it out to the world and if you find it that amazing, I am sure there are others who will too!

Swagbucks.com lets you make money for doing stuff online like filling in forms etc. (depending on your country). It's pretty straightforward but it will take some time and effort and this might not be the thing that will make you rich nor fulfilled but you can indeed make a few extra bucks doing this on their site or on similar sites.
Online coaching can be done regardless of where you are (as long as you have great internet connection), just use Skype, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Zoom... You can either offer your services via someone else’s site or create your own website which has become easier than ever with all kinds of templates available. One example of such a site would be: https://clarity.fm
Write resumes: Maybe you have written many of them or assisted friends with it before? If you have or not, doesn’t matter as we can all learn how to write a great CV. Most people just don’t take the time to make an effort which gives a result they don’t like. This can become low paid or high paid, depending on how well you do them!
Start a blog linked to your interest or hobbies. Check what is out there and offer something unique. If you do it from your heart and with the right intentions, it will surely be a great side hustle. There are different ways of making money on a blog but usually it will take some time. You can sell ads on your blog, use affiliate links or sell your own products. The nice thing with a personal blog is that you can do it because you enjoy it and if you make money at the same time, that is just a bonus. Depending on the type of blog, the costs can be minimal.
Create a course (or several) based on your interest and expertise and offer them online. Maybe you have a special way of explaining things which hits home with people or you might just be very knowledgeable or entertaining. Check out others online and find your own way and upload a couple of courses and see how they are received. A site you could use for this is udemy.com.
Assist people online with the stuff they need done by becoming a Virtual Assistant (VA). You could for example help them find the best prices for products they intend to buy and then take a percentage of the savings. Help them with bookings or finding the best flights as the aggregating sites are not always the place where you find the best deals. If you can save someone a few hundred dollars on a flight ticket, you can start earning some decent money if you take a percentage of the saving.
You could start a niche site on a very narrow topic. Fill it with valuable content and then just add some affiliate marketing links. If you use valuable and non-timebound content, you can do the work once and then just make smaller adjustments and add more links as the topic becomes more and more popular. The more niche it is the better and ideally it is something you have an interest in as then you will be better at explaining and providing a clear message or content to your audience. Of course, doing some marketing for the site will never hurt and doing so also means you are adding a valuable skill in the market place. This skill might become a service you later on want to sell to someone as it is likely to become more and more in demand.
Set up an online shop. It has never been easier, just use a site like shopify.com. They have loads of templates and resources to help you get going. Because of how easy it has become, the competition is also fierce and you will need to grind it out. Most people seem to abandon their shops within months as the money they were expecting to flow in, is not coming… Learn more about this before you give it a go as it will require hard work and you are not guaranteed a certain revenue stream within a certain period of time.
Drop-shipping might sound a bit trendy and it has been for a while. Drop-shipping means that you are selling products you never touch. You just provide a market place for the products.

One example of this would be to set up a shop using shopify.com and then let them help you sourcing products directly from Alibaba. This means you market and sell them in your online shop but when the customer purchases a product, the order goes directly to Alibaba (or their customer), who then sends the product to the end customer. This means that you don't have to purchase or pay for the product before the customer has paid, nor do you have to deal with the shipping. You do have to handle customer service though.

This is a very interesting space but it is already getting crowded. Don't forget that selling stuff from China with delivery in X weeks can be tricky but the limited work you have to do and the margins you might be able to charge, could for sure be worth while…

In general, I do believe you can and should be finding a side hustle which is based on your interest so that you are not just in it for the money. If you manage to do so, you will enjoy both the journey and the money!

Side hustles within the real world, involving social aspects:

Depending on your personality and your skills, this list might not be a perfect fit for you, but it will give you great practice. One of the very important traits I have written about before is to have a pleasing personality so if you haven't read that post yet, I recommend you to do it now. Remember though, that most of these side hustles can be twisted and tweaked to suit your abilities and skills!

If there is a will, there is a way!

Catering: If you are just up for some temporary work and mainly during weekends (when salaries tend to be better), then this might be for you. You don’t need a lot of skills but if you have a great smile and dress the part when job hunting, it will take you one step closer! I would also recommend you to work on your pleasing personality as it will be valuable to you all your life! If you also happen to enjoy cooking or baking (or if your better half does), then you can offer the catering directly!
Drive your car as a taxi when it is not being used and you have some spare time or would be driving to a certain place anyway. Check out a couple of the companies available in your country and their requirements. Maybe there is a fit and you can drive for a few hours every now and then to earn some extra cash. The current tools and apps available can be of great use.
Teaching/tutoring: If you have special skills or have studied towards a major or even just have/had a favorite subject in school, you can for sure help others. Many schools are very competitive and parents want their kids to do well so the majority are happy to invest in the future of their children. You just have to approach a school, a teacher or even join an online platform to offer your services. Most likely there is even a local Facebook group for your area in which you can offer your services. If you are still a student, you can for sure do this, especially in your favorite subject and the pay is pretty decent. What is brilliant with teaching is that you become even more knowledgeable in your chosen subject, soon you will be an expert and then you can charge even more!
Sell your services: Use a platform similar to taskrabbit.com (if in the US) to offer your services. The tasks are often quite simple so they won’t require any special skills but they are great because you will have NET (No Extra Time) to gain deeper knowledge in your favorite field. These jobs tend to be more prevalent in bigger cities but you can offer similar services in smaller places as well. Word of mouth is a great way to then broaden your customer base and it will take you a long way compared to many other ways of marketing. This is also why you should always do more than what you get paid for because then the customer will not only come back to you but also speak very highly of you and your services. Check out my post on Adding more value than expected – reap the rewards!
Child Care: If you are good with kids this might be a perfect one for you. You just have to find someone who is looking for a baby sitter (should be easy) and if you can find someone with similar interests to you, it will be an easier sell and time! The good thing with taking care of kids is that they, depending on age, often can play amongst themselves or worst case you might give them an iPad… (not a recommendation though!). If it is evening time, most likely they will have to go to bed and you can either get paid whilst sleeping or being productive, your call!
A handy person? Then this might be a great fit because we all need a handy person every now and then. Could be both for larger projects or smaller stuff. Find a great customer or two and get reoccurring jobs from them as well as great recommendations. Some of these jobs will most likely mean you can use your brain as your please = learning more stuff from your role models whilst still getting paid (use your NET time)!
Domestic services: There are numerous things you can do to help a busy family in their daily life so be creative here. As long as you know or find a few of them who clearly need help and have the money, spot on! Offer your services and make sure you add a ton of value and you will become invaluable. The only limitation to what you could do is really in your head! Take the kids to an amusement park, go climbing, ice-skating, watch a movie (if you don’t like this, listen to your role models instead whilst cleaning the windows).

“Passive income”

AirBnb: Rent out your house of flat if you are out of town. Alternatively rent out a room if you have a smaller place. Even if you have a very small place, there might be some special event going on in your town that you can take advantage of. Let your room and stay with a friend, have fun and split the money! You could potentially even complement offering space for a caravan on your driveway, if you have enough space.
Got a garage? Not using it? Then rent it out to someone. There is usually a demand for these things even if we don’t think so. Same goes for your driveway, in particular if you are living in a busy area/city.
Got space? Rent it out for storage (that rent tends to be higher per square meter than flats in central locations!). It can be for furniture or someone's boat, caravan, kayak, tires etc. Just make sure you have an adequate insurance!

Side hustles in the real world but without any social aspects:

Cleaning (or maybe sanitary technician): WAIT don’t rule this one out, it’s a hidden gem! Normally you don’t have to be social at all when cleaning, which means you can be in your head! I don’t mean listening to your brain chatter… BUT listening to motivational speeches or educational stuff that will make you an expert within your chosen field! If you have not yet read my post on Tools for Motivation and Brainwashing, I recommend you to do that asap! In essence, you get paid whilst getting the education you want. How amazing is that?! You just switch your body into autopilot (takes a few times maybe but that's it) and then just enjoy the free education which you actually get paid for!
Do deliveries for other people or just deliver papers or mail (you know, snail mail...), deliver groceries for a grocery store or restaurant. There is always someone who needs a delivery!
Factory work might be a good fit for you if you don't like socializing and if there are factories still left close to where you live. This is perfect as you can listen and learn anything whilst doing your work at the same time.
Gardening: Got green fingers? Then this might actually be the hustle of a lifetime. Getting paid to potentially create a magnificent garden or just doing some lawn mowing and getting paid for “me time” again!
Dog sitting or walking could be a gold mine. Some people seem to spend more money on their dogs than on their kids and more and more people (at least in Sweden) seem to buy dogs. Find the gig, keep it and enjoy the time with the dog and keep on learning.