The Ultimate List of Side Hustles for 2024

Having a side hustle is a great way to supplement your income and build your wealth. They can help generate hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in extra income. Extra income will only help you build your wealth and reach your financial goals faster.

What is a side hustle?

A side hustle or side gig is anything that you can do outside of your normal working hours to make some money. They can be transactional in nature, such as selling a product you made, or a longer-term arrangement like mowing the same lawns.

Side hustles are what they sound like. You need to hustle to really be successful with them. By selling yourself, getting out there, and working harder, you’ll be able to make more money.

Personally, I love side hustles and have used many of these myself. Here is our ultimate list of side hustles to start making money right away.

Need to make $1,000 fast? Here are some ideas to get started.

1. Walk Dogs or Dog Sit

With over 53% of American families owning dogs, there’s a good chance that several of your neighbors have a dog. And they probably would appreciate having someone dog sit or walk their dog when they’re not home.

Reach out to your friends and neighbors who have dogs to see if they would be interested in help walking them. With a little hustling, you can find a few people to launch you dog walking business and then grow through referrals.

By listing yourself on Rover, you can reach a larger group of people who are actively looking for dog walkers or sitters. Create an attractive profile, add some unique information about yourself, and get existing customers to rate you. Over time, you’ll be able to build up your client base and choose when you want to work.

2. Do Landscaping

This is one of my personal favorites since it was my first real job. Landscaping can include a variety of services, so you’re able to pick and choose what you prefer. Or do them all to make even more money!

An easy way to get started is by reaching out to neighbors and seeing if they would like their lawn mowed. You can also offer to trim their hedges, plant flowers, fertilize, and put down mulch. In the Fall, you can offer leaf cleanup to get their lawn ready for the winter. Snow shoveling and plowing are other great ideas to make a few bucks, if you don’t mind the manual labor.

If you have more of a business mindset, do the marketing to attract customers but outsource the work to other people who are more willing. This will help you scale to handle more customers and will build an actual landscaping business that goes beyond just being a side gig.

3. Create a Local Newsletter

This is really just selling advertising to local businesses by creating a platform to get in front of potential buyers. This could be completely digital by creating an email list, or could be a more traditional, direct-mail flyer.

To get started, visit local businesses and offer to get them in front of 1,000 local customers for $XXX amount. Sign up 6 or 8 businesses and then design a direct-mail flyer with the ads from each of the businesses in a grid. Use a printing service to print out 1,000 copies and then have them delivered to your local neighborhoods.

The key here is to understand your costs for both the flyer and mailing them. From there, work backwards to determine how many ads you can fit on the flyer and how much you need to charge to make a profit. Once you have a system, you could make several hundred dollars for each flyer you send out.

4. Become a Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistants (VA) help businesses do any type of digital work that will make it easier for them. This could include writing articles, searching the internet, contacting prospects, setting appointments, and transcribing audio. As a Virtual Assistant, you’ll be able to work remotely and do whatever is needed for your customer.

Depending on your skills, you can tailor which services you provide. If you prefer writing and proofreading, you can work with companies that are primarily looking for blog posts, articles, and books to be written. If you’re a little more technical, you could help with updating their website or searching for leads.

To get started, you can sign up for free on Fiverr and sell a wide range of digital VA services.

5. Become a Freelance Writer

Freelance writers get paid to write just about anything the customer needs. Most companies need blog posts for their website or need help writing white papers. Others are looking to have books ghost written since they don’t have time to do it themselves. Companies also need help writing social media posts and YouTube video scripts.

If you’re a decent writer, use those skills to help write for a range of customers. Specialize in one certain area to get traction faster and promote yourself on freelance writing sites like Upwork to get more exposure.

6. Proofread & Edit

This can go hand-in-hand with writing, but people often are looking for a second set of eyes to proofread their writing. If you have a keen sense of grammar and attention to detail, this could be a great way to earn extra money.

After writers have put together their blog post or article, they’ll send it to you to review. It’ll be your job to make sure it makes sense and that it flows appropriately. Essentially, editors polish the article to make it read well and sound professional.

7. Become a Translator

If you know multiple languages, you can work to help translate articles, videos, and audio recordings. Certain companies may wish to translate their content to a different language to reach a larger demographic. While there are automated translation services available, they are not always 100% accurate and natural sounding. Certified interpreters can also help a variety of businesses, including healthcare.

8. Build Websites

Every company and professional needs some sort of website. For technically inclined people, you can use your skills to build and sell website to local businesses.

There are plenty of website builders like WordPress or Wix that will let you build websites without knowing any coding. My favorite hosting company is Hostgator since it is easy to get a new website launched quickly with them.

If you do know how to code in HTML or PHP, you can sell your services at a premium by being able to further customize their sites.

An extension of this is to sell sales funnels to businesses to capture more leads. Or, design and set up social media profiles for companies that don’t have one yet.

If you have a great idea for a website, you can also keep it and run it yourself. Grow an audience, build traffic, and generate sales to start it off. Then, you can choose to either it keep it long-term for the income, or flip it for a lump-sum payout. Flippa is a great platform to buy and sell websites and can be an easy way to generate serious cash fast.

9. Buy and Sell Domains

Domain names are the URL that you type into your browser to reach a website. They can be bought and sold on a variety of markets like GoDaddy or Flippa. The nice thing about domains are that you don’t need to build out a full website to be successful in selling them.

Most unregistered .COM domains can be purchased for around $15 for a year. If you find one that is of particular significance to someone else, you could sell it to them for a profit. Whoever sold Cars.com for $872 million certainly understood the value of matching the right buyer to their domain!

10. Run Social Media Campaigns

Social media has becomes an essential tool for any business. It helps to increase their exposure and reach more potential customers. If you know your way around the most popular social media sites, you can sell your services to manage campaigns for companies.

Start by setting up social media profiles for companies. Include their profile and cover photos, description, and link to their website. By managing their social media, you can post new and engaging content on a regular basis to grow their audience. If you know how to run paid ads, that is another great way to provide ROI for companies. If you have the skills to grow social media audiences, companies will pay for that service.

11. Start a Blog

Blogs are a great way to build a platform to reach a large audience and convert that into extra money. Pick a niche that you are knowledgeable about and that other people would be interested in reading about. Start to write content that helps people with their problems. It can take a while to build traffic, but it is possible to eventually build a profitable blog that makes money 24×7.

To really succeed in blogging, you’ll want to set up a system for making money with it. You can sell courses or ebooks, use affiliate marketing, or display ads. Couple that with converting your posts to video and posting on YouTube. Many bloggers have also seen success by starting a podcast that pairs well with their blog.

In all cases, solve a problem for your target audience. Give them solutions and actionable information to grow a loyal following. Over time, you’ll be able to build consistent traffic and monetize it.

12. Ridesharing and Deliveries

Have a car and some free time? Sign up with Uber or Lyft to drive people around when they need rides. It works just like a traditional taxi but let’s anyone get started without the expense of needing a yellow car. This works especially well in cities since more people are looking for rides and there is more opportunity to make money.

If you don’t want to drive people, another option is to deliver food and groceries. With the onset of COVID-19, there has been a surge in people wanting food delivered to their homes. Sign up with a company like DoorDash or Grubhub and you’ll be connected with local restaurants and grocery stores. When someone places an order for food, you’ll pick up the food and deliver it.

13. Share Your Car

Are you working from home now and not commuting to work? If you have a car that’s sitting idle, you can rent it out to people looking to rent one. Sign up with a company like Turo and you’ll be able to list your car for free. Set your own daily rates and then connect with people nearby that are looking for a car rental.

14. Advertise on Your Car

For those of us that drive a lot, there are companies that will pay you to advertise on your car. This could be anything from a decal on the side to a full car wrap. Usually, the more you drive on busy roads and the larger the ad on your car, the more money you will make. As long as you don’t mind sticking out from the crowd a little, you could make a few hundred dollars per month.

15. Rent Our Your Parking Spot

This works great if you live in a city and don’t need your parking spot. Instead of not using it, rent it out to other people who need a place to park. Maybe your apartment comes with two parking spots but you only have one car, so rent out the other. Again, there are several apps available like SpotHero that can help you rent your parking spot to make extra cash.

16. Rent Out Your Home or Spare Room

If you have a spare bedroom, guest house, or vacation house, you can rent it out for some serious cash. Airbnb and VRBO are two great platforms for reaching potential renters and handling all the logistics. Depending on your preference, choose to rent your property out on either a short-term or long-term basis. Weekly rentals are great for vacation locations while long-term rentals can be a more stable source of income.

Short-term rentals do need some active management to clean after the renters leave and change the linens. The benefit is that you can generally charge a higher per-night rate than for long-term rentals. The downside is that you need to have a steady pipeline of renters in order to make a consistent income.

17. Offer Storage Space

Maybe you don’t have a fully furnished room to rent out but have extra space in your garage or basement. People will you pay to store extra stuff in your space and apps like Stache.com can help you earn extra money every year. Create a free listing to showcase your space, and then interested renters will contact you. Depending on the size and accessibility of your storage space, you could make several thousand dollars per year.

18. Sell on eBay

Selling products on eBay is a great way to make some extra cash. If you have some old stuff laying around your house, list them on eBay to earn some extra money. Another option is to find lower priced items and then resell them for a profit. Just be sure to factor in the cost of shipping when you’re determining what to sell.

By using eBay, you’ll be able to choose to either auction products off or set a specific price. All the details of the transaction are taken care of by the platform, so you can focus on customer service. eBay also has a large amount of traffic, so it’s easier to attract buyers that are interested in your product.

19. Sell Locally

The downside of selling on eBay is that you could get buyers that are from anywhere in the world unless you set limits. This means you have to go through the hassle of shipping your items. However, you can choose to sell your items locally so that you can drop them off instead. Craigslist is a great way to place free classified ads and find people who may be interested. Another option is to join local Facebook tag sale groups and list your products there.

If you’re not sure what to sell, you can use local arbitrage to resell products you find at a cheaper price. Search Craigslist for free things or for items that are being sold under market value. Turn it around and sell that same item for a higher price on a different platform, such as eBay.

20. Get Creative on Etsy

If you have a creative side, there are plenty of print-on-demand services that will let you create custom t-shirts, mugs, and other items. Come up with catchy slogans, artwork, or memes to print on these products and then sell them on Etsy. Etsy is a powerful platform made for creative people selling their own products and it can help launch a perfect side hustle. Start designing and start selling!

21. Sell on Amazon

Let’s talk about the ecommerce platform giant, Amazon. Selling on Amazon is a great way to reach thousands of prospective buyers if you have your own product. If you don’t want to mess with inventory, another option is to become a Amazon FBA seller. FBA means Fulfilled by Amazon and they will take care of all the backend logistics so that you only have to worry about selling.

If you are a writer, it is also possible to publish a Kindle ebook and sell it on Amazon. This will help you get found, sell more copies, and streamline your distribution process.

22. Create a Shopify Store

No matter what you want to sell, it can be a hassle to set up a store, handle payments, and process orders. Shopify is a platform that automates selling for you so you don’t have to worry about any of the logistics. Just sign up, connect a domain to your store, and add the products that you’d like to sell. They also have add-on modules to improve the functionality of your site and increase sales.

23. Start Dropshipping

Dropshipping is when you sell a product and it is sent directly from a supplier’s warehouse to the consumer. It lets you avoid having to hold and manage any inventory yourself. Instead, just focus on selling the product through your own website or Shopify store. When a customer places an order, simply buy the product from your dropship supplier and they will send it directly to the customer as if it was you.

24. Design Logos and Graphics

Graphic design is a great side hustle because you can do it from anywhere and is completely digital. With a little creative spirit and technical know-how, you can design logos and other graphics for companies. Infographics are an effective educational and branding tool, but require skilled designers to make them.

Social media profiles need attractive cover photos and post images. Whitepapers and blog posts all need appropriate graphics designed to be most effective. As you build your skills, you’ll be able to charge more per graphic to earn more money and work only when you want.

25. Sell SEO and Digital Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical for businesses to get found in the search engines. If you understand how to rank websites high in Google and how to drive traffic to websites, you can charge a premium. Work with local businesses that don’t yet have an online presence and charge a monthly fee to drive consistent traffic. Even with just a handful of clients, you can earn a healthy amount of extra income each month.

Besides SEO, you could branch out into other forms of digital marketing. This includes creating sales funnels, running paid ads, social media marketing, guest posting on blogs, and video marketing.

26. Become an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is when you promote someone else’s product and get paid a commission for every sale. There are affiliate products in almost every niche that you can promote on your website or blog. Affiliate products can be both physical or digital products or services. Many digital apps offer an affiliate program because it helps them expand their customer base while other people market for them.

Successful affiliate marketers will grow their own audience through social media, website traffic, and email subscribers to promote the products to. The more people that see your offer, the more likely you’ll make sales. Create a blog or YouTube video to build your own audience, then promote affiliate products that they will be most interested in.

27. Create a Product

A great way to make money is to create either a physical or digital product that you can sell as your own. Physical products can be a little more in-depth to create because there are more steps to design, patent, and manufacturer them. Digital products are easy to start up and usually just need some specialized knowledge to make them useful. Online courses, ebooks, traditional books, and SaaS apps are all great examples of products you can build and sell.

To be successful with this, make a list of problems that you or your friends may have. Then, see if you can come up with a product that will solve that problem. If it is a problem that other people have, you should have no problem selling your product later on. Spend some time building out a minimum viable product (MVP) and then launch it to your audience to start making some money.

28. Learn to Code

One of the best skills to have in 2021 and beyond is to be able to code. There are many different coding languages but all websites, apps, and computer programs are built by coders. Being able to understand and develop applications in even one coding language will put you in high demand. Udemy is a great platform to take online courses to learn the basics of any coding language you want.

A good starting point is to learn HTML and CSS since that is what most websites are built on. You can then branch out to Javascript and PHP, if you want to be a web developer. There are many other more specialized programming languages including Ruby on Rails, Python, C#, Perl, Go, and Scala. Salesforce developers are one example of a type of programmer that are in high demand and can makes over $100,000 per year.

Once you have knowledge in a specific language, you can start to freelance and do smaller projects on the side. If you get enough experience, you may be able to get a full-time developer job that will allow you to work remotely from anywhere in the world while making six figures. Another option is to build your own SaaS app, mobile app, or game to sell. If you can build and market your own app, you’ll be able to make extra money every month.

29. Sell Your Knowledge

You don’t need to be an expert to sell your knowledge. Spend some time in your niche, read some articles and books, and get some practical experience. You now have more knowledge than most casual people in your niche and can translate that into being perceived as an expert.

Selling an educational course is one way to make money off your knowledge and custom courses can be sold on a platform like Udemy. You can also write a book, create a blog, start a podcast, or coach to help other people one-on-one. Consulting can be a lucrative way to make money because you can charge high rates if you can deliver results.

30. Babysit or Become a Companion

Babysitting is probably something you’d think of for a high school job, but it can be a great side hustle if you have some extra time. There are plenty of parents that need childcare while working or may just need a few hours for a date night. Once you find a couple local families that need a babysitter, you can earn extra money every month in your spare time.

Another option is to help families that have an elderly grandparent or parent that needs some attention. They may just be lonely and need someone to talk with, or may need need some assistance with their daily living. Either way, it’s possible to make some extra money by helping out an older person that needs a companion.

31. Clean Houses

If you don’t mind cleaning, get paid to clean other people’s houses. There are plenty of people that don’t have the time or desire to clean up after their family. You can fill that void by getting paid to clean for them. You may need to invest in a vacuum and cleaning supplies, but otherwise it’s pretty easy to get started.

32. Organize Other People’s Messes

Some people tend to be a bit more unorganized than others and have plenty of clutter in their closets, garage, or bedroom. And some of them will pay to have you organize it for them. If you have a knack for organizing chaos and decluttering spaces, you could sell your skills to people who don’t have the time to do it themselves. Give families more space in their homes and make it more functional, and get paid to do it.

33. Tutor Students

Students of all ages often need help with their studies in order to do well in school. If you understand a specific subject well and like working with kids, you could tutor them to help them learn more. This works well for students of all ages, from middle schoolers to college students that are looking to do better. As an option to in-person tutoring, you can also offer your services virtually over Skype or Zoom.

Besides school subjects, you could also teach music lessons, art, or sports to students looking to get ahead. By charging for your expertise in one of those fields, you can make money while helping kids succeed.

34. Marketing Focus Groups and Research Surveys

This is a personal favorite of mine because I know it works! If you have experience in a certain subject or field, companies will pay you for market research. Sign up to take surveys on sites like Respondent and they will match you up with the most appropriate opportunities. It is possible to find focus groups and surveys that will pay over $100 per hour, so not a bad payout for a couple hours of work.

35. Sell Your Art as NFTs

Artists have long been able to sell their work online and in person to make some extra cash. If you have an eye for photography. painting, or drawing, you can sell your work to others that love it. Musicians can also sell royalties for using their music in videos or by selling individuals tracks.

Over the past few years, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have started to take off as another way for artists to make money online. NFTs uses blockchain to store art as unique data that is unable to be replicated. This means that artists can sell digital drawings, photos, music, and videos and guarantee that it is 100% unique. Buyers can collect their favorite pieces of work and are often willing to pay a premium for it.

36. Start a Podcast

Podcasts have become one of the most popular mediums for people to consume content online. They are easy to listen to while driving, at work, or while working out. Since podcasts have become more popular, content creators have a great opportunity to cash in.

If you have an interesting topic or story to talk about, think about creating a podcast around it. Similar to a Youtube channel, you will need to grow your listener base and partner with brands to monetize that traffic. It won’t happen over night, but it is possible to grow your followers and turn it into a sustainable side hustle.