What side-gigs or passive income methods have you found helpful for earning a small amount of extra money?
I'm posting this in good faith, both out of curiosity and self interest. But up front I'll say that I'm not interested in scams, schemes, or get-rich-quick stuff.
I work full time as a teacher, but ever since we had a baby, my wife and I are just barely breaking even financially. Not struggling, but $4k/year would make a massive difference in our lives.
It seems like I'm stuck in this spot where getting a low wage job after school hours isn't even worth the time missed with my family, considering how awful the pay is. Summer work is tough because it has to justify the extra daycare expenses, and again, it's so much missed time with family for such a low reward. Higher paying gigs don't seem as interested in seasonal help from what I've encountered so far.
For the record, I'm not really interested in crypto or casino bonus schemes. I also don't have enough to invest right now to truly put investing over the edge into a meaningful return.
What are some low-risk/low-investment/low-reward side hustles?
I construct crosswords as a hobby. I've sold a few so far - newspapers and some other venues will pay anywhere from $75 - $750 dollars for a 15x15 crossword (average is $150; $750 is the NYT rate for experienced constructors).
I've made about $1,000 this year for something which is a hobby I enjoy.
It's certainly not dependable - I haven't had anything accepted for publication in 4 months - but I treat it as an added bonus for something I get a kick out of.
This is amazing. Something I'll never do I'm sure, but cool as hell. Wow that's a neat thing I would have never even considered. I assumed NYT had their own in-house crossword savant.
They do - Will Shortz, he’s been the crossword editor for a very long time and I believe still creates puzzles from time to time.
That’s super neat. How did you get started in this hobby?
And how do you find a newspaper to sell it to?
See my reply above - many papers have open submissions for some of the year and they have specification sheets. You mail your puzzle to the editors and if they like it, they pay you for it!
I was bored during lockdown basically, and I came across a submission link for the NYT crossword after reading the wordplay blog. I then slipped further down the rabbit hole!
I think I enjoy the challenge of constructing more than solving, actually.
The NYT have a good guide on how to get started here - that also contains a link to the crosscord discord server which is frequented by a ton of pro constructors as well as amateurs starting out, and has a load of resources.
There are spec sheets maintained there for venues like LAT, universal syndication, the New Yorker etc as well as indie venues. You basically submit to the editing team during submission windows and cross your fingers!
I think their open submission week has ended, but I’d recommend following puzzmo if you haven’t already - they seem to be pretty good to their crossword constructors, at least from what I’ve seen.
You might try leaning into you skillset with online tutoring. Places like Chegg, VIPKid, etc, pair tutors with students looking for lessons. Some of them require prior teaching experience, which you have.
Edit: if you go this route, get an inexpensive stylus attachment and practice with whiteboard software/zoom/etc. being able to free hand while teaching is super critical, for me at least.
What other skills do you have? There are part time, low wage gigs that you could do while your kids do activities. I'm an ok rock climber and when I'm in a money pinch I'll route set for a local climbing gym. The pay isn't great - usually around $20 an hour - but it's to do something I enjoy and it rarely feels like work. Most of the time if I'm free I'd have been spending time at the climbing gym anyway. It's usually at off peak hours anyway, so before or after opening which works with a 9-5 schedule and your kids could climb while you set. Another option is life guarding - this is much more approachable as long as you can swim decently. Lots of pools have varied lap swim times - going into the evenings and throughout the day on the weekends. Again, not great wages - like $20 an hour - but you could probably pick up an easy 10-15 hours a week. A few of the older women I swim with in the mornings (50-70 years old) will take 10-20 hours a week, particularly if they are retired. Same thing, you could get the kids into swimming, but realistically not as easy to do an "in tandem" activity as setting.
Also, geographically you can make a good amount of money if you know how and where to forage mushrooms. We have a few friends who make 3-5k in the fall months by foraging mushrooms for the local grocery store or restaurants. You need to be able to get enough to actually make it worth it for either party, but it's a fun activity that you can do with the family. It's effectively hiking at a lower, more wandered pace. Locally we go after porchini, chantrell, and candy caps. Porchini and chantrell will go $15-20 a lb and you can easily get 5-10lbs in a go, much more if you're optimizing for time of day post weather events. Plus it's a short window so it would be easy to set boundaries on how much time you put towards it.
As others have mentioned, being a tutor could earn you some real money as a tutor or SAT prep tutor. You have a credential so I can image you making from $50-100 an hour.
Goodluck!
I should look into that. I teach integrated special education which means I co-teach all four core classes. I know the math, science, social studies, and ELA curriculum like the back of my hand all the way up to the current grade level I teach. I also have a massive folder in the cloud with every resource our school uses. Every time a teacher retires, I've been the only one to ask them if I could copy their thumb drive to my cloud. I seriously have a hard time finding specific resources because I have so much stuff to choose from. I also tend to be a bit of an archivist and have backup copies of a lot of expensive materials, books, audiobooks, YouTube videos that are no longer on YouTube.
Hmmm. This might be a good option. Reddit leads me to think online tutoring isn't the way to go right now. Seems competitive and pays about $20/hour to start which would only work if I was clocking multiple consecutive hours. For something unreliable like tutoring, I may have to charge higher rates for local, in-person tutoring for unreliable hours and possibly less if I can count on more consecutive hours. Doesn't make sense to get ready and leave the house to go work a single hour for $20.
Thanks for the idea. I'm looking into it!
Nice, I'm not sure if you're interested, but some of us in areas with higher COL could put up fliers with your information - i.e. credentialed teacher, etc - with a higher price tag like $60-80 an hour? My thinking is if folks do reach out you can decide if it is worth it and the difficulty of hanging flier at the local library and school would be a pretty light lift for me. No pressure but happy to help if you're interested. There are also lots of bay area folks weighing in on this thread who might also be up for it.
Wow that's an amazing offer!
I will definitely reach out if I go this route! I think my current plan is to test the local waters for tutoring and I might even go door to door trying retirement communities for IT help. I'm pretty tech literate, fairly handy, and I already have several people per week asking me for help with phones, computers, mounting tvs, etc.
Not sure how true it is, but a handyman recently told me how he stopped doing the online advertising and started doing door to door. He said there's essentially no competition anymore and a lot of folks, especially older folks, are finding it a pleasant surprise. Plus, his availability is "right now" so people will start pointing out the stupid things that have been bothering them around the house like loose doorknobs. I wondered if the same principal would apply to tech help. Every single time I see my mom, grandma, older coworkers, etc., they end up saying something like, "oh, while you're here, you don't happen to know how how to fix this [super simple, super minor] tech issue, do you?
I hope between those two options, one of them will kind of pick up steam and become a side hustle?
But I am incredibly grateful for that offer and I put your username into my Google doc for this whole side hustle search!
Tbh that's the sort of service I'd pay for, give me some reason to trust you - personal referrals for example, I need someone who knows how to do some of the basic stuff Ive never been taught or sometimes just can't do. More so if you show me along the way
(The handyman side, not the tech side)
Honestly, if you're tech savvy you can learn handyman stuff very easily. My father was a diesel mechanic who could do plumbing, electric, and just about anything else. However, he was (and is) a drug addict who was never present in my life.
In my teens and 20s, I was so bitter every time I had to pay to get my car fixed or pay for repairs at my townhouse because I knew that my father could have done them and could have taught me how to do them. But when I was in college - especially grad school - I literally couldn't afford to pay anyone to fix stuff and desperation forced me to figure it out. Turns out that anyone who can build a gaming PC can fix a car. Very similar in that you have to follow instructions and assemble components that are already made at a factory.
In the last several years I've done drywall, framing, major electrical repairs, minor plumbing repairs, HVAC repairs, etc. Just last week I put a new pump on our utility sink and redid the drain pipe that was loose. Remodeled the entire bathroom myself from the sub floor and studs, all the way to being finished.
I don't want to charge people for that stuff because I will still make mistakes here and there. But if I make a mistake at my house, I can just call myself an idiot and fix it. If I make a mistake at someone else's house, bit of a different story.
I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that you can learn all of this stuff on YouTube. And if you can do basic tech stuff, you're well-positioned to follow instructions and do all the handyman stuff that bugs you. Just understand that everything will take 3 times longer than you estimate, even if you take that rule into account when estimating. When you pay someone to do it, you're paying them because they'll be quicker and you won't have to deal with the stupid tiny BS that always come up. And yes, every single time you go to do something at your home or to your car, you will find something silly that holds you up. It's a law of the universe that some joker before you will have rigged something up in an irreversible way so that you need to do another small repair or buy some adapter piece to do the thing you're planning to do.
I work full time and am a caretaker for my paraplegic partner and have ADHD (my dad took 3 years to finish a bathroom remodel.)
It's in many ways in my best interest to pay someone for handyman work in the short term even as I am learning stuff long term.
That's a great idea! Oddly enough I did something similar when I was slow at work, I have no idea why it wasn't my first suggestion. My dad is a painting contractor and I worked with him quite a bit when I was growing up and into college/early career. It means I'm fairly capable at painting and have all the required equipment. We used to have a neighborhood email group when I was living in the Bay Area in my 20s, kind of like nextdoor except it was for a small 10 x 5 block neighborhood and just email threads. I ended up getting a lot of business by posting on there and saying "I'll be taking jobs for the next month if anyone has any requests". I'd usually fill up my docket in a few days. If work picked up I could knock them out on the weekends. I'm not sure if it would be the same, but if folks from your neighborhood are active on nextdoor it might work similarly and it takes almost no effort.
And now that I'm down this rabbit hole, the easiest money I ever made was power washing driveways. Back in the late 00s, I'd charge 50 dollars a driveway and it usually took me about an hour. It helped that I could borrow my dad's power washer at the time (looks like they run from $100-300 new), but it was really easy money. I'd just roll the thing door to door like you're suggesting. I just gave it a cursory google and it looks like folks charge $150-350 for a power washing driveways now. It takes a little practice to learn the optimal distance for grime removal without damaging the stone/brick/concrete, but it's also incredibly cathartic (very few things are as satisfying as power washing) and pretty quick.
I'm not sure why those thoughts didn't jump to mind earlier. Anyway, good luck and definitely reach out if you end up wanting me to post anything!
There’s the usual gig economy stuff. Uber, DoorDash, instacart and their equivalents.
I’ve heard that instacart is supposedly less stressful than the other two. YMMV
Dog walking is something I’ve heard people doing. But I’d imagine it’s really competitive and probably not all that well paying, since people like walking dogs.
I live in a pretty low-cost-of-living area with a lot of college kids, immigrants, and plenty of retirees who take those jobs out of desperation or for something to do. My area is perhaps one of the lowest cost areas in the USA relative to what it offers (classic rust belt city). It has everything you could ever want for cheap, but also low-wages compared to the rest of the country.
Biggest issue is that those jobs just aren't worth your time. Obviously I would do it if I had to put food on the table but for side-hustle territory it's not even close. You miss all that time with your family to bring home $150/week (assuming 10 hours per week). Sorry, I think I slipped into venting! But I get a good two hours of seeing my son while he's awake by the time we all get home from work. That's all I get. I just can't justify missing any of that unless it's going to make a difference financially on my off days and weekends.
Re off days and weekends, tutoring can be lucrative, especially if you can get referrals for high school test prep etc.
Otherwise, senior citizens frequently need technical support that is pretty basic. Some of them don't have family members to help.
Developing a saturday handyman and or gardening business could be an option.
I have actually made a few deliveries through an app but I live in California where we are guaranteed minimum wage in addition to tips. British Columbia also has that guarantee.
Edit, process servers and notaries get paid for intermittent work.
Any gig economy job that requires putting miles on a personal vehicle should be evaluated with the consideration of repairs and maintenance, along with the cost of fuel. If you're in a pinch, these jobs can provide some quick cash, but the trade off is the wear and tear on your car that will cost you down the road.
It's probably not a consistent moneymaker in terms of making a living, but you can make a decent amount as a side hustle. People tend to need it repeatedly (like M-F at lunch due to work), in dire situations (like emergency trips), or for a quiet night (like a babysitter). It's a great summer or after-school job for teenagers, I did it a bunch.
I think there's a dog-sitting app. I had friend who did that regularly. People would leave a dog for a few days when they were out of town, and it was cheaper and nicer than kennel boarding.
Rover is one
Prolific surveys can be relatively lucrative:
https://www.prolific.com
I have not kept up with it much lately because of the holidays being so hectic, but I made a couple hundred bucks pretty easily in the month and a half I was actively participating before that.
Also check out the /r/beermoney subreddit for some ideas - it’s where I came across Prolific.
Google opinion rewards is pretty easy. I've made probably $35 in play store credit since early last fall, so not not super lucrative, but most surveys take less than a minute to complete, and it's about 9 cents / question. I use the credits to buy movie rentals.
the downside to that is its not cash, and they expire after a year
You're correct of course, but I've found them very useful to rent/buy movies that aren't easily streamable
One downside of switching browsers/search engines away from Chrome/Google is that I rarely if ever get surveys anymore. I switched to Firefox/Kagi last year and haven't gotten a survey since October. No regurts, but I did like having all my Google Play purchases and subs covered.
I also use prolific and concur. It does depend a bit on your tolerance for the surveys and your demographics but it's pretty good
What do you think you make per hour on here?
Every survey lists a "hourly" rate - some take a minute or two, some are pre-screeners, some are underpaid for what they're asking but then do bonuses. It's very inconsistent and having some specific medical diagnoses or underrepresented demographics (which I have no idea what those are since I don't know their user demo) can make you more interesting. Some days there are three surveys sitting there and I'm not interested. Some days there are a dozen and more every time I finish one. I couldn't give an estimate of hourly, but maybe they can
If you have good credit, try for credit card sign up bonuses. Only works if you already to have spend a certain amount and pay your cards on time. I open a new account every 6 months or so and usually opt for gift cards. Sometimes I’ll get may wife to do the same, doubling our rewards. There’s a subreddit called churning that has a roadmap and suggestions.
I do this causually (as opposed to “farming” bonuses, aka churning). Basically whenever I know I have a big expense coming up I’ll take one of the bonus offers that come in periodically and use the expense to immediately or almost immediately meet bonus qualifications without doing spending that I wouldn’t have otherwise, which turns the bonus into a discount or a way for those dollars to do double duty depending on how you look at it.
Generally I do this once or twice per year at most, though there have been years where I haven’t signed up for any cards.
Worth mentioning that this will reduce your average credit age which affects your credit score.
While this is true, it’s fairly insignificant. Increasing your overall credit will also lower your debt:credit ratio improving your score. At the end of the day, your payment history is the bulk of the score. Always good to remember not to open accounts right before getting a mortgage or car loan, but otherwise don’t sweat it. I do this twice a year and my score is 800+
I've heard of it but it sounds like one of those things that ends up being a bunch of extra work for little return.
Can you describe to me how much time you're putting in versus the reward?
Doesn’t take much time at all. Applying for a credit card takes 5 minutes (maybe less). Hunting for the right card to get may take 15-30 minutes. Redeeming points takes 5-10 minutes. The rest is just spending (which you do already). it’s helpful to get the card before a big expense like the other comments mentioned. You could pay your car insurance, for example. I usually redeem the rewards for $500 worth of gift cards. $500 for an hours work is pretty good. Also remember to cancel before the year is up if there is an annual fee (I make a note on my calendar).
Be careful though, some banks will claw back bonuses if you don’t keep the card for at least a full year and pay the annual fee at least once. This hasn’t happened to me but I’ve seen people mention American Express doing that with some of their cards for example.
Annual fee is assessed at the first billing cycle, so I don’t know how someone could hit the spending requirement and not pay the annual fee. I suppose we should always look at the fine print but this has never been an issue for me.
I’ve never done this but I’ve always wondered, doesn’t it ultimate drag your credit score down?
Credit scores are negatively affected both by the number of hard inquiries on your record, which typically come with each new credit card application, and by the (average?) length of time you’ve had open accounts over some recent period of time. Credit scores are obviously impacted by more than just these two factors, but a good credit score is often important enough that dragging it down with these strategies might end up costing you more.
I’m particularly thinking of the impact of credit scores on big loans, like mortgages where a high credit score can help you secure a far more favorable interest rate.
Or maybe these churning strategies are designed to avoid impact on credit scores? I’m really curious.
If you open 1-2 credit cards a year, it just isn’t an issue. New accounts continue to “age” even after they are closed (for 10 years). I suppose it could hurt if you overdo it, and try for like 5 cards every year, but there are built in limits (some banks will deny you if you opened another account recently for example). Some people get around it by having business accounts and personal accounts. There’s also a limit on how much you can reasonably spend, although there strategies for that as well.
With regards to mortgages, all you need is credit score of 760+. You won’t get a better rate if your score is 765, 800 or 850 unfortunately. If someone’s score is borderline and they plan on buying a house, then yeah it doesn’t make sense to open new lines of credit.
If you pay your bills on time every time and have several accounts in good standing you’ll get excellent credit. Ironically enough, if you completely avoid opening credit cards you’ll end up with poor credit and won’t be able to get a good mortgage. Happened to my buddy who thought he was being smart by avoiding credit cards (he did trust himself to use it responsibly ). What he should have done is opened the card, used it once a year, pay the statement balance and keep it hidden in drawer.
Thanks for that explanation. I guess I had the misconception that churning involved applying for cards multiple times a month. One or two a year is far less full throttle than I had envisioned.
Re: mortgages, there are some that will give you better rates at least at the 800 mark. I learned this the hard way by missing 800 by a few points once (which coincidentally was because I had opened a new credit card a few months prior. D’oh!).
And yeah, avoiding credit cards entirely is a bad idea. I have a few friends with (maybe) irrational fear of credit cards and I’ve tried many times to convince them of the benefits. Oh well, not everyone is focused on winning the rat race. :)
Thanks for sharing about the 800+ mark. That’s news to me! What lender(s) did you work with?
A friend of mine is a mortgage broker and she chooses the best current option from a number of lenders each time. I’ve gotten three mortgages through her and refinanced probably (gulp) 15 times so I’ve been in edge about my credit score for quite some time.
I suppose if anyone is looking for money saving tips, here’s mine: find a good mortgage broker who doesn’t charge you to refinance. The paperwork is a hassle but refinancing a mortgage can save you a lot. —with the trade off that you have to be anal about your credit score all the time.
It will, but realistically it'll drop you buy 20-30 points, which isn't likely to matter. You can also just chill for a bit if you're planning on buying a house or a car.
I spend a few hours to maybe 20 hours per month running an eBay store. I buy stuff at auction (if it is in my skillset to know what I'm looking at and either know I can fix it or understand the value even if sold 'for parts'. Last year, after expenses, it looks like that netted me around $12 to $13K. I on/off consider it my main job, but then at other times I get lazy about it (which I did on average last year) - hence the variance between 'a few hours' and 'maybe 20 hours' per month. I do likewise on my local Craigslist - less reach but no fees.
Once in a long while I'll take some work from workmarket.com - it's a tech contract/gig work site where companies bid out offers for work they need done in city X on day Y - they offer $Z and you can make counter-offers for >$Z. I do work on that platform very seldom, but both the income per hour and the total compensation have been reasonably high. That comes from cherry picking only good jobs though, and often I'm not fast enough and they get snapped up. There are plenty of crap jobs (or rather, jobs offered for crap pay) on the site so you have to be picky.
The other stuff I do is intermittent contract work - somewhat random / somewhat seasonal. I'll maintain security systems, do rural telecommunications survey, stuff like that. Those are less side-gig and more skillset-specific 'normal job' contract work.
I used to tutor on the side. Wasn't actually intending to be a thing that led to money but with word of mouth I ended up with a fairly steady stream of clients for awhile. Tbh I didn't love the dynamic since most tutoring is for college kids just scraping by and I end up feeling guilty taking their money.
I have long kept a bartending shift per week. If you have experience, are reliable, and a good employee, I have found there's always a restaurant looking for a bartender/server/busser and can be pretty amenable to working just a Friday or Saturday night. Can be decent money, especially for the time/effort and I appreciate that it's so different from my day job that it's almost enjoyable.
The profit margins aren't too bad and it depends on your skill set and available tools but I like to scour eBay and Facebook Marketplace for lots of not working/for parts video game consoles and computers to fix and sell. How many of the items in the lot you can actually flip will be affected by your skills and sometimes you have to wait around to get a replacement part (but occasionally you can frankenstein a working system out of 2-3 not working ones).
The more money you get you can invest into tools like an SMD rework station but a lot of the time you can get by with just a multimeter and soldering iron. Home consoles are pretty easy to work on, older laptops and PCs are a breeze. Portable consoles get more complex the more recently they released, I worked my way up from Gameboys to 3DS' but I wouldn't bother with a for parts 3DS lot unless you're confident because 3DS consoles are quite valuable (they're going through their nostalgia boom right now) but my god are they a nightmare to work on. Sometimes you get lucky and it's just a software problem and you can fix it by reinstalling a custom firmware but I'd steer clear.
@Wolf_359 I'm a former teacher, got out of the biz post-covid—side hustles are basically mandatory lol, Breaking Bad was a documentary. I've done the online tutoring gig, the writer/editor gig, I taught ESL/adult education night classes, the community college adjunct gig, all of which paid at least $30/hr, so if you know anyone doing any of those things just start bothering them. You can also look at the AI training gigs if you're willing, it's soul-sucking but it's decent money (1099 tho so figure on netting 2/3 as much as they pay you). DM me if you want any specifics/links, it's a mess out there; the best thing I did for my career & cardiac health was change jobs, and I loved teaching so very much.
Have you considered teaching an evening or weekend Extended Education (e.g. adult/non-traditional students) course at a local community college? Example curriculum from my area.
These life enrichment classes usually have commitments of no more than 10 hours/month and pay around $50 - 100/class hour. If you have specific expertise in, say, basic home maintenance, and can convince the college that you've got the teaching skills to deliver the training, it's a good gig.
A coworker of mine got himself a decent side hustle selling various 3D printed knick-knacks at craft shows.
A decent printer for $250 to start. and filament, at $25 a roll. He said his best estimation that the ROI on his filament roll is 600% ($150 after sale). He's used those funds to start a small print farm.
There is an entire store near me that specializes in this sort of stuff. It is a bit more elaborate than just the standard slogans though, they do custom laser engravings for gifts and such. Things like cutting boards, beer openers with wooden handles, etc. It still feels a bit gimmicky to me, but apparently there is enough money to be made in it.
I almost bought a laser engraver to engrave cork coasters that said "Welcome to our home" on one side and "please leave by nine" on the other, to make gift sets. I'm pretty sure there was a cantilevered 2 axis machine with a relatively weak laser for around $200, but I can't find it now.
I make around the amount you're looking for (4k/year, maybe a little more/little less) through an eBay store, selling preconfigured computers and modded game consoles, been at it at that level for about six or seven years. I also trade collectibles on there, but they're not as consistent/take longer to sell - I did more of that early on to just build good ratings/reviews.
With the machines, beyond cleaning and fixing I will image them for specific use cases/types of users, basically selling convenience more than anything else. Some good examples are private/anonymous browsing boxes, low end gaming machines (think "kid's first X Y Z" sort of configs), simple/locked down setups for elderly folk/students, office machines for small businesses, etc. With game consoles, eBay doesn't really give a shit about stuff like mods and custom firmware. With those, I'll usually find loose special editions, stuff that folks might want but aren't the top end of a collector market. In the listings I am upfront about it being more about convenience than some special skill on my part, you're paying me to avoid blowing away a weekend on it and I usually include some additional info/guide material for the user in the box.
As my store rep got better I found I could sell more stuff on the back of that reputation, too. When I do hobbies/crafts I can usually sell the results. I don't do that consistently because it undermines the point of doing them imo, but if you don't care you might have a hobby or two you can scale into being a regular source of spare cash.
Point being, if there's stuff you can do that you can translate into a physical product like that, you probably can build out an online shop and accomplish your goal with it. If you have any niche interests and know what folks value within those interests, that too is an avenue worth exploring on a place like eBay. Folks pay for more than just products, they'll also pay for convenience, beauty, time, etc, it's just a matter of figuring out how to get them to see it in the stuff you have on offer.
Expert networks. I do well with those.
Any advice or further elaboration? I'm intrigued.
I went down a rabbit hole and found this company: https://glginsights.com/
Seems like a good option.
Thanks!!! Checking it out now
Not really. Quite similar, though . https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_network
I'd say a few of these 'sourcing networks' have found me. It was questionable at first. You want to pay me $x to take a survey, or $x10 for a 60 minute webcam interview?
Turns out it's quite legit and you can do pretty well in this as a side hustle!
I even saw there's an entire subreddit dedicated to it, prior to leaving the platform.