Side Hustle Ideas – The Ultimate Guide

Here on Making Sense of Cents, I talk a lot about making extra money and side hustle ideas. After all, side hustling changed my life and it allowed me to pay off $40,000 in student loan debt.

My side hustles also eventually turned into my full-time business, which is something I will always be grateful for. I love my business, I earn a good income, I am location independent, and I have a great work-life balance.

Side hustling is one of my favorite topics due to the fact that it positively changed my life as you can tell after reading all of the above.

I believe that side hustles can improve the lives of others as well.

I’m all about cutting back with your expenses, but I believe that earning more money can be extremely helpful. This is because there is no limit to how much money a person can make.

Making extra money is great for many other reasons too. It can help a person pay off debt, save more money, test out a business idea, reach financial freedom, and more.

Below are some of the many side hustle-related questions that I am often asked.

 

How much money can a person make from side hustling?

The amount of money a person can make from side hustling can vary widely. You may only make a few dollars a week or you may find yourself making hundreds or thousands of dollars a week.

It can vary depending on what exactly you are doing to earn side income, the amount of time you are devoting to it, the effort you are putting towards it, and more.

Below are some estimates and ranges of what you can make with some different side hustle ideas:

• Taking surveys online at home – $1 to $10+ per survey.
• Blogging – $0 to millions of dollars a year. Yes, there’s a personal finance blogger out there who makes over $10 million a year. Yes, a year! I was earning around $10,000 a month on the side of my day job. Now, I’m earning around $30,000 a month from blogging.
• Writing articles online for others – $15 to $1000+ per article. Usually, new writers start out at around $15-$25 per article in the online world.
• Renting a room in your home – $300 to $1,000+ a month. This can vary widely depending on your location, whether you are renting it on a monthly or daily basis (such as with Airbnb), and more.
• Mystery shopping – $3 to $100+ per mystery shop. Usually, you get whatever you are shopping for free plus a small payment for your time.
• Mowing lawns – $20 and up per lawn. Of course, this depends on what work is being done, how large the yard is, if it’s regular work, and more.
• Dog sitting – $25 to $100 per day. This all depends on the area you live in, the amount of work you are doing (walking the dogs, administering medication, scooping poop, etc.), and more.

 

How can a person find time for their side hustle ideas?

Everyone has at least a little bit of time that can be devoted to making extra money. It all just depends on how bad you want it.

If you don’t think you have time, I want you to add up the amount of time you spend watching TV, on social media sites, hours that you can’t even remember what you did, and so on.

Whether you only have a few hours each week for making extra money or if you have a few hours each day, every little bit counts. And, yes, there are side hustles for the smallest amount of time and the biggest amount of time (see them below).

Here are some of the many ways to find time to make extra money:

• Wake up earlier or stay up later. Yes, this may mean less sleep.
• Use your lunch hour for side hustling.
• Take vacation days at your work just for side hustling.
• Waste less time with TV, social media, and so on.
• Use any breaks during the day strategically for side hustling.

 

How can a person manage a good work-life balance?

Work-life balance is very important when a person is making extra money. Due to the fact that you will be holding down more than one job, you may find that other areas in your life may be impacted in a negative way.

While side hustling, you never want the quality of your work to decrease, for your family to be negatively impacted, and so on.

There are many ways to work side jobs and still lead a great life. You can:

• Outsource certain tasks that will allow you to make more money.
• Try to focus on one task at a time if you are not good at multi-tasking.
• Leave work at work.
• Eliminate time-sucks (see above).
• Create a schedule that flows together smoothly.

 

How can a person grow their side hustle?

There are many ways a person could grow their side hustle idea. Whether you eventually want to turn it into a full-time business or if you just want to start making more money, growing it is possible!

Some of the things you could do to grow your side hustle idea are below. Of course, different things can be applied to different industries and types of side hustles.

• Place ads for your side hustle in your local community, such as by handing out business cards, posting flyers on billboards, and more.
• Attend networking events in your area.
• Start a website so that potential customers can search for your service/product.
• Reach out directly to those who may be interested in your service/product.
• Ask past customers to spread the word about your side hustle.

 

What side jobs can a person have?

There are an endless amount of side hustle ideas. You could work online, offline, for yourself, for someone else, sell a product, sell a service, and so on.

Here are some of the many job ideas plus links to other blog posts of mine that may help you out.

• Find a part-time job. There are many part-time jobs that you may be able to find. You can find a job on sites such as Snagajob, Craigslist (yes, I’ve found a legitimate job through there before), Monster, and so on.
• Start a blog. Blogging is how I make a living and just a few years ago I never thought it would be possible. I made over $150,000 last year by blogging and will make more than that in 2015. You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
• Sell your stuff. There are many things you can do to make money by selling items. We all have extra things laying around that can be sold, or you can even search for items that can be bought and resold for a profit.
• Rent an extra room in your home. If you have extra space in your home, then you may want to rent it out. Read A Complete Guide To Renting A Room For Extra Money.
• Answer surveys. Survey companies I recommend include VIP Voice, American Consumer Opinion, Survey Junkie, ProOpinion, Pinecone Research, Opinion Outpost, Survey Spot, Prize Rebel, and Harris Poll Online. They’re free to join and free to use! You get paid to answer surveys and to test products. It’s best to sign up for as many as you can as that way you can receive the most surveys and make the most money.
• Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is something I don’t use as much, but I do occasionally earn Amazon gift cards with very little work. Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “points called SB” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough points, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. You’ll receive a free $5 bonus just for signing up today!
• Try Digital Voice. Another one you may be interested in related to Swagbucks is Nielsen Digital Voice. Digital Voice is a part of Nielsen, which I’m sure you’ve heard of. All you have to do is surf the web and you may be able to start earning money.
• Try InboxDollars. InboxDollars is an online rewards website I recommend. You can earn cash by taking surveys, playing games, shopping online, searching the web, redeeming grocery coupons, and more. Also, by signing up through my link, you will receive $5 for free just for signing up!
• Test websites. One company I recommend for virtual assistant work is UserTesting. This website pays you to test websites and they pay fairly well.
• Side Hustle Series – Read this if you are interested in hearing about the many side hustle ideas that my readers have shared.
• 10 Things I’ve Done To Make Extra Money – If you are interested in finding a side hustle idea for yourself, you may be interested in one of the things I’ve done in the past to earn side income.
• Ways To Make An Extra $1,000 A Month – Here are different ways to make an extra $1,000 a month.
• 75+ Ways To Make Extra Money – This blog post has many, many different side hustle ideas for you to try.
• 10 Ways To Make Money Online From The Comfort of Your Home – If you prefer to work from home like I do, then this is the side hustle post for you.

 

What other tips should a person know about making extra money?

Side hustling is something that I believe many can be successful at. However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Below are some of my tips that I believe will help side hustling go a little more smoothly.

• Have your side hustle be something you enjoy and/or are passionate about so that you can enjoy the time you are spending making extra money.
• Find a side job that is flexible with your current schedule. A side hustle with a flexible schedule is amazing because then you won’t feel as stuck each and every day.
• Take it slow if you need to. You don’t need to jump in and start working 60 hour weeks right away if you don’t feel that it’s right.
• Don’t let your side job interfere with your current job. You probably don’t want to lose your current job, so don’t let your quality of work slip.
• Pay taxes and get any legal help that you need. Yes, you still need to pay taxes on side income!

What side hustle ideas are you interested in trying out? What do you think of side hustling?