54 Side Hustle Ideas To Make Money Fast

If you're looking for side hustle ideas that actually work, it can feel overwhelming. There are a lot of options. 

While some things can take a long time to see earnings, there are other gigs that can pay you the same day. 

There are millions of ways to make money - especially extra money side hustling. If you have the drive and the passion to earn money, you CAN do it. But sometimes we struggle to figure out what to do that will actually earn us anything. We simply hit a mental wall and we can't think of side hustle and money making ideas.

So, instead of staying roadblocked, here is a list of ways to start side hustling, earning your way out of debt, or using extra money to invest.

No matter what your skill set is, or how much time you have, you should be able to find something on this list that you can do this week to make some extra money. Even (and perhaps especially) if you're a college student looking to make more money, a lot of these tasks are perfect for you.

Also, make sure you check out our list of the best side hustles, where we compare our picks based on earning potential, scheduling, and growth.

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and will earn me a commission. These are all things that I have experience with and I am recommending because they are helpful and are companies that I trust, not because of any commission it may earn me.

Online Side Hustle Ideas

For most people, an online side hustle is the easiest way to get started; you can find free WiFi a lot of places and the startup costs are minimal.

1. Online Surveys

If you have some time to spare online, you could spend it filling out online surveys. There are sites that will pay you to do so and it's very easy. All you have to do is register, and these companies will contact you when they have a survey that fits your profile. Typically these are online market research surveys for big brands.

Let's be honest, these side hustle ideas won't earn you much money, but they're quick, easy, and you can do them while doing other things.

Some of the most popular online survey sites include:

• Survey Junkie - Earn cash and rewards for sharing your thoughts and opinions. Read our Survey Junkie review.
• Swagbucks Surveys - Swagbucks now has a dedicated survey section, and you can get $5 just for signing up. Read our Swagbucks review.
• MyPoints - Earn a $5 giftcard for signing up, verifying your email, and for every 5 surveys you complete. Read our MyPoints review.
• Kashkick - Fill out surveys and get cash and giftcards. Read our Kashkick review here.

Income Potential: $50 per month

4. Blogging

Blogging is a great side hustle because you can do it at your own pace anywhere you want. It's not a quick and easy way to make money, but there are a lot of ways to make money side hustling while blogging. You can sell advertising, become an affiliate for other people's products, sell your own online product, and more. It does take time to build up an audience to be able to make a decent amount of money, but once you have a large following, you could earn over $15,000 per month or more (we do).

Food for thought - this site started on Bluehost and was soon earning over $1,000 per month. It's grown much more since then. We love Bluehost because you can get started for just $2.95 per month with our special code. Check it out here.

If you want to start a blog, check out our free guide on How To Start A Personal Website Or Blog. We used Bluehost to start because you get a free domain name and cheap hosting at just $2.95 per month.

Tool To Get Started: Bluehost (Get a free domain and $2.95 hosting with this link)

Income Potential: $1,000 per month within 1 year

Fiverr is a micro-selling site where you can sell all kinds of random projects, from design work to simply recording yourself on video talking about a brand. We just wrote an article about how you can earn $10,000 by starting a Fiverr gig. It's possible!

If you don't know where to start, browse the site for a little bit. You'll quickly realize two things: 

1. There are a lot of different kinds of gigs
2. Most people charge more than $5 - that's just the baseline price

A cool gig that I recently purchased was a woman who was selling travel plans. She'd traveled to many cities and was passionate about planning, and would make a travel plan with sites to see, entertainment, restaurants, and more. It shows that there are gigs for everything!

Tool To Get Started:

• The Brambila Method. Do you want to quick-start your side hustle journey? Check out this course from Adrian Brambila and learn how to make your first $1 online from side hustling. Over 8 days, you're going to learn 8 proven tactics to make money, and you'll even get access to 4 side hustle ideas you can launch immediately (which includes selling on Fiverr). Just plug and play. Sign up for the course here >>

Income Potential: $300 per month

7. Sell On eBay

eBay is a great place to sell stuff and earn money, especially if you have something collectible.

One of my favorite ways to side hustle on eBay is to go to estate sales and find items that you can purchase for cheap, then resell online. Just make sure that you keep the fees in consideration.

At my peak, I was making over $2,000 per month buying items and reselling them on eBay. You can read my full story about starting a side hustle and selling on eBay here.

Tool To Get Started:

• eBay Sellers Account

Income Potential: $500 per month

8. Sell Crafts On Etsy

Have a story you want to tell? Maybe you should write an eBook and sell them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Michael Piper has made a living selling eBooks about financial topics online, and we recently wrote 14 Ways To Get Paid For Writing Online.

I've met several authors you've never heard of that sell tons of eBooks on Amazon every year. One author has almost 100 different books he's selling on Amazon. 

If you don't want to put together a blog, you could go this route of selling your content online.

Tool To Get Started:

• Get Paid To Write

Income Potential: $750 per month

12. Sell Stock Photos

Perhaps taking pictures is your forte. If you are a great photographer, you could possibly sell your photos online. Sites like iStockPhoto are always looking for contributors, who get paid a royalty every time their photo is purchased. This could be a great way to turn your art into some extra cash.

Even if you don't like to take pictures, more and more stock photo sites are also looking for digital art as well. If you're strong at creating digital images (like the one we've used for this article), you could also consider selling your work.

Tools To Get Started:

• Depositphotos
• iStockPhoto

Income Potential:  $500 per month

16. Become A Virtual Assistant

Do you enjoy writing, social media, and blogging, but don't want to start your own blog? You can find virtual assistant jobs where you help other people run their sites and social media accounts. Depending on the amount of time you have, this side hustle could even become a full time gig.

I've been using virtual assistants to help me with this website for years. It's great to have someone help me with tasks throughout the week and keep the blog on track. You can make great money as your skillset improves as well.

Tool To Get Started:

• UpWork

Income Potential: $3,000 per month

17. Teach English Online

Are you a teacher? Or do you at least have a bachelor's degree from an American college or university? If so, you could teach children in other countries English online!

VIPKid is an innovative platform that connects native English speakers that have a degree with children in other countries like China or India. You can setup a "class" time, and people will sign up for your class online. You get paid when you teach.

The cool thing is that teachers are making $14-22 per hour online, from the comfort of their own home!

Tool To Get Started:

• VIPKid
  

Income Potential: $1,000 per month

I love the idea of ride-sharing as a side hustle because it's one of the few "jobs" on here that you can truly do 100% on your own time. If you want to drive in the middle of the night from 2am to 6am, you can!

All you need is a car and some spare time. Just sign up with Uber and once you are cleared as a driver-partner, start driving people around. You'll make what you put into it.

To maximize your earning and profit potential, you need to sign up for both Uber and Lyft and use both apps at the same time.  

Harry at The Ride Share Guy has a lot of great resources about getting started, including a course about starting to RideShare for Profit.

Tools To Get Started:

• Sign Up To Drive With Uber
• Sign Up For Lyft
• RideShare For Profit Course

Income Potential: Varies by market and driver

19. Deliver Food From Restaurants 

Don't like the idea of having people in your car? Then maybe delivering food is the best avenue for you to take advantage of your car and make extra money.

Or, maybe you don't even have a car? You can make money with delivery with Uber Eats with a bike or scooter in some cities as well!

Tools To Get Started:

• Sign Up To Deliver With Uber Eats

Income Potential: Varies by market and driver

20. Deliver Groceries

If you're not feeling delivering from restaurants, you can also deliver groceries. Right now, this is a hot trend, as people are looking to have groceries delivered for their families.

Instacart is one of the most popular grocery delivery services nationwide. 

Tools To Get Started:

• Sign Up With Instacart

Income Potential: Varies by market and driver

21. List Your House On Airbnb

If you travel a lot, you have the potential to list your house while you're away on Airbnb. Or, maybe you have a spare bedroom, loft, camping area, or other place where people can stay. 

The bottom line is, if you have a space for people, you can probably list it and potentially make some extra money each month.

Our friend Paula Pant at AffordAnything.com shares how she is averaging over $500 per month listing an apartment.

Tools To Get Started:

• List Your Place On Airbnb

Income Potential: $500 per month

22. Rent Your Car

Do you have a vehicle that you're not using a lot that you've thought, "hey, wouldn't it be great if I could be earning some extra money versus paying on that..."

Well, with a service like Turo, you can do just that. Turo allows you to make your car work for you - by listing it for rent in as little as 10 minutes.

Getaround is another renting service that is a bit newer that Turo but gaining traction. 

Depending on how often you rent your car, you could earn a nice amount of money!

Tools To Get Started:

• List Your Car On Turo
  
• List Your Car On Getaround

Income Potential: $500 per month

23. Renting Out Your Garage or Driveway 

If you have extra space in your driveway (or side yard), you could rent that space out as well to people looking to store property, like boats or RVs. In many areas, there are HOAs that prevent people from parking this type of equipment, and you could help solve that problem for them while earning a little extra cash.

Tools To Get Started:

• Neighbor

Income Potential: $100 per month

Tools To Get Started:

• Loan Signing System Signing Agent Training

Income Potential: $500 per month or more within 6 months (top earners are making $13,000 per month)

25. Be A Task Rabbit

TaskRabbit.com is a place where you can sign up and run small tasks for others. It can include anything from picking up the groceries to cleaning or helping people move. Typical tasks take a few hours, but there are a lot of tasks available in most large cities.

This is a very hybrid online/offline gig, but all of the work you do will be offline.

Tools To Get Started:

• Sign Up For TaskRabbit

Income Potential: $300 per month

26. Catering

Do you want to side hustle just on Friday and Saturday nights? Well, you should team up with a catering company, as they often need servers and wait staff just for the events they host on the weekend. Many companies are "call-in", which means you can work when you choose to.

If you don't know where to start, head to the Craigslist Gigs section where jobs like catering help will be posted. You can earn a nice flat fee per event.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $300 per month

27. Cleaning Service

If you like to clean, you could help clean houses. These can be ongoing side hustles, like a weekly or bi-weekly service, or one time deals (such as for when people move). You could even join forces with some friends and tackle larger projects.

Plus, with a new service that Amazon has launched (Amazon Home Services), it's easier than ever to get these kinds of gigs.

Tools To Get Started:

• Amazon Home Services

Income Potential: $200 per month

28. Baby Sitting

This is one of the original side hustles. People have been baby sitting and getting paid for it since the dawn of time.

The great thing about it is that can earn you upwards of $100 per night! Many people start baby sitting in high school, but there's no reason that college students and other young adults can't keep in the game, especially if you have neighbors or relatives with young children.

Plus, with online services to connect sitters with parents, it's easier than ever to get bookings.

Tools To Get Started:

• Care.com

Income Potential: $500 per month

29. Bookkeeping

Are you an organized person that's good with data entry? Would you like to work from home on your computer making sure another business' income and expenses are entered correctly online? And even better, get paid for it?

Small businesses (especially online businesses) are looking for bookkeepers to help them stay financially organized. You can learn to become a professional bookkeeper online and learn how to market yourself with a program like Bookkeepers.

Tools To Get Started:

• Bookkeepers Course - Launch your bookkeeping business online

Income Potential: $1,000 per month

30. Recycle

Recycling can be a great way to earn some extra money. I'm not talking about becoming a bum at the park rummaging for cans (although you can do that) - I'm talking about encouraging your friends and neighbors to leave their cans and bottles aside for you.

If you want to take it up a notch, look for recycling metal and scrap to get even more money. This is even easier if you have a truck and are willing to haul for others.

Income Potential: $150 per month

31. Resume Help

Are you working at a company right now and see a lot of resumes? Do you hire people? Maybe you're in HR or a hiring manager.

Perhaps you can help others with their resumes and cover letters (for a fee, of course). If you want an example of what you can do, check out our Professional Resume Templates For College Students.

You could even do this gig virtually over email and Skype for many candidates.

Income Potential: $200 per month

32. Dog Walking

Do you have friends or neighbors with dogs? Do they work in the day? Maybe you can offer your services to them as a dog walker. Not only is this a great side hustle that can earn you a little extra cash, but it also gets you exercising every day.

If you don't know who's dog you could walk, online services are making it even easier to connect with clients.

And if you're willing to pet sit for long periods of time, you could make even more money!

Tools To Get Started:

• Rover
• Care.com

Income Potential: $300 per month

33. Estate Sales

Instead of just selling stuff on eBay, you can also host estate sales. I used to host estate sales online and offline, and it can earn you a nice amount of money if you have customers with a full house of stuff.

This was one of the early side hustles that I did to earn extra cash. I would resell items on eBay and Amazon, and eventually went on to conduct estate sales.

To be successful, though, you're going to need to get some friends involved to help.

Income Potential: $3,000 per estate sale

34. Handyman Work

Do you have a knack for home repair? Then you could side hustle as a handyman on nights and weekends to earn a little bit of extra money. Just be up front about your skills set - repairing fences, doing small plumbing jobs, whatever it happens to be.

You could also help a contractor out with labor as needed. You can find all sorts of handyman gigs online.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $1,000 per month

35. Housesitting

One of the easiest side hustles to do: simply sit and sleep in someone's house while they are out of town. This is a great side hustle, but too bad it's usually not a consistent revenue stream for most.

The only part is - it does take time out of your life. You're committing your time to being in someone's house and taking care of things.

If you don't know where to start, online services like Care.com make it easy to connect with people looking for house sitters.

Tools To Get Started:

• Care.com

Income Potential: $300 per month

36. Hauling Service

Do you have a truck? You could sell your services helping other people haul stuff to the dump, or even picking up large items at places like Home Depot.

Don't have a truck? You could work at a hauling company and do the manual labor for others. You can find all sorts of these labor gigs online.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $600 per month

37. Modeling

This is the side hustle for the good looking people of the world. You can go to school or work, and still take modeling jobs at night and on the weekends.

For many models, there isn't always a steady stream of work, but if you have success at a few gigs, this could become very lucrative. Check out our jobs for college students job board and see if there are any gigs near you.

If you don't know where to start, check out online classified ads.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $500 per month

38. Movie Or TV Extra

Depending on where you live, you could become an extra on a TV show or movie. Many studios are always looking for a steady stream of extras, and you can get paid a couple hundred dollars for just standing or walking around in the back of a movie set.

Tools To Get Started:

• Backstage Extras Casting

Income Potential: $200

39. Mystery Shopping

Do you enjoy fast food or going into retail shops? Many companies hire mystery shoppers to test the customer service of their stores. A common one is Subway, which hires mystery shoppers to ensure that "Sandwich Artists" are following all the franchise guidelines. If you have time and can travel to different places, this could be a good side hustle.

The cool thing is that mystery shopping has transitioned almost exclusively online. You can do most mystery shopping on your smartphone. Check out these apps to get started.

Tools To Get Started:

• Field Agent
  

Income Potential: $100 per month

40. Pet Sitting

If you love pets, taking care of your friends' and neighbors' pets while they are out of town can be a great way to earn some extra cash. It can be fun to make a new furry friend and get paid for it at the same time.

The only hard part of pet sitting is that you're waiting for people to travel, which can be tough. Luckily you can use the Internet to help you find customers. Rover is an app that connects pet sitters with those looking for help. Check it out here.

Tools To Get Started:

• Rover

Income Potential: $200 per month

41. Join A Research Or Focus Group

Have you walked through a college campus and seen the flyer for research studies and focus groups? Companies are always looking for people's opinions about products and services, and for sitting in one of these groups for a few hours, you could earn upwards of $100.

Some of these groups have moved online as well. Check out these tools below and see if you qualify.

Tools To Get Started:

• Permission Research
• Quick Thoughts

Income Potential: $200 per month

42. Moving Service

If you have time on the weekends, and are okay lifting heavy boxes and furniture, you could join up with a moving service and get paid to help people move. It's not easy work, but most people tip the movers as well.

This is another one where if you don't know where to start, check out online classified ads.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $400 per month

43. Gardening Service

A lot of entrepreneurs got their start mowing lawns, and it's still a great side hustle today. If you live in an area where people need gardeners, knock on doors and offer your gardening services. It's a great way to earn some extra cash.

If you don't know where to start, check out online classified ads. There are always gardeners looking for help with their existing projects and clients.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $400 per month

44. Painting Service

Painting services are another common side hustle for college students. If you have time on weekends and during the summer, you can paint houses or join a painting company. It's not easy, but it can pay well in the right neighborhoods.

If you don't know where to start, check out online classified ads. There are always painters looking for laborers to help with their existing projects and clients.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $400 per month

45. Pool Cleaning Service

Pool cleaning is another one that can be easy money, as long as you know how to do it. Matt Giovanisci started cleaning pools, and then turned it into a great side hustle at SwimUniversity.com.

If you don't know where to start, check out online classified ads. There are always existing pool cleaners looking for help with their existing projects and clients.

Tools To Get Started:

• Craigslist

Income Potential: $500 per month

46. Be Someone's Friend

Did you know that you could actually be paid to be someone's friend for a period of time. We're talking strictly platonic stuff here (although we've heard that being a sugar baby can be extremely lucrative).

Maybe someone wants to go see a movie but they have a phobia of going alone. You could be that friend for them!

Check out RentAFriend and see if you can find a friend that will pay for your time.

Tools To Get Started:

• RentAFriend

Income Potential: $100

47. Shoveling Snow

In the winter, shoveling snow can be a lucrative side hustle depending on where you live. If you're able bodied, have a truck, shovel, and/or snow blower - you could earn a nice side income.

While you used to go door to door and see if your neighbors wanted to pay for your services, there's now an app that can help you find work and get paid.

Tools To Get Started:

• Shovler

Income Potential: Up to $50 per hour

48. Donate Plasma

This is one of the more interesting ways to make money. You go to your local blood bank or plasma donation center, and they will pay you a small fee for your blood plasma.

It doesn't sounds amazing, but if you need extra money, this could be a great way to earn it. You can expect to be paid anywhere from $20 to $50 per donation.

Tools To Get Started:

• Make Money Donating Plasma

Income Potential: $20 - $50

49. Participate in Medical Studies 

One of our favorite unique ways to make money, this can earn you several hundred dollars or more for being a guinea pig.

A recent study that a friend participated in was to get her knees numbed over night - a different numbing drug in each knee. She then had to tell the doctor which one wore off first the next morning. Odd, but it paid over $1,000 for one night.

Tools To Get Started:

• Center Watch

Income Potential: $1,000 or more per trial

Have you tried any of these side hustles? What's worked for you and what hasn't? What did you use the extra money for?

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