Why and How You Can Start Your Very Own Side Hustle

If you're looking for ways you can earn a few extra bucks with a side hustle, you'd likely encounter hundreds of strategies for make some money. However, depending on your unique needs and your skills, earning a respectable amount of cash, and doing it quickly, might be well within your reach.

Why Are Side Hustles So Beneficial?

Financial Reasons

No matter where you're from or what you do for a living, thanks to the conveniences afforded to us by the internet, making money is no longer a constant and never-ending struggle. With the proverbial world at our fingertips, as long as you know how to tap into the vast amount of opportunities found in the digital ether of cyberspace, you can earn some extra income, even if you're in a tight bind.
Depending on what your side hustle is, there’s potential for earnings, and that extra money is a great way to start shoring up your savings or invest the money into your current business.

Development Reasons

A side hustle is all about your personal growth, development, and entrepreneurial creativity. Think about what you would supplement your current work with if you had the chance.
You’d learn how to communicate with customers, market your brand, determine your pricing, and much more. These are incredibly useful skills for the business world, skills that are transferable to other jobs besides your side hustle.
The more experience you gain with these skills, or whatever skills you develop from your personal side hustle, the more clarity you could gain on whether or not your current career is truly what you want to do.

Risk Reasons

Whatever your side hustle may be, it’s all about finding your passion and following it through — Without the major commitment of leaving your current work or investing all of your time into something you’re not certain of.
Furthermore, side hustles are flexible, and if you’re not enjoying your side hustle, you can start a new one, all without having committed all your time, energy and finances to it.

Side Hustle Ideas

Some of the strategies listed below offer a quick fix for making some money, others will take a sizable investment of your time. Either way, select a method that fits within your skill set and ensure that you deliver a serious amount of value. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about.

Side Hustles If you have a skill, free time or even just a car:

• Sell items on Ebay or Craigslist
  
• Recycle used smartphones on Gazelle
  
• Drive for Uber or Lyft
  
• Deliver for PostMates
  
• Rent your spare room on Airbnb
  
• Do micro-jobs on Mechanical Turk
  
• Get a part-time job
  
• Become a personal chef
  
• Do mystery shopping
  
• Walk dogs
  
• Babysit or become a nanny
  
• Clean houses
  
• Participate in marketing focus groups
  
• Have a garage sale
  
• Become a personal shopper
  
• Wash and detail cars
  
• Groom pets
  
• Start a food truck
  
• Personal training
  
• Give music lessons
  
• Be an extra in movies
  
• Become a house sitter
  
• Teach driving lessons to students
  
• Become a local tour guide
  
• Do interior decorating

Side Hustles That Only Require A Laptop

• Publish on Medium
  
• Start a niche Instagram account
  
• Teach English remotely
  
• Create Youtube tutorials
  
• Start a blog
  
• Complete online surveys
  
• Manage social media for small businesses
  
• Tutor over Skype
  
• Translate
  
• Make Youtube tutorials
  
• Rent things out on Fat Llama
  
• Carry out website user testing
  
• Write an ebook
  
• Try affiliate marketing
  
• Start a newsletter
  
• Write freelance content
  
• Proofread
  
• Create an online course
  
• Offer expert answers
  
• Game on Twitch
  
• Sell t-shirts online
  
• Invest in stocks and shares
  
• Transcribe videos
  

Most Lucrative Side Hustles

According to data gathered by financial publications, it appears not all side hustles are created equally. The data shows the following are the most lucrative side hustles, as compared to the average of 11 hours per week, annual income of $12,609 with a $25 per hour pay:

Real Estate

• Average annual income : $29,012
  
• Hours per week: 6
  
• Dollars per hour: $90

Management Consulting

• Average annual income : $17,917
  
• Hours per week: 4
  
• Dollars per hour: $86

Investment management

• Average annual income : $34,545
  
• Hours per week: 9
  
• Dollars per hour: $75

Investment banking

• Average annual income : $28,722
  
• Hours per week: 8
  
• Dollars per hour: $70

Hospitality

• Average annual income : $16,475
  
• Hours per week: 7
  
• Dollars per hour: $43

Accounting

• Average annual income : $13,680
  
• Hours per week: 9
  
• Dollars per hour: $31

Professional coaching

• Average annual income : $12,102
  
• Hours per week: 8
  
• Dollars per hour: $30

E-learning

• Average annual income : $17,571
  
• Hours per week: 12
  
• Dollars per hour: $28

Restaurants

• Average annual income : $18,757
  
• Hours per week: 13
  
• Dollars per hour: $27

Automotive

• Average annual income : $16,286
  
• Hours per week: 12
  
• Dollars per hour: $26

The least lucrative side hustles included: farming, arts & crafts, health & fitness. Cosmetics, music, design, writing & editing, photography, entertainment, events services.

However, just as with any business, even these side hustles have the potential to become a passion and develop into a successful business, adding extra savings and funds into a person’s life.

Side Hustle Success Stories

Photography

A common side hustle, photographer may require sacrificing weekends and free time to photograph other people’s events, but require minimal up front investment, centred on mostly getting the best equipment. This makes it a popular side hustle that can becoming highly profitable with the right level of dedication.

Bola Sokunbi made $70,000 through starting a photography side hustle, all while working a full-time job. Running Onada Photography for seven years, Bola started off as a self-taught photographer taking wedding photos and evolved with better equipment and better skills, until she, at one point, earned 70,000 a year from a side hustle she did in between her full-time job. As her business grew, she expanded her services and offered lifestyle photo sessions as well as portraits.  She eventually sold all her equipment for a profit, ultimately saving 100,000 and investing profits into her retirement savings.

Other success stories include:

A full time worker combined his love of science fiction and photography to start a photography session specialising in cosplay photography and unique portrait and wedding photography sessions, earning $1,600 a month.

A California government employee becomes a part-time wedding photographer after posting an ad on Craigslist in order to gain experience before shooting .

Food

M.B Boucai began selling gluten-free baked goods at a farmers market in Los Angeles, in between their roles as writer, director and performance artist. The pop-up bakery, Super Bloom, earns $20 an hour, earning a total of $3,200 a month, making it a highly profitable side hustle. While working on becoming successful in their field, using their culinary talents in their free time has let them support their lifestyle and the growth of their career.

Other success stories include:

A woman who transformed her passion for her new ketogenic diet into a $2000 a month side hustle by producing a ketogenic cookbook.

A long-time fitness geek who innovated his way into six figure annual sales with chocolate and vanilla flavoured protein powder made from crickets.

Art

Art is often a less lucrative career to take on full time, and therefore many artistic souls choose instead to take it up as a side hustle, following their passion without the risk, while still able to have the stability of a full time income.

On April Fool’s Day in 2014, Brian Thompson started a website turning tweets into physical artwork. Working as a copywriter and creative director full time, Brian has managed to turn Permanent140.com into a lucrative hobby, even expanding to offer custom laser engravings at LasersMakeItAwesome.com, with his creations bringing in around $1,500 a month.

Other success stories include:

A graphic designer started a side business drawing caricatures for $250 an hour and now earns more than $100,000 working part-time.

GE engineer used his skills to make and sell hand-crafted slate artwork to all 50 states. In addition to bringing in a great side income, it’s also given him more courage and security to make decisions at his day job.

Beauty

Starting off with a simple investment of $250 of their own cash in 2015, David Gaylford and two of his friends launched Bushbalm, a skincare company that creates essential oil blends to soothe skin, prevent ingrown hairs, and reduce redness on sensitive areas of the body. Now the business brings in around $2,500 a month.

Other success stories include:

After seeking a method to conquer her own skin issues, one woman took to YouTube to help others shed their skin insecurities as well. Five years later, she has her own multi-million dollar skincare line serving people all over the world.

 A stay-at-home mother started a podcast about essential oils and pulled her family off government assistance.

Animals

Nicole Buergers left her corporate marketing job in 2015 to found Bee2Bee Honey Collective, a commercial and backyard beekeeping service in Houston, Texas. Buergers now installs and maintains beehives around the city and harvests the honey to sell. Her niche services bring in an average of $4,000 a month.

Other success stories include:

An Oregon native who began a business prepping, cleaning, repairing and restoring animal skills and now earns an average of $1,600 a month, with her busiest season being fall and winter thanks to hunting season.

After the loss of a beloved family pet, an engineer creates a specialized product business in a very unconventional industry, chicken harnesses, with almost $0 in manufacturing costs and is now bringing in an average of $1,500 a month from her business.

Fashion

A couple decides to go into manufacturing novelty baseball sweaters after receiving a lot of attention about them at a baseball game.

A former corporate employee in Ireland runs a merchandising hustle on Amazon.com that brings in as much as $17,000 in profit in a single month. She does this with no inventory, no risk, and no paid traffic.

An attorney started a jewelry company with purpose, employing disadvantaged women in Detroit to help them transition from a life of dependence into one of self-reliance.

In the age before easy online shopping, a bartender discovers a way to supplement the tips she lost during a recession by reselling clothing to her friends.

Blogging

After searching for answers to questions about his first cruise, a copywriter decides to take matters into his own hands by creating an informative blog.

A British man wrote a series of reviews about fish tanks and ended up building a completely passive income business as an Amazon affiliate. He now earns $700/month without doing anything for it at all.

A musician found financial freedom by growing a blog and starting an e-course teaching other people how to play jazz.

After discovering that his passion for goaltending has little to no online presence, a hockey fan decides to create his own resource blog.