Corporations taking over side hustles seems to be screwing over people, since they take such a large cut and flood the market for that hustle.
But the ones I’ve personally seen people do that work pretty well (in USA) are:
Stay at home mom watching another kid (legally dubious depending on state/situation. But I ain’t no narc.)
A neighbor of my mom’s sends out a menu saying what she plans on cooking each night for that week, and for $X will deliver you some as well (Legal in Utah due to special laws, other states could be dubious. )
People who go pick up free furniture that is pretty trashed, and then refurbishes it and sells it. Or people with trucks who are like “Will deliver furniture for $30 in X area” is also pretty life saver for people without cars/trucks. Was able to get a super cheap/nice coach because of this.
People who just flip free stuff or stuff from thrift stores without doing any improvements annoy me greatly though. We broke and you’re just driving up the price!
None of these generate a ton of cash, but I like that they take very little up front cost, aren’t disruptive, and mostly take labor.
So what side hustles have you seen work out?
I wish I had some good ones but I’ll be watching this thread.
What I can say is that anyone on youtube that’s got a channel dedicated to a particular hustle is no longer making their money doing that hustle. They are an influencer now.
Oh yeah all the influencer side hustles are straight trash.
My friend if you actually made $1000 a day working 2 hour, you wouldn’t be uploading here my dude!
Dog hotel. I’ve a dog. I take in other dogs when their owners are on holiday. Walking 2 dogs isn’t much more work than walking 1.
Taking on one extra dog for a few days seems like the easiest, most chill way to make a little money on the side if you are careful about which dogs you take. Those people who sit 4+ dogs at a time are insane but must pull in a good bit of money.
That makes sense! If they are similar to my dog, I probably wouldn’t notice that much, and if they provided the food and stuff, I wouldn’t need to charge much.
Side hustles should be hobbies and done with no need to monetize them.
What the fuck, your job should be enough to support you and live, which includes free time to enjoy your life and hobbies.
But I understand, and more than once in my life I had to look for side hustles.
Yea, everyone keeps telling me I should be selling my 3D prints. I don’t want to have to deal with logistics and customers. I just want to 3D print cool shit.
Also, knowledge and sharing has been critical for advancement of human civilization. Imagine if scientists where to sell their research instead of publishing it(*) where would be today?
- = I mean, you might have to pay to read those publications, but they are literally free and can ask the authors for a copy free in most cases…
Some people enjoy making it a little low-pressure business.
Nothing wrong with that!
Just saying that not necessarily everything should be about money.
My wife does the furniture flipping thing. I don’t think we make any money on it — but we have much nicer furniture than we could afford otherwise and between reselling the items we get rid of the low prices we pay for the incoming, we’re certainly not spending money on it, either, and that’s counting the cost of renting trucks to move it around.
Well getting nice furniture from a hobby sounds pretty chill regardless!
Every now and then my eyes pop at the cost of new furniture.
how is nobody afraid of bedbugs?
We don’t fick with upholstered furniture for exactly that reason. Tables, dressers, cabinets.
I’m not saying all stories about inviting demons/vampires into your house are inspired by bed bugs. I have 0 evidence to support that.
BUT, if tomorrow it is said that evidence that supports that theory is found, I’ll just nod and be like “Yeah that tracks”
Once you’ve invited bed bugs in, they own that house now. You don’t wanna live with them anymore? Don’t like them sucking your blood? You move.
Also all your stuff belongs to them now. You invited them in, it’s your fault.
With any upholstered furniture we’ve bought (Since we’ve bought some for personal use), we keep it in the garage and treat it for like a week before it comes inside. We don’t do it often and have yet to have a problem, but anytime we buy something soft we are very concerned we are inviting demons into the house.
Maybe if you live in an area with mostly SFHs so bugs can’t spread as aggressively? I’d never take furniture off the street. I’d rather sleep on bare floor than deal with bed bugs.
Not that long ago I thought that “don’t let the bedbugs bite” was just a weird thing to say to your kid instead of “good night”. Turns out they’re a legit thing in some parts of the world!
speaking of the world…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triatominae “kissing bugs”paris,france has seemed to have been affected by bedbugs recently: BBC: Bedbug panic sweeps Paris as infestations soar before 2024 Olympics
Buddy of mine picked up old washers and dryers for free or close enough. Fixed and flipped 'em on eBay marketplace. Made several hundred a week.
The genius is that those appliances are easy to work on and usually have compatible parts. I went over to get a part from him and there were only 2 that fit all American washers.
I used to pick up vacuum cleaners on my paper route. Got stoned at night and cleaned them, maybe added a new belt and bag, perfect. Sold for $20 a pop. (This was in the 90s).
Another friend used to go out with her husband early on trash days and pick up free stuff by the road. Had a garage sale every Saturday, 6-7 hours tops, made $300-$400. “We take our neighbor’s trash and sell it back to them!”
Scalpers = bad
Fixing expensive things and selling them cheaper than new = based
They get money, buyer gets a cheaper appliance, OG person got what they thought was junk hauled away. 10/10 business.
Saving perfectly good things from the dump = based
Seriously, just post on marketplace “Free thing sitting out on corner of XYZ, no holds, I’ll let you know if it’s there or not” So much really good stuff ends up at the dump out of laziness.
I just do love side hustles that actually make a positive impact on their community, and I think all those do for sure do.
organising violence against the state.
I’ve already said too much.
If you’re willing to do that for the US state, there’s certainly money to be made.
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Bahaha that is pretty awesome.
I’ve “debated” doing that, since I’m debt free aside from mortgage and have a good credit score, so I could probably open enough cards to get the cycle moving. But the research to find the best hidden gems of reward programs is probably hard.
Other thing I’ve seen people with great credit scores do is basically put EVERYTHING on 0% intro credit cards, pay minimums, save all the money in a HYSA or a mutual fund, then pay off the balance right before the 0% ends, and then open a new 0% card and repeat. Which seems finicky, but basically gives yourself a 4-8% raise if you set it up to just take care of itself automatically.
My side hustle is real estate photography. Very flexible timing and I already had all the equipment. If I didn’t already own the equipment I wouldn’t have done it.
Good excuse to buy a drone.
You have to have a license to do that in the US. It’s not super hard to get but not as easy as just buying a drone.
I know here in Canada if a drone is 250g or under, you don’t need a license. I’m pretty sure that maby of the camera-drone manufactuers make variants that are just under 250g to make them more accessible.
The license is for commercial purposes:
What you can do with your pictures and video is limited without it. You can’t even donate such pictures to a school or non-profit or something. Basically if someone could make money doing it, you can’t without a license.
The weight of the drone has nothing to do with selling the media.
The DJI Mini Series comes to mind. They are great little drones.
Scrap metal. I always leave my scrap metal out on trash day next to the trash can. A guy in a pickup will come around and get it. I would have to save it up for years for it to be worth a single trip, but he’s getting a full load or two every day. I’m sure I’ve lost out on a few hundred bucks over the years.
I’m sure if you started an electronics recycling company or a clean out business you could get people to pay you to take their stuff.
There’s a dude in our town that has a lot where everyone dumps their scrap metal and he takes it to recycle. It’s pretty rad since our local trash service won’t take it (even though they dump everything together, including recyclables, at the transfer station to be hauled off to the dump out of town).
Based man.
“Hey, as a favor to YOU, bring stuff to me that I’m going to sell for a profit.”
But really, my love for people who make money through scrapping/recycling are legends. On a global scale one person doesn’t make a difference, but on a local scale it clearly does.
Hell yeah. I save all of our scrap copper over 6awg, and use it at the end of the year towards my employees’ bonuses.
That’s actually super cool business and one I’ve wondered if it would work, but never seen done!
I do also know there are folks around me that sell glassware made from cutting wine bottles/jars/containers, and I think that’s super cool. Also some folks who turn trash forks/spoons into rings. So I imagine they probably just let their communities know “Hey if you have a lot let me know and I’ll come get them, or put them out in a box for me on x day and I’ll catch em”
People who make money off of recycling is just super cool to me.
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Editing ChatGPT generated content sounds soul crushing tbh.
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I’m doing online college atm, and there is a forum post assignment each week.
I dread having to respond to my other “class mates” because half of them are clearly using AI. Like having to read a single sentence of AI slop makes me lose the will to live. Spending my mental energy to read something no one was willing to put in the energy to write is not what I wanna spend my days doing.
The school, like all universities, are working on new policies. But it’s just so painful to prove someone is using AI beyond a reasonable doubt. Sometimes folks accidentally include something where the answer basically includes something like “as an AI” , and those generally get removed quickly and I don’t see that student post ever again. Or someone posted code where in it there was a comment that said “Then you can repeat this process to write the rest of the program”
So yeah, if you made a game out of catching AI slop, more power to you. You are a stronger, or more deranged, internet user than me.
Knife sharpening. Not hard to learn how to do it decently, and hard to find someone who can do it decently. The equipment is not too expensive either. 40$ for a good coarse stone (you will need one!!!) And 40$ for a decent combo stone of medium and fine. You probably want a good flattening stone too.
DONT use amazon, all of the stones there are scams. A good coarse stone is a Naniwa lobster 220. A good combo stone is the KING KDS 1000/6000.
Huh, I never considered that one. But I guess if a neighbor advertised “10$ to bring over your knives and I’ll make them like new” I probably would at least try it since I have some pretty nice knives that I’ve been struggling with that are really old.
I am sad to report I have tried to sharpen my own knives… using a thing I bought off amazon. It dud not work out.
I haven’t known anyone to do this but I always thought managing social media accounts for small businesses would be a good side hustle. A steakhouse restaurant nearby went out of business in a year. They spent a ton of money on remodeling and a billboard with a logo but weren’t even listed on Google Maps. I’ll wager some businesses would be willing to barter in order to keep things simple
This is not a good side hustle. This is pain. Pure, unadulterated, pain.
I don’t think managing a social media account for a business qualifies as a side hustle. You’ll have to post and promote daily and deal with comments. Sure chatGPT and Canva can help you with copywriting stuff and graphics to make creative stuff easier. More like a part-time job to me.
My Etsy shop hit a very niche market and was pulling around $3k a year. I didn’t put any effort into advertising, it kinda did that on its own
I’m also a performer which is a great side hustle for my creative fulfillment, but pays nearly nothing
You don’t have to confirm/deny - but I’m going to pretend this niche is selling tiefling horns/ears.
Flaming nipple tassels
You read that right 😂
Curious! Is your main market other fire dancers, joke gifts, or weird sex thing?
Or do you just not ask questions and happily take your little bit of cash?
Cause 3k a year ain’t nothing to sneeze at. $200ish a month if you are only clearing your bills by $50 can make a WORLD of difference.
Other fire performers. They’re not exactly cheap. A large % of my orders go to Las Vegas lol
By “performer” do you mean musician? Playing bars or coffee shops here and there? I’ve done that for a free drink or two here and there. I think that would be one of my retirement activities if I had loads of free time, but it takes a lot of energy to set it all up and be “on” regularly while also working full time.
I’m a fire and sideshow performer weirdly enough, we’re a dying breed. I mostly do shows at bars and host my own, but every now and then I get a nicer gig that pays a bit more, like at a faire.
Oh man I loved when Evermore (RIP) had fire dancers. But it was funny because for their major events they would hire super skilled pros, then their daily shows they would have a staff member that they had taught or was a hobbyist before being hired. They were fun and skilled, but the difference was very obvious in variety of tricks and number of failed tricks.
Which makes sense considering their financial troubles, but imagine being that fire dancer on staff being like “Super hyped for tonight’s show!” and them just being like “Ahh, did no one tell you? We hired someone for five times your nightly wage to do tonight’s show cause they’re a lot better”
Higher education tripled my income, so that seemed to work, and I dont have to do anything but sit in an office 40 hours a week.
DegreeForum.net is a forum of education hobbyists that do accelerated online degrees (Bachelor and Masters level) for fun.
The only one I’ve heard of working really well was 3D printing copyrighted material that is usually way overpriced. Board game pieces, figurines, etc.
A little bit of legally dubious action to pay the bills and siphon money from billion dollar companies never hurt nobody!
$50 dollars for THREE, UNASSEMBLED, and UNPAINTED minis? Yeah man, I ain’t gonna question why the texture of your warhammer minis are different. Game on.
Honestly, 3d printing and selling designs online is a good side hustle I’ve seen, but they can’t be straight up copies of someone else’s work.
