Side Hustles You Can Start Today 💡

The Covid-19 pandemic has stormed the economy and forced companies to have massive layoffs and furloughs. Department of Labor data shows record unemployment claims reached 42 million since the outbreak started in early March. After a bumpy couple of months, the economy is slowly recovering and markets are bouncing to make up for the losses wiped out during the outbreak. However, the unemployment rate will not recover that quickly, researchers at Stanford and the University of Chicago estimate that 42% of coronavirus-related layoffs will result being permanent.

With more people being stuck at home, and an urgent need to save money to build an emergency fund, many have turned to side hustles as a way to diversify their income stream. Are you curious about starting your own side hustle to earn a little extra on the side? Check out some of the ideas we gathered to help you start your side hustle today:

💻 Start a Blog

Starting a profitable blog may take longer than other side hustles on this list, however, it may be the one with the biggest upside. If you are able to start a blog and stay committed to posting content regularly you will eventually amass consistent traffic, eventually this can turn into a monthly passive income opportunity. On top of the commitment, starting a blog requires time to research, create and edit the content but a few hours per week should be a good starting point.

👩🏻‍🏫 Tutor Remotely

If you are a teacher or have a college degree you can tutor kids or even college students on the side. Everything is remote nowadays so you can have a bigger reach online and can practically tutor people anywhere in the world. You could teach English to foreign kids which is gaining a lot of popularity lately, or you could teach math, science, history, among other courses - parents are always looking for tutors for their kids so make sure you are advertising your services on the right channels. You could even do SAT or ACT preparations and have the potential to earn more.

🛒 Buy and Resell stuff

You can start small selling cheap items and garnering good reviews on eBay and/or Amazon. There is no telling how much you could make as it is directly related to how much work you put in, but it is extremely easy to start this as a side hustle. Look for items you no longer use around your house to sell as a starting point, and then you could look for cheap stuff on craigslist or garage sales. Eventually, once you grow your business and have a bigger budget you could higher ticket items.

🐕 Walk Dogs or Pet Sit

If you’re a dog lover then this is the perfect side gig for you. You can start listing your services on platforms like Wag or Rover to start getting your first customers. You can also list your services on social media or even print flyers to post around your neighborhood. Trust goes a long way and owners prefer to have a recurring walker they know to be trustworthy than having a new walker each time. For this reason, do your best to establish and foster a trustworthy relationship with the dog owners and eventually, you will have built a nice stream of recurring income. Rates vary by location with the highest density areas paying more, in the Bay Area you can earn up to $25 for a 30 min walk

🏃🏽 Join Taskrabbit and Complete Tasks in Your Free Time

On TaskRabbit you can search the area for listings of people needing help around the house, whether it is moving and packing, assembling furniture, or mounting a tv, you can find a whole bunch of tasks to get paid for. Joining is easy, you simply have to provide a few details and get vetted which is a quick process and then you are ready to start doing tasks and getting paid on your own time.

🚙 Rent Out Your Car

If you have a car that you don’t use often sitting at home while you’re at school or maybe you work from home, you can rent it out to people much like renting out your room on Airbnb. Platforms like Turo or Getaround make this easy by allowing you to list your car and set the price and availability, and the best thing is that they offer liability insurance and coverage in case of an accident.

🚘 Become a Rideshare Driver

Probably the most widely adopted side gig in the sharing economy, by joining Uber or Lyft as a rideshare driver, you are set to receive daily passenger requests. Even though Uber and Lyft keep a share of every trip, if you aim for volume and drive a few hours a day you will have the potential for a hefty monthly payout. By having the ability to turn on and off your availability you are basically your own boss and can work on your own times.

🍟 Deliver Food or Groceries

Similar to ridesharing, you can deliver food or groceries for others on platforms like Doordash or Instacart. This is perfect if you have a car but prefer not to have passengers, or even if you don’t have a car you can use a bicycle to deliver orders. You also have the ability to work on your own times, and even though the payout may be smaller than if ridesharing, you have the potential to earn larger tips.

👩🏽‍💻 Become a Freelancer

If you have on-demand skills such as web design, programming, or even managing social media accounts, you can put those skills to use on the side and become an online freelancer. You can join a freelancing platform like Fiverr or Upwork and list your services and interested users will reach out. If you are not very tech-savvy you can still do services like writing an article or transcription work - either way, the possibilities are endless as there is a demand for everything nowadays.

📚 Create and Sell an Online Course

If there is an area you are really good at, and feel you might be able to transfer some of that value to other people, try creating a course on platforms like Udemy or Teachable and sell it. If you are able to provide value to users, they will certainly buy your course, How much you earn depends entirely on the demand you create for your course. It takes a decent amount of time to research and create your course, and on top of that you have to market it and create hype around it, however, the upside is huge and with time you can create a catalog of courses and start earning passive income.