If you’re reading this, you probably feel like you can make better use of your time. Yes, it’s okay to take a moment a day to clear your mind and engage in some leisure activity. But wasting hours watching funny videos of little kittens online won’t help you reach your financial goals. So, the question is: how to make money on the side?
Whether out of necessity or a desire for financial freedom, more and more people are exploring ways to earn extra money in their spare time. For example, statistics show that one in three people in the United States has an additional side hustle.
If you’re looking for ways to make money on the side, you’ve probably come across typical recommendations of driving your car for Uber, creating a YouTube channel, or writing articles for a blog. Those are all real ways to earn money, but they can currently be overcrowded, increasing the difficulty for someone just looking to get started.
Don’t worry. We’ve walked the extra mile to find some newer ways you can earn extra money in your spare time. These opportunities are fresh, exciting, and most importantly, they can be the boost you need to improve your financial life.
Get ready to discover how you can transform your spare time into a reliable source of extra income.
Take online surveys
Did you know that you can earn extra money by giving your opinion to the companies that make the products you use? If you are one of the people who always seeks to express what they think, you can participate in online surveys and market studies.
You have probably completed a questionnaire that asks if you are satisfied with the service received. Well, imagine earning extra money for that.
Furthermore, it is not just a way to make money on the side, taking surveys allows you to contribute to improving products. Your feedback can influence important business decisions to shape the products and services you use regularly.
An advantage of participating in online surveys is the flexibility of working. You can complete the surveys in your spare time and even earn money from home. Likewise, you don’t need to make a long-term commitment; you can participate in as many or as few surveys as you want.
How to get started
There are several platforms that connect consumers with companies seeking their opinion. You can explore sites like Swagbucks and Surveytime to find a variety of paid surveys and market research. These pages usually offer a wide range of topics, from consumer products to political opinions, allowing you to choose surveys on the topics that interest you most.
Become a virtual assistant
If you’ve been wondering how to make money on the side, becoming a virtual assistant may be the best option for you. Research conducted with several online job sites shows that being a virtual assistant is one of the highest paying online jobs.
But what exactly does it mean to be a virtual assistant? It involves providing an administrative service to a contractor from a remote location. As a virtual assistant, you will have tasks such as scheduling appointments, making calls, and managing email accounts.
However, with the popularity of remote work, new opportunities are opening for virtual assistants in other fields. Do you consider yourself a graphic design genius? Are you passionate about social networks? Are you very good at writing articles? Being a virtual assistant is a perfect opportunity to use your knowledge during your spare time and earn extra money from home.
How to get started
To start your journey as a virtual assistant, you can explore platforms like Upwork, and Fiverr. These are sites where anyone can offer their professional services and find potential clients. To get started, it’s just a matter of creating a profile, detailing your experience and skills, and setting your rates. Your future clients will find you based on their needs and budgets.
Making money on the side as a virtual assistant can be a good option for you, especially if you work as a freelancer. If you are already used to a freelance mode of work, you should only focus on looking for new contracts. Surely you could handle one or two more clients, right?
Offer online tutoring or courses
Speaking of knowledge and experience, have you thought about teaching others what you know?
Due to the 2019 pandemic, online education has become another effective process to be done online. For this reason, sharing your knowledge in tutoring is now a popular option to make money on the side.
The advantages of online tutoring are obvious. By working as a tutor, you can earn money from home or anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Likewise, your students can also access classes from home and at flexible times.
In addition to tutoring, you can generate extra income by converting your knowledge into digital courses. This way, you will be able to teach more technical topics related to your area and promote them to professionals seeking to specialize their learning.
How to get started
There are platforms like Tutor.com where you can apply to be a tutor for students of all ages and academic levels. From math and science to foreign languages and music, tutoring is in demand in a wide range of subjects.
If you want to condense your knowledge to sell it in the form of a course, you can explore portals like Teachable or Udemy. These are specifically designed to help you share what you know and earn extra money for it. You can write a digital book or record a series of videos that allow your students to retain your teachings step by step.
Manage social media profiles or turn into an influencer
You probably spend a large portion of your day scrolling through your social media. Why not earn extra money doing it?
Currently, social media is so powerful that they influence 87% of purchasing decisions in online transactions. Companies and people want to maximize their presence on social media, and you can turn that need into a great way to earn money.
Social media management involves maintaining profiles on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, to increase your visibility and interaction with your target audience. This includes creating content, scheduling posts, managing paid ads, and tracking performance metrics.
On the other hand, if you are looking how to make money on the side doing the same thing you do every day, you can create an influencer profile. Influencers are people who have an established presence on social media and can “influence” the purchasing decisions of their followers due to their authority, knowledge, or position in a specific niche.
Generally, influencers make money through sponsorships. Let’s say you are a fitness and nutrition expert. By building an influencer profile in that niche, you will receive payments from supplement and sports equipment brands in exchange for promoting their products in your posts.
Great, right? This is a great way to earn money since it does not require so much additional work. You just have to share the activities of your daily life with your followers in an attractive and interactive way.
How to get started
The best way to promote the work that you can do on social media is, well, through social media. You can create an Instagram profile in which you share content related to social media management. If you do a good job, the credibility of your skills will increase, allowing you to contact brands and companies to offer your services.
Likewise, to become an influencer that is what you must do; create an influencer profile on social media. Make sure you are aware of trends related to your niche and always remember to add value to the content you share. It is important to build genuine relationships with your followers and maintain trust and credibility.
Growing your following can be a challenge, but there are effective strategies to attract an engaged audience. You can take courses on sites like Hubspot or Meta Blueprint to hone your social media skills. There you can learn everything you need about types of publications, pages, paid ads, etc.
Sell digital products
It is not news that digital products are increasingly popular. Nowadays, from cookbooks to decorative designs, everything moves through the internet and social media. Using your creativity to create digital products is a good idea if you are searching for how to make money on the side.
Selling digital products is a great way to earn money that has a great advantage: having extra income passively. This is because once your product is finished, it can continue to generate sales day after day. There’s no need for you to constantly monitor it beyond an update from time to time.
How to get started
Visit sites like Etsy or Gumroad and take the time to explore which digital products are best sellers. When you decide on a category, you can use tools like Canva to design your products.
You can make money on the side selling all kinds of digital products. Some examples of products that you can create in your free time are:
- Digital calendar templates
- Budget templates
- Artistic designs for decoration
- Designs for clothing items
- E-books
According to Etsy statistics, their site has more than 95 million active buyers. This is possible as digital products eliminate geographical barriers and the need for physical inventory. In 2022, Etsy grossed more than $13 billion in sales; imagine having earned a small portion of that income.
Extra tip: Invest your money
Now that you know how to make money on the side, it is necessary to talk about a more serious topic. It won’t do much good to earn extra money if you waste it on meaningless expenses.
In his best-selling book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” Robert Kiyosaki shares a valuable financial thought: It’s not about how much money you make, but how much of that money you keep and how you put it to work for you.
This phrase means that it is not just about increasing your income. If you want to improve your financial situation, you must use your money wisely.
In addition to helping you protect your hard-earned cash; investing is a perfect way to earn extra money. By investing in dividend stocks, for example, your investments will generate consistent payments every 3, 6, or 12 months.
How to get started
When you think about investing, you probably imagine complicated numbers and graphs. In reality, investing your money is much easier than it seems. If you are totally new to the world of investing, you can read our article to learn how to start investing from scratch. There you will learn everything you need to have a head start.
When you feel confident enough, make sure to take a look at the FlexInvest platform. With it you can invest in hundreds of shares of the most important companies in the world. Best of all, with its fractional shares feature you can start investing with as little as €5.
