Millionaire Shows You How to Make Money Working from Home
Over the course of 13 years, I went from being a broke musician to becoming a self-made millionaire. One of the key ways I was able to grow my wealth was through side hustles.
My side hustles, which ranged from affiliate marketing to selling goods online to product testing, not only helped me pay off nearly $495,000 in debt, but they earned me enough money to kickstart my multimillion-dollar financial education company.
I’ve helped hundreds of clients jump on highly lucrative opportunities. Here are my favorite in-demand side hustles — some can earn you up to $3,000 a month — and where to find them:
1. Online and In-Person Research Studies: Up to $140 an Hour
There are a couple online research companies everyone should sign up for.
Respondent is one of the best paying online survey companies I’ve found. Usually the surveys are one-on-one interviews either in-person or over the phone / video chat, and they pay an average of $140 an hour.
2. Online Surveys: $1 a Day
No list of money-making ideas would be complete without an old favorite: online surveys. Power users of these apps earn $30 a month or more.
Here are some of Side Hustle Nation’s favorite options:
Don’t expect to earn an amazing hourly rate with these options, but you can earn gift cards, cash, and other rewards by answering surveys, watching videos, playing games, and shopping online.
3. Delivery or Rideshare Gigs: $15-25/hr
You’ve heard of “driving for dollars” with services like Uber and Lyft, and it doesn’t get much simpler than this. One Lyft driver of mine on a recent trip put it this way: “When I want to make money, I turn on the app.”
In fact, these “gig economy” apps have helped create a multi-hundred billion dollar a year industry. Here are some options to get your piece of the pie.
Options include:
*For illustrative purposes only, actual earnings may differ and depend on expenses. Hourly pay is calculated using average Dasher payouts while on a delivery (from the time you accept an order until the time you drop it off) and includes compensation from peak pay, tips, and other incentives.
If you choose any of these driving-related side hustles, it might make sense to tack on an app like Hurdlr to automatically track your mileage, expenses, income streams, and tax deductions in real-time. On average, Hurdlr helps users find $5600 in deductions!
4. Flexible Part-Time Work: Up to $25/hr
Steady is a cool app and website that consolidates all sorts of “gig economy” opportunities. For example, you can find work from home gigs, flexible “anytime” options, and even regular full- and part-time jobs.
steady app screenshots:
Browsing through the listings, I found the usual array of delivery and rideshare gigs, but was pleasantly surprised by some of the other offerings. There were a number of local opportunities I’d never heard of in: brand ambassadorship. political advocacy. mystery shopping. transcription. and more
Steady acts as a portal to all these gigs and gives you a convenient central location to browse. After you create your account, you’ll be able to see everything available online and in your local area.
5. Rent Out Your Extra Space
You’ve heard of people renting their spare rooms on Airbnb, but what if you don’t want strangers in your house?
The Neighbor self-storage platform connects people with storage needs with those who have extra space. If you’ve got some excess storage capacity in your garage, driveway, or elsewhere, list your space here to fill it and get paid.
Top hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations.
6. Virtual Bookkeeping: Up to $70/hr
Remote bookkeepers can earn $20-70 an hour and up for their work. This is a great option for people with accounting experience from school or your day job.
7. Make Extra Money Playing Online Games: Solitaire Cube
As someone who played more than his fair share of Windows Solitaire growing up, Solitaire Cube got my attention.
The well-rated iOS and Android game pits you against similarly-skilled players, where everyone receives the same virtual deck of cards. The players who finish with the most points win. Of course, I recommend practicing for free first!
Solitaire Cube is free to download and play, but “real prize” tournaments aren’t yet available in AR, CT, DE, IL, IN, LA, ME, or SD.
8. Make Extra Money Playing Online Games: Blackout Bingo
The popular Blackout Bingo game app turns classic bingo from a game of luck into a game of “speed and skill.”
With over 5 million downloads, the app has mostly positive reviews (players call it fun and addicting). The most common complaint in App Store reviews is that the company’s ads — which apparently claim you can win big money with little effort — are misleading.
Each game only takes about 2 minutes to play, and you can earn real-world rewards and cash prizes. (Except in AR, CT, DE, IL, IN, LA, ME, or SD.)
As with all gaming apps, my recommendation is to practice for free first. Then, never put more money at risk than you can afford to lose.
9. Get Paid to Lose Weight: $500+
Before you start your next diet, you might want to check out HealthyWage. This cool service that lets you put a friendly wager on your weight loss.
If you meet your goal, you can cash in — to the tune of $500 or more!
10. Self-Publish on Amazon
Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle platform, you can publish your work and tap into a massive audience of book buyers.
Self-publishing is one of my favorite and longest-running side hustles. I remember my first royalty payment from Amazon of something like $42 and being thrilled, thinking “I did it! I’m a professional author!”
Since then I’ve earned over $70,000 in author royalties, and I think books are a pretty awesome way to both build authority in your niche and earn passive income along the way.
11. Become a Mystery Shopper
Field Agent presents a list of tasks you can do based on your location. If you happen to be running errands nearby, just accept the task and start earning money.
Most of these gigs involve evaluating product displays or checking on inventory. They typically pay $3-10 apiece, depending on complexity and the time involved.
12. Craigslist Gigs
There’s a section in the lower right side of Craigslist where companies and individuals post jobs and gigs.
13. Pet Sitting
Rover.com is “Airbnb for dogs,” and I’ve heard from several dog sitting hosts earning thousands of dollars a year through this site.
(Meowtel is leading platform for cat-sitting.)
14. Babysitting
Babysitting and child care was my original income stream as a teenager, and is still a viable way to make extra money.
Sites like Care.com and Sittercity can help match you up with families.
15. Loan Signing Agent: $100 per Appointment
Notary publics can make up to $100 an hour for completing loan signings for new home buyers on their own schedule.
16. Knife Sharpening
Matt Rowell taught himself how to sharpen knives on YouTube, and turned it into a $250-1500 a month side business.
Matt said, “If you drive down the road, every house that you pass has a bunch of knives in it.” There is no shortage of potential customers!
He started out asking friends and family members if they needed any knives sharpened or knew of anybody who did.
He then put up a Facebook page, which started bringing in a few new customers too.
Matt said his business started steadily growing without spending any money on marketing or advertising this way.
17. Online Tutoring: Up to $60/hr
Tutoring and test prep is more than a billion dollar a year industry. You can start your own tutoring business to earn extra cash and help students at the same time. Bonus points if you were a decent student or have some subject matter expertise!
Wyzant is a popular online and in-person tutoring platform that connects you with students in a wide variety of subjects and grade levels.
As a tutor, you set your own schedule and rates. For example, when I searched Wyzant for math tutors nearby, I found several tutors charging $40-60 an hour.
18. Create an Outschool Class
Outschool is a marketplace for online small group classes for kids. Jade Weatherington reported earning over $10,000 a month from her virtual writing classes.
19. Sell Lesson Plans and Material
Teachers Pay Teachers is a popular marketplace for lesson plans and other educational materials. One blogger I know began putting some of her content on this site and now earns $5000 a month part-time.
20. Sell Used Books
Use the free BookScouter app to find out what books are worth—either the ones you have collecting dust on your shelves or the ones you come across at garage sales or library book stores.
One Side Hustle Show guest reported earning up to $4000 a month flipping used books!
21. Sell Printables on Etsy
Etsy is the largest peer-to-peer marketplace for handcrafted items. You’ll find thoughtful pieces for your home, office, kids, closet, and more.
Plus, you can now use Etsy to sell printables. This is a great option if you have an eye for design and love researching new niches. For example, Rachel Jones reported earning up to $10,000 a month without any inventory.
22. Amazon Arbitrage
Amazon FBA is “fulfillment by Amazon.” This is Amazon’s unique way of crowdsourcing inventory from individual sellers like you and me. As a seller, you can take advantage of Amazon’s world class logistics network—and tap into their huge audience of buyers.
The easiest way to get started is to source good deals locally and then selling them via Amazon. I sat down with a $1 million Amazon reseller to learn more about how it works.
(You can even do this all online — sourcing products from other e-commerce retailers!)
23. Software Consulting
Is there a software that you’re a relative expert in?
One of my favorite angles is to piggyback on the popularity of a particular software tool, like Brad Rice did with Salesforce (earning over $200k a year part time!). As adoption of the software grows, so too does the demand for qualified support.
With platforms like Clarity.fm, you can get started very quickly and earn $60/hour and up.
24. Parking Lot Cleanup
Brian Winch started his parking lot clean-up business as a side hustle in 1981, and has since built it into a multi-six-figure business. He says you can still earn $30-50 an hour part-time targeting local property management companies.
So what does Brian do?
His company picks up litter from parking lots. Sadly, it’s still an essential service (boo litterbugs!), but has very low startup costs and Brian says you can earn $30-$50 an hour doing this on the side.
25. House Cleaning
Anthony and Jhanilka Hartzog grew their Dallas-area residential cleaning service to $25k a month in revenue. And the best part? They hire other cleaners to do the work!
More and more homeowners outsource this chore, and the industry remains highly fragmented. Those factors spell an opportunity for you to win clients.
26. Pet Waste Removal
It’s not the most glamorous gig, but it can earn $50 an hour or more. In just a few months, Erica Krupin had landed 80 recurring weekly clients at around $15 apiece.
27. Pressure Washing
Pressure washers cost around $300, but you could clear more than that on a single busy spring weekend cleaning driveways, decks, and patios in your neighborhood. Here’s more on how to start a pressure washing business.
28. Drop Shipping
With drop shipping, you can sell physical products online without having to buy any inventory upfront. Instead, you work out deals with the manufacturers or distributors to ship the items directly to customers on your behalf.
On a popular episode of The Side Hustle Show, Rene Delgado broke down how he sold over $300k in his first year.
29. Refinishing Furniture
Flipping furniture is a popular side hustle for people who like to work with their hands. Solid wood dressers are the easiest pieces to start with, and if you’re going for the “rustic farmhouse” look, your painting doesn’t need to be perfect.
Aim to buy used furniture for $50 or less, and resell it for $150-300 on Facebook Marketplace.
30. Find a Virtual Job
FlexJobs is the leading work from home jobs site. With over 50 career categories, FlexJobs has jobs ranging from entry-level to executive and freelance to full-time.
There is a nominal monthly fee to access their listings, but you’ll earn that back (and then some!) with one job. (Save 30% w/ promo code FLEXLIFE.)
31. Create a Local Experience
If you have a passion for your city and love meeting new people, a unique local tour could be a hit.
My friend Alex hosts hundreds of “urban hiking” tours a year on the side from her day job — at $49 apiece!
What unique experience can you offer travelers? It doesn’t even have to be a tour.
For example, Michele Mattix makes money hosting guided meditations through Airbnb Experiences. You can create your own experience, set your price, and Airbnb markets it to travelers.
32. Create a Fiverr Gig
For me, Fiverr has been a fun and eye-opening side hustle experiment. Since I started on the site, I’ve earned over $13,000, met some awesome people, and found an interesting “Buy Buttons” platform.
How it works is you come up with a base “gig” — and then add relevant upsells or packages to increase your order value. One of my most popular podcast episodes was with a Fiverr seller who used the platform to launch a 6-figure freelancing business.
33. Start a YouTube Channel
Creating content on YouTube is a fast-track side hustle, especially compared with blogging. It’s easier to “rank” videos for your target keywords, and once your channel reaches certain metrics, you can monetize with ads.
(You can also use YouTube in other creative ways, like to sell a digital product or service.)
34. TaskRabbit Gigs
TaskRabbit is one of the largest gig economy platforms. You can create a profile specializing in running local errands, assembling furniture, local temp help, and even virtual support jobs.
Rates vary widely based on what service you’re providing, but I’ve seen tasks anywhere from $15 an hour all the way up to $100+ for specialized skills.
35. Go Look at Stuff
Earn $18 to $200 to go look at stuff like eBay purchases, cars, rental properties, or even vacant lots with WeGoLook. Take pictures, verify information, and report back what you find.
36. Commercial Real Estate
Fundrise allows you to invest in a portfolio of commercial properties all around the country. I’ve been a Fundrise investor for years and they’ve consistently paid quarterly dividends in the 5-10% yield range.
Plus, you can get started with as little as $10.
37. Rental Properties
Rental real estate is one of the oldest side hustles in the books, and is still viable today.
If your local market is too expensive, take a look at Roofstock, a cool online marketplace built for out-of-state-investors. Many houses listed already have tenants and property management in place.
My friend Dustin Heiner built up his rental portfolio and was able to retire before 40 on the cash flow.
38. Earn More Interest
I’ve been earning 7% interest with a Gemini Earn account. Gemini converts your deposit into “stablecoins” at a fixed rate of 1 to every dollar, and the loans Gemini makes are backed by crypto collateral.
39. Rent Out Your Car, RV, or Boat
If you have an underutilized car, HyreCar will help you rent it out.
Listing your car is free, and HyreCar owners report earning an average of $720 a month. The company does background checks on all their renters and also handles the insurance.
40. Get $200 From a Bank
You’ve got to promise to use this strategy responsibly, but it’s made my wife and I thousands of dollars.
Credit cards like the Capital One Quicksilver Card offer a $200 sign-up bonus after you spend $500 in your first 3 months — with no annual fee. That's up to 40% cash back!
If you know you’re gonna spend $500 in the next 3 months, that’s #freemoney. This card also gives you one of the highest cash back rates, with unlimited 1.5% back on every dollar you spend.
41. Transcribe Audio
Transcribe interviews and lectures on Rev.com and earn $9 an hour and up. Fast freelance transcriptionists can earn more though.
42. Narrate Audiobooks
I think we can all agree that getting paid to talk is a pretty sweet gig, and Voices.com is the #1 marketplace for voice over talent.
Otherwise, ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange, is an interesting platform to connect authors with professional narrators to — like the name suggests — create an audiobook version of their book.
43. Help Companies Name Their Products
Companies post naming and branding contests on SquadHelp and you can win cash for coming up with the best name or slogan. On Namestation, a similar service, top contributors earn up to $300 a month part-time.
44. Cut Your Ongoing Expenses
If it’s been more than 2 years since you last shopped for car insurance, you’re paying too much.
Here’s the dirty secret of the car insurance industry: your cars are worth less every year due to depreciation, but you keep paying the same amount.
Check out Insurify for a quick and painless quote process to find the best rates for car and home insurance. It’ll take just a few minutes (you can even do it on your phone) and users save an average of $489 per year!
save on insurance with insurify
Similarly, I recently switched to Mint Mobile for my cell phone service. It runs on the T-Mobile network and costs just $15 a month (when you pre-pay)!
I was able to keep my current phone and phone number. Making the switch from Verizon saved my wife and I over $800 a year.
45. Build an Online Course
With Udemy, you can create a video course in your area of expertise, and put it up for sale on their platform of more than 50 million students.
Since late 2014, I’ve earned over $20,000 on Udemy from a course I created about self-publishing.
What could you teach?
46. Thrift for Profit
Apps like Poshmark can help you clear out your closet or make money from your latest thrift store finds.
47. Online Coaching
The Coach.me platform allows you to set up an online coaching practice in the areas of leadership, health, business, habits, and more. The site boasts more than 1 million users and you can earn $100 an hour or more working one-on-one with clients.
48. Yard Care Service
Both GreenPal and LawnGuru are building “the Uber for yardwork” and offer a cool new way for landscaping businesses to connect with customers. The average GreenPal vendor makes around $55 per hour mowing lawns on its system.
49. Get Cooking
The United States Professional Chef Association put together this directory of personal chefs available for hire.
50. Photography Service
This is my wife’s side hustle of choice, which started as a hobby. She and her partner started out pricing low to build a portfolio, but now command around $4000 per wedding.
51. Moving Service
If you have a truck or van — and a strong back — you can earn money with Dolly’s peer-to-peer moving platform. Help your neighbors pack and move across town. Similarly, GoShare will help you put your truck or cargo van to work and up to $61 an hour.
52. Sports Coaching
Channel your athletic glory days and help young athletes level up their game. You can set your own rate and CoachUp private coaches report earning an average of $45 an hour.
53. Personal Training
Connect with clients through your gym, NextDoor, or through a marketplace like FindYourTrainer.
54. One-on-One Language Lessons
With Verbling, you can set your own hourly rate for online language lessons. Most tutors appear to be in the $10-25 an hour range, and Verbling says some are earning a full-time living on the platform.
55. Help Friends Get a Job
When your referral gets a new job through Hired.com, the site will pay you $1000.
56. Sell Your Mobile Data: $20-50 Per Year
We give so much of our data away every day for free to companies like Facebook, but did you know you can actually get paid for it?
For example, Nielsen rewards you for sharing internet usage behaviors. Simply download the non-intrusive app to your devices.
As they track your usage, you earn points. Users can redeem points for prizes and sweepstakes entries.
Mobilexpression is a market research panel that pays you for data from your mobile phone.
Download their app and allow it to work in the background recording your browsing habits while on your phone. In exchange, you’ll earn gift cards to popular retailers.
Realistically, this is probably worth around $20 a year in passive income. And you’ll earn a free $5 gift card after your first week.
57. Mechanical Turk
Earn a small fee ($0.01 to $3) for each micro task you complete on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
It can be tedious work, but over the last few years, Mike Naab earned over $50,000 in his spare time completing surveys and other small jobs.
58. Proofreading and Editing
Editing for self-published authors was a side hustle for me a few years ago. ProofreadingServices.com is an online proofreading and tutoring service that pays $19 to 46 per hour.
To learn the necessary skills, Proofreading Academy may be worth a look. The online course offers a free trial and guaranteed work upon successful completion.
59. Solve Interesting Problems
MindSumo is a cool service that asks for your input on certain questions on behalf of its corporate clients. The best and most creative answers earn rewards of $550-1600.
When I was browsing, I saw questions like “How would you improve the car buying experience?” and “How can we make laundry less of a hassle?”
60. Sign Up for Free Rewards Apps: $150+ Per Year
Saving money is making money! And it’s actually even more effective since it goes straight to your bottom line — meaning you don’t have to pay taxes on it like you would with extra income.
For example, the Fetch Rewards app gives you cash back just for snapping a picture of your receipts.
You can then redeem points for gift cards to retailers like Best Buy, Sephora, Staples, Gap, and more. (I’ve been cashing in for Amazon gift cards.)
It’s also kind of a cool tool to track your spending across time and across different stores:
Install through our referral link and get 2000 free points ($2)!
Rakuten has been giving online shoppers cash back for 20 years. A recent computer purchase from Dell netted me $160 cash back! (They were running a special offer.)
They’ll even give you a free $10 bonus when you create your account!
