30 Ways to Make Money When You're Off

It’s never been easier to make extra money on your own time and on your own terms.

Whether you’re looking for a side hustle to replace your day job income, or just for a way to make a few extra bucks, I’ve got you covered.

The ideas on how to make extra money were selected based on:

• 20+ years of side hustle experience
• interviews with over 500 side hustlers entrepreneurs
• feedback from the 50,000-member Side Hustle Nation community

Just a few of the ideas have helped me earn hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last decade. 

Ready? Let’s do it!

1. Online and In-Person Research Studies: Up to $140 an Hour

This is an easy way to make some extra money (even while working full-time!)

Best Overall

• UserInterviews.com

•  4.1

• Earn $50-150/hr, with thousands of new studies added each month.

• Join For Free

Best for Industry Pros

• Respondent

•  4.1

• Earn an average of $75 per project, and get notified of upcoming studies you may qualify for.

• Join For Free

Best for Medical Research

• Rare Patient Voice

•  4.5

• Patients and caregivers can earn $120/hour while helping advance medical research.

• Join For Free

There are a couple online research companies everyone should sign up for.

User Interviews is a great resource for connecting with remote consumer research studies. I’ve made $105 in about an hour and a half so far 

Repondent 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.

Rare Patient Voice  pays patients and caregivers $120 an hour to assist with medical research.

You can browse a full list of available studies on their site—nearly all of which are phone or webcam interviews.

If you suffer from any sort of medical condition (even if it’s not super rare), this one is worth a look.

The site is open to residents of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.

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 ball out with these options, but you can earn gift cards, cash, and other rewards by answering surveys, watching videos, playing games, and shopping online.

3. Find a Virtual Job

Side Hustle Nation Approved

FlexJobs: #1 For Remote Jobs  4.7  

The best place to find legit work from home jobs. Established in 2007, FlexJobs has 1000s of listings including part-time, full-time, and freelance options in tons of industries.

FlexJobs is the leading work from home jobs site. With over 100,000 active listings in 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.

4. Make Extra Money Playing Online Games

KashKick is a newer app that pays you test new mobile games (up to $150 each!), answer surveys, and redeem money-saving offers.

With the slogan “get paid to have fun,” KashKick is rated 4.5-stars in the App Store.

Best for Testing New Games

KashKick 4.2

Get paid to test new games, complete offers, and answer short surveys.

 Related: Are you introverted?  If so, here are some perfect ways to make extra money.

5. Rental Properties

How to make extra income while working full-time?

Rental real estate is one of the oldest side hustles in the books.

It is still viable today, and a perfect option for full-timers.

My friend Dustin Heiner built up his rental portfolio and was able to retire before 40 on the cash flow.

If your local market is too expensive, take a look at Arrived, a cool online marketplace built for busy investors. For as little as $100, you can buy shares of cash-flowing rental properties.

Hands-Off Rentals

Arrived | Cash Flow Rentals  4.5  

We earn a commission if you sign up, at no additional cost to you.

6. 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.

Best for Passive Income

Funrsie 4.0  

Fundrise is one of the best and largest crowdfunded real estate investment platforms, with $7B under management. The company makes institutional quality investments available to everyone, starting at just $10.

Learn More And Sign Up

I've been a Fundrise investor since 2025. When you join through my referral link, I earn a commission. Opinions are my own.

Plus, you can get started with as little as $10.

7. Start an Online Business

This probably isn’t the right path if you need to make extra money quickly, but can build into a full-time income stream over time.

My primary revenue stream is affiliate marketing, but website creators can make money in lots of different ways, including:

• selling your own products and services
• advertising
• live events
• reader donations
• and more

Click here to check out my free guide on how to start a website.

Pros:

8. 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.

9. Resell Furniture Returns

As a part-time Sharetown rep, you’ll pick up gently-used furniture returns from direct-to-consumer brands.

Since the items aren’t new, the companies can’t really take them back and resell them — but you can. The Sharetown reps I’ve connected with report earning $150-250 per item.

And the cool part is the inventory doesn’t cost you anything until it sells.

Highest Earning Power

Become a Sharetown Rep  4.0  

Sharetown reps make money by reselling gently-used furniture and bed-in-a-box mattresses. Top reps earn $4000+ per month.

10. Caregiving

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.

11. 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.

Best for Dog Lovers

Rover 4.4  

Make money walking dogs and pet sitting.

 Meowtel is the leading platform for cat-sitting.)

12. Resell Flea Market Finds: Up to $5,000 per Flip

My buddy Rob Stephenson is the Flea Market Flipper and makes a great living finding odd items to resell.

For example, he found a prosthetic leg for $40 and sold it on eBay the next day for $1000.

There are still 130+ million potential buyers active on eBay, and there are profitable deals everywhere!

Rob and his wife Melissa consistently earn thousands of dollars a month doing this part-time. They put togethera free training on how you can get started and make your first sales as fast as 2 weeks.

Side Business Society Approved

Free Flipping Workshop  4.5  

 Suggested Playlist: Flipping Profits

13. 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 — it was something like $42 — and being thrilled, thinking “I did it! I’m a professional author!”

Since then I’ve earned over $80,000 in author royalties. Books are a pretty awesome way to build authority in your niche and earn passive income along the way.

14. 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.

15. Knife Sharpening

Matt Rowell taught himself how to sharpen knives on YouTube, and turned it into a $250-1500 a month side business.

16. Online Tutoring: Up to $60/hr

Tutoring and test prep is a billion dollar a year industry.

You can  start your 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. When I searched Wyzant for math tutors nearby, I found several tutors charging $40-60 an hour.

17. 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.

Another example is Devyn, who makes $4k a month by showing young folks how to play video games.

18. Sell Lesson Plans and Material

Teachers Pay Teachers is a popular marketplace for lesson plans and other educational materials.

For example, Rob Phelan earns around $2,000 a month from his selection of personal finance and entrepreneurship digital products.

19. 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.

Easiest to Use

Fetch 4.8

Get cash back for every receipt, plus bonus payouts for buying specific products and brands. Use referral code BG5MP to get 2,000 free bonus points added to your account.

 For example, the free Fetch app gives you cash back just for snapping a picture of your receipts.

You can then redeem points for gift cards to retailers like:

• Starbucks
• Best Buy
• Sephora
• Staples
• Gap
• and more

(I’ve been cashing in for Amazon Gift Cards) 

Rakuten has been giving online shoppers cash back for 25 years.

My last laptop purchase from Dell netted me over $200 cash back! (They were running a special offer.)

They’ll even give you a free $30 bonus when you create your account!

Check out our full  Rakuten review to learn more.

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 bookstores.

One Side Hustle Show guest reported earning up to $4000 a month flipping used books! (He recommended the faster ScoutIQ app)

21. Sell Printables on Etsy

Selling printables on Etsy is a great way to make extra money if you have an eye for design and love researching new niches.

Here’s a free guide to the best selling digital products month by month to get your creative juices flowing.

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.

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.

Check out the free sales force challenge to see if a similar career shift might make sense:

Alternatively, you can create a listing on sites Clarity fm, and earn $60/hour and up.

24. Flipping Furniture

Flipping furniture is a popular side hustle for people who like to work with their hands. Per Ryan Cron, 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.

25. Become a Virtual Assistant: Up to $40/hr

Virtual assistants provide administrative support to clients from their home office.

To learn more about starting your own virtual assistant company, check out the free video training from my friend Abbey Ashley. She started her VA business on the side and shares:

• Where to find thousands of potential clients.
• How to make a full-time living working from home.
• What clients are really looking for in a VA. (hint: it’s not prior VA experience)

Click here to learn more about being a virtual assiatance.

26. Parking Lot Cleanup

Brian Winch started his parking 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.

27. House Cleaning

Anthony and Theresa Jones 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.

28. 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 a piece.

29. 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.

30. Sell Your Mobile Data: $20-60 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 your data?

For example, Nieslen rewards you for sharing internet usage behaviors. Simply download the non-intrusive app to your devices.