I've Tried Tons Of Side Hustles, So I'm Ranking Them All From "Meh, Not Worth It" To "OMG, YES!"
Hey 👋 I’m Daniella, and I’m a self-proclaimed side hustle queen 👑.
Hustle culture teaches us that there is never enough. We always need more money, more things, more everything.
When I was growing up, I saw that in my parent’s work ethic with both of them having more than one job until they got older. This wasn’t because they wanted more money. They needed it. They were raising a child, trying to buy a house, and my mom was finishing nursing school. My dad was getting started in his career in IT while trying to send money home to our family in Venezuela.
Hustle culture was in my life long before I knew what the words "hustle culture" even meant.
This culture comes out of both the want and need for more money. I'm sure I wasn't the only millennial who saw this setup in their families.
Screams in millennial: With the rising cost of, well, everything and stagnant wages, of course, this culture is prevalent in America and much of the world. It's pretty hard to escape.
As a kid, I never grasped the impact of what the American work culture would have on my own adult life. Then, I dove into it headfirst in my teens.
My first side hustles 15 years ago started out of a similar need to my parents.
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I needed to make more money. Now, I run a two-time award-winning blog and online business that helps others start and grow their own side hustles and businesses.
Let’s go through all the side hustles I’ve tried and rank them from least to most worth it.
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Before I go into it, let’s clear up the #1 side hustle I tell all my clients to steer clear of. That side hustle is working as an MLM consultant.
MLM stands for multi-level marketing companies. According to the FTC, 99% of people lose money in MLMs. They are far from worth it. Before you ask that question in the comments, just say no.
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20.Online Surveys
I’m listing online surveys first because no one should give up two hours in their day to get paid a measly $5. This was my exact experience after reading on a blog that “so-and-so” made thousands of dollars a month taking online surveys.
Hard stop. No one has ever made thousands of dollars a month taking online surveys unless they’re a bot. If you’re someone who likes to build bots, build yourself some survey bots and go ham. See how much you make. Still, I don’t think you can make thousands of extra dollars a month with your army of bots taking online surveys.
I do know people who love to make extra cash when they are stuck waiting in lines. They use that time to knock out a couple of surveys in the meantime.
If they work for you, that’s great. They didn’t work for me.
19.Selling Stuff I Already Had
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I was horrible with money in high school. My entire movie theatre paycheck would disappear while I still had bills I needed to pay. Then, I started selling some of my clothes to thrift stores to make extra money. Then, I realized I couldn’t try to sell my clothes each time I needed extra money or I would soon be out of clothes.
For those of you who had a Plato’s Closet nearby in the early 2000s, remember when they sold everything from clothes to shoes to accessories and even DVDs? Yeah, I quickly resorted to selling other items, and the payout kept getting smaller and smaller each time. I needed another side hustle idea to move on to.
18.Selling Plasma
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When I was in college, selling plasma was a popular way for several of my friends to bring in extra cash. I made $35 for my first session, which took about an hour. Every time I went back, the payment kept going down, and I became skeptical.
This side hustle idea wasn’t sustainable either. I have yet to find anyone who was able to make $1,000 in one month like some blood plasma centers advertise.
17.Mystery Shopping
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I loved mystery shopping when I first tried it out in 2018. I used mystery shopping apps like FieldAgent, EasyShift, and GigWalk. The work would involve taking pictures of displays in stores, items on the shelves, and sometimes go to restaurants and try out meals.
This was such a fun side hustle, and I averaged about $20 an hour when I would take gigs. The only downside was the payout wasn’t worth it after things like commute time, wear and tear on my car, and dealing with cellphone dead zones in stores.
There also weren’t plenty of gigs where I could find several gigs to do a day — it was more like one to two gigs a day, if that.
16.Flipping Items Online
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It wasn’t long after realizing that selling my stuff was a side gig idea that would soon turn up dry. I didn’t have an endless amount of stuff to sell, but I could buy things for cheap and resell them for a profit online. This is the concept of “flipping,” a term that is often used when people refer to “flipping houses.” Flipping items is a similar concept and means buying something under its market value to resell it for a profit.
I bought items from thrift stores, dollar stores, clearance aisles at Kohl's, eBay, garage sales, flea markets, and even Craigslist. Then, I would resell them for a profit on eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, and Facebook Marketplace. I even got into the niche of fixing and reselling PlayStation game consoles from Craigslist.
I did this side hustle on and off for years, including helping my wife with her own reselling business of buying and reselling guitars on eBay. This was a side hustle I loved doing until I realized I'd rather do a side hustle where I don’t have to constantly go to the UPS store to ship things.
15.Paid Research Studies
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Paid research studies are the online survey’s more likable cousin. They are like surveys where you are sharing your opinion about something, but pay way closer to a living wage.
I first found paid research studies when I was in college when I came across some studies happening at my campus. Later on, I found paid research studies through sites like Respondent. Respondent pays for a variety of things like testing websites and virtual interviews.
This was a fun side hustle, and I could get paid $100 for one 45-minute virtual interview session. It’s great for extra cash but also wasn’t sustainable as I wouldn’t always match the studies available.
14.Snow Plowing
At the beginning of my career, I got fired from my first job out of college. I was so burnt out that I stopped going altogether. It was then that I went back to serving and did snow plowing during that winter on the side with my uncle.
It was fun but pretty exhausting. My cousin and I would get out with our shovels while my uncle used the plow on his truck while we hit different houses. Still, this was too much physical labor for my liking when it was freezing outside.
13.Brand Ambassador
Shortly after the winter season was over, I tried out being a brand ambassador as a side gig. This was back when the gigs section of Craigslist would advertise legitimate freelance gigs. At the time, brand ambassador gigs were quite popular on the platform. These were brand promotion gigs for food and alcohol brands. The alcohol brands always paid the most at $25 an hour and up.
The work consisted of going to various bars, restaurants, and festivals during nights and weekends to hand out free coupons and drinks. We never had to sell anything but had to make sure people tried the product we were trying to promote.
It was so fun, but the commutes were brutal. I stopped this side gig when I ended up finding out that one of the brands I worked for was a complete scam. The brand was called Boobie’s Rock! and was actually just some guy pocketing all the cash. They told us the profits we raised, in addition to our pay, were going directly to breast cancer survivors. Instead, those profits went to him.
12.Restaurant Server
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I loved working in a restaurant and had done so on and off from my high school days, to college, and even after college. I was also a hostess and busser, but serving made the most money.
Hourly pay for servers sucks and is pretty messed up when you think about it. I got paid $3.25 an hour as a server, but some nights, I would take home over $300 in tips.
Serving is one of the quickest ways I could come up with a ton of cash in one night at that age. I’d work my butt off for that money, though, and it's one of the most physically and mentally challenging jobs out there.
But holy crud, was it fun.
11.Live Painting
I’m a self-taught painter and do mostly abstract and psychedelic-style paintings. I saw other artists do live painting at some of the local shows I would go to, using a similar style to my own painting.
I thought to ask the admissions area of these local venues to see if I could also come and set up and live paint during some of these shows. Some of them accepted but for no pay. They said I could bring past paintings with me and sell them while I got free admission.
That’s what I did for a couple of months, which was great because my friends came with, and we always made a night out of it. I averaged about $200-$300 a show from the paintings I was able to sell while live painting. This was so fun, and if I were more focused at the time, I would still be doing this now. But, I'd rather keep my painting as a hobby only.
10.Selling on Etsy
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I took my creative skills and started applying them digitally by trying out an Etsy store. I dabbled with selling both digital products and print-on-demand products via Etsy. I used Canva to create the designs and Printify to print the designs on products like T-shirts, pants, hoodies, tumblers, and more.
Printify has a way to auto-link to Etsy, so when someone purchases something, that is immediately sent to Printify. Then, the warehouse you preselect when you set up your store prints those items “on demand” for you. Then, the warehouse ships the product to the customer without you having to do anything.
Keep in mind that you still have to do customer service and any business admin tasks for this side hustle.
My store was in the gothic bachelorette niche, and I got quite a few large group orders. Then, the pandemic hit, and weddings quickly died down. Shortly after that, I closed the store to focus on other side hustles. I do currently still have a store that sells digital downloads like templates and workbooks.
9.Pet Sitting on Rover
Pet sitting on Rover is a side hustle that I tried a couple of years ago for research for an article I was writing. After a few cat-sitting drop-in visits I did on the app, I realized how easy and fun it was. Get paid to play with fur babies? Yes, please.
Then, I hit the jackpot on a few house-sitting gigs where you stay at the pet owner’s house while also watching one or more of their pets. One paid me $1,000 for one week of house sitting. The more pets that you sit while house sitting, the more you’re paid depending on how you set your rates in the app.
It was surprisingly lucrative, and I still do this side hustle here and there to this day because I love doing it so much. The only downside for me was that Rover takes 20% of all your wages made through the app. I found a way around this fee by educating pet owners that work with me. I told them how much Rover takes, and they usually would make up for it with the tip after the completed sitting assignment.
8.Freelance Designer
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Freelance design was another side hustle I wanted to test out when I got into selling on Etsy. At the time, I was testing all these ways to make money with graphic art online. This also included selling logo designs, helping others with their DIY website designs, and social media template design services.
I found the majority of these gigs via a few Facebook groups I was a part of. It was fun until I realized it wasn’t something I wanted to do long-term.
7.Freelance Web Developer
The most money I ever made as a freelancer was made when I was a freelance web developer. After I got fired from my first job out of college, I started freelancing as a WordPress web developer. This helped me to hone my skills while serving and doing other gigs until I could find another full-time job.
I found my first client on Craigslist, and they happened to be a client I had worked with at my previous employer, but I'd never signed a non-compete. I did work for them for 10 hours a month to sometimes 10 hours a week and would get paid $100 an hour. The type of work I did was supporting their existing WordPress websites while assisting with new websites.
I kept this as a side hustle for a while, even after I finally got another job as a programmer analyst in retail tech. I eventually had to let it go because my day job required on-call duties, and I didn’t have the time to juggle the two anymore.
6.Freelance Writer
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Freelance writing is one of my favorite ways to make money online. I started freelance writing back in 2017 when I started my blog to help me get better with writing. I also wanted to add another income stream to help pay off my student loans. I’d normally resort to a restraining order for stalkers that won’t stop calling, but for some reason, I couldn’t do that with student loan agents.
I specialize in personal finance, content creation, and travel topics in my freelance writing projects. Most of my gigs are from Twitter, my own network of blogging friends, and pitching publications on my own. I make anywhere from $300-$1,000 an article depending on the scope of the project.
I still do this side hustle to this day, and it is an important part of my business.
5.Coaching
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When I started my blog, I also started coaching others on how they can either start their side hustle or take their side hustle to the next level. This is a service I still offer today and charge anywhere from $75-$200 per coaching session.
This is a great, flexible way to make money online because it can be done virtually from wherever you are, as long as you have your laptop and Wi-Fi. I use Zoom and Calendly for the tools to execute this service.
4.Tech Consultant
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I took my past freelance web development experience and used that to offer WordPress consulting services.
I got more clients once I started my blog because I had a larger network that included bloggers. Before that, I found clients through word of mouth and LinkedIn.
3.Course Instructor
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Teaching courses was something that I thought would never be possible for me. I hated public speaking, even if it was virtual.
The first course I ever created was a text-based course with some video interviews included. It was self-paced and is a course I still sell and teach today.
Then, I started offering live workshops and webinars so I could get more live face time with several of my followers and students. This gave me more insight into their problems, learning styles, and what they need in real time to succeed.
I teach courses on subjects like how to land a remote job, starting side hustles, social media management, digital marketing, creating websites, and more.
I make anywhere from $2,000-$8,000 per course cohort.
2.Speaker
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Teaching courses online helped me get over my fear of public speaking, including virtual public speaking. I started offering my services as a speaker in various topics including side hustles and finance. This was back in 2020 when virtual conferences were on the rise.
I have yet to ever speak in person, and I like it that way. I can speak virtually from wherever I am and make anywhere from $250 to $2,000 per virtual appearance. I usually speak at virtual conferences, other creators’ communities or events, or at internal events at companies.
1.Blogger/Content Creator
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Finally, we are at my all-time favorite side hustle — blogging and content creation. I created my blog in between back-back-layoffs in 2017 as a creative outlet. I used it to document the other side hustles I was doing at the time and to track our journey to paying off debt and eventually financial freedom.
That blog later became a two-time award-winning side hustle, money, and career blog for neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ folks. It's been featured in the New York Times, TIME, MSN, CNBC, Business Insider, and more, and helps thousands of people start and build side hustles every month — starting with my free side hustle quiz.
I brought in $60k from my blog last year on the side of my full-time job. It’s also what introduced me to several other remote side hustles I still use today to bring in an income. Some of these are freelance writing, course creation, coaching, and more.
The blog itself is not one income stream either. It earns money in a variety of ways including income from ads displayed on the blog, affiliate marketing, products I sell through the blog’s shop, social media, and brand partnerships.
Starting and building this blog has given me an entirely new set of skills and outlook on how I work. So much so that I left my day job last month to run my blog full-time while also playing around with some of my favorite creative side hustles at the same time.
It literally changed my whole life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What’s It All For?
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Side hustling has a lot of nuance to it, much like everything in our lives. There is no one right way to side hustle. What works for me might not work for you.
Side hustles don’t mean you have to hustle until you die. They are here so you can create more options for yourself, more money, and more opportunities. They can help you save for goals, leave a toxic situation, work from wherever you want, save up money to invest, create passive income streams to help reach financial independence, and anything you want to use them to do.
You don’t have to start a side hustle to leave your job. You don’t have to have a side hustle in addition to your day job. And you don’t have to try multiple side hustles if you don’t want to.
I say this at the same time as acknowledging that there are folks who actually have to work two jobs or side hustle just to survive. Side hustles are not a solution to the broken capitalist system we've been dealt, but they can help us navigate it.
Do not use side hustles to burn yourself out even further. Instead, use them to challenge the status quo of how we work.
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Learn how to run a business, and in return, you see how other businesses in your everyday real life are run. Then, you start to see patterns of bad money, good money, and somewhere in between — and ultimately where your work fits in that.
Who knows, you might even realize a new way of running a business that no one has done yet. A way that could change the way we work forever.
