70 Best Ways to Make Extra Money on the Side in 2022: $500+

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 idea you can turn into your primary source of income, or just for a way to make a few extra bucks, I’ve got you covered.

There’s gold in this list. While I haven’t personally tested ALL of them, I’ve used several of the ideas below to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past decade.

Seriously.

Yes, we live in exciting times!

They won’t all work for you, but I’m confident something will. And remember, reading is great but results only come from taking action.

Ready? Let’s do it!

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

There are a couple online research companies I think 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 — here’s my full User Interviews review.

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 including 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 with several reputable apps and services.

3. Delivery or Rideshare Gigs: $15-25/hr

You’ve probably 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 so-called “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:

• DoorDash – Earn up to $25 an hour* as a food delivery driver for. For more, here’s our full DoorDash review.
• Instacart – Enjoy weekly payouts and a flexible schedule. Check out our full Instacart Shopper review here, with insights from a side hustler earning an extra $450-500 a week.
• Uber Eats – Make local takeout deliveries in your town with and earn up $25 an hour doing so.
• Shipt – A membership-based grocery marketplace, enabling delivery of fresh foods and household essentials. Drivers can earn up to $22 an hour shopping for and delivering these products.

*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.

In 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. Loan Signing Agent: $100 per Appointment

Notary publics like Brian Schooley can make up to $100 an hour for completing loan signings for new home buyers on their own schedule.

Check out the resources at Loan Signing System to learn more.

6. Virtual Bookkeeping: Up to $70/hr

Remote bookkeepers can earn $20-70 an hour and up for their work. This can be a great option for people with an accounting background from school, your day job, or just for people who aren’t afraid of math.

Here’s a free training on how to get started.

7. Resell Flea Market Finds: Up to $5000 per Flip

My buddy Rob Stephenson is “the Flea Market Flipper” and makes a great living finding odd items to resell. He told me the story of finding a prosthetic leg for $40 and turning around and selling it on Ebay the next day for $1000.

The pioneering auction site is still going strong and can be a good place to get your products in front of 180+ million potential buyers.

There are profitable deals everywhere!

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

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 AZ, AR, CT, DE, IN, LA, ME, MT, SC, SD, and TN).

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.

Solitaire Cube

As someone who probably played more than his fair share of Windows Solitaire growing up, Solitaire Cube got my attention.

The well-rated game app for iOS and Android pits you against similarly-skilled players, where everyone receives the same virtual deck of cards, and 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 AZ, AR, CT, DE, IN, LA, ME, MT, SC, SD, and TN.

9. 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, who 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 becoming a virtual assistant.

10. 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! (Here’s our full HealthyWage review.)

Click here to see how much your prize might be.

11. 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 their own products and services, advertising, live events, end even donations.

Click here to check out my free video course on how to start a blog.

12. Self-Publish on Amazon

Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle platform, you can publish your work and tap into a massive audience of buyers, especially if your book solves a problem in a unique way.

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 build both authority in your niche and earn passive income along the way.

Related: My Amazon author profile and book listings

13. Become a Mystery Shopper

Field Agent presents a list of tasks you can do based on your location. If you happen to be driving around somewhere and the store in the list is near, 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.

For more info, please see my full Field Agent review.

14. Craigslist Gigs

There’s a section in the lower right side of Craigslist where companies and individuals post jobs and gigs.

15. 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 or elsewhere, list your space here to fill it and get paid.

According to the site, hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations.

16. 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.)

17. Babysitting

One of my original income streams as a teenager, babysitting and child care is still a viable way to make extra money.

Sites like Care.com and Sittercity can help match you up with families.

18. Knife Sharpening

One of my favorite Side Hustle Show episodes featured a guy who taught himself how to sharpen knives on YouTube, and turned it into a $250-500 a month side business.

19. Online Tutoring: Up to $60/hr

Tutoring and test prep is more than a billion dollar a year industry. If you were a decent student or have some subject matter expertise, you can start your own tutoring business to earn extra cash and help students at the same time.

Wyzant (pronounced “wise ant”) is a popular online and in-person tutoring platform helping 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 for math tutors nearby, Wyzant found several tutors from $40-60 an hour.

20. Create an Outschool Class

Outschool is a marketplace for online small group classes for kids. I sat down with Jade Weatherington, who reported earning over $10,000 a month from her virtual writing classes.

21. Sell Lesson Plans and Material

It’s not one-on-one tutoring, but Teachers Pay Teachers is a popular marketplace for lesson plans and other educational materials by educators for educators. One blogger I know began putting some of her content on this site and now earns $5000 a month part-time.

22. Sell Used Books

Use the free BookScouter app to find out what books are worth — either the ones you have lying around collecting dust or 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!

23. 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, like Rachel Jones, who reported earning up to $10,000 a month without any inventory.

24. Amazon Arbitrage

Amazon FBA is “fulfillment by Amazon” and is Amazon’s unique way to crowdsourcing its inventory from individual sellers like you and me. Not only can you take advantage of Amazon’s world class logistics network, but you can also tap into their massive audience of buyers.

Perhaps the easiest way to get started is sourcing profitable inventory locally and then selling it 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!)

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. House Cleaning

Anthony and Jhanilka Hartzog grew their Dallas-area residential cleaning service to $25k a month in revenue — and hire other cleaners to do the work!

More and more homeowners are outsourcing this chore, and the industry remains highly fragmented, spelling 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 apiece.

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. 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 your 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.

31. Refinishing Furniture

Flipping furniture is a popular side hustle for those with DIY skills and 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.

32. 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.

They charge a nominal monthly fee (save 30% w/ promo code FLEXLIFE) to access their listings, but you’ll easily earn that back and then some with one job.

33. Print on Demand Products

Merch by Amazon makes a great side hustle. You upload your t-shirt (and other product) designs, set your price, and then let Amazon do all the work of printing and shipping your orders.

Elaine Heney made over $50,000 doing this part-time and shared some of her tips on The Side Hustle Show. (My wife made over $2k in her first year doing this in her spare time too!)

34. 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 has made thousands of dollars hosting a guided meditation experience via Airbnb Experiences. You can create your own experience, set your price, and Airbnb will markets your experience to travelers visiting your town.

35. 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.

36. Start a YouTube Channel

Creating content on YouTube is a fast-track side hustle, especially compared with blogging. I believe it’s easier to “rank” videos for your target keywords, and once your channel reaches certain metrics, you can begin monetizing with ads.

(You can also use YouTube in other creative ways, like to sell a digital product or service.)

37. Build an Email Newsletter

The newsletter business model is one I’m particularly excited about right now. It’s low overhead, reasonably simple to manage, and can scale to a significant income stream.

For example, the popular daily business newsletter Morning Brew sold for a reported $75 million!

38. TaskRabbit Gigs

TaskRabbit is one of the largest gig economy platforms, and you can create a profile specializing in everything from running local errands, assembling furniture, local admin 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 an hour or more for specialized skills.

39. 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.

40. 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 methodically built up his rental portfolio and was able to retire before 40 on the cash flow.

41. Commercial Real Estate

Fundrise was my first foray into “alternative” real estate investments (and I since joined their affiliate program). They have several “eREITs” that own or hold investments in commercial properties all around the country, and have paid consistently quarterly dividends in the 6-10% yield range.

Plus, there’s just a $10 minimum to get started.

42. Earn More Interest

I’ve been earning 8% interest with a Gemini Earn account. Your deposit is converted into “stablecoins” at a fixed rate of 1 to every dollar, and the loans Gemini makes are backed by crypto collateral.

At press time, you could get a $50 Bitcoin bonus with promo code promo500 when you deposit $500 within 3 days of opening your account.

Related: 79 Alternative Investment Platforms to Earn Stronger Returns, Build Cash Flow, and Diversify Your Portfolio

43. Rent Out Your Car, RV, or Boat

If you have an underutilized car, HyreCar will help you rent it out. Be prepared to rack up some miles though; this company caters to rideshare drivers who don’t have a vehicle of their own.

Listing your car is free, and HyreCar owners report earning an average of $720 a month.

What else could you rent out?

• For RVs, check out RVShare.com
• Boats; GetMyBoat.com
• Pools? Swimply.com
• Baby Gear? BabyQuip.com

44. Donate Plasma

As long as needles don’t bother you, you can earn $20-50 per plasma donation.

45. Clinical Trials

The National Library of Medicine runs a database of studies all across the country you may qualify for.

46. 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 over the past few years.