What Is a Side Hustle? | Side Hustles Explained (2024)

Side hustles are extremely diverse. The only thing that really units them is that they all provide secondary income streams.

However, in many people’s minds, side hustles (which are also called side gigs or side jobs) are strongly associated with the gig economy. That term encompasses non-traditional and independent work, such as:

• Freelancing
• Taking on short-term jobs via apps
• Selling products or services online

This means that many side hustles—although by no means all of them—feature flexible or part-time schedules. Many can also be done remotely.

With that said, many people also consider traditional, part-time jobs to be side hustles when done in addition to a primary job. The only thing that distinguishes those side hustles from “ordinary” jobs is that you do them to earn additional income.

There are lots of solid reasons to start a side hustle. Some of the most common ones include:

Earning more money

This is the most obvious reason to pick up extra work. Sometimes, people just need more money than their primary job pays.

Specifically, many people pick up side hustles to:

• Pay off debt
• Save up for a large expense, like a vacation, house, or new car
• Protect themselves against job loss
• Build up an emergency fund
• Save for retirement (or establish a source of passive income to rely on in retirement)

People who pursue side hustles with the goal of saving for retirement are often (but not always) part of the “Financial Independence, Retire Early” (FIRE) movement, which has a significant presence in online spaces focused on the gig economy.

Monetizing an interest or hobby

This is another common reason for people to pick up side hustles. If you have a hobby that you spend a lot of time on, such as crocheting, baking, or creative writing, it makes sense to try to earn money from it.

In some cases, this may free you up to spend more time on your passion than you’d otherwise be able to afford. When you’re also working a full-time job, it can be hard to justify pouring resources (both time and money) into your hobbies if you aren’t getting something tangible in return from them.

Launching a new career

A significant number of people with side hustles have the eventual goal of quitting their jobs and turning their side work into their primary source of income.

In many cases, this means starting a small business or working as a freelancer or contractor on a full-time basis.

The advantages of this are obvious; it lets you be your own boss and spend your time on something you’re passionate about. This isn’t realistic for everyone, but it’s a good goal for many people.

Growing professionally

Of course, not everyone with a side hustle is looking to get out of the rat race. Instead of picking a hustle that’s an escape from your main career, you’re also free to choose one that synergizes with it.

For instance, if you’re a skilled professional with a good reputation in your field, you can pick up consulting work on the side. This will strengthen your resume and give you the chance to develop new skills, as well as expand your professional network.

Some side hustles also offer the opportunity to develop your personal brand. This is particularly true if you make forays into content creation or social media marketing; anything that gets your name out there can have positive knock-on effects for your career.

Picking up extra work has drawbacks as well as perks. These include:

Stress and burnout

Achieving a healthy work-life balance can be hard, even with “just” a full-time job. It isn’t easy to juggle personal time, family obligations, social commitments, and other responsibilities with a 9-to-5.

When you add extra work into the mix, time management gets even more difficult. It’s certainly possible to have a side hustle without it consuming your entire life, but it can take a lot of discipline, and if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to burn out.

Loss of enjoyment of your hobbies

Some people have a negative view of “hustle culture,” and arguably, they have a point.

Let’s say you’re one of the lucky ones and you manage to monetize one of your favorite hobbies. That sounds idyllic, but it comes with downsides: suddenly, you’re introducing practical and financial complications (like deadlines, demands from customers, and so on) into an activity you previously did purely for fun.

That can be a real shock. It won’t necessarily ruin the hobby for you—that depends on your personality and how well you cope with stress—but for some people, there’s a lot to be said for letting hobbies remain … hobbies.

Financial risks and liabilities

If your side hustle involves working for yourself (instead of just picking up a part-time job), you’ll need to cover your own working expenses.

These can be substantial even for a relatively simple gig like driving for Uber (you’ll need to pay for your own gas, among other things).

Other hustles require specialized equipment that you’ll have to acquire, and if you want to start your own business, you’ll have to deal with a whole host of upfront and ongoing costs.

The bottom line is that sometimes, you have to spend money to make money. When you pick a side hustle, make sure you understand how much it will cost, and be realistic about whether your budget can accommodate it.

As mentioned, side hustles are extremely diverse. However, they can be separated into 8 broad categories. Reviewing these will give you a better sense of the options available to you:

1. Gig work

Most people use the word gig to refer to flexible, short-term work. In many cases, people land gigs through apps or online platforms.

We’ve listed the most popular types of jobs in the gig economy, with links to our reviews of the biggest apps in each niche.

Ridesharing

Ridesharing means ferrying passengers around town, using your personal vehicle to provide taxi services. The two most popular ridesharing apps are:

• Uber
• Lyft

Delivery driving

Delivery services will pay you to pick up food, groceries, or packages and take them to customers. There are many competing delivery driving apps, with the biggest names including:

• DoorDash
• Instacart
• Uber Eats
• Grubhub
• Amazon Flex

Manual labor

On some apps, you can get paid to help people with physically demanding chores, such as moving house or maintaining their lawns. The apps and platforms in this space are very diverse, but some of the bigger names include:

• Bellhop and Lugg (for helping people move)
• Puls Technician (for maintenance and repair work)
• LawnGuru (for landscaping and mowing lawns)

There are also several general-purpose apps, such as TaskRabbit, that feature odd jobs of all types.

Caregiving

There are also apps that will pay you for babysitting, pet sitting, and other caregiving tasks. These include:

• Care.com (for all sorts of caregiving gigs)
• UrbanSitter and Sittercity (for babysitting)
• Rover and Wag! (for pet sitting and dog walking)

Retail shift work

There are several apps that will connect you with one-off gigs in the retail and hospitality industries (e.g., in food service, bartending, and so on). Two of the most popular apps for this are:

• Qwick
• Jobble (which also offers some manual labor jobs)

Tutoring

Tutoring and teaching have also become part of the gig economy. There’s a particularly huge market for online English teachers, but you can get paid to teach just about anything, ranging from academic subjects like math to art and music.

Popular tutoring platforms include:

• Cambly (an English-teaching app)
• Skooli and Wyzant (general-purpose tutoring apps that feature many subjects)

2. Freelancing

Freelancers are independent workers who offer their services directly to clients. When people talk about “freelancing,” they usually mean white-collar work, although virtually any type of skilled labor can be done on a freelance basis.

Common types of freelance work include:

• Accounting/bookkeeping
• Coding/programming
• Consulting
• Data entry
• Design (e.g., graphic design, web design, etc.)
• Transcription
• Translation
• Project management
• Virtual assistance
• Writing and editing

Major freelancing platforms

Many (but not all) freelancers look for work on online job boards or “marketplaces,” which connect independent workers with clients. The most famous freelancing sites include:

• Fiverr
• Freelancer.com
• Upwork

Some fields and industries also have their own ecosystems of dedicated marketplaces. For instance, there are quite a few freelance writing job boards out there. If you have a skill that you’re interested in offering on a freelance basis, search the web to see if there are any websites devoted to it.

3. Selling products

Some side hustles consist of selling products, either online (via an e-commerce platform) or in person (e.g., at a local market).

The products you can sell fall into several categories:

Artisanal/crafted items

If there’s something you’re good at making, you may be able to make money by selling it. Popular types of handcrafted goods include:

• Art (paintings, pottery, sculpture, etc.)
• Candles
• Clothing
• Baked goods or other food
• Jewelry
• Soap

The biggest website for selling crafts is Etsy, although many sellers also set up their own independent e-commerce stores using services like Shopify.

Digital downloads

Many people make money by selling virtual products for people to download. These include:

• E-books: If you’re a writer, you can create an e-book (either fiction or nonfiction) and list it for sale on a website like Kindle Direct Publishing, which is Amazon’s self-publishing platform.
• Printables: A “printable” is a digital graphic or template that customers can download and print out. Designers often create printables for items like calendars, stickers, postcards, and notebooks. As with crafted goods, you can sell printables on Etsy and other e-commerce sites.
• Online courses: If you have a skill that other people want to learn, you can create a multimedia course (featuring recorded lectures, worksheets, etc.) and sell it on a site like Udemy or Skillshare.

Print-on-demand or dropshipped items

If you’re a designer but you’d rather sell physical products than intangible downloads, you can do so by using a print-on-demand service, such as Printful or Printify.

You’ll list your creations for sale, and when customers buy them, the website will print them out and ship them for you.

Print-on-demand is closely related to “dropshipping,” which is another way to sell products without maintaining a regular inventory. It involves buying products in bulk from a wholesaler and then selling them at a markup, usually via a site like Amazon or your own e-commerce store.

However, in contrast to print-on-demand, as a dropshipper, you don’t have to have to actually design the products yourself.

Secondhand goods

Some sellers scour thrift stores, yard and garage sales, and online marketplaces like eBay for hidden gems that are being sold for below their market value. They buy the items and resell them for a profit, sometimes after repairing or refurbishing them.

This is referred to as “flipping” products. Popular products to flip include:

• Books
• Clothes
• Collectibles (trading cards, etc.)
• Electronics (phones, computers, game consoles, etc.)
• Furniture
• Household appliances
• Jewelry
• Sneakers

Of course, you can also sell secondhand items as a one-off instead of as an ongoing side hustle. If you have a lot of junk sitting around that you don’t want anymore, you can offload it for a profit. There are several apps that will facilitate this, including Decluttr, which will purchase your old gadgets and books.

4. Renting out space or items

You don’t necessarily need to part with your things to earn money from them. Instead of selling your stuff, you can also lease it out when you aren’t using it.

For instance, you can rent your:

• Spare room or second home: You’ve probably heard of Airbnb and Vrbo. You can use these sites to list a room in your house (or an entire property) for short-term renters, such as vacationers, to stay in.

• Car: There’s a surprising number of platforms, such as Turo, that you can use to rent out your car when you aren’t using it. This is a good side hustle if you travel out of town a lot or work from home and don’t spend much time behind the wheel of your own vehicle.

• Yard: If you’d rather not let strangers into your house or car, you can charge people to use your yard for a few hours. For example, Sniffspot is a popular app that lets you list your property as a temporary dog park.

• Parking spot: If you have a designated parking spot that you aren’t using, there are apps, such as SpotHero, that you can use to lease it to somebody else. This will be particularly lucrative if you live in a dense urban area where parking is at a premium.

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are dozens of other things you can rent for money, including electronics (particularly cameras and drones), sports equipment, and clothing.

5. Microtasking (taking online surveys, etc.)

It’s possible to earn money by completing “microtasks”—tiny online jobs, such as taking surveys, watching ads, or reading emails. This is one of the easiest side hustles out there, since it can be done remotely, requires no time commitment whatsoever, and takes very little effort.

There are a lot of microtasking websites, including several you may have already heard of. They include:

• InboxDollars
• Swagbucks
• Survey Junkie

Note that, while these sites will pay you real money to take surveys, they usually don’t pay very much money. At their best, microtasking sites pay around $4 per hour, and often much less.

This is a very simple side hustle to pick up, but not a particularly rewarding one. Still, it might be worth it if you’re looking for something relatively mindless that you can use to earn a few extra dollars during slow moments (like when you’re riding the bus or train).

6. Playing skill-based games (aka minigames with cash prizes)

A significant number of apps feature variations on classic games, such as solitaire, and will pay you cash prizes if you win. These apps describe themselves as “skill-based games” to differentiate themselves from purely luck-based gambling apps (which aren’t allowed in most app stores).

Skill-based games can be fun to play, but in general, they aren’t a practical way to make money. The apps strongly incentivize users to plunk down their own cash to enter tournaments. In practice, most of the time, they’re indistinguishable from gambling apps, and your odds of winning usually aren’t great.

If you find these games fun and want to play them for money, that’s your choice, but they aren’t reliable side hustles. You can read our reviews of several apps in this space below:

• Bingo Cash
• Bubble Cash
• Blackout Bingo
• 21 Cash

7. Working a part-time job

Most of the side hustles we’ve listed so far are nontraditional or independent work, meaning they don’t involve a standard employment contract.

Again, this is often the type of work that comes to mind when people talk about side hustles, but it isn’t the only option. Millions of people who need extra money simply work second jobs. That isn’t as exciting as working for yourself, but it’s often the most practical way to boost your income.

You can pick up any type of work you’re qualified to do, although many people gravitate towards the following industries, which are easy to break into and feature plenty of part-time jobs:

• Customer service
• Hospitality and food service
• Landscaping and lawn care
• Retail
• Warehousing

8. Starting your own business

The last type of side hustle on our list is also the most ambitious: starting your own small business.

In many cases, this means scaling up one of the side hustles we’ve already described. For instance, if you’ve spent a while picking up dog-walking gigs and you enjoy it, it might make sense to start your own operation instead of relying on an app to land work.

Starting a business is challenging, but can be very rewarding, both personally and financially. It’s a natural place to end up if you originally picked up your side hustle with the goal of quitting your primary job.

Online content creation as a small business or side hustle

Many people are interested in content creation as a side hustle. This is a broad term, but it often refers to one of these activities:

• Blogging
• Creating videos
• Podcasting
• Social media posting (i.e., being an influencer)
• Streaming

People don’t always think of online creators as business owners, but that’s essentially what they are, and being an influencer or creator comes with many of the same challenges as starting a company.

This is a viable side hustle, but it’s highly competitive, and it’s worth noting that many creators never actually manage to make much money. If you’re interested in getting into this space, that’s entirely your choice, but make sure your expectations are realistic.

We’ve listed quite a few different side hustles. We’ll give you a few tips on how to choose between them, as well as what to do once you eventually settle on something.

Factors to consider when choosing a side hustle

When you consider what side hustle to pick up, ask yourself the following questions:

What’s your primary goal?

Think about which of the goals we mentioned above most strongly resonates with you. Do you …

• … need to make money quickly?
• … want to transition to a new career?
• … just want to earn a little cash from a hobby you’re already doing?

As mentioned, some hustles—especially gig work—are quick to get off the ground. This is good if you have urgent expenses on the horizon and need money fast. The downside is that they often have poor long-term potential; the money you’ll make on day one as an Uber driver, for instance, is essentially what you’ll make on day one thousand.

Conversely, other side hustles (such as selling crafts on Etsy, freelance writing, or starting your own business) take longer to get going. However, if and when they do, they tend to have better long-term potential, so they’re a good option if you’re looking to escape from your current career.

Whatever your goals are, the important thing is to pick a side hustle that matches them. Of course, you don’t necessarily have to pick just one. If you need a side job that will bring in money quickly but also want to pursue something else as a passion project, that’s fine.

Note that once you decide broadly what you’re hoping to accomplish, you should also set concrete, measurable targets so that you can evaluate how your new side hustle is going. We’ll talk about this in more detail further down in this section.

What are your local market conditions like?

Before you choose a hustle, do a little research to see what niches are open in your area. If your dream is to take on babysitting jobs with the end goal of opening your own daycare center (to give one example), it’s important to find out whether that market is already saturated in your neighborhood.

You can investigate this by conducting searches on Google or simply asking around. You can also keep an eye on local message boards (e.g., Craigslist and Nextdoor). You may spot people complaining about their unmet needs, and every complaint is a potential opportunity for someone with an entrepreneurial mindset.

What are your skills and interests?

Ideally, you’ll pick a side hustle that you’re good at and think you’d enjoy (or at least tolerate—there’s no law that says your hustle has to be a passion project, although it’s great if it is).

If you’re quick with a keyboard, consider becoming a freelance transcriptionist or pursuing another side hustle that will pay you to type. If you’re in good shape and prefer working outdoors, you could start a lawn care side hustle, and so on.

If you’re really having trouble deciding, take our one-minute side hustle quiz to get an idea of what might be a good fit. Alternatively, you can explore the lists below, which feature side hustles that are particularly suited to people in different life situations.

Quantifying your goals

Regardless of what side hustle you pick, it’s worth sitting down and listing your goals, making them as concrete and specific as possible. For example, you might want to write down:

• How much money you want to make, either per week/month or within a certain timeframe (e.g., within 6 months)
• Benchmarks for many clients, customers, or followers you want to gain within that same period
• How long it will take for your side hustle to actually become profitable (if it will take a while to get going)

Tailor your goals to your chosen side hustle, and try to make them both ambitious and realistic. The key is to establish hard metrics that you can use to measure how your side hustle is going—and evaluate whether you picked the right one.

Getting your side hustle off the ground

The process to start your hustle will depend on what you actually end up doing. That said, here are the steps you’ll generally need to follow for the most common types of side jobs:

• Gig work: If you plan on earning money through a gig app (or a microtasking platform), most of the time, all you’ll need to do is sign up. Depending on the app, you may need to submit to a background check or undergo an interview or vetting process, but gig work generally has a low barrier to entry.
• Freelancing: Getting started as a freelancer is slightly more involved. You’ll need to create a portfolio of your past work, sign up for one or more freelancing marketplaces, and start applying for jobs. Alternatively, you can look for work through your personal or professional network, or try cold outreach (emailing potential clients directly to pitch your services).
• Starting a business:On the far end of the spectrum, if you want to start your own small business, you may have to lay groundwork for months before you start earning any money at all. You’ll need to acquire equipment, apply for any necessary licenses, and potentially hire employees. If you’re not sure where to begin with all of that, contact your local Small Business Administration office and ask if there are any resources they can point you to.

It’s up to you what side hustle you want to pursue. They all have their pros and cons, even ones that pay very little (like microtasking) or that are extremely competitive (like being a social media influencer).

However, there are a few hustles that the vast majority of people should avoid, simply because the odds of losing money on them are very high.

At their best, these types of gigs are extremely risky, and at their worst, they’re outright scams. Here’s a list of side hustles that we strongly recommend staying away from.

Multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs)

Multi-level marketing refers to a sales and marketing strategy that some businesses use. These companies are referred to as “MLMs.”

Workers for MLMs are independent salespeople. They generally buy products from the companies they’re working for, then try to resell them for a profit. MLM workers are paid by commission, which means that if they aren’t able to move enough products, they don’t earn any money.

MLMs also encourage their workers to recruit other people. They incentivize this by promising a cut of the new worker’s profits to the person who recruited them (as well as a cut from any workers theygo on to recruit, and so on, ad infinitum).

The problem with MLMs is that very few people who work for them make any money.

Many people consider MLMs to be pyramid schemes (i.e., scams). While the companies themselves deny this, they do have pyramid-shaped structures; founding members and very early recruits (the people at the top of the pyramid) are able to profit off of the people beneath them, but most of the company’s salespeople will never successfully recruit anyone, and consequently make almost nothing.

Moreover, MLM products are usually substantially marked up, so it’s very hard to make money simply by selling them. The bottom line is that most people who get involved in MLMs end up operating at a loss.

How to tell if a company is an MLM

There’s a good chance a company is an MLM if it:

• Tasks you with selling products that you’re expected to initially buy yourself (or that finds other ways of charging you money, like requiring you to undergo paid training before you begin selling)
• Encourages you to recruit other salespeople, and tells you that eventually, most of your money will come from them

Both of these are warning signs, and we recommend staying away from any company that fits that profile, even if their marketing pitches are persuasive.

Notable multi-level marketing companies

You’re probably familiar with at least a couple of MLMs. Some of the most well-known examples include:

• Amway
• Avon
• Herbalife
• Mary Kay
• Nu Skin

Some of these companies treat their sales representatives better than others, but regardless of which MLM you work for, you’re unlikely to make money.

Other online pyramid schemes

In addition to MLMs, there are other (even less legitimate) “side hustles” that operate like pyramid schemes.

This is particularly prevalent in the online course market. There are many courses that claim they’ll teach you how to make very large amounts of money, but when you purchase them, it turns out that all they teach is how to make an online course exactly like the one you just bought.

In other words—stay with us here—this scam consists of selling a course that teaches people to make a course that teaches other people to make a course that … you get the picture.

This isn’t a practical way to make money for a very simple reason: there’s a limited market for this type of product. As a latecomer to the game, your own course is unlikely to get much attention (and even if you do manage to sell a few courses, all of your customers will become your future competitors!)

How to avoid course-selling pyramid schemes

To avoid getting taken in by this type of scam, never buy a course if the creator:

• Markets it with promises that seem unrealistic (e.g., “learn to make $10,000 in 2 weeks”)
• Doesn’t explain exactly what it will teach you upfront

In a similar vein, if you’re interested in making an online course of your own, make sure it teaches a genuinely valuable and hard-to-acquire skill. Selling courses is a legitimate side hustle, but if yours is indistinguishable from hundreds of others, no one will buy it.

High-risk investing and trading

Not everyone considers investing (e.g., buying shares of companies on the stock market) to be a side hustle, but it’s one of the best ways to grow your money over time—at least when you do it responsibly.

That’s an important caveat, because it’s easy to get carried away and make poor choices when you begin investing. There’s a lot of bad advice floating around out there, and there are more than a few investment vehicles that are borderline scams.

Outlining a safe investing strategy is outside the scope of this article, but in general, you should avoid:

• Making any investment decisions on impulse
• Buying or selling any asset simply because large numbers of other people are
• Investing in anything you don’t understand (especially if you’ve been told it’s “a sure thing” or “risk-free”)

In the long term, investing has the potential to be more lucrative than any other side hustle we’ve discussed, but only if you take it seriously. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’ll lose money instead of making it.

Types of investments to be cautious about

Be particularly cautious about investing in:

• Cryptocurrency
• Shares of companies that recently spiked in price
• Timeshares (joint ownership or “use rights” of real estate)
• Annuities (contracts that pay back money over time in exchange for a large amount upfront)

These aren’t always bad investments, but they often are.

Put another way, while all investments come with at least some element of risk, these are more likely to lead to poor outcomes than more conventional ones. Particularly when you’re relatively new to investing, it’s a good idea to stay away from them.