This is a list of ways to save and make more money mainly aimed at making money as a 2nd income/side hustle or to work remotely and travel more. There are still useful tips on how to earn more money that anyone can use. The side income hustle list is always growing so check back often.
As I update the blog more, I’ll provide more in-depth posts and tutorials about each side income plan below. You can find the detailed information about each idea by clicking the links that should take you to my own strategy or one that I recommend reading on another site.
Some of these tactics are repeated several times below. I just did that for the sake of organizing it.
If anyone reading this has any other idea, please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll look into that. Thanks in advance!
*** Things I’ve done before
+++ Things I’m currently doing
Making Money on Amazon
+++ Merch by Amazon – Zero cost to get into. You submit designs for t-shirts and hoodies. Amazon lists, markets, prints the shirts, and deals with the customers. Designs don’t have to be professional. They can just be words. Some of my best selling shirts I made using an app on my phone in under 5 minutes.
+++ Retail Arbitrage – You buy discounted items at stores like Ross, Marshalls, or clearance at Target. You list those products on Amazon and collect the difference, minus any Amazon fees.
+++ Tactical Arbitrage – This is just like retail arbitrage except that you can do it from your computer chair. Instead of going to stores to find discounted products, you can look online. I once made about $200 buying and flipping 10 of a single toy that I bought on Kmart’s clearance page.
Selling Private Label Items – You can make a fortune if you do this right. You find a product being manufactured in China using Alibaba.com. Buy that product in bulk for a very low price and sell it for a major markup on Amazon. I’m currently looking into this, but it requires some money upfront and the important thing is finding the right products and markets to sell to.
+++ Flipping Books – This is just like retail arbitrage except much cheaper and easier to get into. You can technically start for free. Amazon lets you sell used books on their site. You can start by listing books around your house to learn the process then move onto buying cheap used books at libraries, garage sales, thrift shops, etc.
Making Money on eBay
+++ Sell Your Stuff – Go around your house and look at the stuff you don’t need or want anymore. If you don’t want to attempt a garage sale, you can try listing your stuff on eBay. I guarantee there are things in your house or apartment that you haven’t touched in years that you can get rid of for some money. Also, if you start selling stuff around your house you’ll figure out what is easy to sell for decent money which leads to…
+++ Buy and Sell Used Items – I recommend selling stuff from around your house first so you can get an idea of the whole process of selling things on eBay. You can then find used products anywhere that you can buy cheap (or get free sometimes) and sell them on eBay for a profit. Great places to find items for resale would be estate sales, yard sales, thrift shops, Craigslist, and even dumpster diving if you’re feeling adventurous.
*** Retail and Tactical Arbitrage – Just like I mentioned above for Amazon, you can do retail arbitrage and tactical arbitrage on eBay. You can actually sell things you find cheap on Amazon directly on eBay if you find enough room for profit. Amazon has more restrictions on what you can sell, so eBay is great when you find a great deal on something Amazon won’t let you list on their site.
*** Shoe Flipping – This is technically retail arbitrage, but you can focus your efforts. Buy highly discounted shoes at stores like Ross and Marshall’s that you can turn into a profit on eBay. I recommend following Hustler Hacks on YouTube for some great lessons on how to turn some discount store Nikes and Jordans into a small fortune.
Reselling Thrift Store Clothes – Thrift stores are goldmines for finding clothes that can be flipped for great money. If you know what to look for, you can make a killing doing this. People are looking for unique items, great deals, and also vintage clothing on eBay. That’s everything that you’ll find at a Goodwill! Follow @theposhhanger on Instagram for inspiration and lessons on how to make money selling thrift store clothes on eBay and other sites like Poshmark.
Gig Economy Jobs
The “gig economy” has sprung up over the last few years in a big way. I love this because you can work on your own schedule which has always been my issue with part time jobs. Most of these freelance jobs allow you to just check in on the app when you have some free time and then turn it off when you’re ready to go home. I’m only going to list a few of these, but there are new ones popping up everyday. I’ll make a post outlining as many of them as I can find soon.
*** Ridesharing – This used to be a lot more lucrative when there were less drivers on the road. Earning your tips is going to really help you stand out and make much better money as a rideshare driver. Right now the options for this are Uber and Lyft.
Food Delivery – If you don’t want to deal with driving people around because you feel awkward or scared about it, then you can just deal with putting food in your car instead. You just might have a hard time not eating the food and maybe getting that smell of burgers out of the car. The different food delivery services I know of are Uber Eats, Postmates, Doordash, and Caviar. I’ve read that Caviar has the best payouts to drivers since the tips are a percentage of the already higher prices.
Deliver for Amazon – Amazon Flex claims that you can make $18-$25 per hour on your own schedule working for them. Delivering food for companies like Postmates and driving people around like with Uber allows you to check in and check out whenever you want. Amazon Flex has you sign up for delivery blocks of time where you’ll be making deliveries for them.
Task Rabbit – This is a pretty interesting app since it connects people in need of so many different things with people qualified to do those specific projects…or just have the free time to get them done. Task Rabbit has people looking to have tasks done…shocking. They can be anything like walking a dog, helping someone move, mounting a TV, or filling out a spreadsheet on Excel. It is worth browsing through there to see if there is anything you’d want to spend some of your free time on. A lot of the tasks can be completed without even having to get up from your computer too.
Airbnb Experiences – Do you have any special skills you can share with tourists? Do you know anything interesting about your city that you can charge to give a tour of? Check out Airbnb Experiences for some of the things others are offering in your city or around the world. I’ve paid to go on photography class tours, cooking classes, bike tours, bar hopping with a local, and took a drawing class. You can share your local city love and set your own prices and schedule.
Fiverr – Fiverr is a website where people can pay $5 to get a lot of things. You’d be amazed at what you can get for $5 online. There is always a market for new people that want to get on Fiverr with their own skillset. It doesn’t have to just be $5 though if you’re worried about it being hard to scale up. You can charge $5 for a base level of whatever you’re offering and then upsell premium services for more money. Or you can just go on there and pay somebody $5 to prank call your friend as Christopher Walken.
Dog walker – Rover and Wag are a couple of apps that you can sign up for to get paid to walk dogs. This is perfect for someone with a flexible schedule that loves dogs.
Charge Bird and Lime Scooters – If you live in a city that has these motorized scooters for rent, you can get paid to collect them at night and charge them. You earn about $5-$20 per charged Bird depending on how hard they are to get to.
Part Time Job Ideas
When I moved to Los Angeles, I had to constantly have a 2nd part time job just so I could afford to exist. Part-time jobs are great for a consistent side income and there are some that you can make decent money doing too. The ideas below are just my favorite ideas based on income potential and/or flexibility.
Working at a Bar/Night Club – There are more jobs at a bar than just a bartender. If you know how to bartend and get a job doing that, do that! Bartenders often make an incredible amount of money on a per hour basis. Other jobs you can do include security, barback, runners, and bussers. If you’re a hot girl then bottle service at a good night club will make you enough cash to send you on a vacation quickly.
Catering Jobs – Depending on the level of service, you can make some decent money working for a catering company. You will work long hours and probably have to work hard to do it, but the flexibility of these jobs makes them worth it.
Holiday Mall Jobs – I don’t like picking up part-time jobs because I don’t like how open ended they are. Holiday jobs are great because not a lot is really expected of you and there is usually a termination date. Go to the mall around Christmas or a party store around Halloween to get an easy, and usually fun, holiday job.
Rent Out Things You Own
Airbnb – if you have a spare room in your house or apartment, turn that into some extra cash by renting it out on Airbnb. For those of you reading this because you want to raise money to travel, this is a no-brainer since you also get to hang out with like-minded travelers. When you do end up going on your own vacation, you can rent out your entire home to offset the cost of your trip.
Rent your Car – There are companies that will rent your car out for you Airbnb style. This is perfect for when you are actually out traveling and you aren’t planning on using your car anyway. If you live close to work, you can try renting your car out and walking/biking to work so your car is making you extra money while you’re at the day job. Two companies you can look to for this are Turo and Getaround.
Rent Camera Gear – A good camera and it’s gear is insanely expensive. There are people that only need it for a short period for a one time shoot that is looking to rent instead of buying their own. Kitsplit lets you rent out your camera and/or the gear. The orders are always insured so you don’t have to worry about a stranger breaking your expensive cameras.
Make Money Writing
Do you have any writing talents whether they are fiction writing, technical, or marketing? Are you still holding onto your dream of being a best selling author? Well if you just enjoy writing, then there are plenty of ways to make money online doing it.
Upwork -This is similar to Fiverr in some ways, but you can get much bigger contract jobs out of it. It is all freelance work open to individuals with different skillsets. There are lots of blog writers, graphic designers, social media marketers, virtual assistants, etc. Everyone bids on job postings that they feel qualified for.
+++ Blogging – Hmm, what kind of website are you on. Am I making money off of this? Well, not at the time of the writing, but I plan on it. I’ve made plenty of blogs in the past that I’ve used to make money. The best option is to find something you really care about and just keep writing about it. The money will follow. That is the long term plan to sanely make good money. There are quicker ways of narrowing down on a niche and writing a lot of content you don’t care about. I once had a website about oil changes. It made money, but can you imagine how much I loathed writing over 100 articles about getting your oil changed?
Write an eBook – There are 2 main ways you can monetize an eBook. You can sell it on Amazon or you can create a niche blog and sell it there. Fiction actually sells pretty well on Amazon for Kindle readers. You can even hire people off of Upwork to write you inexpensive fiction stories if you don’t consider yourself much of a writer. I’ve even heard of people taking books that are in the public domain and selling them on Amazon. There is literally an eBook on Amazon called “How to Make Money on Amazon Selling Public Domain Books.” You can probably find all of that info on some blogs or Youtube, but someone is monetizing the collection
Sharing Promo Codes
Usually you won’t “make money” by sharing your promo codes with people, but you can get credit for the things you already use. That is sort of like making an income off of that. I’m going to shamelessly share my codes after each of these so you can get your discounts and sign up bonuses and hopefully I can get the referrals.
Airbnb promo code – It is entirely possible to earn enough money on Airbnb by sharing your promo code that it can pay for an entire stay in an Airbnb house when you travel. When you share your Airbnb code you’ll $20 for every person that signs up with your code and they’ll get $40 in credit to use towards their first stay. If you don’t have an account yet, feel free to use this Airbnb coupon code and get your $40 credit and start earning more with your own code.
Uber / Lyft promo code for passengers – Have you ever noticed how everyone and their mother (my mother did try) will offer or advertise their Uber and Lyft promo codes? That’s because they get a kickback in their own account to use for free rides. The more people you get to sign up for these services, the more money you get in your account to use!
+++ Uber / Lyft promo code for driver – Here you actually get paid out and pretty well. If you are a registered driver for Uber or Lyft, you can share your code with new drivers and get a decent bonus. I stopped driving for both of these years ago, but every now and then will get a PayPal deposit for $200-$500 each time a new person signs up to drive! On the other side of that, if you aren’t a driver yet, you should 100% get a code from a current driver. They will get their referral fee AND you’ll get a special sign up bonus.
Ibotta – I mention this below for a great way to save money, but you can sign up and make money just by referring friends. This is an app that people should be using anyway, so don’t feel bad pushing it on people. Ibotta works by giving you money back on your groceries just by scanning your receipt after you go shopping. You can get EXTRA money when you refer friends and family though. Sign up with my code “dq3ra” and you’ll get a $10 welcome bonus in your account and I’ll get $5 as a thanks from them. Then…you share yours with people!
Medical Related Money Opportunities
When all else fails, you can sell your body to science! Well, it isn’t that bad…except some of the medical testing. In some cases you’ll actually be getting paid doing something that can save someones life or change it for the better.
*** Sell blood plasma – This is the old broke college kid move. Has anyone else ever sold blood to buy beer? Just my old fraternity? Most major cities have locations where you can sell your blood plasma for money. It is very similar to donating blood, except it takes a bit longer. You can make between $20 and $40 per visit and usually go up to twice a week.
Sell sperm – This is a fun way for guys to make some money. You just have to be OK with the idea that you might be a baby daddy to a lot of children all over the place that you’ll never know. If you are OK with that and you have a good family health history then you can make up to $1,000 a month “making donations.” The quotes were unnecessary, but also very necessary there.
Sell eggs – Ladies, do you know how much your eggs are worth? I’m going to say priceless, but you can actually get people to bid on your eggs. If you were to go to a clinic you’d get somewhere between $4,000 and $8,000 for a donation. Sign up with an agency and that can go up to $25,000 if they match you with someone. If you are a super candidate (i.e. athletic, good health history, Ivy League graduate, etc.) then you can hold out for almost double that.
Be a Lab Rat – You can get paid to be a part of medical research. I always had a strange desire to sign up for one of those month long medical studies where you stay in a hospital the entire time to run tests. That’s not so strange when you put a $10,000 price tag on it. Overnight stays will get you around that, especially with more invasive tests. If you are doing something like testing the effects of a sauna after a run, you might get closer to $100.
Saving More Money
Ever heard the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned?” Well, that couldn’t be any more true. Not spending money is almost the same as making additional money. That whole idea of doing simple things like not buying coffee really adds up, especially when you do it consistently and with different plans.
Some people might balk at the idea of only saving $2 doing something. If you save $2 here, $1 there, and $2 there that’s $5. Do that 20 times and you have an extra $100 sitting in your account. You’d be surprised how quickly that actually happens when you stick with a savings plan.
Apps to help Save Money
Ibotta – This is something I like to use to slowly accumulate some extra money. When I’m ready to cash out, there is usually about $60 or $70 sitting in there for me. After you go grocery shopping open up the app and see if anything you bought is on the list. If it is, you just scan the receipt and they’ll give you rebates on each specific item for $0.25 to the most I’ve seen of $5.00. Let the money sit there and build until you need it and they will send your balance to your PayPal account. Use my code to get a $10 welcome bonus – dq3ra
Mint – Mint doesn’t actually do anything to specifically save money for you. What it does do is it puts things into perspective. Did you know how much money you are spending on clothes or out at the bars? Well, this app will give you a reality slap so you can think twice about paying for something you don’t need.
Discount Gift Card Apps – Buy discounted gift cards while you’re in a store to immediately save money on a purchase. This works for groceries, retail stores, movie theaters, restaurants, and more. If you’re doing the retail arbitrage to make money as I mentioned above, you can double down and save even more on products to resell by getting a discounted gift card to go along with the sale. The best discount card apps I know of are Raise and Gift Card Granny.
Save Money Shopping Online
I feel like you never actually have to spend full price on anything when you’re shopping online. You’re one Google search away from finding the best price on anything and then you have coupon codes and discount cards to save even more. I recommend you ALWAYS try to combine the two deals below on everything you buy online if you can.
Promo Codes – If you ever see a promo code or coupon code box on a web page, make sure you at least try and find a deal. A 10 second Google search can save you a bunch of money on most websites. There is an amazing Chrome extension called “Honey” that will automatically add a list of discount codes to your order to find the best one available. It costs you nothing, but saves you plenty.
Gift Card Discounts – Just like the apps mentioned above, you can buy discount gift cards online. They work for online shopping and in store. If you’re trying to make an immediate purchase, just make sure you are ordering e-gift cards. They’ll be available as soon as you buy the card. My favorite sites for these are Raise, Gift Card Granny, and Cardpool.
Fix Your Debt
I’m not sure if I need any disclaimers here, but I’m not a professional money person in any way. I’m just someone who has had a lot of debt and has had bad credit. I’ve gone through a lot to fix both of those problems and can offer advice based off of my experiences. Those experiences tell me…have less debt! Less debt = less monthly payments. Less monthly payments = more free money to do what you want with.
Refinance Student Loans – Some of us may have taken out a little more than we planned on for college. Some of us may feel like we are paying more per month than we should have to. Some of us are pretty bitter about that. If you feel like you’re drowning in student loan debt, you might want to look into refinancing your student loans. I was able to get my payment down over $400 per month which is actually life-changing. Given, that is for a 6 figure debt, but even lower debts can benefit. I refinanced my private student loans with Earnest and couldn’t be happier to rid myself of Sallie Mae/Navient’s horrible experience. If you are interested in Earnest you can apply via my link and get a $200 sign up bonus in your account and I’ll also get a $200 referral.
Transfer Credit Card Debt – This is just something that helped me when I racked up a lot of credit card debt when I had bad credit. I obviously had a super high-interest rate which meant my balance was growing like crazy and my minimum was insanely high. Transferring to a card with a zero-interest I was able to make lower payments, but instead, I paid what I was on the last card which now helped shrink the debt faster.
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