7 Excellent Ideas to Make Money on the Side

Are you looking for ideas to make money on the side?

Money makes the world go round. Clichéd but true. Everyone could sure use some spare cash to make their lives easier or better.

It could be that you need to pay off student loans, put a down payment on a house, go on vacation or even want to regularly go out on a night on the town.

So if you are looking for some ideas to make money on the side to meet some of these goals, you have come to the right place.

The most obvious way to make money is to find an extra job. A side job can provide much needed extra income without having to give up the relative stability of your main gig.

Fabulous Ideas to Make Money on the Side

Here is a list of ideas to make money on the side:

#1:  Take surveys

This is probably the easiest way to make some extra cash. Imagine getting paid for something you do anyway, give your opinion?

Surveys require a few minutes of your time online answering some questions about a product or service. Survey companies need to collect information of different demographics so you will have to provide information such as your age, sex, level of income and so. You can sign up to several survey sites at once to increase your chances of making some decent cash.

Similar to doing online surveys is participating in focus groups. Again, you get paid for discussing your opinion on a certain product or service. Payment can be in cash or in gift cards.

 #2:  Test drive a website

This is another one of the easier ideas to make money. You can actually get paid to go on to a website and find out if it works. Website developers and owners are very interested in knowing what kind of experiences visitors to the website are having.

As a website tester or reviewer, all you are required to do is to browse through the pages on the website to make sure all the links work, if the website if user friendly and any other feedback of your user experience. Each website review assignment will differ from the other but you will typically be given a list of instructions on what to do.

Developers also require apps to be reviewed and this can also be another source of easy income.

#3:  Rent out a room

If you live in a tourist town or near a tourist attraction, have a spare room (or couch) and don’t mind sharing space with strangers renting out a room maybe a good idea for you. You can list your space on Airbnb who take a small percentage of your earnings.

All you need to do is sign up, which is free, and upload some pictures of the space you are renting out and the common areas your prospective renters will be using. You may need to spend some money to get professional shots of your space as this will help attract renters.
Source: Airbnb.com
You can set any price for your space but you should make a comparison with the listings in your neighborhood. You don’t want to price yourself out the market. Caution is also necessary as there have been some hosts who have had terrible experiences with their renters.

However, this is one of the best ideas to make money as you get to make some cool green while meeting some interesting people, usually. You could also host exchange students, visiting academics or visitors to a convention.

#4:  Dog walking and sitting

If you are an animal lover, you can make some money and getting some quality time with your furry friends. You just need to acquire several clients and walk the dogs all at once.
Dog walking is also a great way to keep fit and spend some time in the outdoors. You can also pet sit when the parents are not in town. No skills required except maybe knowing how to wield a pooper scooper.

#5:  Run errands

You can make some extra money from carrying out tasks people just do not have time to do. These tasks could include doing bank runs, picking up dry cleaning or even queuing for tickets. Yes, there are people willing to pay others to stand in line for them.

#6:  Become a Tutor

If you have a university degree, you can put your education to some good use by becoming a tutor to college and high school students. There are a number of online tutor sites that can help you start by matching you up with students.

#7:  Take Up Freelancing

This is one of the BEST ideas to make money that has great potential for becoming more than just a side hustle. Freelancing allows you to make good use of skills you already have and may even be using at your regular job.

The internet is largely responsible for the growth of this money making option and there are a large number of freelancer websites such as Upwork.com and PeoplePerHour.com.
These websites allow clients to find freelancers to complete tasks for them usually at a cost lower than they would pay in more traditional work arrangements.

Freelancers benefit from the possibility of working from home, at hours they determine for themselves, without the boss breathing down their necks. Clients and freelancers can be at opposite sides of the globes and still get to work together.

As a freelancer you can write for blogs, create content for websites, design websites, do graphic design work, data entry, research, translation and transcription. As long as you have a marketable skill, you can make some money freelancing. You will need a steady internet connection.

Finding the right ideas to make money is a rather difficult task. There are loads of stories online about how people make easy money passively.

What they don’t usually say is that it takes a great deal of work before you can get to that point of making a passive income. You are also very unlikely to become a millionaire overnight.

The truth of the matter is that you will probably be slogging a way for a good deal of time before you start to make some decent loot.

Bonus: Make money Selling Merchant Accounts. There are always merchants that need the products that give them the ability to process payments, track sales and basically keep their business running safely and efficiently.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.