8 Side Gigs for People Pressed for Time

If time is money, then your side hustle needs to be worth it. Better yet, how about one that puts passive income in the bank.

Earning extra money is an idea that appeals to many, but a lot of us already have full-time jobs and other time-consuming commitments.

Freelancing can be a great gig for the skilled and strategic-minded individual. Is being a marketing professional your day job? Advising and supporting clients as a freelancer could be a path to extra income and your eventual own business.

Platforms: Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer.com are popular platforms and offer opportunities to do lots of jobs, like writing, programming design, marketing, virtual assistant work and others.

First step: Sign up and make a profile on one of the popular freelance platforms and see what happens. It takes Upwork 48 hours to approve your profile, for example, and after that, you’ll need to land your first gig.

Soraya Ivette is a content marketing strategist who offers services on Fiverr. She started freelancing part time when she was home with her young children, and has done well.

“Once I set up my profile on Fiverr, I started getting job requests within a couple of weeks and I started taking on more jobs and making regular money consistently every month,” she said in an email interview.

Generative artificial intelligence is so hot right now. Research from PwC estimates that the North American economy will see a $3.7 trillion impact by 2030, thanks to the AI market^[0]. You can integrate AI tools as a freelancer to create or enhance digital products, come up with ideas and strategies, and even generate code.

Platforms: OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the one you’ve heard of. There’s a host more generative AI tools, including Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini.

First step: Start by experimenting with free versions of generative AIs available on the web to explore how you can leverage them for your work. Then, seek tutorials on how to effectively compose prompts that maximize the results you get from text-to-text and text-to-image AI tools.

Create a quality downloadable digital product — like an e-book, cookbook, weekly planner or self-help guide — and post it online.

Platforms: You can use a site like Canva to make original designs with the help of free templates. Sell your own final product on Etsy or a digital product marketplace like Gumroad. You can use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to sell your e-books on the Kindle store.

First step: Conceptualize and research. Is there a need for what you want to make and can you do it well enough to sell it online? Do you have a couple-hundred-page book in your head, ready to be written? Look on Amazon, Etsy and Gumroad for what’s selling before you get to work.

You do the design and let the vendor print, ship and sell the products — T-shirts, coffee mugs, stickers, magnets, etc. — to customers.

Platforms: Printify and Amazon Merch on Demand are two examples. With Printify, you can create a design on its site and then post your products on connected e-commerce platforms. With Amazon Merch on Demand, you upload your work and suggest a price. Amazon will print and ship what sells.

First step: Play around with a print on demand platform. Maybe you can start with a simple catchphrase on a shirt. There are no upfront costs to use the aforementioned services, but you do have to apply and be accepted to sell with Amazon.

You’re going to need a spare — or at least sometimes vacant — property for this one, but what an aspiration to work toward. Buying real estate to rent or sell is the epitome of passive income. Just ask the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” guy. It’s not easy to achieve, but it’s a great way to put your savings to work, or supplement the cost of a property.

Platforms: Airbnb and Vrbo are synonymous with short-term rentals. You can use local rental companies too.

First step: As mentioned, you need a spare or vacant place to rent. But you can create listings and accept reservations on the same day once you’re ready to list. Be prepared to spend some money to clean and keep up the property, replace home goods and pay toward service fees. Scrutinize your rental agreement, HOA rules and zoning or other restrictions before you get started. Learn more about how to start an Airbnb business.

This gig won’t pay right away, but it could in time. You may enjoy creating content for public consumption if you have something to say, teach or show. Gain enough readers, watchers and/or followers and you can earn ad revenue.

Platforms: You can use Google’s AdSense, the same ad platform on YouTube, to put relevant ads on your blog or website for earning potential.

First step: Signing up for AdSense is pretty easy, but to earn through ads on videos with YouTube, you’ll need 1,000 subscribers. You can slap ads on a blog, but you need readers willing to click them. To start: Make your website and write your first blog or open your selfie cam and press record. Hopefully you enjoy the process enough to do it until you get paid.

Here’s a fulfilling hobby that could pay. One method is to sell your unique shots on a stock photo site. Alternatively, you can sell prints to clients. The key component is quality, original work.

Platforms: Sites like Alamy and 500px let you license your images for stock photo sales. Fine Art America is a service that lets you upload your images to sell as prints, T-shirts, phone cases and more (see the print on demand section). Other marketplaces for photographers include SmugMug and PhotoShelter. Some sites require a subscription.

First step: Learn about what types of photos stock sites will buy and how the process works. Then — you guessed it — start shooting.

We sifted through Reddit forums to get a pulse check on how users feel about making money with photography. We used an AI tool to help analyze the feedback and then summarized insight. People post anonymously, so we cannot confirm their individual experiences or circumstances.

According to Redditors, success selling photos requires both high-quality content and a bit of business savvy around rights management and pricing. A general theme is that you may do better by forming direct relationships with buyers than purely relying on stock sites.

Have a ride you don’t use that much because you work from home? Your BMW 3 Series could be just the touch of luxury a renter in your town is looking for. The proceeds could help you cover the car payment or add to your savings.

Platforms: Getaround and Turo are two services that let you rent out your car by the hour or day. You take home the majority of those earnings, while each service takes a cut for protecting your car while it’s being rented.

First step: Don’t start by buying a new car that you hope you can pay off with rental income. Demand for your car will depend on the local market. Visit the Turo site, plug in your location and take note of how many trips hosts (those who have rentals available) have under their belts and what types of cars are renting. That’ll give you a sense of demand.