If you’re not making $5k per month from freelancing, add these simple side jobs -

I mean my statement that “If you’re not making $5k per month from freelancing, add these simple side jobs,” because it’s my personal story, my breakthrough story, and I have decided to share it with you.

1. Start a Simple Profitable Blog

Blogging is my favorite side hustle for a few important reasons:

It can be done part-time or full-time, depending on your goals.
You’ll build a valuable asset that you can sell in the future.
The income potential is virtually unlimited.
You can start a blog about any topic that interests you (as long as other people are interested in it too).

How do blogs make money?

Blogging is a profitable endeavor. The good news is that there are several ways to make money from that labor, including:

Advertising – Advertising networks such as Google AdSense will pay to show ads to your visitors. You get paid a commission for the clicks you earn.
Affiliate Marketing – You can get paid to promote products to your audience by joining an affiliate program such as Amazon Associates. You earn a commission from sales generated by your blog.
Lead/Demand Generation – You can always use your blog to promote your own business whether you provide a service, run an eCommerce store, sell digital products such as online courses, or run a subscription/ content model for exclusive content.

Freelancers that read our blog report increased earnings. Learn how to increase your earning with our free resources

But keep in mind that none of these will be effective if you don’t first produce worthwhile content that attracts viewers. Making your blog a billboard in the middle of a desert is the last thing you need.

Having said that, some well-known niches benefit greatly from blog monetization when done correctly.

The drawback of blogging is that you must put in a lot of time and work before you start seeing results. If you start a blog today, you might not earn money immediately, but persistence will pay off. It’s a good choice if you want to create a long-term company with high earning potential, but it’s not a good choice if you need to start making money right away.

Once you’ve created some quality content for your blog, you can apply for Adsense to start getting paid by Google when readers of your blog click on the company’s display ads.

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2. Work as a Virtual Assistant

First, virtual assistant jobs are a fairly well-known and highly coveted type of remote work. If you’ve been wondering how to become a virtual assistant, or where to find virtual assistant jobs, read on! Every virtual assistant job is a little bit different, of course, but there are some general components to expect. Most virtual assistants help their employers or clients by answering emails, transcribing documents, preparing statements and letters, organizing files, coordinating schedules and calendars, booking travel, and taking care of other administrative tasks so clients can focus on other parts of their jobs (or lives).

The good news for anyone hoping to work remotely as a virtual assistant is that virtual administration is one of the fastest-growing remote career fields, according to FlexJobs data.

How to find virtual assistant jobs

According to the FlexJobs database, the companies below frequently hire for virtual assistant positions:

Many other companies commonly hire virtual assistants, too. When it comes to virtual assistant job titles, be on the lookout for titles like virtual administrative assistant, administrative coordinator, virtual secretary, personal assistant, executive assistant, and similar titles.

3. Start a Profitable YouTube Channel

Popular YouTube channels bring in a lot of money. You can earn revenue from ad clicks, sell sponsorships that will be promoted in your videos, and create videos to promote products as an affiliate.

Starting a YouTube channel is similar to starting a blog, except you’ll be creating video content instead of written content.

Now, this is not an easy side hustle to start and make money within a short period unless you have a good fan base. But if you want to grow it as a source of income in the long term, you won’t regret it.

4. Sell Printables for Profit

A printable is a piece of digital content (usually in PDF form) that is designed to be printed out and used in a variety of different ways. People can use printables for everything from educational resources to decor and organization tools. There are endless possibilities for selling printables. There are all different types of printables you can sell, and below are some popular printables you can create and sell:

Educational resources (worksheets, activity sheets, etc.)
Decor (wall art, banners, labels, etc.
Organization (planners, calendars, to-do lists, etc.)
Gifts (cards, gift tags, coupons, etc.)
Templates and more.

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Printables are a hot commodity these days. Everyone is looking for a way to save time and money, and printables offer both. You can design the printables yourself or outsource the work to a freelance designer. You could set up a shop on Etsy or sell from your website (or both). If you are selling printables, you need to make sure you are offering a product that is in demand and that people are willing to pay for.

There are a lot of free printables out there, so you need to make sure your products are high quality and offer value to customers. It may take some time to build up your shop, but once you have several products for sale, you may be able to generate a significant amount of passive income. While I can not give you a definite answer on how much you will make from selling printables, some factors will determine your success in this field.

The income potential from selling printables will vary depending on several factors, such as:

The quality of your designs.
The price you charge.
The demand for your products.

If you can produce high-quality printables and price them competitively, you could potentially make a significant income from selling them. Realistically, beginners who put in the work can make a reasonable amount per month. You can scale this and see more earning potential by improving your skills and staying consistent.

What printables sell the best?

There are a lot of different kinds of printables that sell well. Some of the most popular include:

Planners and organization printables. Educational resources, such as flashcards and worksheets.
Decorations and party printables.
Business and marketing materials, such as business cards and flyers.
Personalized gifts, such as nameplates and monogrammed stationery.
Fun and unusual items, such as coloring pages.
Seasonal items, such as holiday cards and decorations.
Helpful resources, such as checklists and reference sheets.
Creative projects, such as printable art and crafts.

5. Create Print-on-Demand Designs

A print-on-demand business is where you work with a supplier of white-label products (like baseball hats or tote bags) to customize those products and sell them on a per-order basis under your brand and with your designs.

With print-on-demand, you don’t pay for the cost of the product until after you’ve sold it, so there’s no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory yourself. As such, it continues to become a popular business model in the world of eCommerce.

Plus with print-on-demand services, everything after the sale, from digital printing to order fulfillment and shipping, is handled by your supplier. A major additional benefit of print-on-demand is. that once you’ve set everything up, it takes only a few clicks to fulfill an order after you’ve made a sale.

Whether you’re an artist, writer, designer, or entrepreneur, physical products can be the perfect canvas for monetizing your creativity. From t-shirts to posters, backpacks to books, you can put your original spin on everyday products and sell them online. However, if you go the traditional route of buying and holding your inventory, you may be left with a pile of products that aren’t selling.

The print-on-demand (POD) industry has grown by 12% over the past several years. Furthermore, The global print-on-demand market size was estimated at USD 4.91 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 6.17 billion in 2022.

Print-on-demand services offer an easier way to bypass the time, investment, and risk associated with managing inventory, helping you create custom products at a fraction of the cost of manufacturing them on your own.

If you like to design, you can create your designs to sell as print-on-demand t-shirts and other products. Even if you’re not a designer, this is still a potential side hustle idea if it appeals to you. There are stock graphics and resources you can buy that will do a lot of the design work for you (just be sure to check licensing details). Another option is to hire a freelancer to do the design work.

Of course, you could set up your e-commerce site with Shopify or another platform. But some websites allow you to create your designs and sell shirts without stocking any inventory. Merch by Amazon and Redbubble are among the most popular, but there are plenty of others.

One of the nice things about this side hustle is that it has the potential to provide passive income once you’re established. For many people, that’s the sign of a perfect side hustle. However, Print-on-demand is not a side hustle for the faint-hearted because it involves a lot and the competition is quite high. I won’t advise you to try it out if you’re not prepared to take everything that comes with it before it finally kicks off and become profitable.

6. Sell Private-Label Products on Amazon

Private label products are manufactured by a third-party manufacturer or company and then sold to another company to brand, market, and sell under their brand name or label. The manufacturer has no rights over the label or brand, and you get to decide on the product design, your brand logo, labeling, packaging, and all other creative elements.

Private label products could be a generic Alibaba product with their brand label added, a product with custom additions or changes, or a unique product sold exclusively by that brand. Although it can take time and work to build your brand recognition, selling private label products on Amazon allows your business to grow long-term.

Advantages of selling Amazon private label products

Private label products have many benefits on Amazon, including:

Increase in Credibility. By selling products under a private label, you can capitalize on in-demand products while contributing to your own brand’s credibility.
Higher Profit Margins. White-label products are generally less expensive, allowing you to achieve higher margins.
More Exposure. Amazon values private-label products and will give more exposure to private-label sellers on the platform.
Option for Customization. You can stand out by customizing your products depending on customers’ needs and demands.

Amazon is a giant among online retailers, and you can leverage Amazon’s massive audience to sell your products. One of the best ways is to start your private-label brand. You’ll find a manufacturer to create a product with your label or branding, send it to Amazon’s warehouses, and when customers place orders, Amazon will fulfill the orders and send the product to customers.

All of the product manufacturing and order fulfillment is handled by someone else, so it’s possible to run this business on limited hours and still make a great income.

Investing in a private label brand takes time and research, from conceptualization to hands-on execution. Ensure you’re up for the challenge and learn the steps you need to get started. One of the downsides of this side hustle idea is that it usually requires an upfront investment for inventory, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to sell that inventory. There are some ways around the upfront investment, but they significantly limit your income potential. Some people have invested about $10,000 to get started, but it’s possible to start with much less.

7. Start Your E-Commerce Website

Aside from selling on Amazon or other marketplaces, setting up your e-commerce website is another option. An eCommerce business is a business model where the buying and selling of goods or services are done over the internet. E-commerce businesses will digitally transfer money and data to execute these online transactions. With retail e-commerce sales worldwide reaching nearly $5 trillion in 2021, it’s never been a better time to start an online business.

If you’re a skilled entrepreneur or craftsperson, you’ve probably dreamed of starting your eCommerce store and building a business that gives you a sense of achievement and freedom then here is your chance.

Shopify makes all the technical aspects of it very easy and affordable. You can find products to wholesale at sites like Alibaba and AliExpress, or create and sell your custom products.

The upside is you’ll have much more flexibility and control compared to selling on Amazon or some other marketplace. The downside is you’ll need to build your audience, so it can take some time to see results (unless you’ve got a nice budget for advertising).

8. Dropshipping

If you’ve thought about starting your eCommerce store, you may be wondering how you’ll get access to an inventory of products, or where you’ll store them.

Under the traditional business model, retailers are responsible for the order fulfillment process from start to finish. That often means leasing warehouse space for products, handling supply chain and inventory management, and managing shipping costs.

However, there’s an alternative business model for fulfilling customer orders placed through an online store: dropshipping.

Dropshipping is an order fulfillment method where a business doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, the seller purchases inventory as needed from a third party—usually a wholesaler or manufacturer—to fulfill orders.

The biggest difference between dropshipping and the standard retail model is that the selling merchant doesn’t stock or own inventory—they act as the middleman.

A dropshipper is a person or business that uses the dropshipping model of buying inventory and fulfillment logistics from a third party, instead of warehousing and shipping the products themselves. And because dropshipping relies on a third-party supplier to handle inventory warehousing and order fulfillment, a dropshipping operation may be managed by dozens of employees or a single business owner.

As a dropshipper, you can sell products online without carrying any inventory. You’ll fill your e-commerce website with products. When a customer places an order, it will go to the wholesaler or manufacturer, and they will ship it to the customer. It’s a nice hands-free option, and you don’t need a large upfront investment to start a dropshipping business. Thanks to Shopify’s dropshipping capabilities, you can easily create a dropshipping business.

9. Sell Crafts on Etsy

Are you good with arts and crafts? If so, you could create and sell handmade items on Etsy and other sites like Etsy. Etsy is a global e-commerce platform, a collection of shops started and stocked by creative entrepreneurs. Since it was founded in 2005, it has grown to number 85 million buyers and 7.7 million sellers. The website is an excellent place to sell your crafts for a profit. You can work a flexible schedule and make whatever you want to sell, so it’s a great side hustle for the right person.

Etsy crafters sell thousands of unique items, from jewelry to art to stickers. But how do you get started to ensure success? It takes market research to determine what to sell and how to price your merchandise, a marketing plan, good photos of your inventory, and some perseverance. But with a reach of 85 million buyers, the time and effort can be worthwhile, whether you want to build a full-time business or make money from your hobby.

Getting started is fairly easy. You’ll need a product or idea to promote. Once you’re ready, you’ll need to create an Etsy account. Among the items, you’ll need to set are your shop’s location and the currency you’ll accept.

The good news for beginners is that there are minimal fees to get started on Etsy and no store overhead such as rent and utilities. This makes it less risky to try out a new idea and see if there’s a market for your products since most of Etsy’s fees only apply to items you sell. Plus, you benefit from Etsy’s substantial standing, driving millions of potential customers to the website.

However, selling crafts on Etsy might not be the best idea for people living in Nigeria due to the cost of shipping. You can simply connect with a talented craft person to sell off their stuff on Etsy stores and collect your profit.

10. Create an Online Course

Online learning and training have become an essential part of every online business. By teaching your course topic, you prove to your target audience, leaving no shadow of a doubt, that you are a high-quality expert in your field.

Today, there are online courses available for just about anything you can imagine. I’ve taken countless courses myself, and I’m sure I’ll continue to purchase many other courses in the future. Creating and selling a course in your area of expertise is a great way to make money online. Courses have a much higher perceived value than an e-book, so it’s possible to sell them for high prices. Many courses sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

If you want to create your course, there are a few ways you could do it. Teachable is an extremely popular platform that makes creating and selling your course easy. The nice thing about using Teachable is that you won’t have to deal with many technical aspects that can be challenging when setting up your course. And if you need help, you can hire a virtual assistant that specializes in course launches.

11. Write and Sell Books or E-books on Amazon

This is a great side hustle for those who like to write. Take advantage of Amazon’s massive reach to quickly get your book or e-book in front of thousands of people. You can make sales by promoting your book to your audience (if you have an audience), or you can reach buyers directly on Amazon.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) makes it easy to become a self-published author. You can sell paperback books through print-on-demand, and Amazon will print them as customers purchase them, so you don’t need to invest money for expensive print runs and store inventory.

You won’t make much money with each sale, but the goal is to move to a high volume. Most writers that make a lot of money selling books and e-books on Amazon have several different books. To maximize your results, you’ll need to continually write new books (or outsource the writing to others).

This is a flexible side hustle idea that can be done around your existing schedule. You could use it to make a little extra income or turn it into full-time work.

12. Retail Arbitrage

We’ve written many things about selling stuff online. Indeed there are so many to write about as there are so many side hustles that involve selling something online. Let’s consider this other one more elaborately.

The idea of arbitrage is to buy products or other items at a lower price in one place and then sell them for higher prices somewhere else. All one needs to do is find something being sold at a lower rate in another marketplace and buy them, whether it be in bulk or because you know the price of that item will go up, and flip them at a profit where and when they are most valuable.

Retail arbitrage is a popular option for making money on Amazon and other online com stores. Selling items online on different platforms like eBay and Amazon is a lucrative side hustle for those who enjoy the challenge of finding bargains. It’s not a surprise that many people are turning to arbitrage as an easy way of making money. This is because the process can be done from anywhere, and anything can be sold from books, toys, electronics, and antiques to cars and more!

Unlike private labeling, with retail arbitrage, you’re not creating your products; you’re selling products from other brands. However, there are pros and cons to each approach. With retail arbitrage, you can get started for much less money. You’ll need to invest to buy a few products, but you won’t need to start with thousands of dollars in inventory.

13. Trade Cryptocurrency.

As the digital world evolves, so does our currency. What seemed like a novelty yesterday will ultimately become the preferred medium for good money. While cryptocurrency is still relatively new, it will ultimately become the standard.

Even though the crypto market is relatively small at the moment, there is great growth potential. In addition to some of the more well-known cryptos like:

Bitcoin
Ethereum
Cardano
AMP
Dogecoin
ElonGate
Iota
Moonshot
Polygon
Safemoon
Stellar
Tether
VTHO
Shiba Anu

Likewise, there are a host of crypto buying platforms like Binance, Coinbase, and Robinhood — so you have plenty of options when it comes to making money with crypto.

Essentially, there are quite a few methods for you to make legitimate money with cryptocurrencies, other than the obvious way of trading.

Bitcoin and Etherium might be the primary cryptocurrency platforms today, but the US Dollar will eventually become the Digital Dollar by leveraging the blockchain. You can take advantage of the current boom in cryptocurrency by trading it through platforms like eToro and Kraken, amongst many others.

Strategies for making money with crypto

If you are wondering how to earn money with cryptocurrency, look no further! Strategies for making money with crypto rely on three mechanisms:

Firstly, you can invest or trade in the crypto exchange market. You can do this without owning any crypto yourself, like investing in gold on the stock market.
Secondly, you can use the coin you already own to stake and lend coins to the system or other users.
Thirdly, you can participate in the blockchain system by mining or receiving coin rewards for work done in the system.

Based on these three mechanisms, here are the six strategies for making money with cryptocurrency:

Investing
Trading
Staking and Lending
Crypto Social Media
Mining
Airdrops and Forks

Given the inherent volatility of crypto assets, most involve a high degree of risk while others require domain knowledge or expertise. Therefore, you have to study the market very well before investing.

14. Build Sales Funnels.

Every successful business has an automated sales funnel. Yet, so many businesses are completely unaware of the power of an effective funnel. Sales funnels provide automation in the sales process. They help you build a relationship with your audience and develop a bond with the consumer. There are plenty of tools you can use to build a sales funnel, but the world’s most successful businesses often create custom-coded funnels.

Expert sales funnels often start with a free offer, also called the lead magnet. By delivering value in the lead magnet, you’re creating trust with the consumer. In the next step, you’d usually find what’s called a self-liquidating offer or a tripwire. These are deals that are hard to pass up, often for $7 to $47. The front-end offer is usually found beyond that along with one-time offers to help boost the lifetime value of the customer and the average cart value.

Making sales funnel for clients who need such services is a good way to make a profit. Sales funnels are not cheap. Or, they weren’t once upon a time. You needed a whole team to build them. They were massive projects involving numerous different components and personnel. It was expensive and wartime-consuming. By the time the process was completed, the moment might have passed. It was hard for anyone to make a sales funnel. It was why it took so long for sales funnels to become available. There were only a select few with the patience or money to do what others could not.

But today is a very different day. Today, there is a whole bunch of software out there to help you. I, of course, am partial to the software I use. ClickFunnels is one of many, but notably, the best, when it comes to building sales funnels with simplistic and diverse options for their customers. Whether it is training on how to build out the multiple different kinds of funnels or just access to building one, ClickFunnels has it.

If you’re looking for a guide on how to build out basic sales funnels for different industries, you can find a map here. You can build one out for whatever your business needs. If you need leads, a funnel will do that. If you need a squeeze page for emails, a funnel will do that. Do you need to sell physical products? A funnel will do that for you.

15. Try NFTs

You might have heard or read about how investors and creators have amassed huge sums of money that are life-changing through NFTs. Figuring out how to make money from NFTs can be intimidating, especially with all the huge numbers being thrown around.

The exponential growth in the NFT market over the past 18 months has offered up numerous exciting ways for investors to generate a return. Digital assets have become a compelling way to diversify investment portfolios – with this trend set to become increasingly popular in the years ahead. Try to figure out how you can make money minting and selling NFTs.

Though some are making a big fortune with NFTs, there are still many on the sidelines planning to get the most out of it. If you are among those, here is a list of 7 ways you can make money online from NFTs.

Create and Sell NFTs

The direct and effective method of making money with NFTs is to create and sell them. Yes, you can create and sell anything digital such as art, images, videos, memes, properties, etc., as NFTs. If you have a notch to creativity, you can monetize all your creations by selling them as NFT.

You can create and sell your NFT collection using platforms like Appy Pie, and make money with your digital assets. You can even list your NFTs on other marketplaces such as OpenSea, Rarible, etc., for a small fee and increase your income.

Trade NFTs

Trading NFTs is a smart and easy way of making money easily and efficiently. You can purchase an NFT collection and make a profit by selling them at higher rates.

However, trading NFTs is not an easy task. The trick lies in selling them at the right time, which directly depends on various factors like what the NFT is, why you bought it, and if there’s any other interest in the item. You can quickly research the internet and different marketplaces to determine these factors.

Rent Out NFTs

One of the best ways to earn money through NFTs is to rent them out. Renting out NFTs can be a good source of passive income for allows NFT creators and collectors. The interesting thing is that you can use the NFTs for the long term, without having to create new ones.

You can rent out your NFTs in games, or any other platform, that allows users to borrow NFT cards. You can even use platforms like reNFT to rent or lend NFTs to others.

No need to worry, all the NFTs that you rent are governed by smart contracts, however, the NFT owner has the privilege to set their preferred duration of the rental agreement and the lease rate for the NFT.

NFT Gaming

NFT-based video games are also one of the known methods of making money through NFTs. Some games allow you to purchase in-game items as NFTs and trade them, helping you earn money from them. Still, their number is limited for now.

NFT Royalties

Setting up a royalty on your NFTs is a great way to ensure a consistent flow of income. By NFT royalties, you can earn money whenever your NFT changes hands on the secondary market, meaning you will continuously get income even after selling your creations to collectors.

For an instance, if you set a 10% royalty on your NFTs, you will receive 10% of the total sale price each time your digital asset is resold to a new owner.

Licensed Collectibles

Turn physical collectibles into NFTs, sell them, and start making money in no time. Yes, you can securely store your physical collectibles in the form of digital assets on the blockchain and get the same or higher price for them.

So far, sports cards are the most popular type of licensed NFT collectibles. However, brands are slowly joining the NFT bandwagon with their licensed collectibles to make the most out of it.

Stake NFTs

Staking NFTs is yet another proven way of earning money through NFTs. Staking NFTs means depositing, or “locking away,” digital assets into a De-Fi protocol smart contract to generate a yield.

In simple terms, staking is the process of storing digital works in the form of a “stake”, and assigning them to those willing to maintain their upkeep, while providing you a share of the reward for your NFT.

You can use a variety of platforms like Kira Network, Splinterleads, Only1, and NFTX, to stake your NFTs and make passive income out of them.

16. Sell Custom and On-Demand Stuffs On Your Website

Amazon isn’t your only option if you want to write and sell e-books or print-on-demand books. You can also choose to sell on your website or blog (or through social media profiles) instead of on Amazon. One of the downsides to selling ebooks on Amazon is that the prices tend to be very low. If you have a higher-priced e-book, it may not make many sales. In most cases, you could sell it on your website for a higher price. Apart from books, there are many things you can sell on your website as long as you can drive traffic to it to connect with your customers.

Setting this up may sound intimidating, but it’s easy. SendOwl is an awesome tool that will handle checkout and order fulfillment. It’s very easy to set up and integrate into your existing website, and it’s also easy for customers to buy and download your e-book. I used SendOwl for several years, and I highly recommend it.

This is a great option if you already have a website or blog with some traffic. You may also like to read Make money online with 60 high-income side hustles for Americans that make thousands of dollars with minimum effort.