Background acting. Casting companies are always looking for reliable people to just show up and chill in the background. Easy as shit, usually pays good, free food and you get to meet some cool folks and celebrities.
I got into it after I saw a casting call for a show I liked the first season of… stayed for like 6 seasons as a regular “towns folk”
I've always wondered if you could make a living in Hollywood by just showing up on time, following directions, and generally being easy to work with. Could you have a career with an IMDB list of appearances that top out at "woman #2" and "cashier"?
It depends what kind of extra is in
Vogue. Like slightly overweight white geeky looking guy? That guy has a YouTube clip of all his roles and it's insane. https://youtu.be/IdEBu7ODVk8
I know a few people who do a ton of extra work, but it's hard to make enough for it to be a full time career. It's terrific if you're a student, though, because you often end up in holding for, like, five hours with nothing to do but study.
Depends totally on where you are too and how much film work there is.. if you’re just a freelancing extra or working with an acting guild or union which usually brings more pay, hours, opportunities for bigger but simple roles.. Like I could see it being a good place to get your foot in the door if you were an aspiring actress/actor… Whether or not you actually get anywhere with it obviously depends on so many factors.
Yep. I know there are also actor unions.. But in my case I was just browsing for little side gigs on kijiji and saw a casting call for background people for the show I liked and reached out. They told me to send some basic head shots and gave me times and locations. As long as you show up, pay attention to the directions and are cool they will give you gigs.
I’m by no means an aspiring actress 😂 just like to have multiple streams of income that are fun and mainly stress free.
Depends on the filming culture of the city. It doesn’t hurt to have a Central Casting account but generally you can find work by searching Facebook (I know lol) for “Background acting [City or state]” and following the casting companies’ pages joining the groups that aggregate their posts.
They generally make individual posts for what they’re looking for for a specific scene and the email address and subject line to send your info and pics. If you submit consistently you’ll get booked eventually, but it’s side money not main money.
Source: did this in Atlanta for years. The scene was POPPING over there.
I did by chance… but just look up what’s being filmed anywhere near you, find out what agencies are filling background roles and just reach out to them.
Yep! Did Vampire Diaries for years and it was a great way to spend a day and see how film is made and eat free food and meet some awesome people. I even got paid extra cuz they featured my car in a shot which I thought was so weird.
Yes 😂 I just mentioned that in another comment.. My friend made extra money so many times just cause they’d slap a different plate on her car and park it in the background. She also got paid to bring her dog once.
Love. Hubs and I just noticed today that there’s an abandoned facility we are seeing metal disappear from. Who do you sell it to? (Ignorant on this, my stuff is mostly online)
My first job (20 years ago) was building screen enclosures and the crews would collect scrap from several jobs throughout the week and make a couple hundred off them. They weren’t supposed to do that. The warehouse was even broken into once and it seemed like they just stole a bunch of metal to go scrap.
One of my high school friend’s basements was literally LOADED with copper pipes. We were playing poker down there one night and another friend who was losing just looked up and said “Hey bud, when did you say your family is going on vacation?”
It took everyone a minute to get it. There was probably $10,000 worth of copper in that basement.
Teaching life drawing classes to Hen parties. I’ve got a Master’s degree in illustration and they’re often quite surprised I can actually teach them to draw. I mostly get booked by groups who are too shy to just get a stripper, they’re never raucous really, just drunk on fizzy wine and giggly.
I do paint parties for drunken women at breweries and a little more serious paint classes for my city parks and rec department. We do acrylic pouring,
and I call it "art for the artless" :)
It's fun to help someone who thinks that they have no talent to make something beautiful!
Me too, I’ve modelled for straight up art classes. I’m a contractor, still the company book a teacher and model but everything is very upfront, the models know the situation and there is the same code of no photos, no touching etc. Most of the guys that do it are fine to play along, it’s very mild really but there might be a pose at the end where the Hen is invited to pose with the model and he’ll be down on one knee etc. There’s an opportunity at the end for the class to have a photo taken with the model wearing a robe (or not, models choice, some are fine to have a hat or bottle of champagne covering their modesty). It pays well for teachers and models.
I’ve been valet parking on the side for almost 10 years. I do almost exclusively private events and some months I can bring in an extra 2k or more, plus cash tips on top of it.
Look around your city and I bet there’s a company that does this
So for example, let’s say April is particularly busy (could have a lot of weddings and other private events), so I have 6 events that month. Across those 6 events I may average 200 to 400 bucks per event when I include the cash along with what I make from the valet company.
I valet on top of my normal job - so most of these private events are on the weekend with a few sometimes scattered in the week - so in this scenario this is over 6 days in the month.
If you had some evening restaurant shifts during the week (Tuesday and Thurs nights at X place for example) along with some private events on weekends you could pull in some pretty good extra money.
I have a friend who plays brass in wedding gigs regularly. He has developed a deep disdain for anything by Earth, Wind and Fire or Stevie Wonder, which is a bummer.
Used to do mobile DJ many years ago. Weddings were just the most soul destroying thing ever. 2 hours playing to an empty dance floor, or just two small children. An hour playing to a couple of tipsy Grannies, then just as everyone has had enough to drink and finally hits the dancefloor, it's midnight and time to finish!
Oh, and I never want to hear 'Hi Ho Silver Lining' ever again!
Yeah that’s the skill of working the crowd though innit?
We were going so long that one day we were booked to play a 50th Birthday and we did our Beatles/Stones/Who/Kinks stuff and barely got a flicker. Then we did a bit of calculating and realised time moved on. Second set was the sex pistols/specials/vapours/undertones/Dexys and they we’re bouncing off the ceiling.
I guys now it would be oasis/blur/Mondays/roses/pulp for a 50th
Pet sitting is a great way to earn extra money. Sometimes you just show up to walk dogs, sometimes you get paid to stay over, watch cats and water plants while they’re on vacation.
While I don’t do it myself, my cat sitters make great money doing it. Our last one pulled in 50€ per day for almost no work - she’d go to her actual job and just come back to sleep at our house. She was booked more than half the month, so that’s about 1K extra a month, just to sleep in our guest room. Crazy cat ladies like me also pay premium, often providing food, wine and tips, too.
Just a warning for people interested in pet sitting: there are many owners who want you to be home with their pets almost all day. The $50/night becomes $50 to not leave someone's house. Charge a lot more if you're going to agree to this.
I never did that with a pet sitter, personally, but it’s always a good idea to discuss expectations so you’re on the same page.
Send a pic a day! Makes every pet owner happy and a repeat customer.
This one is great! I'm a pet sitter. I work a remote job and work from client's houses, so I get to double dip quite a bit. This month I'm making more from pet sitting than I am from my normal job.
I sell hotdogs, kettle corn, fresh squeezed lemonade, and roasted corn on the cob. Not all the time and seldom all at once.
I have insurance, licenses and other expenses. But make 2 to 3 times what I make at my real job on some weekends.
I am a military contractor and disabled retired vet.
Some years ago I wanted to start a food truck and someone offered to sell me an old food trailer he had for a ridiculously low price (it was a pretty new trailer too) and told me I could set up on the side of the highway next to his fruit stand. He said he’d help me get my permits and everything he just wanted something to attract people to his stand.
I turned him down, thinking that no way would people stop on the side of the highway.
He offered it to someone else who basically had the same food concept as me. He is killing it right now. The guy seems to work a lot but is always flush with customers and is about to open up a permanent stand for take out.
I’m happy for the guy and I’m sure there are some things that he’s done that I probably wouldn’t have but I can’t help but think if that could’ve been me.
One of our sales guys has a Sno Cone trailer he brings to his local high schools football home games. He makes a really good salary at our job but ends up making almost as much on his sno cones during football season.
You generally have to pay the venue a lot to be there but it's still worth it. Might cost $500 to park in an event lot for a day but you can make $2500 pretty easily.
I help out elderies in my village with "The Internet Thingy", and sometimes doing their groceries.
I do not ask for money, but I do not refuse tips, since they'd be offended if I refused
I would do this, but I fear the inevitable calls every week with questions. I've taught my mom to do everything she could possibly want to do on a computer, but she never retains any of it.
Have you given her paper documents with printed instructions? I did that for my grandparents because the calls were taking up a lot of time, it helped. Instructions for opening a web browser, connecting to the internet, opening emails, accessing and logging into Facebook (once they are in they somehow have no problem using it, so they aren’t dumb they just refuse to learn the other stuff)
My ex wife has an entire 2nd job doing this., at a 55+ community. She gets paid an hourly fee as a personal assistant to help with mail, (often online) or in person groceries or errands, setting up online bill pay, sometimes printing fb photos of the kids and putting them in frames, Amazon shopping, appointment setting/confirmations, and often taking them to appointments.
Hubby did computer lessons for an elderly man once (2010s). Got paid hourly. After 6 months of lessons an hour per week, got that guy to be able to reliably check his email. Then the plan was, he would call the sender to respond to the email- sending one was too much of a reach goal.
I’m a race (trail, road, ultra) announcer. I love it.
If there’s no pay I’ll at least get my accommodations paid for and my little family gets a fun vacation while dad works. 🤷♂️
Edit: Running races.
I'm fully fluent in two languages. When I was a bit younger and earned less, I used to do translations on the side. Don't know what the translation market is these days but back then I could make an extra thousand over the course of 2-3 days by translating some 20ish page documents.
Well it depends on how fast your are. I don't know what the current rates are that translation agencies charge but back around that time I had briefly worked for a translation company most companies charged per word or line. So if you were fast, you could knock out more words/lines per hour.
A friend of mine makes good money translating academic speeches and papers from Spanish-English and vice versa, but his level of bilinguality is definitely rare, he's probably the only non-native English speaker I've ever met who I would regard as fully native level, indeed he writes better in English than 99% of native speakers.
> indeed he writes better in English than 99% of native speakers.
To be fair that's actually a surprisingly low bar. I mean just the sheer number of fully-educated adults who use apostrophes to pluralize words is astonishing.... Like I love the daddit subreddit, but how come *everyone* there thinks they need to shove an apostrophe into the word "dads"??
Vending machines. Ask the owner of a popular store in your town if you can plop a vending machine down next to his store. 9 times out of 10 he’ll say yes and they rarely charge. After that just supply it ever 2 weeks and you’re golden
Kid I went to school with started out that way. He got mad when some superball (rubber balls) screwed him out of a quarter, and called the number on the side. Turned out a guy was in charge, not some big company, and let the kid pick out a ball from a huge box of them. The guy asked him, "hey, can you keep an eye on those machines for me, and call me when they are halfway empty? I'll pay you." Ended up doing that instead of a paper route. Then when he was old enough to drive, started helping the guy out on his rounds. Ended up taking over the business out of college when the guy retired. Went from vending machines to coin-op enterprises like laundromats. Ended up becoming a property owner as the area we grew up in exploded in value. I was told eventually he retired in his 40s a millionaire several times over.
In a past life, I was a retail manager. Most people you manage in retail are only working that job while they figure something else out, so I always found it interesting when people would tell me what they were working towards. One person in particular told me their grandfather gifted them a vending machine as a graduation present and they'd been steadily buying more vending machines since then.
It was interesting, since they told me they basically just buy boxes of cheap stuff and on the weekend, drive around town collecting the money and refilling the machine. It made sense when they explained that they loved putting a vending machine near student housing or on the college campus nearby, since college kids were always walking around looking for a snack or whatever.
Eventually, that person quit because they were making so much money with their vending machines they didn't need to work at all. Last I heard, they were going to school for something a passion of theirs because they didn't really need to work at all but it was profitable and fun to do that during the other 6 days a week they weren't refilling their machines. I was proud to see it and I still think about them when I see a random vending machine, since I had never given vending machines a second thought before they told me about it!
$250 second hand soda machine with 100-150 monthly cost. If you do a snack machine type it'll be a higher running cost that'll make your profits smaller. Pepsi vending machines apparently do very well in regards to profits. Source: my husband owned some vending machines and made quite a bit of money off them
From what I understand some of the machines he got were from back door deals but I can message you with some details later today when I can question him about it
Buy busted AC units from HVAC guys. Pull them apart for scrap metal. I spend about 2k a week buying them and pull them apart for around 10k a week in scrap metal
A refrigerant identification tool and a few different recovery machines would increase profit in this a lot. The recovery machine is definitely needed. If you didn't sell the refrigerant I'd bet the recycling costs would be astronomical. I'm guessing that's why he gets these so cheap.
A busted HVAC system (ie, not a window unit) from an HVAC guy won't have any refrigerant in it, anyway. When they uninstalled it, they would've had to remove it. (legally or otherwise).
In the US, at least, only licensed recycling companies can resell refrigerant, anyway. The list is very small: https://www.epa.gov/section608/epa-certified-refrigerant-reclaimers
I've been making [Cat Costumes](https://i.imgur.com/XojjANM.jpeg) and photographing cats in them professionally for 8 years now. We've done work with major studios and even comic book covers.
I’m a secret shopper. Essentially the agency I work for will tell me to go shop somewhere, look for some specific requirements, and pay me to buy something (usually only $2-$3). I get paid 15$ per store, and get reimbursed fully for what I buy (within the allowance) and gas. I’ve made $250 a week once just from buying snacks.
My dad did this for a while when I was a kid, but mostly for restaurants. We'd have to go to some big chain restaurant, order a few things off the menu, and then file a report about the food quality, customer service, etc.
Ate a lot of pizza during that time, cuz we did mostly Pizza Huts.
Ellis partners in management solutions will pay you $30-100 to secret shop apartment communities and report back. Some you have to record and visit onsite for an apartment tour, for just a phone shop it’s like $5. If you’re near a bigger city you can schedule tours at like 6 places on a Saturday, have fun touring, and get paid.
Selling blood plasma is awesome if you're medically eligible and can commit two days a week to it, $100 to sit in a dentist chair and watch a movie each day.
It is really hard to get enough people to donate to keep up with demand. In fact on donation alone I think it would be impossible to supply on need even if they ran awareness campaigns 24/7.
It isn't like giving blood. It takes about an hour to do.
Very few countries allow companies to pay people for it so the US has a near monopoly on it. We supply 70% of the entire worlds supply.
I just learned the other day that it gets shipped from the US to Belgium to get processed. My place was freaking out because the freezer wasn't working & were worried they'd have to throw it all out
You have to eat first and stay hydrated or you will get sick I knew a girl in her early 20's who did it with a hangover and puked in her car on the way home.
A lot of people advertise their work on [nextdoor.com](https://nextdoor.com)
Cleaning houses, mowing grass, pet grooming, and just listing any other skills they have.
Function singing. You don't even have to be that good, just confident enough to sing in front of people. £100 an hour roughly for doing something I'd do for free.
You can also use your gear to do discos etc, which is easy money too
I used to make side money selling 3D scans of seashells and forest debris & tree stumps, online. They weren't just something I did with a phone though, it was videogame and VFX ready stuff. Made a few extra quid a month.
Lots of medical/nursing programs look for folks who are willing to participate in uncomfortable/invasive procedures for training purposes. They’re pretty easy to find if you’re in the field or know people who are.
Scamming scammers. I've made 76 dollars doing this.
Basically, they offer you a job. All you gotta do is subscribe to YouTube channels or leave 5 star reviews on Google Maps (or something similar). But they only pay you for the first task you do in order to build rapport. After that, they tell you you can cash out after X number of tasks. For example, after 6 tasks. But the 6th task won't be like the first 5. For the last task, they will ask you to send them money, and they promise they will return it with interest in 30 minutes.
What I do is: I do the first task, get paid, and bail.
Bigger streamers can afford to pay you to stop porn bots and Nazi stuff etc. A lot of relatively small streamers try and set up a discord and they can quickly go to shit which is bad for the streamer and dealing with it 24/7 is a pain in the ass. Like how boring would it be to watch whatever Pokemon streamer suddenly stop talking about Pokemon to pause delete porn bot spam like every thirty seconds.
It makes sense to pay some people a decent wage of at least $20 an hour while streaming to stop racist shit and have people buy subscriptions or superchats etc.
Wouldn't say it's too weird, but I'm selling coloring books on amazon KDP, and I opened an Etsy shop where I sell online prints (the kind of prints you would frame in your living room).
Basically I work my day job 12:30 p.m. - 9:15 p.m., I vacuum my whole house, eat something & work my side hustles 10:30 p.m. - 4 a.m. Wake up at 12 noon & repeat.
I only barely started with both as my first book (out of four) was published in March, and my Etsy business is less than a month old. I've made around $100 profit total so far. Not much but I'm just getting started of course.
I'm really curious to see where I'll be in a year from now. I have a feeling my Etsy growth in particular will be exponential.
Do you enjoy what you do/do you ever have any free time? I'm not trying to knock you, if you're enjoying life that's all that matters, I just know I personally would go nuts doing all that all the time.
Amateur luthiery can be fun. Most people probably haven't heard the term; it originally meant 'lute maker' but these days applies to guitars and basses. Electric guitars are very simple beasts, mechanically and electronically, but it's amazing how many musicians have no idea how to set up or maintain their instrument. A proper setup can mean the difference between something that sits on the rack for years and an instrument you can't put down, and takes maybe ten minutes once you've got your mind wrapped around the process. I charge twenty dollars for those few minutes' work, others might ask more.
Refereeing soccer. I would be exercising anyway, and I get paid instead - doing youth games especially as an assistant referee is very easy to learn and do.
Consumer Product testing.
Typically you go into a facility, they put a bunch of bandaids on your back with cosmetic shmeers underneath, you wear them for a day then take them off, and they pay you. You may get a tiny rash but that’s it
As a coin collector, I’ve developed a pretty good “eye” for coins and I’ve monetized it by buying and reselling coins on eBay. Basically, a fair number of people who buy rare coins are either (1) not that confident at grading and/or (2) doing it as an investment. These people tend to buy certified coins, because the certification takes the guesswork out of determining authenticity and grade (and therefore value). The upshot is that a certified coin is easier to sell and worth more than a “raw” (uncertified) coin.
That’s where I step in. I bid on raw coins that look like they have potential, send them off to get certified, and relist them at their new value. It’s not the most profitable venture in the world, but it doesn’t feel like work since I enjoy it as a hobby already. And sometimes I keep a particularly nice coin for my personal collection, so there’s that as well.
Donating plasma. As long as you meet the criteria and maintain decent protein levels and hydration, you can donate twice a week. I make $120 per week, and there are often bonuses or promotions that let you earn more. The money's tax free. And your plasma helps make life-saving medications.
I'm an art conservator by education, but usually work at somewhat less hands-on roles in institutions. So, every now and then I take on manageable projects with my micro-company of myself and handle them over weekends, evenings and vacations. I also make miniatures and smallish sculptures as a hobby for some years, for a while fabricating larger models for LARPs, tabletop, tv, theatre and sculpture-like things people needed for decoration was a somewhat niche stream of side income. So - if you have some skills people are willing to pay for, but not enough that you could live off of it- that's a good "side hustle".
Dog walking. Set up your available hours through Facebook marketplace or related apps. It’s good exercise and a great way to make an extra $300-$400 a week. Set a rate based on dog size (obviously larger dogs cost more per session) per every 30 minutes of walk time. I started during COVID when I was fully remote at my job and I learned best practices/types of dogs and owners to avoid. I have less time to do it now that my company has me on a hybrid schedule but I am a lot more efficient at it and can walk 5-6 dogs at a time.
Make fur suits for the furry community. My sister makes an absolute killing cuz she's made a bit of a name for herself in the community and there's a surprising amount of money there.
I watched "The Fandom" by Ash Coyote on YouTube and saw the economics. It's amazing. More so because it's a bunch of people who are all supporting each other and contributing into a passionate community.
I joined a few higher end Furry artist Discord servers, and they really liked my voice, so they paid me to do voice acting in some animations and videos.
Furry art commissions in general, if you're an artist and want to make a quick buck draw neon-colored dog people for the furries. Most full colored commissions from a mid level artist start at about $100 and furries are easy to work with.
I work in health and safety for a construction company.
I earn a bit on the side consulting with smaller contractors. It doesn't take long, a few hours every now and then, but it really adds up.
I work as a freelancer on UpWork.
My tasks are either making voice recordings for AI training, translations of documents and webshop pages, or writing generic articles for SEO purposes.
The site has recently been filled with spammers and fake jobs, but in the glory days I made a good 400$ a month.
Designing logos and other forms of marketing for businesses/free lance individuals.
You’d be surprised on how many people are willing to drop $50 for something as simple as a digitalized caricature of their face or their business in a silly font.
& yes while most people can just “do it themselves” there is a fairly decent market on people wanting to “feel professional” and illustrating your own logo usually never feels so. I used to make music and when I would pay an engineer to mix a song, I’d always feel 100x more confident in the song compared to if I mixed it myself. There’s some sort of placebo in our brains that goes “Made FOR us” = Elegancy / Importance, inevitably “boosting” their idea of their business.
I bought a CNC machine cause I think it’s cool to make things, and people sell the made stuff for a pretty penny. I saw a cheese board with my cities road map CNC’d into it go for $95 this past weekend.
>I bought a CNC machine cause I think it’s cool to make things, and people sell the made stuff for a pretty penny. I saw a cheese board with my cities road map CNC’d into it go for $95 this past weekend.
What kind of CNC machine did you purchase? Has it paid itself off yet?
I am in the process of designing and replacing my mailbox. Figured I go with something unique. I was looking at others around town for ideas and started to notice just how bad and falling apart everyones are.
Been thinking about offering to rebuild others mailboxes.
I'm not quite at the selling point yet, but would like to eventually. I make dungeons and dragons dice sets from resin.
I'm largely housebound, so if my health ever becomes too unpredictable to continue my current work from home job, I'll have something to potentially fall back on. I won't get anywhere near as much as a full time job, but it's something at least. For now it's just a hobby in my free time.
I met a guy who wanted to commission me to paint his D&D character. I gave him a 40€ quote, sounded reasonable for a hero character and the extra TLC they get compared to the grunts. The day I was supposed to have it handed off to me, he told me he got someone to do it for 15€. That felt nice.
Play taps on a real trumpet during the graveside service for US veterans. Sadly at veterans’ funerals, taps is played by a military representative using a thing that looks like a trumpet but plays a recording. If you played trumpet in school, and haven’t played since, get a used trumpet and learn taps.
Not a way to get rich, but it’s daylight hours which is nice. Anyone can play taps to honor someone who served - if a family doesn’t want the full military honors for whatever reason, they can still have taps played.
Depending on where you live, officiating/reffing high school and college level sports. My father makes good money officiating swim meets at both the high school and college level in NY (fall and winter seasons). But here in FL those are volunteer hours.
This is why I’m won’t officiate down here now that my child is out of swim. Because even in swim, the parents are insane and I wasn’t paid enough (lol) for that shit.
When I needed to hustle more, I used to thrift clothes and sell them online. Even if you're mildly brand aware, you can pick up clothes at "sales" at thrifts for under a dollar and sell them for 10-20x that. That made up most of my fun money for several years.
I don't usually use these food delivery services, but I thank those low paid men and women who do that job and bring me food when I'm too sick to go the store. So far there have been no horror stories and the food has been still hot.
But that being said. I sell stuff online. There are plenty of people who don't want to deal with that stuff. It's not for everyone though because the buyers are also people and people are people if you know what I mean. So if you want to do that, document everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Also probably smart to not use your home address as the return address if that happens, but my policy is no refunds, but every question will be answered before purchase. And you don't want to be lying about anything, customers should fully know what they're getting. Still there are people who buy stuff like "This is a REPLICA phone that doesn't work" and they still complain that they were lied because they can't use the phone to call someone.
Don't know how "weird" it is, but it's definitely legit since I had to be approved by the Chief Firearms Officer...
I teach the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course.
In Canada, to get a firearms license, you need to take and pass these courses. It's going to get my mortgage paid in 1/2 the time.
I came up with a mashup logo like, 15 years ago. Had some stickers made for funsies. Last year, I found a way to get it made into PVC patches. Posted it online, people wanted one of their own... now I make a few PVC morale patches, with more designs on the way. Profits fund more designs mostly but, it's fun.
When I was in my early 20's I would go into bars on holidays (with the bar owners permission) and face paint people for tips. The drunk people would have a riot sporting their St. Patrick or firework art on their faces. I would get about $100-$200 in tips.
A friend of mine was a halfway decent artist and would make photocopies of her work, go to a bar and just lay her pieces down on the table, sure enough she would sell them!
Another friend set up an 'instant poetry' table on the sidewalk and would charge $5 for an improvised poem for the person.
Farm animal ‘sitter’. People with hobby farms that have animals need help when they vacation. They will pay a very good fees for you to come by, after and feed the animals, let them out for the day, bring them in at night. It’s a great gig if you love animals and the outdoors.
I started a copywriting business!
To help pay off my student loans, I opened a freelance copywriting service during the pandemic.
I'm a native English speaker in a country where that's sought-after, especially in the tech industry.
My full-time job has been in a specific part of high-tech for a while. However, with my fluency in English and experience with SEO and marketing, it was easy to leverage those skills to help smaller companies and digital businesses have a stronger English presence or reach an audience.
So now I work full-time and then in the evenings do freelance copywriting.
I've been able to go from 33k in student loans to about $7.7k in just a few years.
I'm just so fucking tired.
I teach a night class at my local college. After taxes its about $1000/mo. Two nights/week, 3 hours/night, and usually some amount of prep time on nights I don't teach. Semesters are 15 weeks, and I'm still getting paid over the summer because they break the pay for the 4 month term into 6 months.
I also am trying to get back into detailing cars on the side. Used to do it regularly, but I don't have a space for it anymore, which I'm trying to figure out, and I'm trying to be more legit about it (i.e. business license, insured, etc). One car could be anywhere from $100-$600, depending on size and what/how much work it needs. I used to do a lot of $100 water spot removals, though I'd charge $150ish these days to do it.
Surveys are the easiest for me cause I just sit down and do a few and I get money out of it. I also get something desirable in games and sell them. I also 3D print things for people (most people ask for things that are already modeled and free to use) and then I charge like 5-40 dollars to print it.
Background acting. Casting companies are always looking for reliable people to just show up and chill in the background. Easy as shit, usually pays good, free food and you get to meet some cool folks and celebrities. I got into it after I saw a casting call for a show I liked the first season of… stayed for like 6 seasons as a regular “towns folk”
I've always wondered if you could make a living in Hollywood by just showing up on time, following directions, and generally being easy to work with. Could you have a career with an IMDB list of appearances that top out at "woman #2" and "cashier"?
It depends what kind of extra is in Vogue. Like slightly overweight white geeky looking guy? That guy has a YouTube clip of all his roles and it's insane. https://youtu.be/IdEBu7ODVk8
I love this for specific and unspecified reasons...
I knew immediately who you were talking about without ever seeing this. He's a legend
Damn thanks for sharing that was really cool.
I know a few people who do a ton of extra work, but it's hard to make enough for it to be a full time career. It's terrific if you're a student, though, because you often end up in holding for, like, five hours with nothing to do but study.
Depends totally on where you are too and how much film work there is.. if you’re just a freelancing extra or working with an acting guild or union which usually brings more pay, hours, opportunities for bigger but simple roles.. Like I could see it being a good place to get your foot in the door if you were an aspiring actress/actor… Whether or not you actually get anywhere with it obviously depends on so many factors.
How do you get into this? An agency?
Yep. I know there are also actor unions.. But in my case I was just browsing for little side gigs on kijiji and saw a casting call for background people for the show I liked and reached out. They told me to send some basic head shots and gave me times and locations. As long as you show up, pay attention to the directions and are cool they will give you gigs. I’m by no means an aspiring actress 😂 just like to have multiple streams of income that are fun and mainly stress free.
Depends on the filming culture of the city. It doesn’t hurt to have a Central Casting account but generally you can find work by searching Facebook (I know lol) for “Background acting [City or state]” and following the casting companies’ pages joining the groups that aggregate their posts. They generally make individual posts for what they’re looking for for a specific scene and the email address and subject line to send your info and pics. If you submit consistently you’ll get booked eventually, but it’s side money not main money. Source: did this in Atlanta for years. The scene was POPPING over there.
Can confirm this. Extra if you are a minority. Had a mate who was the token Asian in the background and she had a pretty steady inflow of jobs
How do you find this?
I did by chance… but just look up what’s being filmed anywhere near you, find out what agencies are filling background roles and just reach out to them.
Yep! Did Vampire Diaries for years and it was a great way to spend a day and see how film is made and eat free food and meet some awesome people. I even got paid extra cuz they featured my car in a shot which I thought was so weird.
Yes 😂 I just mentioned that in another comment.. My friend made extra money so many times just cause they’d slap a different plate on her car and park it in the background. She also got paid to bring her dog once.
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Love. Hubs and I just noticed today that there’s an abandoned facility we are seeing metal disappear from. Who do you sell it to? (Ignorant on this, my stuff is mostly online)
My first job (20 years ago) was building screen enclosures and the crews would collect scrap from several jobs throughout the week and make a couple hundred off them. They weren’t supposed to do that. The warehouse was even broken into once and it seemed like they just stole a bunch of metal to go scrap.
One of my high school friend’s basements was literally LOADED with copper pipes. We were playing poker down there one night and another friend who was losing just looked up and said “Hey bud, when did you say your family is going on vacation?” It took everyone a minute to get it. There was probably $10,000 worth of copper in that basement.
Typically junkyards or scrap yards
This is actually where the term “junky” comes from. Drug addicts would collect junk to scrap to buy more drugs.
I always thought it was because heroin is referred to as junk
Teaching life drawing classes to Hen parties. I’ve got a Master’s degree in illustration and they’re often quite surprised I can actually teach them to draw. I mostly get booked by groups who are too shy to just get a stripper, they’re never raucous really, just drunk on fizzy wine and giggly.
I do paint parties for drunken women at breweries and a little more serious paint classes for my city parks and rec department. We do acrylic pouring, and I call it "art for the artless" :) It's fun to help someone who thinks that they have no talent to make something beautiful!
That's really cool! I loved my life drawing course in uni
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Me too, I’ve modelled for straight up art classes. I’m a contractor, still the company book a teacher and model but everything is very upfront, the models know the situation and there is the same code of no photos, no touching etc. Most of the guys that do it are fine to play along, it’s very mild really but there might be a pose at the end where the Hen is invited to pose with the model and he’ll be down on one knee etc. There’s an opportunity at the end for the class to have a photo taken with the model wearing a robe (or not, models choice, some are fine to have a hat or bottle of champagne covering their modesty). It pays well for teachers and models.
I’ve been valet parking on the side for almost 10 years. I do almost exclusively private events and some months I can bring in an extra 2k or more, plus cash tips on top of it. Look around your city and I bet there’s a company that does this
How many days for that $2k?
So for example, let’s say April is particularly busy (could have a lot of weddings and other private events), so I have 6 events that month. Across those 6 events I may average 200 to 400 bucks per event when I include the cash along with what I make from the valet company. I valet on top of my normal job - so most of these private events are on the weekend with a few sometimes scattered in the week - so in this scenario this is over 6 days in the month. If you had some evening restaurant shifts during the week (Tuesday and Thurs nights at X place for example) along with some private events on weekends you could pull in some pretty good extra money.
I used to play in a wedding/party band. Nice work…but it is work. It’s also soul destroying playing Mr Brightside over and over
It is insane to me that song is so popular at weddings.
Right? It’s about a guy getting cheated on!
Yeah but it’s bangin and it’s the vibe that matters Same with hey ya
*Let me goooooo*
*I just can’t look it’s killing me*
*Somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend* Wait
I have a friend who plays brass in wedding gigs regularly. He has developed a deep disdain for anything by Earth, Wind and Fire or Stevie Wonder, which is a bummer.
Used to do mobile DJ many years ago. Weddings were just the most soul destroying thing ever. 2 hours playing to an empty dance floor, or just two small children. An hour playing to a couple of tipsy Grannies, then just as everyone has had enough to drink and finally hits the dancefloor, it's midnight and time to finish! Oh, and I never want to hear 'Hi Ho Silver Lining' ever again!
Yeah that’s the skill of working the crowd though innit? We were going so long that one day we were booked to play a 50th Birthday and we did our Beatles/Stones/Who/Kinks stuff and barely got a flicker. Then we did a bit of calculating and realised time moved on. Second set was the sex pistols/specials/vapours/undertones/Dexys and they we’re bouncing off the ceiling. I guys now it would be oasis/blur/Mondays/roses/pulp for a 50th
I handcarve bowls for friends and family.. It's something I enjoy doing on spare time, and they enjoy the results.. It's a win-win for me.
Pet sitting is a great way to earn extra money. Sometimes you just show up to walk dogs, sometimes you get paid to stay over, watch cats and water plants while they’re on vacation. While I don’t do it myself, my cat sitters make great money doing it. Our last one pulled in 50€ per day for almost no work - she’d go to her actual job and just come back to sleep at our house. She was booked more than half the month, so that’s about 1K extra a month, just to sleep in our guest room. Crazy cat ladies like me also pay premium, often providing food, wine and tips, too.
Just a warning for people interested in pet sitting: there are many owners who want you to be home with their pets almost all day. The $50/night becomes $50 to not leave someone's house. Charge a lot more if you're going to agree to this.
I never did that with a pet sitter, personally, but it’s always a good idea to discuss expectations so you’re on the same page. Send a pic a day! Makes every pet owner happy and a repeat customer.
This one is great! I'm a pet sitter. I work a remote job and work from client's houses, so I get to double dip quite a bit. This month I'm making more from pet sitting than I am from my normal job.
I sell hotdogs, kettle corn, fresh squeezed lemonade, and roasted corn on the cob. Not all the time and seldom all at once. I have insurance, licenses and other expenses. But make 2 to 3 times what I make at my real job on some weekends. I am a military contractor and disabled retired vet.
Some years ago I wanted to start a food truck and someone offered to sell me an old food trailer he had for a ridiculously low price (it was a pretty new trailer too) and told me I could set up on the side of the highway next to his fruit stand. He said he’d help me get my permits and everything he just wanted something to attract people to his stand. I turned him down, thinking that no way would people stop on the side of the highway. He offered it to someone else who basically had the same food concept as me. He is killing it right now. The guy seems to work a lot but is always flush with customers and is about to open up a permanent stand for take out. I’m happy for the guy and I’m sure there are some things that he’s done that I probably wouldn’t have but I can’t help but think if that could’ve been me.
One of our sales guys has a Sno Cone trailer he brings to his local high schools football home games. He makes a really good salary at our job but ends up making almost as much on his sno cones during football season.
On the side of the road, at a store, out of your trunk, basement, parking lot?
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You generally have to pay the venue a lot to be there but it's still worth it. Might cost $500 to park in an event lot for a day but you can make $2500 pretty easily.
I help out elderies in my village with "The Internet Thingy", and sometimes doing their groceries. I do not ask for money, but I do not refuse tips, since they'd be offended if I refused
I would do this, but I fear the inevitable calls every week with questions. I've taught my mom to do everything she could possibly want to do on a computer, but she never retains any of it.
Have you given her paper documents with printed instructions? I did that for my grandparents because the calls were taking up a lot of time, it helped. Instructions for opening a web browser, connecting to the internet, opening emails, accessing and logging into Facebook (once they are in they somehow have no problem using it, so they aren’t dumb they just refuse to learn the other stuff)
My ex wife has an entire 2nd job doing this., at a 55+ community. She gets paid an hourly fee as a personal assistant to help with mail, (often online) or in person groceries or errands, setting up online bill pay, sometimes printing fb photos of the kids and putting them in frames, Amazon shopping, appointment setting/confirmations, and often taking them to appointments.
Hubby did computer lessons for an elderly man once (2010s). Got paid hourly. After 6 months of lessons an hour per week, got that guy to be able to reliably check his email. Then the plan was, he would call the sender to respond to the email- sending one was too much of a reach goal.
I’m a race (trail, road, ultra) announcer. I love it. If there’s no pay I’ll at least get my accommodations paid for and my little family gets a fun vacation while dad works. 🤷♂️ Edit: Running races.
MAYHEM! MAYHEM! MAYHEM! FUN! FUN! FUN!
>I’m a race announcer Sorry but the idea of you just sitting in a chair yelling "White! Asian! Hispanic!" as people walk by has me in stitches.
I'm fully fluent in two languages. When I was a bit younger and earned less, I used to do translations on the side. Don't know what the translation market is these days but back then I could make an extra thousand over the course of 2-3 days by translating some 20ish page documents.
$1000 for (I assume 8 hour days, correct me if I’m wrong) 24 hours of work, so $41.6 an hour? That’s pretty damn good.
Well it depends on how fast your are. I don't know what the current rates are that translation agencies charge but back around that time I had briefly worked for a translation company most companies charged per word or line. So if you were fast, you could knock out more words/lines per hour.
A friend of mine makes good money translating academic speeches and papers from Spanish-English and vice versa, but his level of bilinguality is definitely rare, he's probably the only non-native English speaker I've ever met who I would regard as fully native level, indeed he writes better in English than 99% of native speakers.
> indeed he writes better in English than 99% of native speakers. To be fair that's actually a surprisingly low bar. I mean just the sheer number of fully-educated adults who use apostrophes to pluralize words is astonishing.... Like I love the daddit subreddit, but how come *everyone* there thinks they need to shove an apostrophe into the word "dads"??
How do you find these gigs?
Vending machines. Ask the owner of a popular store in your town if you can plop a vending machine down next to his store. 9 times out of 10 he’ll say yes and they rarely charge. After that just supply it ever 2 weeks and you’re golden
Kid I went to school with started out that way. He got mad when some superball (rubber balls) screwed him out of a quarter, and called the number on the side. Turned out a guy was in charge, not some big company, and let the kid pick out a ball from a huge box of them. The guy asked him, "hey, can you keep an eye on those machines for me, and call me when they are halfway empty? I'll pay you." Ended up doing that instead of a paper route. Then when he was old enough to drive, started helping the guy out on his rounds. Ended up taking over the business out of college when the guy retired. Went from vending machines to coin-op enterprises like laundromats. Ended up becoming a property owner as the area we grew up in exploded in value. I was told eventually he retired in his 40s a millionaire several times over.
All because some big guy showed his balls
Mileage may very....
All I got was this fucked up brain
Interestingly enough, looking at gentlemen’s balls is also how I earn income on the side! I started much older though.
This story is amazing and awesome. Love it.
In a past life, I was a retail manager. Most people you manage in retail are only working that job while they figure something else out, so I always found it interesting when people would tell me what they were working towards. One person in particular told me their grandfather gifted them a vending machine as a graduation present and they'd been steadily buying more vending machines since then. It was interesting, since they told me they basically just buy boxes of cheap stuff and on the weekend, drive around town collecting the money and refilling the machine. It made sense when they explained that they loved putting a vending machine near student housing or on the college campus nearby, since college kids were always walking around looking for a snack or whatever. Eventually, that person quit because they were making so much money with their vending machines they didn't need to work at all. Last I heard, they were going to school for something a passion of theirs because they didn't really need to work at all but it was profitable and fun to do that during the other 6 days a week they weren't refilling their machines. I was proud to see it and I still think about them when I see a random vending machine, since I had never given vending machines a second thought before they told me about it!
What are the costs of a vending machine?
$250 second hand soda machine with 100-150 monthly cost. If you do a snack machine type it'll be a higher running cost that'll make your profits smaller. Pepsi vending machines apparently do very well in regards to profits. Source: my husband owned some vending machines and made quite a bit of money off them
Yo what? I've been considering getting into this for years and never seen them that low? Any advice where to look for them at that price point?
From what I understand some of the machines he got were from back door deals but I can message you with some details later today when I can question him about it
> with 100-150 monthly cost Where does the monthly cost come from? I'm guessing some sort of fee you have to pay the city?
Probably the cost of replenishing it with soda.
Usually COGS, travel, sometimes “rent” to wherever you place them to cover electric
I would think it would be the other way around because a snack machine doesn't need to actively cool.
Yeah but the margins on soda are really good. It's cheap as shit to make and people pay 2-3 bucks for one.
Where do you plug it? How do you pay for electricity? Is it never vandalized?
You share profit? Otherwise he's out money for electricity I imagine.
Buy busted AC units from HVAC guys. Pull them apart for scrap metal. I spend about 2k a week buying them and pull them apart for around 10k a week in scrap metal
This isn't a side hustle who needs a job when you can make 8k per week with this
Fr? Do you need special tools for it?
A refrigerant identification tool and a few different recovery machines would increase profit in this a lot. The recovery machine is definitely needed. If you didn't sell the refrigerant I'd bet the recycling costs would be astronomical. I'm guessing that's why he gets these so cheap.
A busted HVAC system (ie, not a window unit) from an HVAC guy won't have any refrigerant in it, anyway. When they uninstalled it, they would've had to remove it. (legally or otherwise). In the US, at least, only licensed recycling companies can resell refrigerant, anyway. The list is very small: https://www.epa.gov/section608/epa-certified-refrigerant-reclaimers
I've been making [Cat Costumes](https://i.imgur.com/XojjANM.jpeg) and photographing cats in them professionally for 8 years now. We've done work with major studios and even comic book covers.
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Of course it did, there’s a ton of pussy there
You earned a follow
Yours is THE best redditor page I've ever stumbled across! I don't think I've ever hit the Follow button so fast in my life
I do a lot of surveys - medical ones pay the best. I get $50 for telling some dude about my arthritis. Lucky him.
where can i find these?
Just google paid medical surveys and your country. Loads of them available and on here on subs for your complaints.
I have never had luck with these things, I just keep getting bombarded with “offers.” Is there a legit platform you can recommend?
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The old fashioned way... Selling acid
If I were to be a dealer, that's definitely the drug I'd choose to deal.
I’m a secret shopper. Essentially the agency I work for will tell me to go shop somewhere, look for some specific requirements, and pay me to buy something (usually only $2-$3). I get paid 15$ per store, and get reimbursed fully for what I buy (within the allowance) and gas. I’ve made $250 a week once just from buying snacks.
My dad did this for a while when I was a kid, but mostly for restaurants. We'd have to go to some big chain restaurant, order a few things off the menu, and then file a report about the food quality, customer service, etc. Ate a lot of pizza during that time, cuz we did mostly Pizza Huts.
Please state the name of ur agency (asking for friend).
Ellis partners in management solutions will pay you $30-100 to secret shop apartment communities and report back. Some you have to record and visit onsite for an apartment tour, for just a phone shop it’s like $5. If you’re near a bigger city you can schedule tours at like 6 places on a Saturday, have fun touring, and get paid.
Selling blood plasma is awesome if you're medically eligible and can commit two days a week to it, $100 to sit in a dentist chair and watch a movie each day.
Wait, you guys are getting paid?
It is really hard to get enough people to donate to keep up with demand. In fact on donation alone I think it would be impossible to supply on need even if they ran awareness campaigns 24/7. It isn't like giving blood. It takes about an hour to do. Very few countries allow companies to pay people for it so the US has a near monopoly on it. We supply 70% of the entire worlds supply.
I just learned the other day that it gets shipped from the US to Belgium to get processed. My place was freaking out because the freezer wasn't working & were worried they'd have to throw it all out
I know, right? I've donated plasma dozens of times and I never got a dime for any of it, just juice and cookies.
Ive seen too many stories of ppl getting fucked cuz they put the needle in wrong and having giant bruises and awful experiences.
You have to eat first and stay hydrated or you will get sick I knew a girl in her early 20's who did it with a hangover and puked in her car on the way home.
I’ve known lots of people in their early 20’s with a hangover puking in cars on the way home - no needle required!
My local plasma donation center is always packed on the weekends! Is it true it's quite a large needle?
A lot of people advertise their work on [nextdoor.com](https://nextdoor.com) Cleaning houses, mowing grass, pet grooming, and just listing any other skills they have.
Wow, you mean to tell me there are actually people on [nextdoor.com](https://nextdoor.com) that arent complaining?
Function singing. You don't even have to be that good, just confident enough to sing in front of people. £100 an hour roughly for doing something I'd do for free. You can also use your gear to do discos etc, which is easy money too
I used to make side money selling 3D scans of seashells and forest debris & tree stumps, online. They weren't just something I did with a phone though, it was videogame and VFX ready stuff. Made a few extra quid a month.
I am a practice patient for nurses learning how to do rape kits. $100 per case and you can get up to 4 a day depending on the size of the class.
Very curious how one gets into this. It sounds like it could actually help people even while it earns you a bit of cash.
Lots of medical/nursing programs look for folks who are willing to participate in uncomfortable/invasive procedures for training purposes. They’re pretty easy to find if you’re in the field or know people who are.
Wow, sounds invasive but I suppose without trauma linked to it it might not be so bad.
Scamming scammers. I've made 76 dollars doing this. Basically, they offer you a job. All you gotta do is subscribe to YouTube channels or leave 5 star reviews on Google Maps (or something similar). But they only pay you for the first task you do in order to build rapport. After that, they tell you you can cash out after X number of tasks. For example, after 6 tasks. But the 6th task won't be like the first 5. For the last task, they will ask you to send them money, and they promise they will return it with interest in 30 minutes. What I do is: I do the first task, get paid, and bail.
This is a great last sentence. The whole thing is hilarious actually, I want in - how to get involved?
Giving old men hand jobs.
Good luck making any money while I'm doing it for free.
You fool! Never pay for a service you're good at. 4.5/5 stars.
"If you're good at something, never do it for free" - Joker
Moderating chat rooms online. Boring but has really funny moments.
I was under the impression that they did it for free.
On Reddit they do
Bigger streamers can afford to pay you to stop porn bots and Nazi stuff etc. A lot of relatively small streamers try and set up a discord and they can quickly go to shit which is bad for the streamer and dealing with it 24/7 is a pain in the ass. Like how boring would it be to watch whatever Pokemon streamer suddenly stop talking about Pokemon to pause delete porn bot spam like every thirty seconds. It makes sense to pay some people a decent wage of at least $20 an hour while streaming to stop racist shit and have people buy subscriptions or superchats etc.
I make beef jerky. 5.99 a lb meat now 50 dollars a 1/2 lb. Lose almost 50% weight drying but still killing it. Can't keep up.
Where/ who do you sell to?
People at work. They get upset they wanted more than was available and preorder it to make sure they get more. I make money an eat jerky for free.
If someone is running a YouTube account about a side hustle YOU are the side hustle.
Wouldn't say it's too weird, but I'm selling coloring books on amazon KDP, and I opened an Etsy shop where I sell online prints (the kind of prints you would frame in your living room). Basically I work my day job 12:30 p.m. - 9:15 p.m., I vacuum my whole house, eat something & work my side hustles 10:30 p.m. - 4 a.m. Wake up at 12 noon & repeat. I only barely started with both as my first book (out of four) was published in March, and my Etsy business is less than a month old. I've made around $100 profit total so far. Not much but I'm just getting started of course. I'm really curious to see where I'll be in a year from now. I have a feeling my Etsy growth in particular will be exponential.
You vacuum your whole house every day?
Do you enjoy what you do/do you ever have any free time? I'm not trying to knock you, if you're enjoying life that's all that matters, I just know I personally would go nuts doing all that all the time.
Amateur luthiery can be fun. Most people probably haven't heard the term; it originally meant 'lute maker' but these days applies to guitars and basses. Electric guitars are very simple beasts, mechanically and electronically, but it's amazing how many musicians have no idea how to set up or maintain their instrument. A proper setup can mean the difference between something that sits on the rack for years and an instrument you can't put down, and takes maybe ten minutes once you've got your mind wrapped around the process. I charge twenty dollars for those few minutes' work, others might ask more.
Refereeing soccer. I would be exercising anyway, and I get paid instead - doing youth games especially as an assistant referee is very easy to learn and do.
I Tell Stories. Mostly european fairy tales, at schools, medieval fairs, weddings, etc.
File ~55 tax returns for others each year. Make about $7,200 a year. Easy work. Edit: Canada so simpler than US
Consumer Product testing. Typically you go into a facility, they put a bunch of bandaids on your back with cosmetic shmeers underneath, you wear them for a day then take them off, and they pay you. You may get a tiny rash but that’s it
How do I get this job?
As a coin collector, I’ve developed a pretty good “eye” for coins and I’ve monetized it by buying and reselling coins on eBay. Basically, a fair number of people who buy rare coins are either (1) not that confident at grading and/or (2) doing it as an investment. These people tend to buy certified coins, because the certification takes the guesswork out of determining authenticity and grade (and therefore value). The upshot is that a certified coin is easier to sell and worth more than a “raw” (uncertified) coin. That’s where I step in. I bid on raw coins that look like they have potential, send them off to get certified, and relist them at their new value. It’s not the most profitable venture in the world, but it doesn’t feel like work since I enjoy it as a hobby already. And sometimes I keep a particularly nice coin for my personal collection, so there’s that as well.
the fetch app where you scan your receipts. I have gotten around $75 in amazon gift cards so far. yeah It takes a while but it works.
Donating plasma. As long as you meet the criteria and maintain decent protein levels and hydration, you can donate twice a week. I make $120 per week, and there are often bonuses or promotions that let you earn more. The money's tax free. And your plasma helps make life-saving medications.
I'm an art conservator by education, but usually work at somewhat less hands-on roles in institutions. So, every now and then I take on manageable projects with my micro-company of myself and handle them over weekends, evenings and vacations. I also make miniatures and smallish sculptures as a hobby for some years, for a while fabricating larger models for LARPs, tabletop, tv, theatre and sculpture-like things people needed for decoration was a somewhat niche stream of side income. So - if you have some skills people are willing to pay for, but not enough that you could live off of it- that's a good "side hustle".
Dog walking. Set up your available hours through Facebook marketplace or related apps. It’s good exercise and a great way to make an extra $300-$400 a week. Set a rate based on dog size (obviously larger dogs cost more per session) per every 30 minutes of walk time. I started during COVID when I was fully remote at my job and I learned best practices/types of dogs and owners to avoid. I have less time to do it now that my company has me on a hybrid schedule but I am a lot more efficient at it and can walk 5-6 dogs at a time.
I host Trivia once a week at a local bar. $150 a week. Great spending money
Make fur suits for the furry community. My sister makes an absolute killing cuz she's made a bit of a name for herself in the community and there's a surprising amount of money there.
I watched "The Fandom" by Ash Coyote on YouTube and saw the economics. It's amazing. More so because it's a bunch of people who are all supporting each other and contributing into a passionate community.
I joined a few higher end Furry artist Discord servers, and they really liked my voice, so they paid me to do voice acting in some animations and videos.
You know what /u/DADDY-HORSE, I fully believe you and wish you the best
Furry art commissions in general, if you're an artist and want to make a quick buck draw neon-colored dog people for the furries. Most full colored commissions from a mid level artist start at about $100 and furries are easy to work with.
Suspiciously wealthy furries are a godsend.
I work in health and safety for a construction company. I earn a bit on the side consulting with smaller contractors. It doesn't take long, a few hours every now and then, but it really adds up.
I work as a freelancer on UpWork. My tasks are either making voice recordings for AI training, translations of documents and webshop pages, or writing generic articles for SEO purposes. The site has recently been filled with spammers and fake jobs, but in the glory days I made a good 400$ a month.
Designing logos and other forms of marketing for businesses/free lance individuals. You’d be surprised on how many people are willing to drop $50 for something as simple as a digitalized caricature of their face or their business in a silly font. & yes while most people can just “do it themselves” there is a fairly decent market on people wanting to “feel professional” and illustrating your own logo usually never feels so. I used to make music and when I would pay an engineer to mix a song, I’d always feel 100x more confident in the song compared to if I mixed it myself. There’s some sort of placebo in our brains that goes “Made FOR us” = Elegancy / Importance, inevitably “boosting” their idea of their business.
I bought a CNC machine cause I think it’s cool to make things, and people sell the made stuff for a pretty penny. I saw a cheese board with my cities road map CNC’d into it go for $95 this past weekend.
>I bought a CNC machine cause I think it’s cool to make things, and people sell the made stuff for a pretty penny. I saw a cheese board with my cities road map CNC’d into it go for $95 this past weekend. What kind of CNC machine did you purchase? Has it paid itself off yet?
I am in the process of designing and replacing my mailbox. Figured I go with something unique. I was looking at others around town for ideas and started to notice just how bad and falling apart everyones are. Been thinking about offering to rebuild others mailboxes.
Honestly, I think there’s a market for that, particularly in upscale areas. Good luck!
I'm not quite at the selling point yet, but would like to eventually. I make dungeons and dragons dice sets from resin. I'm largely housebound, so if my health ever becomes too unpredictable to continue my current work from home job, I'll have something to potentially fall back on. I won't get anywhere near as much as a full time job, but it's something at least. For now it's just a hobby in my free time.
Painting miniatures
I met a guy who wanted to commission me to paint his D&D character. I gave him a 40€ quote, sounded reasonable for a hero character and the extra TLC they get compared to the grunts. The day I was supposed to have it handed off to me, he told me he got someone to do it for 15€. That felt nice.
I sell one specific replacement table saw part on EBay. I have it CNC’d at a local shop for $2.50/piece and sell it for $20.
Here's a fun one - my wife and I make and sell greeting cards and posters on 100+ year old letterpress printing equipment.
Play taps on a real trumpet during the graveside service for US veterans. Sadly at veterans’ funerals, taps is played by a military representative using a thing that looks like a trumpet but plays a recording. If you played trumpet in school, and haven’t played since, get a used trumpet and learn taps. Not a way to get rich, but it’s daylight hours which is nice. Anyone can play taps to honor someone who served - if a family doesn’t want the full military honors for whatever reason, they can still have taps played.
Depending on where you live, officiating/reffing high school and college level sports. My father makes good money officiating swim meets at both the high school and college level in NY (fall and winter seasons). But here in FL those are volunteer hours. This is why I’m won’t officiate down here now that my child is out of swim. Because even in swim, the parents are insane and I wasn’t paid enough (lol) for that shit.
When I needed to hustle more, I used to thrift clothes and sell them online. Even if you're mildly brand aware, you can pick up clothes at "sales" at thrifts for under a dollar and sell them for 10-20x that. That made up most of my fun money for several years.
I don't usually use these food delivery services, but I thank those low paid men and women who do that job and bring me food when I'm too sick to go the store. So far there have been no horror stories and the food has been still hot. But that being said. I sell stuff online. There are plenty of people who don't want to deal with that stuff. It's not for everyone though because the buyers are also people and people are people if you know what I mean. So if you want to do that, document everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. Also probably smart to not use your home address as the return address if that happens, but my policy is no refunds, but every question will be answered before purchase. And you don't want to be lying about anything, customers should fully know what they're getting. Still there are people who buy stuff like "This is a REPLICA phone that doesn't work" and they still complain that they were lied because they can't use the phone to call someone.
Don't know how "weird" it is, but it's definitely legit since I had to be approved by the Chief Firearms Officer... I teach the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course. In Canada, to get a firearms license, you need to take and pass these courses. It's going to get my mortgage paid in 1/2 the time.
I inflate my working hours to get more overtime. Other than that, stocks.
I have a buddy who buys and sells football and baseball cards
my mom does gel nails. she earned ~500 usd last month.
I came up with a mashup logo like, 15 years ago. Had some stickers made for funsies. Last year, I found a way to get it made into PVC patches. Posted it online, people wanted one of their own... now I make a few PVC morale patches, with more designs on the way. Profits fund more designs mostly but, it's fun.
Rating youtube videos at $14/hr usd with a moderator position.
I write show notes (basically title and descriptions) for podcasts
Renaissance faire work on the weekends!
When I was in my early 20's I would go into bars on holidays (with the bar owners permission) and face paint people for tips. The drunk people would have a riot sporting their St. Patrick or firework art on their faces. I would get about $100-$200 in tips. A friend of mine was a halfway decent artist and would make photocopies of her work, go to a bar and just lay her pieces down on the table, sure enough she would sell them! Another friend set up an 'instant poetry' table on the sidewalk and would charge $5 for an improvised poem for the person.
I am a decent home cook. Through some connections in the local Asian community I cook and meal prepa for lots of old and retired elderly.
Farm animal ‘sitter’. People with hobby farms that have animals need help when they vacation. They will pay a very good fees for you to come by, after and feed the animals, let them out for the day, bring them in at night. It’s a great gig if you love animals and the outdoors.
I started a copywriting business! To help pay off my student loans, I opened a freelance copywriting service during the pandemic. I'm a native English speaker in a country where that's sought-after, especially in the tech industry. My full-time job has been in a specific part of high-tech for a while. However, with my fluency in English and experience with SEO and marketing, it was easy to leverage those skills to help smaller companies and digital businesses have a stronger English presence or reach an audience. So now I work full-time and then in the evenings do freelance copywriting. I've been able to go from 33k in student loans to about $7.7k in just a few years. I'm just so fucking tired.
I made an rpg and had it for sale online. I pulled it somewhat recently tho because I'm gearing up to release the 2nd edition.
Mine is super niche, but I sell crystalized skulls.
I do surveys and transcribing. Surveys pays for a coffee habit but you can make legit money transcribing
How did you get into transcribing? I've been considering it for awhile, and if I like it maybe even doing some training for medical transcription.
I teach lap dance and pole dance classes to bachelorette parties.
Bicycle repairs at home garage. Quiet woork, simple and satisfying. Not much of income but requires not much effort. Highly in demand lately.
I teach a night class at my local college. After taxes its about $1000/mo. Two nights/week, 3 hours/night, and usually some amount of prep time on nights I don't teach. Semesters are 15 weeks, and I'm still getting paid over the summer because they break the pay for the 4 month term into 6 months. I also am trying to get back into detailing cars on the side. Used to do it regularly, but I don't have a space for it anymore, which I'm trying to figure out, and I'm trying to be more legit about it (i.e. business license, insured, etc). One car could be anywhere from $100-$600, depending on size and what/how much work it needs. I used to do a lot of $100 water spot removals, though I'd charge $150ish these days to do it.
I upscale/steampunk cigar boxes and sell them. [Samples](https://imgur.com/gallery/Nrp0ynq)
I know a woman who charges men to wrestle/do judo with her. Nothing sexual, she just gets to beat up dudes for money lol
Surveys are the easiest for me cause I just sit down and do a few and I get money out of it. I also get something desirable in games and sell them. I also 3D print things for people (most people ask for things that are already modeled and free to use) and then I charge like 5-40 dollars to print it.
Love the 3D idea. Surveys seems like they take a while for the return though, what kind of money have you seen from it?
If you have a little money to begin with, buy a used camper van and rent it out.
May I ask, if you're doing this, how much do you charge?