So you have
to make $1000 per month?
Would $1000
per month extra income make a difference in your financial well-being?
These 12 people have a side gig that adds to their salary or self-employment
income. Each of them earns an extra $1000+ per month from their side gig.
1. Real
Estate Photography
David
Filipi’s main income comes from his custom mix cereal business, but because he
and his partner and co-owner, Klara, need extra cash, David also has a side gig
of doing real estate
photography. David is enthusiastic about his side gig. He comments,
“When you build some network, you do not have spend for advertising and all you
need is the camera and some skill. I have no boss, I do what I love, and the
hourly rate is reasonable.”
2. Blogging
Daniel Packer
works full-time in online advertising. For a fun side gig, he started a blog, SweatingTheBigStuff.com about
personal finance. For 6-8 months he wrote content without having any plan to
earn income from his hobby. Then someone offered him $50 to run the first ad on
the site. Daniel recalls, “Until that point, I had no idea that you could even
earn anything blogging, so it was a very welcome payment, and things have taken
off from there. In 18 months my earnings hit the $1000/month mark, and earnings
have stayed there for over four years.”
Daniel spends
about 3-4 hours a week on the actual blog, but he also spends 2-3 hours per
week networking with people on Twitter and commenting on other blogs. Daniel
adds, “One of the great things that has developed from this is that now that I
am confident in creating websites, I like to build other sites for fun and
profit. My most recent one is Serious Babies, pictures of babies doing serious things. This
one doesn’t currently earn any income (and likely won’t), but people seem to
love the idea and if it makes people smile, I’ll take it!”
3. YouTube
Entrepreneurship
Lue Nuwame
has a full-time job is as a conveyor operator assistant at a major retailer’s
distribution warehouse. As a side gig, he runs a YouTube channel, The Homemade
Game Guru, that generates a second income ranging from $500 to $1200
per month. Income is generated through Google ad revenue and via licensing (one
of his videos is used in a California anti-smoking television commercial).
Affectionately
named by his viewers, “The Madman of Cardboard,” because he makes crafts and
inventions out of cardboard, Lue runs his YouTube channel out of his basement
and living room. His channel started as a hobby in 2008 and he has created
everything from a outdoor cardboard swimming pool (that held water) to a
cardboard Christmas tree. The side gig has been good for Lue not just for
money, but personally as well. On one of the videos on his channel, Lue credits
the imagination and creativity it takes to make games with helping him to
overcome a severe bout of depression.
4. Teaching
English As A Second Language
Vannessa Wade
is the founder and CEO of Connect the Dots PR, but she also bring in extra funds by
teaching English to non-native speakers. Vannessa teaches English by using
music, watching movies and talking about events. Vannessa started out as a
volunteer when someone asked her to help with a class. It was planned to be
very short-term but it soon expanded so that Vannessa was working for several
different programs.
Vannessa
reports, “The teaching led to private tutoring opportunities, too. I never had
to actively seek clients because they literally came to me. I enjoy that there
is money to be made, I can create my own hours, and I am helping other to achieve
the skills they need to be successful citizens.”
5. Web Page
Development
Lily Starling
is a massage
therapist in Davis, California. She is also a marketing and
business coach for holistic service providers. In addition to running her two
businesses, Lily has a side gig earning money in a way she never imagined she
would: helping businesses by building sales pages, landing pages, and other
fancy web design to support big online launches. She says, “If you had told me
three years ago that I would be running a side gig like this, I would have
laughed and told you that I didn’t know the first thing about coding or
websites.”
Flash forward
three years and Lily has taken on some big web design projects. She says she
still doesn’t know much code but that knowing code isn’t required. She
explains, “Technology has advanced so much in the past three years, just about
anyone can take on a support role helping other business owners outsource the
work they don’t need to and shouldn’t focus on. I take my existing skills
around marketing and apply them to someone else’s business and along the way
I’ve developed a good dash of technical know-how.”
This month,
Lily’s side gig income was $1250. She advises, “Basically, your skills can
always be applied to a support gig for someone else. Look for a business owner
that is overwhelmed and figure out how you can step in to take projects off
their plate.”
6.
Ghostwriting
Sarah Rickerd
is Director of Marketing for funeral industry consulting firm Frazer
Consultants. Her side gig is ghost writing blog posts and other
content for small business owners. Sarah likes the synergy between her company, Arbor Business
Writing, and her day job because she says her ghostwriting helps her
to stay on top of business and marketing trends. Sarah started her freelance
writing gig in 2007 when she was building and selling websites. One of her
clients liked her writing style and he hired her to write for multiple
websites. From there, her business grew via word-of-mouth referral to a core
group of 2-3 business owners that she works for today.
Sarah
recommends three resources for prospective or current freelance bloggers who
want to grow their business:
7. Face
Painting and Balloon Twisting
Amie and
Jason Mount live in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Jason’s main job is finishing
concrete floors and he has done that for 14 years. Amie works in customer
service. On the weekends, Amie does professional face painting and Jason does
balloon twisting and decor.
Amie recalls,
“The very first job we did was volunteering at the local Boys and Girls Club of
Aberdeen. We went in and did 208 balloons for 208 kids at no cost to get our
name out there. Soon after that we were hired from a parent who saw a flyer we
had posted in town for a birthday party. We did a lot of free advertising at
first such as flyers and Facebook posts. As soon as we got enough response, we
made a business Facebook page and got some business cards. Our first year was
spent doing a lot of vendor type events on a pay per face or pay per balloon
basis and we handed out hundreds and hundreds of business cards.”
Amie and
Jason are now a year and a half into our side business and are hired and paid
on an hourly basis for all kinds of events in South Dakota, Minnesota and North
Dakota.
Amie
concludes, “We love our side job it has been a great extra source of income,
and even better than that, we create smiles everywhere we go.”
8. Parking
Lot Clean Up
Brian Winch
was a full-time shipper and receiver for a large sporting goods retailer. The
job wasn’t providing enough income, so Brian started a side gig after hours
doing parking lot clean up. Soon he was making more money from his side gig
than from his full-time job. Via an operations manual that he sells online at CleanLots.com, Brian now
teaches other people how to launch and run their own service business doing
parking lot clean up.
Brian
emphasizes that there is little risk because this business does not require
specialized education or expensive equipment and it can be done in combination
with a day job. Especially for people who hate the idea of spending more time
in an office inside, this business idea is excellent.
9. Freelance
Writing
Nick Whitmore
is CEO of an ecommerce company. When it was in the startup phase, it didn’t pay
enough for Nick to survive. He remembers, “I had to find a side gig or lose my
home and go hungry, so I started doing freelance writing via Elance. After 18
months of doing freelance writing, I realized that I could turn writing into a
business, too, so I started a writing business, ContentWriter.co.uk. It
earns more than $1000/month.
To launch his
own writing business, he says he took the confidence he gained from working at
Elance and took a leap of faith and a few hundred dollars to build and market
his writing website. Nick describes how he started with Elance, “I completed
five jobs for very, very low pay. It was hard work but I got five amazing
five-star feedback comments as a result. From that point onwards I bumped up my
rates and found clients easier to come by because I had great feedback.”
For anyone
wondering how to get started with freelance writing, Nick recommends, “Take the
plunge and sign up for a site like Elance, Guru, oDesk or PeoplePerHour. There’s
no risk involved whatsoever – the only investment you need to make is your
time. If you have a laptop or computer and a working internet connection,
you’re 66% of the way to earning a sideline as a freelance writer. The
remaining 34% of the equation is a willingness to succeed.”
10. Comedy
Dan Nainan is a high tech investor. As a side gig, he also works as
a professional comedian who tours the world doing “clean comedy.” Dan has
earned as much as $20,000 for performing at corporate events. He has been hired
to do comedy in Aruba, Australia, Canada, England, Hong Kong, India, Ireland,
Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, Qatar, Scotland, Singapore,
South Africa, Tanzania, Trinidad/Tobago, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates,
including a TED conference two TEDx events, a Toastmasters International
conference, and an event at the Kennedy Center.
Dan got his
start in comedy when he was working as an engineer for Intel. He took a comedy
class to get over his fear of public speaking as his job required giving
technical presentations with Intel’s Chairman in front of very large audiences.
Dan’s coworkers saw a video of one of his routines and they invited him to
provide comedy entertainment for a company event of 200 people. This led to an
invitation to perform at an Intel-sponsored conference for 2,500 salespersons.
From there, Dan’s career skyrocketed. President Barack Obama called him
“hilarious” and from the looks of his schedule on his website, his side gig has
exploded into something very successful.
11. Music and
Worm Sales
Jon Colgan is
the founder of CellBreaker,
a consumer protection tech company that gets consumers out of cell phone
contracts with no early termination fees. CellBreaker uses a web application to
automate the repeatable decisions necessary to break cell phone contracts
pursuant to the carrier’s terms of service.
At night and
on the weekends, Jon plays music at bars, restaurants, weddings and corporate
events. He says he will even busk on occasion. He comments, “Music as a side
gig is a nice complement to my cash flow as I’m bootstrapping CellBreaker. It’s
David vs. Goliath by day and David on the harp by night.”
Jon also
studied sustainability in school and he became enamored of using worms to
compost. As a third revenue source, he sells worms. He describes his worm
business, “I discovered that happy worm populations double every 90 days. My
worms are always happy. So, I started selling worms and vermicompost on
Craigslist and by word-of-mouth.”
Jon sums it
up, “I’m an entrepreneur by day and musician by night. Plus, I sell worms.
Contracts, music, and worms. Pretty unique combination, eh?”
12. LinkedIn
Profile Writing
Juli Branson works
full-time creating written communication to help experts gain more exposure in
their field. Usually this takes the form of assisting with speeches, books, and
blog posts, but recently, Juli discovered a lucrative new niche that serves as
her side gig: writing LinkedIn profiles.
Juli
elaborates, “While you could say it’s part of my day job, it really is not.
Experts pay me thousands of dollars to help them develop their career, and only
recently have they started to realize how important LinkedIn is. They don’t
have time to take a class in how to effectively write a LinkedIn profile…they
would prefer to pay me $500 per profile to do it.”
Juli writes
2-3 LinkedIn profiles per month, grossing an extra $1000-$1500 per month. Juli
adds that when she had a couple of friends who were temporarily unemployed and
really needed cash, she taught them how to write LinkedIn profiles, too. Now
when she is too busy, she sends clients to those friends and they pay her a
referral fee, adding to her cash flow.
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