There are many ways to start a side hustle that don’t require start-up funds, an office or employees. Here are 12 easy ways to make money from your living room, starting today.
1. Sell your stuff on Gumtree
We’ve all got preloved goods at home that we no longer need or use. Listing them on an online marketplace is a great way to spring clean your home while making some cash on the side – after all, just because something no longer suits you doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly what someone else is looking for.
To take advantage of online marketplaces, take an inventory of your home, list what you absolutely can’t live without and what you may be willing to part with, and then get your stuff ready to sell. Give it a wash, spruce it up a bit and then take well-lit photographs to showcase your goods. In the case of electronics or high-ticket items, it also makes sense to list what the retail price is to showcase the preloved bargain your buyers are receiving.
2. Online tutoring
Online tutoring is taking off like never before. You can list your skills on websites like Skooli, Tutor Me and Tutor.com, or you can set up Zoom meetings with customers you find through social media and referrals.
Today, almost anything can be tutored online, from piano lessons to maths and science. All you need to do is determine which skills you have that others will pay for. To provide extra lessons for primary and high school students, you’ll need access to their syllabus, but this is easy enough to access at your local school. Language tutoring is also becoming increasingly popular – particularly in a country that has 11 national languages.
3. Business coaching
If you have a corporate background, you could put your experience and skills to good use by becoming a corporate coach, Many business owners and entrepreneurs are looking for coaches, but there are increasing opportunities across business units as well, For example, if you have a background in sales, you could become a sales coach. You could also coach marketing managers on how to run their teams and build strategies, or new managers on management skills and on how to get the most from their employees – particularly when managing virtual workforces.
The ability to coach via Zoom also means that you can do after-hours sessions and include more appointments in your day without factoring in travel time. You can also sign up clients from across the country.
4. Create online courses
Creating an online course takes time upfront, but once it’s done, you’ll earn passive annuity income each time someone signs up for it. There are online courses available for almost anything today, from makeup tutorials to how to write a novel. All you have to do is take whatever skill you have and find a way to build a course around it. If you aren’t sure where to start, sign up for a free Udemy course to see how it’s done. You’ll want to include notes, videos, tutorials and PDF downloads.
5. Take online surveys and earn upfront cash
All you need is a smartphone and some data, and you can take online surveys from anywhere – during your lunch break, while using public transport or even while you’re eating breakfast. All you need to do is sign up to survey sites and start giving your true, unvarnished feedback. Brands are always testing new products, researching their potential customer bases, and trying to figure out what different markets, demographics and customer bases are interested in and care about, and they’re willing to pay for those insights. To get started, just sign up with sites like Survey Junkie, Swagbucks, and InboxDollars.
6. Become an Uber driver
You’ll need a valid driver’s license and your own car (or access to someone else’s car who’s willing to partner with you), but this is a great side gig that you can do full time or after hours. It’s not quite making money from your living room, but you don’t need office space or anything else to make this work – you don’t even need to find your own customers. All you need to do is sign up on the platform, make sure you’re always a safe, courteous driver, and sit back end enjoy the road. You’ll also need to agree to a background check and a review of your driving history.
7. Become an Uber Eats driver
The only difference between becoming an Uber driver or an Uber Eats driver is that you’ll be delivering food instead of driving people, and of course you can become an Uber Eats driver if you have a bike. No people means you don’t need a car.
8. Set up your own daycare
If you’re a stay-at-home parent who is already fetching kids from school, why not add a few more kids and create an afternoon daycare for kids whose parents work full time? All you’ll need is an area that’s suitable for a few children, age-appropriate games to entertain them and you’ll need to provide snacks and lunch.
You can start by reaching out to parents at your kid’s school, and by advertising your daycare on social media in local community groups. This is a great way to spend time with your children in the afternoon, help working parents out with afternoon assistance and earn some extra cash on the side.
9. Find work as a housesitter
There are many reasons why people need housesitters, but the biggest tends to be pets – family members who for one reason or another cannot be taken on business or personal trips and holidays. There are two types of housesitters – those who visit their clients’ homes daily to water their plants, take their dogs for a walk and feed their animals, and live-in housekeepers who spend the duration of a trip in their customer’s house. It’s a great passive form of income however, because you can still do your day-job while earning extra cash – simply for sleeping somewhere else. It can also be a fun change of pace, particularly if you live with roommates.
To get started, reach out to your network and let them know what you’re doing. People need to trust their housesitters, which is why word of mouth referrals work best.
10. Test websites and apps
Before websites and apps go live, they need to be tested, which is where you can come in. Sign up for a site like UserTesting.com and you’ll be paid for your thoughts on how well — or not so well — certain apps work. You’ll need to pass a short test before you’re accepted onto the site, but after that you’ll be paid for each app you test. All you need to make this work is a stable Internet connection, and 20-minute time slots that you can use exclusively to test apps.
11. Teach English
If you’re a native English speaker, you already have the number one qualification you need to earn a steady paycheck without leaving your living room. There are a ton of tutoring sites that you can sign up for and start teaching English to adults from around the world. Some resources include TeachAway (teach English online to Chinese students), GoOverseas.com, iTutorGroup (teach English online to Taiwanese children and adults) and English Hunt (teach English on the phone to adult students in Korea). You don’t need to be a professional teacher to work as an English tutor – all you need is patience, good English skills and a desire to help others to learn.
12. Advertise on your car
You can’t get a better example of passive income than advertising on your car. You can sign up with a site like www.wrapadvertising.co.za to get started. You’ll need to answer questions relating to your lifestyle, where your car will typically be seen and what type of vehicle you drive so that you can be matched with brands that suit your lifestyle. Once the car is wrapped, though, you really don’t have to do anything except drive around town like you normally do.
