Even though the pandemic didn’t start the gig economy, it sure made it grow up a lot faster. In 2020, side hustlers scrambled to find alternative income streams out of necessity, because COVID-19 left them unemployed or furloughed and dependent on government benefits.
But the situation changed last year. The 2021 Side Hustle Report from DollarSprout, an annual study from one of the best sites about the gig economy that is often cited, showed that a lot more people who started a side gig out of necessity were making it their full-time job. As gigs turned into businesses, more people worked more hours and made more money from their side jobs than ever before.
Three out of four people who responded to the DollarSprout study said that they thought 2021 was just the beginning, and they expected side hustles to become even more popular in 2022.
If you want to join the movement, you’ve probably seen on many online lists that you should open an Etsy shop, drive for Uber, or start a blog. Fine ideas, but there are a few less-traveled roads that are just as good or better, but not nearly as well-known, and therefore not as crowded or competitive.
6 Lesser-Known Side Hustles To Earn Some Extra Cash
Become a medical investigator.
As a side job, you can be a medical detective, which is kind of like the TV show “House,” but in real life and with you as the star. CrowdMed could be a good fit for you if you enjoy and are good at finding the cause of medical problems and symptoms.
You don’t have to be a doctor or even a medical professional to get your detective’s badge and magnifying glass, but 90% of the site’s health care private eyes work in or study medicine. Signing up doesn’t take long, and once you do, you can choose cases that interest you and start working with other medical detectives who chose the same case. At any given time, there are hundreds of active cases.
The more you help solve the case, the more money you’ll make and the better your reputation will get. During one of its fundraising campaigns, CrowdMed said that the average detective earns $400 per solved case.
Online English Lessons
You don’t have to be a teacher or a doctor to make money teaching English to students overseas. You don’t even have to speak more than one language.
To join sites like VIPKid, you need a four-year bachelor’s degree, but it can be in any major or field. Even though you don’t have to be a certified teacher, the site suggests that you have at least two years of experience coaching, mentoring, tutoring, or teaching.
You can teach online from anywhere, and the service will give you the lesson plans, curriculum, and other materials you need. One thing that makes it a good side job is that you can set your own hours and work as many or as few hours as you want. There is no minimum number of hours you have to work. That’s side hustle gold, right there. VIPKid teachers can expect to make between $14 and $18 per hour.
Bring back stray scooters
Ridership is way up in places where Lime and Bird rent out their two-wheeled vehicles, but when riders get to where they’re going, the electric scooters they rode there on are often out of place or out of batteries.
“Lime Juicers” and “Bird Flyers” help with this. If you choose this as a side job, you’ll have to find, charge, move, and let go of far-away scooters so that the next renter can use them. You take the gigs you want, say no to the ones you don’t, and get paid the same day you do the work.
You’ll start at a lower level with lower-level tasks and work your way up to higher levels with better gigs and higher pay. Gridwise says that Lime pays between $5 and $12 per scooter, or about $8 on average. This means that Lime Juicers can expect to make between $20 and $30 per hour.
You can shop and have it delivered, or you can just shop.
Every side hustler knows about delivering food for Uber Eats, DoorDash, or GrubHub, but you might do better to deliver food that hasn’t been prepared or cooked yet, or not to deliver at all.
If you sign up with Shipt, you could make up to $27 an hour shopping for and delivering grocery orders in your neighbourhood. As with all great side jobs, you can work as much or as little as you want, full-time or part-time, and set your own hours.
For Shipt, you need a car, but not for Instacart, which has options for both in-store shoppers and shoppers who also drive. Drivers get to keep all of their tips, and people who shop in stores can work up to 29 hours a week.
Start a car rental company.
The best way to make money on the side is to let someone else or something else do all the work while you get the money. If you no longer drive to work because you work from home, if you have a second car, or if you just don’t drive that much, you can put your idle wheels to work and get paid.
P2P car-rental services like Turo let travellers who need a ride rent directly from people like you instead of going through expensive and annoying rental car companies. With 14 million prescreened users, there is a huge demand, especially now that the chip shortage has made new cars, used cars, and rentals so expensive and limited in choice.
You don’t have to worry about insurance because every car approved by Turo is covered by a $750,000 Travelers policy. The average side hustler with one car to rent out makes an average of $10,516 a year. Their car actually makes them that money.
Sell the pictures on your smartphone
If you’re like most people, you probably have thousands or tens of thousands of photos on your phone or in the Cloud. If you’re good at taking photos and can wow your Instagram followers with them, why not let your artistic side pay for itself?
Over the last 15 years, Shutterstock has paid its contributors more than $1 billion, but it’s not the only service that pays well for good photos and videos. Stock image sites like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Getty Images, iStock, and more are used by newspapers, websites, magazines, TV shows, billboards, ads, and all kinds of other media.
Every time someone buys one of your photos, which they can do over and over again, you can expect to get between 15% and 40% of the selling price. From a single photo or video, a good photographer can get royalties for as long as they want.
