The best side income ideas are the ones you can start from the comfort of your own home and earn you a reasonable amount of cash for a limited amount of work. This keeps your costs lower and your profits higher, and doesn’t require you to quit your full-time job. Side income can help you repay high-interest debt, start an emergency fund or invest in stocks or real estate.
Here are the five best (and worst) side income ideas for 2019.
5 Best Side Income Ideas for 2019
1. Facebook ad manager.
You can make serious money ($1,000+) by running Facebook ad campaigns for small business owners across the country. With 30+ million small businesses in the U.S., there is no shortage of potential clients, who have better things to do than spend time on social media.
The ones that do try to run ad campaigns on their own are failing, with 62% of business owners saying Facebook ads miss their targets, according to a Weebly survey.
Facebook runs its business on advertising and has become a pretty popular way to advertise a small business. Browse through your news feed, and you’ll likely see more than a few ads.
With limited training, you can learn the business of Facebook ads and turn this into a legitimate side income opportunity. It can be worked from the comfort of your home and you don’t need prior experience.
How to get started: You need to take some courses to gain required knowledge.
This is becoming one of the hottest side income ideas since Bobby at MillenialMoneyMan released an extensive course. According to his website, this side hustle only takes a few hours per week to run, but the profit potential is between $1,000 to $2,000 – and that’s per client. The course is a bit pricey, though, currently listed at just under $400.
The education website Udemy also has various courses on the topic.
The money may not come immediately, as you’ll have to find your own clients which can take some time. But this side income idea definitely seems to be worth the effort given the profit potential.
2. Virtual or in-person tutoring.
The startup costs for tutoring are minimum, but the profit potential is pretty good for tutoring. SAT tutors in particular make between $20 to $100 per hour, depending mainly on experience and location.
You can work this side income hustle from home, too, as long as you have a computer. Companies like VIPKid give you the opportunity to tutor children virtually. You can earn between $14 to $22 per hour teaching English online at VIPKid, all online.
The one downside is that you have to apply and go through an interview process to get the job. If you’re approved, you have to sign a 6-month minimum commitment.
Other online tutoring jobs can be found at various job listing websites, such as Tutor.com, Indeed, Glassdoor and FlexJobs, among others.
If you’d rather teach kids in person, you can always look to start your own tutoring business, but you’re more likely to have success if you’re already an expert in a particular field, such as English or math, and can easily reach potential clients.
3. Freelance writing or digital marketing.
If you’re good at writing (or at least willing to try to get better), there are plenty of sites looking for bloggers or editors. This works best if there’s a particular industry you are knowledgeable about.
For example, if you’re a contractor and do home remodeling, you likely have a ton of information people are looking for and can offer home improvement tips. Or if you’re an accountant or tax professional, you can blog about tax preparation tips or how to lower your taxes.
Think about your skills, experience/qualifications and knowledge before choosing a blogging topic and searching for side gigs. And if you already have experience writing, you may also be able to land gigs in copywriting or editing.
Finally, if you have search engine optimization (SEO) knowledge (or are willing to learn), plenty of businesses need help getting their websites to rank higher on Google, so this is another area to consider.
4. Tests websites online at UserTesting.com.
UserTesting needs people like you to give feedback on websites, mobile apps and other products. After signing on and getting a test, you’ll walk through the website and give your thoughts, which is recorded on video.
The site likely won’t make you rich, but you can make some nice side income. You can make about $5 to $10 per test, which takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. Not bad.
According to Quora, users make between $300 to $500 month on average, depending on how many tests you complete. This is a far superior option to taking online surveys.
5. Start an online blog.
You can make money writing about the things you love, monetizing your passions through advertising revenue (Google Adsense or direct ads) or affiliate marketing (recommend a product, and make money when a reader clicks a link and signs up for it).
Don’t expect quick cash, though. You’ll need a substantial following and tons of page views to make any meaningful side income. Think of this more as a long-term business or something you simply do for fun on the side.
You can get started with (link to Blog hosting site). This is the same hosting site than one of my favorite bloggers, RetireBy40, uses.
5 Worst Side Income Ideas for 2019
1. Uber and Lyft driving.
This one is way more trouble than it’s worth in my opinion. It’s simply not profitable enough.
I drove for Uber for 3 months in 2017 and while I made around $20 per hour on average, this did not include the costs of gas, insurance, wear and tear on vehicle, maintenance and cleaning, etc. Uber drivers make less than $4 per hour when you factor in all expenses, according to an MIT study.
That study has come under a lot of heat for seeming a bit low, but I can tell you personally that when I drove for Uber, I likely only walked away with around $8- $12 per hour when you factor all expenses in. And I often felt like a rat in a cage, driving people all around town! I stopped driving for Uber after I had a pretty bad experience with a few drunk college students.
Another big downside is you don’t know where your drivers are headed until after you pick them up. They could be going way further than you wish to drive them.
Also, Uber and Lyft will likely replace its drivers with self-driving vehicles in the future, so I doubt this side hustle will even exist in the future.
Alternative: If you really want to make money driving your car around, I would instead recommend looking into delivering Amazon packages via Amazon Flex; you won’t make much more than Uber, but you won’t have to worry about unruly passengers in your car.
2. Online surveys.
Not worth the measly payouts of $5 per survey and super hard to find legitimate websites. “I made a ton of money doing online surveys!” said no one, ever! I never found any online surveys that were worth my time, so I recommend passing on this side income idea.
3. Multi-level marketing.
I am not a fan of this business, which is frequently called pyramid selling (or schemes, depending on how you look at it). It requires a ton of work and I’m not convinced the business model is sustainable (or ethical). Learn more about Multilevel marketing from the FTC and check out this eye-opening opinion piece on Medium.
4. Selling credit tradelines for cash.
This is a pretty new side income idea. Companies such as ShareYourCredit.com allow you to sell your credit tradeline (if you have good credit) to someone else who has bad credit and needs to get approved for a credit card. You add a stranger as an authorized user on a credit card of yours, and your positive payment history would appear on the person’s own credit file, which increases their score. The company claims you can make $400 – $800 per month in side income.
This is a really new side income idea to me, but it seems pretty sketchy or perhaps unethical. If someone has bad credit, why should they be able to boost their credit score by paying you a fee? There’s also the risk that the credit card company finds out and shuts down your account.
There’s also the possibility the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau or another government agency cracks down on this business model. I would avoid to be on the safe side!
5. Any seasonal retail job.
I honestly hate the idea of working in retail for a holiday season like Christmas. Most stores only pay between $12 to $15 per hour, and unlike many other side hustles, you have to pay tax upfront on your earnings. So if you hustle for 5 hours a week, you’ll only make about $100 bucks or $80 or less after tax.
And it is strictly part-timel once the season is done, your job is over. You’ve likely gained no new skills. It’s also likely to be hard work and you’ll have to deal with customers during the holiday season, which can be pretty nuts!
What are your favorite (or least favorite) side income ideas for 2019?