Best Side Hustles to Make an Extra $1,000-$2,000 Per Month

Raise your hand if you want to do one of these things: pay off your debt, retire early, or get out of the 9-5 grind? I see those hands.

The reality is that you’re probably going to need a side hustle to make those goals happen, and it’s going to need to be more than just clicking through surveys or watching videos on your phone for a few extra bucks a week.

You need one of the best sides hustles. One of the "earn an extra $1,000-$2,000 a month" side hustles. One of the “I’m going to quit my job in a few years” side hustles.

Those side hustles aren’t unicorns. They are 100% out there, and while they do take a little more work than answering surveys, you are paid well for your time – that’s a key feature of what it takes to be considered one of the best side hustles.

Side hustle used to be a term synonymous with millennials, but more and more people are starting to realize why finding a side hustle is so important. The main reason being: finding ways to earn more money can open you up to all kinds of opportunities, like:

• Not being tethered to debt
• Having money for emergencies
• Eventually leaving a job you don’t love
• Having enough money to retire one day, maybe even early

Those are all noble reasons for finding a side hustle.

But before you jump on any old side hustle, here are the best side hustles to make an extra $1,000 to $2,000 per month:

First, what the best side hustles have in common

1. The best sides hustles are scalable

Scalability is a word often used to describe some of the best side hustles, and it means that you can scale your earnings up and down depending on your needs.

If the work is there and you have a few extra hours to earn some extra money, then you can scale your earnings up that week. On the other hand, if you have a busy week, you can scale down so you’re not spreading yourself too thin.

2. Room for growth

The best side hustles are ones you can grow. To understand what I mean, think about your current job. You have a set number of hours, you might be salaried, and there just might not be room for growth in your company. While the occasional raise can help your financial situation, it likely isn’t enough to unlock the opportunities I mentioned earlier.

A good side hustle increases your earning potential, while also being something that can one day grow into a large opportunity. Take freelancing as a web designer. You can spend a few hours a week working outside of your normal job, but once you have enough clients, you might be able to leave your normal job altogether.

Here’s what else that web designer freelancing gig could grow into:

• Building your own web design business
• Creating a course that teaches others how to design websites
• Hiring other freelancers to work for you

The same can be said for most freelancing side hustles.

3. The best side hustles have a decent to high payout for the work done

Here’s my beef with taking online surveys, you need to do a whole lot of surveys before you’re earning much. Yes, every little bit helps when you’re trying to pay off your student loans, for example, but the best side hustles will pay well from the get-go.

Now, it isn’t always easy money – I’ll explain this more when I talk about blogging – but when you put the time in, you’re compensated well for your efforts. I’m talking at least a living wage.

4. Bootstrapping

This is a funny term that means you can get your side hustle off the ground without a huge financial investment and with incredibly low overhead – this is why these side hustles are mostly based online.

The best side hustles don’t require fancy equipment or expensive training. You can enter these side hustles with the resources that are already available to you. The benefit here is that you’re not spending a ton of time recouping your initial investment. You’re earning money from the get-go.

M$M tip: Here are 7 Side Hustles You Can Actually Start in 2019.

5 of the best side hustles for 2019:

Running Facebook ads for small businesses

Back when I started M$M and was looking for ways to supplement my income, I started digital marketing services for small businesses in my area. All it took was landing one client, the jeweler who made my wife’s engagement ring, for me to see the potential in this side hustle.

That jeweler eventually asked me to learn how to run Facebook ads for his business, and I realized that out of all the digital marketing services you could provide, Facebook ads were in the highest demand and paid the most for the smallest amount of time spent. The going rate for Facebook ad management is $1,000 - $1,500 per month, per client!

As I took on more Facebook ad clients, my monthly earning started to grow with just a few hours per week per client.

And for the foreseeable future, Facebook is going to continue to be one of the best ways for small business owners to increase their visibility and sales. The problem is that while they are great at running their businesses, many business owners lack the skills and knowledge it takes to manage a Facebook ads strategy.

That’s where you come in…

Digital marketing with Facebook ads is really similar to posting a status update, but to help you with the technical stuff, my buddy Mike Yanda (who makes around $30,000 a month running his digital marketing agency) and I put everything we know about digital marketing with Facebook ads into our Facebook Side Hustle Course.

You’ll learn:

• How to set up a Facebook ad system for a local business
• How to find clients who are interested in digital marketing
• How to get these clients to say “yes”

Click on our Facebook Side Hustle Course to learn more and to hear from a few of our over 1,500 happy students.

Become a Pinterest virtual assistant

Virtual assistants (VAs) are invaluable people for many online business owners. They can do a variety of tasks, from scheduling meetings, publishing blog posts, answering emails, managing social media accounts, and posting to Pinterest. I have a couple of virtual assistants at M$M, and they make my life and business run much smoother.

Because Pinterest is an important strategy for bloggers, online stores, and social media influencers, becoming a Pinterest virtual assistant has high side hustle potential. For business owners, managing a Pinterest account can be time-consuming, and you have to know what you’re doing on Pinterest to see the type of traffic you want.

If you’re interested in becoming a Pinterest virtual assistant, Become a Pinterest VA Today is an amazing course that teaches you:

• What a Pinterest VA does
• The services you can offer and how much to charge
• How to find and land clients
• How to grow your client relationships
• How to expand your Pinterest VA business

The Pinterest VA course is taught by Gina Horkey and Kristin Larsen, two badass online entrepreneurs who have already helped hundreds of online entrepreneurs and bloggers grow their businesses. They estimate that the average client is worth around $500 per month.

To learn more about the course and hear from some really happy students, click over to check out the Pinterest VA course.

VIPKid

VIPKid is an online teaching and tutorial platform for teaching basic English skills to Chinese and Korean students. You will need a bachelor’s degree, but it doesn’t have to be in English or teaching.

This is one of the best side hustles because you can work it outside of your normal business hours, for as many hours a week as you want. And, teachers on VIPKid make up to $22 per hour.

Freelancing

Offering services like writing, editing, web design, graphic design, photography, bookkeeping, virtual assistance, and web development are just a few of the freelance services that make for some of the best side hustles.

Side hustling as a freelancer means you are self-employed and providing work for your clients. You may be paid on a per hour or per job basis, and you grow your business based on the types of services you offer and your level of experience.

Word of mouth is a great way to find clients, but you can also use Upwork, Fiverr, or advertise on Facebook or Craigslist.

Starting a blog

Before I tell you why starting a blog is one of the best side hustles, you need to know one very important thing about blogging – it’s a slow business model overall.

Like, it might take six months or more before you start seeing any extra cash, and even then, that extra income really only trickles in at first.

Blogging is in no way a get rich quick scheme.

But, starting a blog is 100% something you can do outside of normal business hours, anyone can give it a try, and the overhead is super low. Once you do start earning income from your blog, your potential is pretty unlimited. Take M$M for example, three years ago I was living on a teacher’s salary, now I’m regularly earning $50,000 a month from my blog.

Besides potential earnings, blogging is one of the best side hustles because you can blog about anything you want. I blog about personal finance because that’s something I enjoy helping others with, but you could blog about cooking, fitness, dogs, interior design, or whatever interests you. You could even legitimately blog about learning how to blog.

For this side hustle, you’ll need to build a blog that’s hosted somewhere like Bluehost. It’s a small investment, as low as $2.99 per month, but you end up with a professional looking blog whose domain name you own.

To make starting a blog even easier, I teamed up with Bluehost to create a completely free installation and setup package for WordPress blogs. It’s called Launch That Blog, and my team takes care of the hard work so you can focus on the fun stuff – creating content.

M$M tip: If you click on that Bluehost link, you’re going to see several different plans and pricing, but the Basic plan at $2.99 is all you need to start your blog.

My final word on the best side hustles to make an extra $1,000-$2,000 per month

I started this post telling you why finding a side hustle is so important, and it really comes down to thinking about what you want out of your life.

Do you want student loan debt hanging over your head for 10+ more years?

Do you want to be struggling towards retirement?

Do you want your financial situation to always stress you out?

The best side hustles can put you on a better path, one that points you towards financial freedom.