24 Ways to Make Extra Money in 2024

Want to learn how to make extra money? We’ve compiled a list of our favorite ways to make extra money to help you get started.

You know the saying that money can’t buy you happiness? Well, studies have proven that making more money does in fact make you happier. Combined with the fact that only 19% of workers feel they’re earning enough, that means there’s a lot of room for improvement when it comes to making more money.

Whether you are looking to supplement your income, save for a vacation, or pay off debt, we’ve rounded up the best options to pursue from home or with in-person side gigs. These are all fairly easy ideas that are 100% legitimate ways to make extra money. Let’s start with our top picks!

What Are the Best Ways to Make Extra Money in 2024?

1. Deliver for DoorDash

Doordash is our top pick for on-demand food delivery because DoorDash now dominates the market share, you can get paid weekly or daily, and you can schedule your hours in advance or drive whenever it’s busy.

Here are the requirements to make extra money with DoorDash:

• Must be 18 or older
• Have access to a car, scooter, or bicycle in some cities
• Have a driver’s license 
• Have auto insurance
• Social Security number if delivering in the U.S.
• Consent to a criminal background check
• Have had no major driving violations in the past 7 years

The way DoorDash works is that Dashers (what DoorDash drivers are called) schedule their hours in the app, and when it’s time to work, they open the app and start accepting orders. The DoorDash app gives you exact directions for delivery, and it offers bonuses during busy times.

One the benefits of DoorDash over other top food delivery services is that you can bring a friend with you to keep things fun!

How to Make Extra Money Online

2. Proofreader

Proofreaders are responsible for polishing written content for bloggers, content writers, website owners, and more. And this is a great way to make extra money for teachers, anyone who is detail-oriented, and those who want to work from home.

Now, proofreading isn’t for everyone because you’ll need to be amazing at spotting spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. But if you’re good at that sort of thing, proofreading is a flexible way to make extra money, and you don’t need a degree or specialized training to get started.

Learn more at  Proofreading Jobs: Make Money Pointing Out Mistakes – this article includes a great course to help you learn high-level proofreading skills and start your business.

3. Bookkeeping

Freelance bookkeepers help business owners record and manage daily financial transactions. This can include paying bills, managing payroll, and collecting payments. Bookkeeping is not the same thing as accounting, which means it doesn’t require a degree!

Bookkeepers need to be familiar with popular financial software like Quickbooks and know how to read and create balance sheets. Pay averages $20-$40/hour. 

4. Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is a broad and can encompass a number of different jobs including:

• Marketing campaigns
• Blog posts
• Email newsletters
• Online and print articles
• Catalog descriptions
• Ghostwriting
• Web copy
• Grant writing
• Technical writing
• Content mills
• Resumes

It can take a little time to build your portfolio and business, but freelance writers can realistically make $1,000 to $5,000+/month.

5. Run Facebook and Instagram Ads

This is our favorite way to make extra money because it’s an in-demand, flexible, and scalable way to make extra money. Running social media ads is strategically creating and running ad campaigns for small businesses so they can grow their business. You’re helping business owners get their message out and reach new clients on the world’s largest social media platforms.

You can realistically expect to make $1,000 to $1,500 per month running Facebook and Instagram ads for one client, and it takes about 2-3 hours per week once you have their ad system set up.

But don’t I need marketing or advertising experience!?

It certainly wouldn’t hurt, but you don’t need experience to run Facebook or Instagram ads. You can learn all of the required skills online, and this comprehensive ads course will help you get started. Learn a step-by-step framework for running ad campaigns and how to find business owners who need your services and are ready to hire.

6. Start a Blog

If you want to know how to make money from home, like serious money, blogging easily has the highest earning potential on this list. However — and this is big — blogging is a slow business model overall. It can literally take a few months to see your first income, but it can also turn into a 7-figure online business.

Blogging is a great way to make extra money if you’re passionate about a particular topic and want to share that with the world. You can work from home, be your own boss, decide how to make money blogging, and grow your blog at your own pace.

If you’re interested in starting a blog, we highly recommend Bluehost, and here’s why:

• Bluehost has a ton of free themes to choose from, and that means you can get a professional-looking blog without paying for web design services.
• They have stellar customer service.
• You get a free domain name for your first full year.
• WordPress is included with Bluehost — that’s the platform THIS blog is built on!
• When you sign up for Bluehost using our link, our team with set up your blog and install key components at no additional charge with Launch That Blog.

7. Take Online Surveys

Online surveys are one of the easiest ways to make extra money, but to be completely honest, this isn’t the highest-paying option. So why include it?

Well, many survey sites are open to participants as young as 13, there’s no commitment, and you can start making extra money ASAP.

Survey sites collect market research data that companies use to create more effective ad campaigns and better products and services. You get paid to take surveys because they need honest feedback from a wide variety of consumers.

There are lots of legitimate survey companies, and our top recommendations are:

• Branded Surveys: You only have to be 16 to sign up for Branded Surveys, and you can make $0.50 to $3 per survey. You can earn additional points when friends or family sign up through your unique Branded Surveys link.
• Survey Junkie: This is one of the most popular survey sites to make extra money. Survey Junkie pays in points that convert to cash for every survey you complete, and the average survey pays $1-$3.

 8. Get Cash Back on Gas

Gas prices right now, oof! One of the fastest and easiest ways to make extra money is to earn cash back at the gas station with the Upside app.

If you listen to the radio, then there is a good chance you’ve heard of Upside already. Our team was excited to see how it worked, and here’s what our software engineer, Tom, earned on his first tank of gas — $6.04 back!

This is a way to make extra money that anyone can try, and it’s also super passive. You’re not doing any extra work — you simply sign up for the app and buy gas!

9. Earn Cash Back at the Grocery Store

After gas, we’re all feeling the squeeze at the grocery store. So why not learn how to make extra money when you shop!?

The Ibotta app is designed to get you cash back every time you shop. Every time I shop? That’s a big claim, but Ibotta you can earn up to 30% cash back at thousands of top retailers. Think: Home Depot, Walmart, H-E-B, Trader Joe’s, Costco, Meijer, Kroger, and more.

Here’s how you can use the Ibotta app to make extra money for in-store and online shopping:

• In-store shopping: Browse the app to find offers where you’re shopping, go shopping, then take a picture of your receipt and upload it to the Ibotta app.
• Online shopping: Visit your favorite store through the Ibotta app and automatically earn cash back.

Once you have $20 in your Ibotta account, you can withdraw to your bank, with PayPal, or gift cards. There’s no cost to cash out.

10. Rent Out Your Space

If you’re looking for a passive way to make extra money, you should check out Neighbor. Neighbor is a peer-to-peer storage company, where regular homeowners or business owners (like you and me!) can make extra money renting out extra space.

Here’s how much you can make with different spaces:

• Bedroom $36 to $140/month
• Closet $13 to $153/month
• Garage $125 to $600/month
• Self-Storage Unit $21 to $80/month
• Parking space $50 to $300/month

You can also rent out space in your basement, shed, warehouse, attic, and much more. It’s 100% free to list on Neighbor, and they take a 4.9% + $0.30 fee for every reservation. Learn more in our full Neighbor review.

11. Make $5k a Year with Steady

Steady is a side hustle app that offers a database of side income opportunities — think job listings, grants, and sign-on bonuses. Steady says the average users make $5,500/year with the app. The Steady app is free to sign up for, and there are over 1.5 million job listings at any one time.

12. Quickly Trim Your Budget

The Trim app is a virtual personal assistant for your finances, and one of the coolest features is that Trim will cancel your old subscriptions for you! Think about all of the subscription services you’ve joined over the years — Trim will cancel them for you, which is extra money back in your pocket.

It’s 100% free to sign up with Trim, and they say the average users saves an average of $620 a year! Besides cancelling subscriptions, you can also use the app to negotiate for lower rates on your cable, internet, phone, and medical bills.

13. Get Paid to Watch Videos

Did you know that you can make up to $100/month by simply watching viral videos and ads on your phone? If it sounds too good to be true, realize that you will have to watch hours and hours of them to make $100, but you play them in the background while you’re working on other things.

You’re not going to get rich watching videos, but the effort is so low that it could be a good alternative to sitting on the couch scrolling through your phone.

We recommend InboxDollars if you want to make extra money watching videos. The sign-up process takes 5 minutes or less, and you can also make money playing games, taking surveys, and searching the web.

14. Sell Printables on Etsy

Founded in 2005, Etsy has turned into the go-to marketplace for all things crafty. It’s grown into a massive marketplace that saw over $3 billion in sales in 2021, and one of the best ways to make extra money on Etsy is by selling printables, like:

• Planner pages
• Calendars
• Lifestyle/financial trackers
• Wall art
• Printables games
• Stickers
• Business cards

Because the printables are digital files, all you have to do is create the product once, and you can sell it to make extra money indefinitely with no additional overhead. Plus, there’s no need to store or ship physical products.

There’s a fantastic free ebook called the Seasonal Products Secret that outlines printable ideas for each month of the year and how to capitalize on each idea. You should definitely grab a copy of that free ebook if you’re interested in learning more.

15. Make Extra Money Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the best ways to make extra money using skills you’ve acquired on the job or in school. You can leverage skills like graphic design, freelance writing, web development, bookkeeping, virtual assistance, data entry, and much more. There are even freelance translation jobs if you’re fluent in another language.

There’s a wide variety freelance platforms where you can create a profile and start finding clients, and one of our favorites is FlexJobs because it specializes in remote, freelance, and work-from-home jobs.

16. Open a Bank Account

Why yes, you can make extra money by simply opening a new bank account! Banks are always trying to attract new customers, and one of the ways they do it is by offering sign-up bonuses when you join and fund your account.

SoFi is currently giving new customers $50 to $300 when they open a new online bank account. You also earn 1.25% APY (this is variable rate and subject to change) and no account fees.

To earn the bonus from SoFi, you can sign up for SoFi here, and you’ll need to set up direct deposit. The size of the bonus depends on how much is deposited via direct deposit in the first 30 days.

17. Make Money as an Online Tutor

BookNook is an online tutoring platform that connects tutors with K-8 students who need help developing reading and math skills.

What’s great about learning how to make extra money with BookNook is that you set your own schedule and can tutor from the comfort of your home. You will need to be a U.S. citizen and meet one of the following requirements:

• 3+ years of teaching or tutoring or
• 1 year teaching or tutoring and at least a bachelor’s degree or
• 1 year teaching or tutoring and current enrollment in a teaching credential program

BookNook tutors make $15-$22/hour.

18. Complete Tasks on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

While it’s true that automation has taken over many jobs, there are still some things that must be completed by humans. That’s where Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (or MTurk for short) comes in. Workers on MTurk complete tasks like tagging images, transcribing videos, identifying objects in a videos, researching data details, and more. These jobs require very little skills or previous experience

MTurk tasks are generally pretty tedious and low-paying, but there’s usually a lot of work on the platform. It’s also worth joining a subreddit for crowdworkers, like Turkkit, or another MTurk online forum so you can learn best practices and how to make more money.

How to Make Extra Money on the Side

19. Get Paid to Grocery Shop

Like on-demand food delivery, grocery delivery services have seen a spike since the start of the pandemic and customers keep coming back because it’s so convenient. This makes shopping for Instacart such a great way to make extra money in 2024.

Instacart shoppers accept grocery orders, shop for the order, and deliver the groceries, and shoppers average $15-$20/hour. The Instacart requirements are really similar to DoorDash, but you’ll need to be able to lift up to 50 lbs. Think heavy bags of dog food. Learn more in our full Instacart shopper review.

Here are some tips from successful shoppers (as in those who make the most extra money):

• Make yourself available during busy hours, which are weekdays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and all day on Saturday and Sunday
• Don’t try to shop for multiple orders in the beginning — it can get confusing!
• If there aren’t many orders where you live, drive to a neighboring area that sees a higher number of orders

20. Play With Animals

Pet lovers can make extra money walking dogs, pet sitting, or boarding through the Rover app. There’s a $35 fee to create a profile as a pet care provider, and then you can start connecting with pet owners in your area.

Pay varies depending on where you live. You’ll be paid more if you live in an urban area, where you can earn $25 per walk or $70 for an overnight stay.

Rover can help you find clients, but you can also list your services on social media. Because trust is such a big part of this side hustle, referrals go a long way.

21. Trade in Old Electronics

Decluttr is a company that will buy gently used electronics so they can refurbish and resell them. This site will buy tablets, computers, smartphones, video game consoles, and they’ll even buy Legos and textbooks.

You can make extra money trading in electronics that are sitting around your house or ask around to see if anyone is getting rid of stuff.

The Decluttr process is super easy: simply find the item you want to sell in their database (you can use the app’s barcode scanner for some items), and see if you agree to sell at the offered price. Once you agree to sell, Decluttr will send you a prepaid printing label so you can ship it to them. Payments are processed one day after Decluttr receives your items.

22. Become a Flea Market Flipper

Are you a serious bargain hunter, love dumpster diving, or like spending your weekend at flea markets? If so, you will want to learn how to make extra money as a flipper.

The idea is that you find things for super cheap (or free) and then sell them somewhere else for a profit. Rob and Melissa of Flea Market Flipper made over nearly $7,000 one month selling their flips on eBay. Here’s what they sold:

• Commercial total gym, bought for $60 and sold for $850
• Commercial machine belt, bought for $20 and sold for $400
• Wolf cooktop, bought for $75 and sold for $685
• Plumbing valve, found for free and sold for $500

While it can take a little investment to make serious money like Rob and Melissa, you can start by looking around your house and seeing if there’s anything you can flip.

23. Find Seasonal Work

If you’re a teacher, student, or just find yourself with extra time during the summer or other parts of the year, here are some ideas for seasonal work to make extra money:

• Lawn care, like mowing, weeding, trimming, edging, and planting
• Snow removal
• Cleaning gutters
• Working at a summer camp
• Bartending or waiting tables in a tourist destination
• Summer babysitting jobs

You can post your services on social media or apps like NextDoor. But also actively look for jobs too in community Facebook groups, mom groups, or on Craigslist. Also, don’t forget to reach out to your network and see if friends or family are in need of help.

24. Make Extra Money as a Rideshare Driver

Using ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft give customers a comparable or even less expensive option to cabs. And with easy-to-use apps, it’s often easier to call an Uber or Lyft than hail a cab.

This has made rideshare companies a popular way to get around, and a great way to make extra money. You can also set your own hours, and drivers I’ve talked to seem to genuinely love meeting new people.

To learn what rideshare driving is like and what you can expect to make, check out Is Driving For Uber Worth It in 2020?

The Final Word on How to Make Extra Money

There are so many ways to make extra money when you start looking around and see all of the opportunities around you. Think about what your goals are for your side hustle, like do you want to make an extra $1,000 a month working from home? Then get set up to run ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Or do you want something super mindless? Try taking surveys on Branded Surveys!

There’s something out there for everyone, so now it’s time to get to work! Your future financial self will thank you.