Side Hustles and Ways to Make Money at Home [the Cut]

Employment | Tutoring |Book dealing | Podcasting | Career advice | Gig economy

MONEY | May 17, 2019

by Jessica Levine

SLG: Some very useful ideas for library students, recent grads and librarians in transition.

Straight from your couch. Photo-Illustration: by Stevie Remsberg; Photo by Silver Screen Collection / Getty Images

According to a 2018 survey conducted by Bankrate, more than half of millennials are figuring out how to make money at home by embracing a side hustle — also known as extra cash to help pay off debt.

If you’ve got a flexible schedule, “side hustles can be a great way to achieve a financial goal,” says Shannah Compton Game, MBA, a certified financial planner and host of the Millennial Money podcast. Whether you’re trying to pay off student loans, save for a house, or just make rent, she recommends determining exactly where your additional income will go before you start getting it.

go before you start getting it.

But don’t sell yourself short. The Bankrate survey found that men are making nearly three times more than women from their side hustles. While men were found to have side jobs more frequently than women, Game says women also tend to be more conservative when setting a price point. “We tend to undervalue our talents, and men can be better at saying this is my value and this is the price.” To close the pay gap, she recommends women do plenty of research on the market value of a given service or product they’re interested in offering before jumping in. Here are a few ways to start making some extra cash on the side.

Get some voice work. People get paid to read voice-over scripts for videos, advertisements, and audiobooks from home. Register on a site like Fiverr or Upwork to get started.

Buy and sell used books. If you’re willing to do a little legwork — going to estate sales, thrift stores, library sales — you can find underpriced used books and resell them online. The Amazon Barcode Scanner app can help determine whether a book is worth buying to take home and resell or not.