Earning money can be quite difficult today, and you often have to work hard in order to get sufficient money for your family. It is even more difficult to earn money when you are a stay-at-home mom that is in charge of taking care of children or taking responsibility for most household chores. However, there are situations where the husband doesn’t really earn much to support the family, so the wife would have to find ways to earn extra cash.
Fortunately, there are now dozens of different ways for stay-at-home moms to earn extra cash to buy what the family needs or wants. There are also ways for moms that already have jobs to earn more money, which they can use to save for the college education of their child or for simply using it to fund a family trip or vacation.
Why Do Mamas Need A Side Hustle?
Here are a few reasons to convince the moms out there to have a side hustle.
1. It Offers A Creative Outlet
Doing house chores accompanied by a babbling infant and poems playing in the background may not always create a mentally stimulating environment. Motherhood comes with a bundle of mentally challenging responsibilities and makes the mamas crave more creative expression. And a side hustle can be a great opportunity in these scenarios. It allows you to turn your hobby into work and earn through it, be it painting, knitting, woodworking, or writing.
2. Provides Opportunity To Expand Professional Skills
A side hustle is an excellent opportunity to increase your knowledge about businesses, from web development to marketing. Fortunately, learning a professional skill is easy these days due to the availability of web courses or learning materials on the Internet.
3. It Helps You Save Some Cash For A Rainy Day
One of the biggest benefits of having a side hustle is the hard-earned money you get in return for your services. No matter, if you wish to pay your debt, save for a vacation, or simply want to prepare your bank account for an emergency fund; a side hustle can benefit you in so many situations.
4. It Motivates Your Kids
A study at Harvard Business School concluded that the moms who work leave a positive impact on their kids. Not only do the daughters get inspiration from their moms, but the sons of working mothers are seen contributing to the household more.
5. Improves Mental Health
A study in 2012 showed that moms who work were more likely to report feelings of happiness, personal growth, and fulfilment. However, full-time jobs are not for every mama, whereas a side hustle is a lower-key opportunity to stimulate their minds and make them feel more balanced.
15 Flexible Side Hustles For Moms
Out of the dozens of side hustles that moms can do, there are only a few that are considered to be more effective than others. Here are 15 side hustles for any mom to help earn extra cash.
1. Sell Handmade Products
One of the best ways to earn money is to sell handmade products, which include accessories like bracelets and necklaces, as well as arts and crafts items that can help for designing different items such as notebooks, blackboards, and more. There are many types of handmade products you can sell, but you should pick the ones that aren’t very difficult to make so that you will be able to produce more in less time. You can then sell your products on Etsy or on online marketplaces like eBay and Facebook Marketplace.
2. Become a Product Tester
Another side hustle that you can do that doesn’t really take too much time is to test products for various companies. Becoming a product tester is arguably one of the best part-time jobs, as it will provide not only extra cash to earn but also free products that you may use for a long time at home. You can easily sign up as a product tester for companies, and you will also have a chance to become a legitimate product tester for multiple brands so that you can earn more money.
3. Manage Social Media Accounts
If you have hours of free time at home, you should work as a part-time social media manager for different brands that want people to monitor their social media accounts and posts photos or videos that will be helpful in promoting their products and services. If you want to be a social media manager, you should have some background in copywriting, although there are a lot of companies that hire social media managers that don’t have previous experience in the field.
However, keep in mind that you will really need to put more time as a social media manager compared to other types of side hustles, but the expected pay for managing social media is usually bigger.
4. Walk Dogs for Other Owners
Morning walks are what most dogs would need to have much-needed exercise, and there are some owners that don’t really have the time to walk their dogs. So, if you love dogs and you like to walk with them, you can sign up for dog walking apps like Rover and Wag to become a part-time dog walker that would walk dogs for other owners. In the apps we mentioned, you can choose your schedule and rate, and then you will be free to choose which requests you will accept.
5. Start Vlogging
If you want to share glimpses of your life with others, then you should try vlogging, which is an activity wherein you will record some of the happenings in your life and upload them on social media or video streaming platforms like YouTube and Facebook. You can vlog on almost anything, from your daily routine to the trips that you and your family enjoy.
Vlogging is very popular today, so you should jump on the bandwagon and start recording videos. Once your vlog gets popular on YouTube or Facebook, there is a high chance that you will earn money from ads, and you may even get sponsors or endorsements.
6. Create a Blog
For those that don’t want to record videos of their lives, they can just write about it on their blog. Blogging was one of the most profitable side hustles before vlogging became popular, and even if videos are now a more well-known form of sharing lives today, blogging is still quite profitable since bloggers still earn from ads and sponsors.
If you already have the skills in writing, you would find blogs very easy to do, as you don’t really have to write a long blog post. However, you should keep in mind that blog posts that are fairly long, have many photos, and have links to other posts on your blog gain more traction online.
7. Write Articles for Clients
If you have great skills in writing professional articles and posts, then you should write them for clients or customers who are willing to pay for you to post articles on their websites. Writing articles is now a very popular side hustle, especially for those that prefer to work at home.
But, writing articles for clients can take a lot of time compared to writing a blog post about your life, as the articles would sometimes require you to research particular subjects or topics. Fortunately, writing articles is a much more stable source of income compared to writing for blogs, as you don’t have to rely on ads and sponsors to earn money.
8. Proofread Articles and Posts
Blogging or writing articles as a freelance writer takes a lot of time to do. However, if you have the skills in writing but don’t have the time to write anything, there is a particular side hustle that you can do, and that is to proofread articles and posts for clients. Proofreading is an activity wherein you would have to read various articles and then mark errors in grammar, spelling, and inconsistencies within those articles. Proofreading usually doesn’t take hours to do, although this side hustle pays less compared to actually writing articles and posts for clients.
9. Become a Virtual Assistant
A side hustle that pays well is being a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is usually a part-time employee that helps clients with various tasks, like organizing files on numerous folders, managing filing systems, answering emails, or scheduling appointments and meetings. Being a virtual assistant is relatively easy, as you will just do simple jobs that most employees don’t have the time to do since they are busy with more complex tasks.
10. Build Websites for Brands
A side hustle you can do if you have the skills in web development and design is building websites for brands, particularly the ones that are relatively new to the market and would like to explore the platform of online selling. Creating websites can earn you plenty of money, especially if your client is willing to pay for premium services or features on their website.
But, there are a lot of part-time web developers online, so you would have to compete with them to get clients. If you want to showcase your skills, you should try creating your own website that is packed with plenty of features so that your clients will know what you are capable of adding to their website.
11. Try Bookkeeping
For people that have experience in bookkeeping, they should apply as a virtual or online bookkeeper to earn extra money. Bookkeeping is a process wherein you would have to track and record financial records and transactions by a company, and while this may seem like an easy job, there are several complex steps that you need to follow in order to track records and transactions efficiently. Although bookkeeping would sometimes requires experience, you can easily learn how to bookkeep by reading or watching guides online.
12. Become an Online Tutor
A great way to earn money at home is tutoring students online as a virtual tutor. Becoming an online tutor is relatively easy, as the company that will hire you will already provide you with seminars and guides on how to teach students properly. Then, you can apply what you learned from the company to tutor students that have applied for the tutoring program.
The payment for being an online tutor is per hour, so you may need to spend a lot of hours tutoring kids in order to earn more money. But, if you just want this job as a side hustle, you can just use a few hours of your time to tutor students online.
13. Rent Out One Room
For families that have an extra guest room at home or for those that own an apartment building with one vacant room, they should rent out that room to other people through Airbnb. By renting out a room for others, you will be able to earn money by simply letting one or two people stay in the guest room or the vacant room in your home.
If your house is located near a popular tourist destination, then you will definitely earn plenty of money per year through Airbnb. However, be sure that the guest or vacant room is disconnected from your home so that the guests wouldn’t have a way to enter the other rooms of your house.
14. Sell Photos Online
If you have a talent in photography, then you should definitely try selling your photos online through stock image websites or to clients that are interested in using your photos for commercial purposes. If you are at home most of the time, you may be limited as to what the subjects of your photos will be. However, there are also people that want to use photos of simple household items like pots, utensils, and gardening tools, so it is still worth it to take a photo of those items because you can sell them on stock image websites.
There are also portfolio websites where you can upload albums of your amazing photos and then build your online portfolio. This online portfolio can then be seen by potential clients, who may eventually hire you to become a photographer for various events and locations. But, keep in mind that being a photographer for clients wouldn’t really be considered a side hustle anymore, since you will have to leave home and spend more time at work. Only pursue this career path if there is someone you trust that can take care of your child while you are away.
15. Invest in the Stock Market
Investing in the stock market is a good side hustle to do if you don’t have free time to use for doing specific jobs or performing various tasks, as all you have to do to earn money on the stock market is to invest in stocks that you think will really be profitable in the future and just wait for those stocks to rise in value over time.
While investing in the stock market is an easy task in hindsight, you would still have to do research and learn about the stock market and how to find stocks that will become valuable after many years. Always remember to invest wisely in the stock market so that your money won’t go to waste.
Conclusion
These are just some of the best side hustles that would surely help moms earn extra money for their family or even for personal use. Keep in mind that most of the side hustles we mentioned above would require you to work hard in order to earn more money, so provide plenty of free time for these side hustles so that you can always do your best.