To ask for your best side hustles?

[Sidehustelesplea]

I’m 21 and working 40 hours per week in hospitality. As you can imagine this isn’t exactly bringing in mega money. I live in a flat-share and the bank of mum and dad is shut. Overall I’m just about covering my expenses but I want to make a bit of extra money on the side. So Aibu to ask for your side hustles, second job ideas, ways of making money online etc?

sorry to jump on but please could you give a little more information?

Youtube or Tiktok if you think you'd be any good at making videos. Blogging or freelance writing if you're good at writing. Etsy if you can make things that are in demand and sell them. All of the above can be very, very profitable, but honestly can take a long time to master and get really good at. The fastest would be freelance writing but even that's harder these days as a lot of people have ditched their content writers to use AI instead. If you want to make a few hundred extra per month though it's doable.

If you speak any foreign languages, you could get a Level 3 Community Interpreting qualification (e.g. From the International School of Languages, or various other organisations) and work as a telephone interpreter from home, interpreting for doctors appointments etc. It pays about £14 an hour and you just need a mobile phone so no set up costs. To get qualified you have to pay for the course, which I think is about £200.

*International School of Linguists I meant, not languages

Also, transcription work is in high demand! Look for language service agencies hiring transcribers. It's literally just listening to audio and writing it down. You usually need to do a test first.

I recently qualified as a swimming instructor. You do need to pay for courses but they aren't too expensive and you can earn anywhere from £15-£25 an hour. I'd say below £18-£20 is on the low end. You can qualify via STA www.sta.co.uk or ASA www.swimming.org. If you go the ASA route you'll need to qualify as an assistant first but assistants are also still in demand but earn less. Qualification costs for Level 2 are £500-£1200 quid depending on the route you take.

What a tremendous suggestion for someone working 40 hours a week in hospitality, possibly waitressing. A side hustle isn't just "work more hours"!

If you are already working 40 hours a week but not making enough to survive then you need to look at how you can improve your current job. If there is a route to promotion in your current role focus on how to achieve that. If its a dead end job then make a list of all your current skills and look at how you can transfer them to a higher paying industry.

Rent out a room is a great suggestion for a 21 year old who, without doubt, owns her own house.

Use quidco when you buy anything online.
Open and close different bank accounts(research which ones pay you a start up amount) I have made about 500 or more just from opening and closing with three different banks

Unfortunately I think AI is largely replacing this

Selling your dirty knickers online?

Steer well clear of multilevel marketing companies such as Avon, Scentsy, Forever Living, Arbonne, Body Shop at Home etc etc. The only way to make money is to recruit a large downline and keep recruiting as the people you’ve already recruited drop out; that’s a lot of work and a great way to alienate people. These are pyramid schemes in disguise that rely on internal purchasing (in other words the distributors are the real customer) and most people lose money in the end having spent more than they’ve made, (research says over 99% of all sign ups lose money). It’s a very bad bet!

You'd have thought so but I still receive scores of requests for this in my inbox (which I ignore because I always prioritise translation and interpreting).

She goes to another school, you wouldn’t know her.

What are you like at baking? I see people advertise cakes/brownies/cookies for sale a lot and they’re not that good for the price they charge. I’ve tried (and failed) to get DH to do it as he’s really good at baking.

Really? All you need is a good grasp of English to be a successful proofreader? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

She didn't say that, though, did she?

She said that HMRC are unlikely to notice odd cash in hand income (true), but that pissing someone off would be a risk (true).

And income from gambling is untaxed. Gaming is taxed at the point of the gambling vendors - because if they were to tax the profits they would need to rebate the losses also. Matched betting is tax free, and it doesn't matter what your regular tax rate is, you pay zero.

@MasterBeth is correct. I'm an idiot who didn't read the initial thread properly. Sorry.

But if you're experienced in hospitality, and it sounds like you are, it may be worth putting the feelers out to see if you could earn better elsewhere. The difference between a hospitality role where you are tipped well and one where you are tipped poorly (or not at all) can make a huge difference to your income.

If you aren't working nights, babysitting.

actually there are plenty of parents on babysitting sites that want morning s cool drop offs, sometimes a couple of days a week and others want all week - so between 8-9am but for one hours work each day the price is more expensive so around £14-16 per hour. See if there is anyone local to you that would be a 5 minute walk there and back

Must be. 🤣

Dog Walking / Sitting - set up an account on Rover, you can update the calendar to show your availability, they do take a % of your fee but this also covers insurance.

Redbubble - if you are good at art then selling through redbubble can be good, you only need to upload your work and everything is taken care of.

Sell on Vinted - if you have anything of your own to sell I would do that first but then you can pick stuff up really cheap at jumble/car boot sales for a profit.

Teach English as a foreign language - this can be done online but would be some outlay to complete the course needed.

People do it in various ways. When you're starting out, you may need more help than when you've been doing it for a while. There are plenty of ways to get beta readers if you need them. Other people trade skills with each other. I'm an English teacher who's been doing editing and proofing for a while, so that helped when I started. The thing is to join some writing groups on Facebook or wherever and ask around.

I reckon some people get paid to go on chat forums and advertise undercover. Have a look at the Style & Beauty threads - most of it is just people advising but every so often you'll get a rash of recommendations for one shop and it even feels like some of the threads are started with that in mind (lots of Nobody's Child summer dress threads recently as an example).

Not sure how you get into that but you could do some research. It seems like it would be fun to get paid for it.

I'd love to know more about this!