Side jobs, making extra money

[Orangeradiorabbit]

The short:

What side jobs, side hustles, second jobs do people have, that make good money?

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The long:

I work full time, and I'm currently looking for a better paid job. My job has frozen pay and promotions. I'm trying to plan ahead for inflation vs stagnant wage. I'm keen to find ways to bring in extra cash while I'm job hunting. I've scoured the "make £10 a day thread" and seen some good ideas. I've done matched betting and account switches. Now I'm looking for other ideas for making money.

What about part time catalogue modelling or tv extra work, has anyone over 35 with no previous experience done this successfully? Online tutoring, I have a PhD but no teaching qualifications, and tutoring seems like it takes a while to get going and build up credibility- have any non-teachers done this? Buying and selling on eBay or Marketplace - feels like you need to have "the eye" and know what to buy, I'm not sure I have this skill. A regular job like cleaning or bar work, but I'm not sure this would be very well paid and I would need to travel to work. Dog walking or baby sitting, but again feels like it would take a while to get established and trusted - I don't have friends that need these services.

I don't have any obvious skills other than the PhD, and then what I do for my current job, which I could potentially freelance (but I worry about conflict of interest with my current employer) or offer paid career advice as many people are trying to break into this industry (but this feels a bit unethical/exploitative, especially in the current climate, I normally give career coaching and advice for free).

Looking for success stories and things to avoid. Ideally I would love to make an extra £300-£500 per month. More would be lovely, obviously.

I used to be an administrator back in the day. Maybe work as a virtual PA- anyone have experience with this? Feels more like full time work

What is your PhD in? Maybe you could take a short TEFL to go through some of the basics, and then teach English online? My guess would be that there is a high demand from China at the moment, as tutoring has been effectively banned (and it’s very popular). I am a qualified teacher, but have always tutored on the side. I earn about 500gbp per week doing this, as my side hustle!

Oh wow @BuHao, that sounds like a great side job. My PhD is in psychology, so not super in demand like Maths, English or Science. But I did tutor statistics before when I was a student. I'll look into the TEFL idea. I hadn't thought of this before and it sounds like there could be demand.

I've just started looking into this recently. Getting Canva and creating designs to sell ok Etsy for buyers to download. Dropshipping. Affiliate marketing. These are the top 3 I'm going to try out, got the ideas from YouTube. You could also sign up to Fiverrr and offer services such as logo design, CV writing, proofreading, whatever you're skill is basically.

May I ask why matched betting is no longer working for you? (Only if you want to explain further). I have a fairly regular, consistent income from it. I'm puzzled that it doesn't seem to be the case for you?

I started MB but I got so anxious about the amount I had to put down and was too scared I'd make a mistake and lose everything!!

If you are ok with writing, you could potentially offer your skills as an article / blog post writer, within the psychology/health niche. Offer your services on Fiverr or PeoplePerHour as a content writer in psychology. Being as you have your PhD to back you up, you could do very well - potentially getting hired more permanently by a big health website or something.

Additionally, you could offer your services as a proof reader, for other psychologists who may be writing books, guides etc, then they usually hire someone to proof-read their work before it gets published. Again, with your PhD they'd probably hire you with your experience over someone else, as you'd also be able to understand their writings as well as proof read their grammar and spelling etc.

Good luck! :)

@twix23 I started MB but I got so anxious about the amount I had to put down and was too scared I'd make a mistake and lose everything!!

Ah, yes I understand. That can be daunting.
Were you doing mostly signup offers? It's usually where the online guides point you towards first of all - and it can involve larger sums for quick profits.
There are other strategies that don't involve large wagers.

If you wanted to give it another try (not trying to persuade you at all, but if it's just your worry that the previous strategy seemed too risky..), here's an easy way without much risk...

First set up a bank account for payments with a different bank, so it doesn't show on your main account.

Make yourself an easy to use 'deposit/win; withdrawal/loss' chart, to keep track of weekly profits.

If you already have an account, or several, with online bookies, just stick with those initially for small reload offers. 2 or 3 well known bookies to start with. Often these bets are just £5 or £10 wagers to qualify.
If you've made a profit from signups so far, set that as your liability limit and never place a lay bet beyond that amount. Then you will never risk losing more than you have made in profit.
These small reload offers will mount up over time. After you've recouped your initial investment, keep the additional profits in your exchange account as 'working capital' for lay bets. This way, although profits will be smaller initially, you're never risking your 'own' money.

Thank you for the idea @andymary and @twix23, I'm going to research these.

@seekingasimplelife I started around the World Cup and did many sign up offers. Then life came around with Xmas and a house move. I just need to get back into it again: plus I wasn't sure how to carry on after the big sign up offers. And some of the offers sent through via email are quite obscure (e.g. free £5 to bet on a triple or bet builder) and I'm not sure how to do matched betting on those. I guess I need to research in depth, or maybe pay to join a site (rather than free advice). But happy if you have any advice or sites you can point me to :)

@Orangeradiorabbit - I have PM'd you.

A question for @seekingasimplelife, I plan to start matched betting. I live in Spain so will declare winnings for income tax. Do you have any experience or have anymore helpful tips for a beginne? Feel free to send me a message.

@Joy31 - I have PM'd you.

What about signing up with a babysitting agency ?
Some people prefer people who are a bit more experienced than a teen.
(I mean, you might not be - I don't know if you have dc?).

It's not going to pay a huge hourly rate, but it might be more sustainable around FT work that starting a job where you are then having to do lots of preparation (such as tutoring) or one that is more physically demanding. I mean, with some babysitting, you might also have a few hours when dc are asleep to be doing a 3rd job on-line !

Good suggestion @UsingChangeofName. I didn't even think of agencies for babysitting. I'll see what's local to me

Hi, sorry for jumping on this. I am a teacher (English) and I do a bit of local tutoring but I would be quite interested in hearing how you recruit/find people to tutor in China. I will PM you, if that is ok?

@seekingasimplelife can I ask a quick question? I'm going to start MB ive flirted with the idea for a while. How much do I need to start realistically and also if you don't mind me asking what is a true profit that can be made? I have time daily to do it (when I eventually start).

@Tomatowentsplat - That's a tricky question to answer as it's so variable.
I would say start with £200 - £300 for the introductory offers. You could earn double or treble that depending on how much time you have available. The more time and money you have initially the quicker you'll make profit. But you could start with £100 and build it up gradually.

With reload offers, it depends on how much capital you have to play with, and how much time you have. If you have £500 to use and about half an hour, 3 or 4 times a week, I would estimate you would make about £35 a week without much effort.
If you have £1500 to keep aside and an hour or so 4 -5 times a week, I would estimate £50 - £75. But the reload offers tend to fluctuate according to when the big sporting events are on. These are very profitable, so you could easily double or treble profit in those weeks.

Once you have been MB a while and have built up a working capital fund of £2K, you would expect to be making an average of about £100 a week overall but that is averaged out over a year, and some weeks will be much lower, and some much higher.

@Tomatowentsplat Just checked my last week's profits - I made £159. I would say a fairly quiet week, with just a few football offers.

@seekingasimplelife thank you so much for replying..I've only just saw the notification.

Roamler and Shepper

I have a successful Etsy business on top of my job

@Gh12345 thank you for replying. Do you mind me asking: what do you sell? How did you find product-market fit? For example, I don't feel I have many "skills" (e.g., art, craft, sewing, knitting etc) that I could sell. I'm also not sure about selling re-selling goods (e.g., furniture, books etc) because I'm not sure what's in demand.

Dog boarding? Ours charges 25 per day or 35 for 24hr. Dog sitters around here are already booked up for summer holidays.

Hi @seekingasimplelife would you mind giving me some advice about match betting please? I've never done it before, but we desperately need to make extra money. We are just about getting by, we have about £100 for the month after all the bills are paid and we have done a big shop for the month but still have to buy milk, veg and fruit weekly.
I would be very grateful for any advice you could give me.