There are certain jobs and gigs that many adults will not like to do for various reasons, but are just ideal for teenagers and college kids to earn some extra money. There are many reasons why these jobs may not appeal to older adults, although that is not a hard and fast rule.
First and fore mostly, older people might be looking for something that pays more and pays regularly. The second thing is perhaps the nature of the job itself. For example, a teenager might be alright with pet sitting, making deliveries etc., whereas an adult might feel odd and uncomfortable doing those jobs.
So here is a list of some side hustles that school kids, teenager and college going students can do to make some extra money on the side. Some jobs may require the minimum age of the worker to be 18+ so all the offers listed below are not applicable to younger teens.
If you are a parent, and you are interested in your child getting some work skills and experience, which is mostly always a good idea, or your child is looking for ways to help themselves more financially independent, you can use the information in this article to help them achieve that.
I have tried to compile a list of jobs that are accessible and for which the entry is easy. Also, the great thing is that all of these side hustles have websites where you can look for work. The advantages to an online crowd-space are so many.
- It makes things easier.
- It’s easier for a person to find jobs,
- it’s easier for the person looking to hire and
- things are that much more organised.
Here goes.
Making Deliveries.
There are many online delivery services that have a presence in all major cities. The advantage of these online services is that the online platform makes things organised. Taking up a job with these online companies is different from conventional delivery jobs in the way that you can manage the time you spend on the job better. The schedules are online, you can often choose your hours which makes it easier to do this work as a part time or a weekend gig. If you do not have these online services in the area that you live, you can find local delivery jobs but it will probably more difficult to come up with a flexible schedule, though not always.
Regardless, this is work with an easy entry and not many requirements. Some services do not even require you to have a car, as long as you are content biking around and making deliveries. Some places you can sign up for delivery jobs are Postmates and Seamless.
Pet Care
You do not have to do just one thing. You can do several of small side hustles to ensure that you have some assignment on hand that makes you some extra money. Of course, it’s great if your services get popular with just one gig. Well, here’s another one. You will be surprised at how many people are looking for someone to care for their furry friends every now and then, for a few hours or even a few days. If you are good with animals and you like being around them, this is something you can do.
The job description is varied. You can pet sit, you can take them for a walk, offer to give a bath and grooming etc. It’s up to you. Here are some online services you can sign up with. Rover.com, PetSitter.com, FetchPetCare.com, and Care.com.
Sell Your Used / Unused Cosmetics
Ok. I found this one interesting. This is not something you do every other day but hear me out. It can earn you some extra cash and help you get rid of some of your excess things. These are the sites where you can sell your excess cosmetics, even the ones you have used, provided there is still more than 50% left. There are some exceptions as to what you can sell or not. You can see the rules on the websites.
Here are some places where you can sell your makeup online : GlamBot, MUABS, Poshmark, Amazon, Facebook Marketplace and Instagram.
The reasons for mentioning Amazon is that Amazon has a Trade In Program that allows you to sell your used things or even trade them for other things including Amazon Gift Cards.
Instagram is another animal all together. It is essentially a social media platform and not a selling platform. But if you have a decent number of followers you can sell off some of your stuff. The thing is that selling on Instagram is more like individual entrepreneurship. You have to take of promoting, shipping and facilitating payment all yourself.
But this is not necessarily a bad thing. On a slightly different note, this could pave the way for you to become an influencer, which essentially means you have a lot of followers who are interested in what you are doing on Instagram and conversely also in what you have to say and recommend.
Most of the younger generation enjoys spending time on Instagram. So making money through on Instagram seems exciting. But to pull it off needs work and involves a learning curve. I am not talking about the one off time you sell some stuff but turning your Instagram account into one lead generation powerhouse. It will take time but it can be done. The process can be fun and the rewards ample.
Surveys, Rewards, Gas and Beer Money
This is something you can do on the side whenever you have the spare time, even if you only have a mobile device at hand. A single survey site can pay around a $1000 per year, on an average, if you take their surveys regularly. Some will pay more, some less. And joining more than a few of these sites adds up to the money you make.
There is more than one way to earn cash and rewards online. Have a look at these sites to see how. These are reputable and well-known names with a history of regular payouts.
Swagbucks, MindField, MyPoints, Survey Junkie, Pinecone, Survey Spot and Opinion Outpost.
There are also mystery shopping sites Mystery Shopper Providers Association, Market Force, Best Mark, Sinclair Customer Metrics and Experience Exchange.
Focus groups pay more money and require more of your time. Become a part of a focus group or group trials. SIS International, Focus Group, Focus Groups, Global Strategy Group and PaidFocusGroups.com.
Sell Your Pictures
This is a good one and suited to anyone who has a talent for taking good pictures from a camera or a high quality phone camera. Everyone likes to take pictures. The younger generation are fond of having the best in gadgets including the best cameras as well as high end phones with great cameras.
Not to mention that you can upload the same pictures from your mobile device itself for selling them. No need to download them to a computer first.
You can use photography apps on your phone and tablets to edit and and hands the pictures. Many people with Instagram accounts already do this. If you are someone who travels, does road trips et cetera you will have even more opportunities to click interesting pictures.
You can step it up and get people to model for you. If you are studying you might find it easy to find people within your friends circle who are willing to pose for you. The great thing About stock photography is that fancy photographs are not always needed. Candid shots of people doing everyday things like reading a book, having coffee, taking the dog out for a walk et cetera sell very well as well.
So as long as you have a good camera, have subject and creativity to make a stock image, you can do this anywhere and any time. And it’s a lot of fun. Sites like Getty Images give a lot of ideas About what you can click. They also send notifications in their app for any trending requirement.
For example I recently received content notification to click cats, feed and walk desks. These are the sites you can check out for making an extra income on the side with stock photography.
Use Social Media To Sell Stuff
Spending too much time on social media sites and apps is supposed to be a bad thing, right? But what would people tell you if you were making money off the time you were spending on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest et cetera. Like it or not, or bad or good, people do spend a lot of time on social media. And it can only be for the reason that they enjoy doing it. If you are good at creating popular content, attracting followers, you can turn your past time into a money making enterprise. There are a few ways to do this.
Selling stuff.
This could be anything. You could sell your own things, someone else’s things or stuff that you have found and feel you can sell at a higher price through your social media promotions. It can literally be anything like clothes, cosmetics, paintings, art and crafts etc.
The only limitation will be the kind of audience you attract to your social media account. Somethings will sell better than others depending upon the taste of your followers.
Buying and selling at a higher price is a very popular way of making money. The biggest of companies do it. If you ever take a look at the back of the label of the product you will realise that the brand that you are buying and the actual manufacturer of the product are different people. Many small businesses and individuals also do this and so can you. Once you get into the swing of things you can make it your venture to discover more and more interesting products at source that you can flip online at a higher price.
Take things a notch higher and start packaging generic items you buy with your own branding. This pretty much sounds like the start of an entrepreneurship, doesn’t it? Well, it is. But you can always start with your social media account and see how things go from there.
Write reviews and promote things on marketplaces like Amazon.
We all buy and use all kinds of products. For examples, have you recently purchased a pair of wireless headphones that you think are great? Why not write a review for them on your social media account and add a link for buying them on the Amazon marketplace. Of course this has to be an affiliate link which you can generate once you have joined the affiliate marketing program on Amazon. Once you do that you can pretty much promote any product on Amazon and earn 5% to 80% of the amount of scenes as advertisers fee. Which brings us to the next option of making money through social media, namely, affiliate marketing.
Selling through Affiliate Marketing
You can use affiliate marketing to sell 3rd party products and earn a nice piece of profit every time something sells. ClickBank is know for having digital products like eBooks and eGuides that will pay as much as 75% of the selling price to the affiliate. Affiliate marketing is good if you often talk or share information on a certain topic like health, beauty, business etc. but do not have a product of your own to sell.
Your followers who are interested in listening to your posts will likely be interested in also buying what you recommend. Just make sure that you recommend everything in good faith and believe in the product you promote. Otherwise the loyalty of your followers will plummet fast and you won’t be able to promote any product after that.
Other affiliate marketing websites are Commission Junction, Rakuten, LinkShare. These sites have many physical product you can promote as well including apparel and electronics.
Become A Social Media Manager
There are lots of gigs are available for a social media manager. Check out the following sites for jobs related to social media. The jobs can be simple like responding to comments or more complicated like creating interesting content.
Glassdoor, Indeed, Fiverr.
Doing small gigs related to social media management is easy. Getting into work full time will be more difficult. But like everything else, starting small is a great idea and decide whether or not you want to get more involved in it later.
Once again, having a strong social media profile yourself will help you get the gig. However I have noticed that on several occasions it’s how you communicate with the employer that matters more. On sites like Fiverr, if you come across as friendly, efficient and offer a good rate, you are likely to get the work.
Specially since the starting rate is as low as $5, people are willing to give others try and see how things go from there. There is a need to be proficient with all major media platforms if you want to do this work. Not always but many times a job require cross-platform work. And I can tell you that if you are someone who is just as comfortable working around a Twitter as an Instagram account, you will find more gigs.
One-time gigs can often turn into regular work if the buyer is happy with the job you have done. I know that when I want something done on Fiverr I ask a certain virtual assistant if she is available and if the work is not urgent even wait for her to get free if she is busy at that moment.
Become an influencer.
Okay, this one is probably harder. Influencer is a word I have been hearing a lot on social media. It refers to a person who has a sizeable number of followers who can be influenced by what account holder posts. This includes posting about products and businesses.
It is considered like an advertisement by businesses and more effective than the traditional advertisements because of the personal nature of the promotion. The audience is targeted since they have chosen to follow the influencer and the message goes directly to them on their computers or mobile devices during a time when they are probably receptive to what ever they are seeing and reading.
Businesses also know that certain ideas and products sell well when the target consumer is in a relaxed state of mind. A persons mind is more open to suggestions when they are in a recreational mode. Businesses realise that traditional advertising is facing what is known as the blindspot.
People get so used to seeing the advertisements in the regular places that they tend to ignore them or not notice them. Hence the value of sending a message directly to people embedded in a personal stream of social media updates.
Businesses are ready to dish out up to several thousand dollars for one single post from an influential influencer. Building and organic followership is hard and getting harder with time. The reason is that all social media platforms have also introduced paid promotions.
You can pay to reach more people and in most situations that is exactly what you have to do. Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest all give the option of paying and promoting your content without which your pots comes before few people. Even all your existing followers will not get to see the content that you post. So if you are starting now with building an audience for your social media account and want to reach far and wide, you will have to take the route of paid promotions.
You can always market and sell things with your current friends circle but becoming an influencer Requires creating a hefty following.
One of the reasons why selling on social media is more suited to the young is because being in school or college give them the opportunity to befriend hundreds of young people, many of whom share similar interests and taste in things. It is not unusual to see college students with thousands of people in their friend list and as followers. This is a great start to get the ball rolling as friends of friends can also see your content and start following you.
Swagbucks TV App
Swagbucks also has an app that you can use to watch shows and videos. And you get paid to do it. You will make a few hundreds dollars over a year if you watch regularly.
Create Online Courses
If you are knowledgable about something you can share your knowledge online and earn from it. There are online platforms that make it easy not just to create an organised online lesson experience but also help market it. You can create online courses on Udemy, Teachable, Kajabi etc. You can use ClickFunnel for creating membership based courses.
Remember, creating a course doesn’t have to be complicated. You can create a course on calligraphy, getting a great golf swing, draw a sketch etc. It can be anything about a skill you have that others might be interesting in learning as well. Just ensure what you have to share is something valuable and helpful.
Sell old phones.
Okay this is not a gig. It’s a way to off load some of the electronics that you have accumulated and are no longer actively using. It is a good service because many a times I have been stuck with old phones and other things which are in perfect working order. You cannot very well toss them into the garbage. By selling them they will get re-used and re-cycled and you will get some money for them. The older the things get, the less money you get for them. So don’t wait too long.
Check out websites like gazelle.com
Video Surveys – Mind Swarm
Just like the other kind of surveys that you respond to, these are video surveys, that are often like a focus group where a group of people get together though a web cam conference. Check out Mind Swarm.
Drive with Uber and Lyft
Got a car? Got time to kill? Why not drive people around in your spare time and make some extra money. You can also save yourself the trouble and give your car on rent when you are not using it. Before you get into this work, figure out carefully what your expenses of running and maintaining a car are.
People make different median amount of money in different places. This is a great article to read to learn more about how much an Uber driver earns.
Ghost Writing – Text Broker
Check out Text Broker for ghost writing jobs. You need to be a good writer though.
Amazon Trade In Program And Amazon mTurk
Amazon trade-in program allows you to sell off your old things whereas Amazon mTurk is a place where you can perform micro tasks and get paid. A single task can be worth just 10 cents. So look out for ones that are worth your time.
Hello, I am Celensia Keys, and I’ve noticed that in this article, it says nothing about kids lower teens, and I am only eleven. But I would like to apply for a job, and my parents, therapist, and friends say that I am very mature for my age, so please get back to me soon, and let me know if I can apply for a job.