Tried & Tested Side Hustle Ideas To Earn Some Extra Money

Side Hustle Your Way To A Fuller Bank Account.

We’re living through a cost-of-living crisis. Food prices have soared, interest rates have climbed, and thousands of households are suddenly paying hundreds more each month just to keep a roof over their heads.

My own sister’s mortgage has jumped by £500 a month. Renters aren’t spared either, with landlords passing on higher costs in the form of steep rent hikes.

No wonder so many of us are searching for ways to bring in extra cash.

This post will share practical side hustle ideas to boost your income and keep your finances afloat. Some can fit neatly around a full-time job, while others can be done from your sofa, perfect if health issues or family responsibilities make traditional second jobs impossible.

An extra income doesn't mean getting a second job on top of your full-time job; there is often a high demand in your local area for side hustlers to earn a few extra quid without ongoing commitments.

Earning a bit extra to support the family budget is nothing new, but the choice of side hustles today is bigger than ever.

So, what exactly is a side hustle? It’s simply a way to earn money on top of your main job or income. The beauty of it is flexibility; you can pick something that fits around your life and work it as little or as much as you need, without the commitment of a regular contract.

Extra income is always welcome, but don’t forget the rules. You still need to pay tax on what you earn, although the trading allowance lets you make up to £1,000 a year tax-free before you need to declare it to HMRC.

t’s also worth checking whether any extra income could affect the benefits you receive.

Equally important is making sure you’re working with a legitimate company.

Always do your homework, read reviews, check social media feedback, and search Companies House to confirm they’re properly registered. A little research up front can save you a lot of hassle later.

Side hustles come in all shapes and sizes. Some mean leaving the house, while others can be done from your sofa with Bake Off on in the background.

The money you make can vary too, sometimes it’s a nice little boost of a few pounds, other times it can grow into a meaningful second income. It all depends on the hustle itself and the time you’re willing to commit.

Don’t underestimate at-home options either; plenty of people earn a solid income without stepping outside their door. The trick is finding what works best for you.

Below, I’ve listed some of my favourite side hustles. You’ll notice I’ve left out anything related to betting.

Many other sites discuss topics such as matched betting, but I don’t believe it’s a safe or sustainable option. The risk of losing money, or worse, falling into gambling addiction, is too high, and that’s the last thing anyone needs when they’re already trying to make ends meet.

My Favourite Side Hustle Ideas

Rent Out Your Driveway Or Parking Space

With parking costs climbing across the UK, more and more people are cashing in by renting out their driveways.

It’s simple: when you’re not using your space, whether that’s during the day while you’re at work, overnight, at weekends, or even while you’re on holiday, you can let others park there for a fee.

If you don’t own a car but have a driveway that's empty, or if you have space for two cars but only use one, you’re sitting on a potential income stream.

Platforms like JustPark and YourParkingSpace make it easy. You list your driveway online, and drivers searching for parking in your area can book and pay through the app.

How much you can earn depends mainly on location and demand. A space near a train station, stadium, or city centre will fetch far more than one in a quiet village.

The pricing is flexible; you can set your own rates, check what nearby spaces charge, or let the app suggest competitive prices based on local averages.

Some platforms even adjust your rate automatically. For example, my driveway is a five-minute walk from a football stadium, and when there’s a big match on, my listing price rises with demand. That clever feature means I earn extra without lifting a finger.

Best of all, there are no start-up costs. If demand in your area is high, renting out your driveway can turn into a tidy little side hustle with minimal effort.

Rent Out Your Home

If you are not always at home, have an additional property, or perhaps you have a larger property with space for taking on guests, consider listing your property on Airbnb.

You can rent out your entire house or just a room using a popular rental company and earn up to £7,500 a year, tax-free. If you rent out just a room, but be aware that if you rent out your whole house, you will need to pay tax on your earnings.

You need to consider that you will have additional expenses such as insurance, cleaning costs, provision of parking, food making facilities for the guests, so you need to look into it properly. Still, thousands of people earn decent money from renting out their homes, so it's worth considering.

Rent Out Your Garden

If you have a large garden (0.5 acres is generally a good minimum space, but it could be smaller), additional land, or perhaps a field, you could consider renting spaces for campers to pitch their tents and spend the night.

Companies such as Pitchup allow you to list your space on their website to accept bookings from prospective campers.

You need to consider insurance, as well as toilet and washing facilities (which can be rented), which may put a spanner in the works, but you could earn a decent income if your area is large enough.

You may need planning consent if you plan to convert your space permanently into a camping area, but it can operate for up to 56 days a year without any planning implications. You also don't need planning permission to rent out a mobile caravan in your garden.

You don't need to be in a touristy location for this to be an option; you will likely get more 'business' if you are in a popular area, though.

Still, people make money from renting out their garden space to people in city centres, as well as the more scenic locations; pitching a tent in central London, for example, may be much cheaper for a tourist unable to afford a London hotel, and you could even rent out the tents as well!

It may not be one of the most popular side hustles, but it can be a highly successful one.

Take On A Lodger

You may have a spare room that you can monetise by renting it out. Companies such as Spareroom and Airbnb offer you the opportunity to advertise your extra room to prospective lodgers who may need a temporary room, perhaps for work reasons or a longer-term lodger.

Remember that this will mean sharing your home with a stranger, and they will need access to cooking and cleaning facilities. However, if you are comfortable with that, you could earn hundreds of pounds a month from a room you aren't using. You can earn up to £7,500 a year tax-free as a room renter.

The room doesn't have to be located in one of the best places in your area; people are always looking for accommodation, no matter if it's in the middle of a city centre or out in the middle of nowhere; everyone has different requirements, so don't assume nobody would want to rent a room from you!

Rent Office Space

Does your house or business have an extra room that someone might like to use as an office? Companies such as Office Riders allow you to list your space, enabling people who need a meeting or workspace to pay to use your facilities. It can be a good way for small businesses to earn some extra revenue, even though room renting isn't their normal business model!

You don't need an actual office to rent; a small room, outhouse, or even just a kitchen table may be exactly what someone needs to have somewhere to work for the day or longer.

The more facilities you have, the more you can charge. If you have a large room with a big table, tea and coffee-making facilities, perhaps a printer, and most certainly decent wifi, you can easily expect to earn £100+ a day, especially in cities; even just using your kitchen table could be worth £30+ a day, so well worth investigating as it could be a good side hustle!

Often market research companies look for somewhere quiet to meet up with their interviewees so they can conduct their research, and your home or spare room may be a great place for them to do this; I've had to go to coffee shops in the past to participate in a research project, and they are loud and busy places, and not ideal for chatting with someone!

Invest in Crypto - Casually

Investing in and of itself is often not a side hustle, but a full-time thing. However, similarly to the craze for day trading, which popped up over a decade ago, crypto investment can be adopted in a less all-or-nothing kind of way.

Set aside a certain amount of money you can afford to speculate with, and invest a bit at a time. As this Bitcoin Nova review sets out, you can use tools to invest in more efficient ways. Adopt the “buy low, sell high” approach to crypto investment, and you could end up with a decent passive income stream.

Rent Out Your Home As A Movie Set/Photo Shoot Location

If you have a home that you think might be of interest to film productions, you can consider renting out your property as a film set or photo shoot location.

In my hometown of Aldershot, Hampshire, and the surrounding area, we host many film productions. I've seen many private homes and other properties, such as large homes, unusual buildings, plots of land and even offices, being used for filming.

Even derelict buildings, gardens, garages and warehouses get used as film locations, and photo shoot scouts always look for unusual shooting locations.

Companies such as Giggster help you list your property and put it in front of the right people. Still, you need to be aware that renting your property is likely to lead to a fair bit of disruption, and you may not be able to stay in your property if it is a longer production, so you will have to factor that into your plans.

However, you can earn hundreds of pounds per day, or even thousands, for larger productions, making it worthwhile for your bank account. If you rent, you will need permission!

Use Your Talent/Skills To Earn Money

Do you have a particular skill that someone might pay you to use? Perhaps you are a skilled graphic designer or possess specialised knowledge in a niche field such as website design, logo design, language translation, writing, music, or programming; perhaps you have a distinctive voice that would be ideal for voice-over work.

Companies such as Fiverr have vast numbers of people who advertise their skills on the company's site and get paid for using their talents from their website users worldwide, and it can be an easy way to get your talent noticed by those who usually may not come across you.

You will be charged a fee by Fiverr for using their services, but it's a perfect way to showcase your talents and services and can lead to some really useful new customers and contacts that may well come back to you for more work. It's a really cost-effective way to set up your own online business, as you don't have all the set-up costs and marketing costs of setting up your own online ecommerce store /online presence, as it's an already established and popular website, and will get you in front of the right type of customers quickly! You can take on as much of this type of work as you like, which you can do from home (depending on your talent), and earn some extra money!

You may find that some clients become long-term users of your skills, which could lead to working for yourself full-time, so it's a fantastic way to find potential customers!

Become A Tutor

Another talent-based service is an option for anyone suitable to side hustle as a tutor. Sites such as Tutor Fair allow you to offer your tutoring service to prospective clients worldwide, where you can provide such tutoring services such as language lessons, education tutoring such as maths, English, science and also musical tutoring, so if you are a whizz on the piano, there will be someone looking for your expertise. You could earn up to £40 an hour for your time!

Become A Driving Instructor 

If you are a good, responsible driver and would like to share your passion and help people through the process of learning to drive, then being a driving instructor could be for you.

Once you have done your training, you'll be able to set your working hours and take on as many students as you wish. As they grow in confidence and ability, you'll be able to start teaching them what they need to know in order to prepare for both their theory and practical tests, as well as guide them towards resources like this one to help them Find Driving Test Cancellations, which can be super-helpful if the next available driving tests where you are, aren't for months.

Become A Virtual Assistant

You could consider becoming a virtual assistant if you are organised, have good telephone manners, and have a friendly, outgoing personality with good all-around office skills. The Society Of Virtual Assistants offers lots of helpful information on how you could work as a VA and earn money working from home, answering calls and replying to emails for businesses worldwide.

Do You Have a Creative Talent?

Are you the kind of person who has creative talent? Perhaps you are skilled at drawing caricatures, making jewellery, crafting homemade candles, or creating figurines from driftwood; then you could consider selling your products online.

eBay is a popular choice for beginners, but you also have other online marketplace options, such as Etsy, Not on the High Street, and Amazon. All are decent online retailers whose vast customer bases can turn your hobby into a small business.

Remember that all these online marketplace services will charge you a commission fee for selling with them, but it's still a great way to get into eCommerce without all the hassle of setting up your own online store, but if it takes off, it could turn into a full-time income source for you and be the start of you setting up your own online business.

If you're a visual artist seeking broader exposure, licensing, or product collaborations, consider exploring curated representation, such as the International Artist Roster, which showcases diverse contemporary artists and can help translate your creative work into commercial opportunities.

Start A Blog

If you have something to say, consider starting a blog. You can monetise your blog with the inclusion of paid adverts, guest posts and advertising features, but believe me; it's not a quick money make! It can take months, if not years, of hard work to get seen by a large enough audience to not only cover your costs, but to make a profit, but by making use of affiliate links and affiliate marketing you may be able to earn some money from it sooner rather than later, especially if you have an unusual niche for your blog, which might mean you get more visitors quicker.

Learning how to save money while running any form of business endeavour is an ongoing process. For those setting up a blog, it's essential to minimise expenses.

If you want your blog to be a long-term success and envision it as a great way to earn a passive income, it's essential to know the right tools to keep your costs down. Let’s show you some methods that can help you out.

Increase Autonomy Amongst Your Followers

While presence on a blog is critical, if you plan to upgrade it to the point where it becomes a fully functioning business with merchandise, products, and a range of marketing tactics to sell your brand, you need to consider how to foster that sense of independence among your customers.

This could include a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section, but you may also benefit from an online chat feature. The best website chat app providers always utilise a chatbot, which can be a great way to automate your communications with customers.

Cutting the Costs of Your Hosting

The more website traffic you get, the stronger your website needs to be. This means a whole host of other costs can be too much to bear. When you look for a hosting provider that provides cost-effective plans or you share a hosting account with another blog, this can be a great way to reduce your finances.

Invest in a Premium Theme

Website themes come in abundance, and you may be looking for the cheapest options, but you must remember that when things are cheaper, the quality tends to dip. You have to strike a balance between affordability and maintaining quality.

A premium theme isn't just going to make your website look better but will cover a host of other benefits, for example, making it easier to update, more secure, and better optimised.

Sometimes investing a little bit more upfront can mean reducing costs in the long run, especially when it comes to updating your website. A cheaper theme means you need to upgrade your website more often, resulting in a loss of time and expenses.

Use Free Images

Stock photos look fantastic, but they can be very expensive. A lot of bloggers look for great free images, and there are plenty of stock websites to take advantage of, but if you're looking for something more personal, you may think about taking images yourself.

This may require a bit more time and investment upfront, but capturing high-quality images can significantly enhance your blog in numerous ways.

Hiring Freelance Content Creators

A cost-effective way to create high-quality content is to scour freelance websites. This option allows you to spend more time making the website as functional as possible.

Optimising the Blog in Other Ways

There are various rules related to SEO that impact the functionality of your website.

Enhancing your website's performance can make a substantial difference. In addition to your hosting, consider minifying HTML, compressing images, and optimising other aspects that consume a lot of resources.

Gig Economy Roles

There are numerous other gig economy roles you could consider to earn extra cash. All have their points to consider, such as having your own vehicle, additional insurance needs and fuel costs, but you could always look at:

• Working as a delivery driver for Amazon via its Amazon Flex programme

• Become an Uber Driver

• Work as a Deliveroo or Uber Eats food delivery driver

• Work for Beelivery as a delivery driver

Market Research

Market research is big business in the UK; several market research companies will pay you to speak about your views on a range of different subjects, products or ideas, and the rewards can be pretty good; some companies will spend a lot of money on the right candidate.

You don't need to have previous experience, a particular skill set, formal qualifications or technical skills to take part; often, they prefer newbies for new research projects; the most important thing is to be honest about what's being asked, and it can turn into a profitable way to make use of your free time.

I've made £100 for a one-hour market research study in the past, and £40 to £50 for an hour of your input is far from unusual these days!

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, most market research projects have transitioned to online platforms for conducting research, such as Zoom, where you can speak with a researcher via your PC, laptop, smartphone, or tablet from the comfort of your sofa or desk at work during your lunch break.

Some projects may be focus group-oriented, so you may meet up with others to discuss a particular subject, either online or via a group chat format.

Payment is often made by gift card these days, with most major retailers offering gift cards, but the gift card most frequently used is from Amazon.

Therefore, you should be aware that you may not receive cash for your input, but the gift cards can be helpful in purchasing items such as groceries that you typically have to pay for with cash, meaning you are still better off.

For more information on how market research projects are conducted and which companies to sign up with, you can find out more in my market research blog post.

Become An Extra

In the Hampshire area I live, we have an unexpectedly large number of filming projects, ranging from TV commercials up to big-budget blockbuster movies, with very big-name actors taking part. On local social media, we are frequently asked if anyone is interested in being an extra for local and national film and television projects.

Now that I'ven't yet answered the call to be an extra, but at between £50 and £120 a day, I might start looking!

You may make more than that if the camera crew/director likes your look and features you more in scenes or even asks you to speak, so there is an opportunity to earn more.

The extras are usually well-fed and watered and may mingle with some celebrities, but the days can be long and tiring, and you may get cold and wet, spending the entire day on your feet.

You can expect numerous re-takes, which can be very repetitive and get a bit boring; having watched a few movies being filmed, plus filmed with a few TV crews for shows I've been involved in, I can confirm it's a lot of standing around and general boredom for a few seconds of actual screen time, so don't expect too much! You likely won't become famous, rich, or get to sit with your favourite actor in his trailer, chatting; it's not going to happen, so it won't suit everyone. However, many people love it, so it's worth looking into.

I can't recommend a company to sign up with, having not taken part; however, a quick web search brings up many companies to consider.

Try to avoid any company that charges you to join them; many don't. There is little point in shelling out cash just on the off chance that you might get some paid extra work.

Survey Sites/Apps

Similar to market research projects, you can make money from survey sites and apps. Most of these sites/apps will pay a small amount to answer quick questions, participate in polls, or complete quick tasks, usually via online surveys.

You might be selecting your favourite sandwich flavour for a food company, answering a quick current affairs question, filming and uploading a 30-second video answering a specific question, or any other reasonably quick and easy task.

Most of these tasks are performed on the phone or via an app.

It's worth mentioning that, more often than not, you may only be paid under 50p per task, usually far less, so you won't get rich quickly.

The benefit is that you might be asked several questions daily, and the funds start to accumulate more quickly.

Most of these services require you to build up your payments to a certain amount, usually around £10, before you can cash out, so it may be a while before you actually get paid. Most payments are made by gift card or PayPal.

You can see a selection of my favourite survey apps here

Become A Mystery Shopper

You can earn extra money by becoming a mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers take on specific tasks set by the mystery shopping companies, often on behalf of the companies you are conducting the mystery shop at, as a way for the company to make sure that the standards they expect from their staff are being correctly used.

For example, you might be asked to go to an electronics shop and ask about a specific range of products. The salesperson would be expected to steer you toward a product by asking you specific questions to match your needs to a product. You would then report whether the staff member asked the right questions and came back with the expected result.

Depending on the task, you will generally earn around £15 to £20 for a mystery shop visit. However, the amount paid will vary depending on the complexity of the task; a very basic task would be paid less.

You can view my blog post, which provides a wealth of information about Mystery Shopping

Sell Your Stuff!

A potentially fast way to earn a few extra quid is to sell your excess stuff! We've all bits and bobs in the cupboard that we don't use and are just gathering dust! If you haven't used it for 3 months or longer, consider selling it!

Selling sites like eBay, Vinted, and Facebook Marketplace are great ways to clear out your no-longer-needed items and make some extra money.

You need to be aware of selling fees on larger sites, but sites like Facebook are free to sell on, which means you get to keep every penny you make from your sale. It's a great way to make some space and make a few quid. If you enjoy the selling process and its rewards, you could become a reseller by picking up products you think may sell from other sellers, charity shops, car boot sales, or even friends and family.

You could set up as a small business; these days, more and more people are buying second-hand as they can't afford to buy new, so that presents a good financial opportunity for a budding entrepreneur.

Online, you'll find many suppliers of boxes and packaging materials, which can be useful as companies such as Packaging Chimp provide a wide array of shipping boxes for niche items, such as cardboard tubes for cylindrical items

Open Your Eyes!

Some companies will pay you to report empty properties, or bits of land, to them that might be suitable for re-development, buying or opening a business on. So if you are out and about and notice an empty house or a piece of land in a good location, you could be quids in by reporting it.

You Spot Property will pay you to help them find empty properties to buy and then sell on. They will pay you £20 if you find them a potentially suitable property, and if they buy the property, they will give you 1% of the sale price, so a £300k house purchase would earn you £3k, just for reporting the house to them!

Supermarket Lidl will pay you a fee if you find them their next supermarket location, and the fee is either 1.5% of the total freehold purchase price or 10% of the first year’s rent for leaseholds, which would equate to £22,500 for a completed £1.5m site purchase!

Majestic Wine will give you a free year's worth of wine if you can find them a site for their latest branch location! It's not cash, and I don't know how they determine the amount of wine they give you, but in my case, I suspect they couldn't keep up with my wine consumption requirements.

Sell Your Photos

You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell your camera or mobile phone photos. If you've taken a great picture, you can use a dedicated photo upload site, such as Alamy, Etsy, or Shutterstock, to upload your photos where they can be viewed by photo lovers, bloggers, advertising companies, stock image companies and websites.

You will receive a commission of up to 50% of the purchase price for any sale. You could set up your own website for your photos and sell from that to maximise your income, but it's hard to get the same number of visitors as the big sites unless you have a particular niche or following.

If you happen to come across something newsworthy, Alamy has an option for current and high-interest news images, and these could be picked up by newspapers, TV and news websites for broadcast/publication and could be reasonably well paid, depending on what your image portrays, be it current event-based or pictures of celebrities etc.

Dog Walker / Pet Sitter

If you are a lover of our furry friends, consider setting up as a dog walker or animal sitter. You have to be realistic about how much time you can give this type of side hustle, as it is labour-intensive, and you need to have the time available to walk the dogs or sit with them.

If you can commit, consider asking neighbours or friends if they are interested in your services, or use a service like Bark to help you generate leads. (no pun intended), for people looking for your kind of services.

You may want or need insurance to ensure you are covered in case of any issues. If you are house/pet sitting, many people will expect you to have had a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check, which you can conduct yourself.

The cost is £18, and it will demonstrate to prospective clients that you have no unspent convictions or cautions on your record.

Set Up A Print On Demand Business

You may have bought a product, such as a T-shirt or mug, with a personalised image printed on it, and setting up your own business selling personalised or digital products is relatively easy to do.

Use a service such as Shopify Print On Demand which will set you up an online shopfront and will allow you to upload images to add to clothing, mugs, calendars, books, photo albums, wall art and loads more options, and once you make a sale, will organise all the printing and shipping for you, so you sit back and earn cash!

It's big business, so if you have a particular interest or niche, then that's a good focus; even better if you are an artist or perhaps know one looking to monetise their work, so you can offer unique products not available elsewhere, giving you a commercial advantage.

Set-up costs can be relatively low, but you may need to invest a bit in advertising. However, you can use local social media groups or Facebook Marketplace to sell your products with minimal advertising outlay.

Freelance Content Writing

If you have writing skills or an interest in producing content, you may be able to earn money by writing content for blogs, magazines, papers or even scripts for podcasts or training videos.

Utilise services like Fiverr to advertise your writing skills, making them visible to those seeking your services worldwide. It is a much better option for someone starting out, as it can quickly provide you with a lot of work without incurring expenses for a website, domain name, or advertising.

There is certainly a need for freelance writers these days as many people move to reading digital articles over paper ones, increasing the need for creative writers to add their writing skills to publications, even if you don't have a lot of time spare, as some publishers only need short articles, sometimes even just quotes.

Cleaning Roles

There are often numerous cleaning companies seeking individuals to assist with their clients. This could involve working in a home or office environment, often on an ad-hoc basis, so you work when you are available.

This is an excellent opportunity for companies to cover staff on holiday or for extra work, as you can fill in gaps on their rosters.

Alternatively, you could set up your own cleaning business, but this can be costly, so it's worth working for someone else for a while to learn the tips and tricks and get an idea of what sort of equipment you may need.

Translating

Do you speak another language? If so, you may be able to earn some extra cash by translating other languages into English or vice versa.

You may be able to earn good money from this as there are often organisations looking for Adhoc translation services, be it documents or audio, and I've personally paid someone to translate product labels from English into German and Polish in the past, and that was hard to find someone to do, so that might be a good niche to look into, especially for food importers and exporters, both in the UK and worldwide.

Setting it up is relatively inexpensive, as you typically just need a PC, and it can be done quickly from the comfort of your own home.

Advertise your services on Fiverr or mention them on local social media, and be sure to contact your local council, as they sometimes struggle to find translators, especially in social services. The police also need translators who can guide you on how to get onto their calling list.

Green Fingers?

If you love gardening, consider offering yourself for gardening duties. Weeding and grass cutting are most people's pet hate, so if you are up for it, you can market yourself as someone to help get rid of those pesky plants and grass.

If you're good at gardening, you could offer more in-depth services, but you may need to get insurance for this and invest in more professional equipment.

If you like growing things, why not plant seeds in the Spring and then, once they have started to grow, sell the plants locally BUT you are supposed to get a plant passport licence from the Animal and Plant Health Agency if you are going to sell what you grow, or give to charity, for any other sale other than face to face purchasing, and the handing over of the plants (e.g. not selling online or by post), and this plant passport registration is expensive, and so unless you are producing vast numbers of plants, its not worthwhile!

Bake Off Wannabe?

Are you a skilled baker who creates exceptional cakes and treats? If so, you could set yourself up as a side hustle baker, offering bespoke celebration cakes to order, or perhaps home-produced products such as confectionery, biscuits, jams, brownies, specialist bread, gift baskets or possibly Keto-friendly products or yummy gluten-free offerings.

Even in these challenging financial times, there remains a strong demand for these products, particularly at Christmas. Consider attending Christmas fairs to sell your wares or approach local businesses to see if they would be willing to sell your products, perhaps on a sale or return basis initially, to explore ways to build your business and potentially make it a full-time venture.

You will need access to a kitchen for these types of ventures. You will need to register with your local Environmental Health department and have your kitchen inspected before you can begin trading, which may sound scary.

Still, it's very straightforward, and if they are happy, they will give you a food hygiene rating to reassure your customers. It's also advisable to take a food hygiene course first, to make sure you know what you are doing in regards to food safety, although this isn't compulsory, as you can take the course online, and they aren't that expensive, it's well worth doing, and the Environmental Health Officers will be happier if you have a food hygiene qualification!

The list of side hustles you can perform could go on for pages and pages; I think that if you take a step back and think about what you are good at or what you enjoy doing, a side hustle opportunity will likely pop into your head!

Explore your idea using a search engine, as you will often find that you aren't the first person to have thought about it, and you will find valuable information on how to pursue your idea.

You don't have to think big; even filling out a survey for 50p is 50p more in your pocket than you had 10 minutes earlier; it doesn't have to be a career starter; it can simply be a way to earn a few extra pounds when you have a few minutes spare on an evening, or equally, it might turn out to be something that changes your life forever, it just depends what you want from your hustle!

One in five (19%) adults in the UK have started a 'side hustle' since March 2020, and almost one in six (16%) claim to earn upwards of £1,000 a month from their new venture, according to research from the insurance provider, Aviva.

The pandemic, especially the lockdown, gave people more time to focus on alternative ways to make some extra money or expand their hobbies into a monetised hustle. Like myself, many people took on part-time furlough jobs to top up their income, and many still have these extra side hustle jobs now.

I stopped working at a supermarket in 2022, having started during the first week of lockdown. I stayed working there for two years, as did many of my colleagues, as it was a handy job that earned a few extra pounds every month.

Even after I returned to work full-time, it allowed me to meet new people, earn extra cash, and also receive a staff discount, which really made a difference to our family budget.

So even working for a few hours a week in your local supermarket is a side hustle, or being a leaflet distributor, takeaway driver, shop assistant, car washer, window cleaner, food sampler, personal shopper, bin cleaner, parcel deliverer, litter picker, graphic designer, voice-over artist logo designer, proofreader, You Tuber, digital marketer, DJ, shoe shiner, painter, labourer, fruit picker, warehouse worker, all these hustles help bring in that little bit of extra cash when times are tough, and these days, more than ever, we all need that bit of extra income to keep the lights and heating on!

How To Have Success With Your Side Hustle as a full-time business.

There are many reasons to start a side hustle, and if you’re looking for a way to make some extra money and supplement your income, a side hustle does tick a lot of the boxes.

It’s also a good way to start a business that you intend to become your full-time job without risking your income by giving up your current career. In recent years, many people have turned to side hustles for various personal and business reasons.

However, if you plan to set up a side hustle, you’ll want to ensure, as much as possible, that it will be a success. This won’t always be easy, but if you want it to achieve what you planned, you’ll need to put some of these ideas into place. Read on to find out more.

Test The Waters

Not all businesses, whether they are large or small, will be successful because not all companies are needed. To achieve success and profit, you’ll need to select a niche that people are willing to invest in and that fills a market gap in some way. This is not easy, and often, it’s only when you have launched your business that you find out whether it’s viable.

Don’t let this happen. Even a side hustle that simply sits alongside your current workload needs to generate some income; otherwise, it would be pointless.

This is why it’s essential to test the water first to ensure your idea is viable and of interest to enough people. Before launching your business, ask around on social media and in your local community to determine if there is a need.

You can also do more in-depth market research, perhaps with the help of a marketer. If your business is of interest to people, you can start it with confidence, knowing that it will likely be successful.

Open A Franchise

Starting from scratch is very challenging, and these side hustles can disappear into thin air after a while because they are simply not successful.

One way to ensure success is to visit Franchise Direct and select a business that already exists but can be operated in your own area. There are dozens to choose from, and the great thing about a franchise is that the business model is already established, and you can see that it generates revenue.

Of course, you will need to invest a substantial amount of money in the franchise to get started, as well as a percentage of your sales (this may be done on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis). However, if you have chosen well, you should be able to recoup that money easily once the franchise is up and running.

Have A Good Brand

Branding is crucial in business, and it is equally important when starting a side hustle. Unless you have a good brand, people won’t be able to remember you, especially if you are operating in a crowded marketplace.

Take the time you need to come up with a brand that really tells your story and is memorable. In that way, more people will know about you, and more people will spread the word that you exist!