People Are Sharing The Side Gigs That Make Them Real Money — Like, These People Are Really Using Their Whole-Ass Brains

There's no denying that the 2025 economy is not great

Even if you have a steady full-time job, it can still feel like a struggggggle to make ends meet. But there are ways! Recently, Reddit user Lucky-Disaster6244 asked the r/povertyfinance subreddit, "What’s something you do on the side that makes real extra money — not just $20 here and there?" Here are some of the best responses that are actually doable:

1. "I host bar trivia. It's usually three hours a night, and it makes me about $150 a night (plus tips). I'm actually trying to make this my full-time job; I enjoy it so much. It's not hard to buy trivia games or hook up with an existing company. I am independent and write my own games that I try to sell on the side."

2. "I have a kettle corn pop-up. I do fairs, festivals, pumpkin patches, and can turn $300 of product and space rent into $6k+ sales in a day."

3. "Election work. Literally in 14 days this year, I'll gross $6,900. Long days, easy peasy work."

4. "I make cosplay props for people."

"I use my personal social media, and I have a commissions page on Ko-Fi. People will see what I usually make and ask me if I am able to make a certain prop. I will then make an agreement with the customer before starting the work."

5. "I put up and take down Christmas lights on weekends and evenings from October to January. $24k a season is very doable, but you gotta be able to haul and carry ladders, confidently and safely climb up and down ladders, and be OK with working in the wind and rain in the coldest part of the year. It isn’t glamorous, but it can be a nice chunk of extra money."

6. "I sell rare house plants on the side. If I want some money for a spa or date night, I’ll just chop and propagate some plants for an easy $300-$500. Rare alocasias, monsteras, and anthuriums. There are a ton of people who collect, trade, etc. It’s my hobby, which has made it so easy to turn into a side hustle. Best part is it’s all cash."

7. "I bartend on Saturday mornings. I make around $500-$600 extra a month from it. It’s not much, but it covers my divorce fees."

8. "I did Rover for three years, boarding dogs in my home. I made $11k a year consistently. Month to month could vary widely, $0-$2k, but I always finished the year the same.

"But you really should have some experience and be an actual responsible person, because dogs are living beings and deserve proper care. You also need to account for things like Rover fees (20%), taxes, insurance, supplies, and licensing laws. You will end up working all holidays because that's the busiest season for dog sitting, and you'll need to commit your schedule months in advance."

9. "I started a YouTube channel a few years ago, and now it’s actually pulling in between $1,500 and $3,000 a month! It’s nuts!!! It was just a hobby."

"I talk about tech stuff. I review computers, network-attached storage systems, and occasionally a tech company I follow pretty closely. My channel name is the same as my Reddit name. It did take several years before money started flowing, but now it's a pretty great side hustle because it's something I would do for free anyway."

10. "I used to flip furniture on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. I did have to invest in a small trailer and a good cleaner. But I would get free or cheap furniture. Clean it and spruce it up. Sell it for a couple hundred bucks. Mostly couches."

11. "I freelance write on the internet, but it’s hard to get started these days. To do it entirely on your own, you need to build an audience first, which is getting harder every year as social media companies monetize their users (by making creators and brands pay to access them). You can get hired as a writer and build an audience through an existing website/brand. When all of my clients are buying, I can make $2k a month, but most of them are ad-supported, so the work dries up when the economy is bad, and then I can make $1k a month, tops."

12. "I used to do clinical trials."

"I participate in focus groups and research studies. They're a pretty cool way to spend a couple of hours, and they usually pay $150-$250 a pop. I do this with several research companies in my area because most of them only let you participate once every few months. So, if you keep filling out questionnaires and screeners with various research companies, you can rotate through them and get picked more often. Using this method, I participate in one or two studies per month. I've actually been grinding hard on applying for research studies for the last few months to pay off my credit card debt. Been making some pretty good progress!"

13. "Deliver pizza for a local place under the table. You can do pretty good Friday night through Sunday."

14. "Landscaping. Cash under the table, you dictate how many jobs you want to take on, and you can focus on one specific neighborhood to limit gas mileage. A mower, trimmer, blower, and small trailer will all pay themselves off in three weeks. It’ll beat you up a little, but it’s rewarding work. It’s also extremely straightforward. As long as you do what you’re supposed to do, the customer will be happy."

"Don't target people with complex yards. Drive through the neighborhood and find someone who's obviously over a month behind on mowing their lawn. Knock and offer to do it for $40. Tell them you'll come back every two weeks if that works for them. Get to a point where you've got 10 or so yards on rotation and you can knock them out in a day. $400 for a day's work every two weeks, under the table. Do more or less depending on how much or little you want to make."

15. "I work as an ad model. All kinds of ads. Internet, TV, print. Work is sporadic and irregular, which means you'd better have solid income from a main source. But a little $500-$800 check from time to time sure comes in handy."

"Generally, one can set up an account for a small annual fee on places like castingnetworks.com or actorsaccess.com. Specifically, it would be better if you would connect with a local talent/modeling agency. They will also ask you to sign up for a talent website, and you’re going to need professional photos. Spend money on THAT, for sure. Good photos for modeling and this kind of gig work is critical!"

16. "My very first month of donating plasma, I made $900. Paid for my three-and-a-half week road trip last summer to Canada. I only do it once a week now because the center closest to me changed their hours, so I get $40 a week instead of my usual $100, but that’s still an extra $160 a month I put back into savings that doesn’t have to come out of my normal paychecks, it’s just extra. So that’s nice. I do miss the $400 months, though."

17. "If you're even a little handy, you can make good money as a handyman in elderly neighborhoods. My dad started out just helping neighbors with hanging curtains, painting bathrooms, etc. After about a year, he was busy enough to quit his full-time job and just work for himself. You don't need a lot of tools or an expensive truck, but if you can operate a drill, swing a brush, and are good with old people, there's good-paying work out there for you."

18. "None of these enterprises have made me two thousand a month individually, but all of them combined have equaled that over many months of production. Edible mushrooms. Microgreens. Composting worms. Compost. Vegetable plant starts. Cloned fruit trees. I've been doing these for years, and I sell directly to consumers, no restaurants or middlemen."

19. "I make about $120/hr coaching baseball lessons. I’ll spend a weekend with 10 lessons coaching middle school to college athletes. I also charge $75/month to program throwing/pitching training. This can be 10-30 pitchers a session, ranging from high school to professional. It’s about 5-15 extra hours a week."

20. "I used to sell my artwork online, it was a good $15,000 to $20,000 a year. My ex said it was taking up all my time to cook and clean, so I stopped selling my artwork for him. I plan to sell again now that I left him."

21. "I work freelance in the arts. I’ve done a decent job advertising my own business and have developed a side hustle doing social media marketing for other small businesses. Writing posts, finding imagery, and scheduling the posts in advance. The amount of actual work varies from month to month, but the retainer fee does not, and it’s made my life much easier and more predictable."

22. "I started a cleaning business. It was very easy, and I did it on Saturday afternoons. I just posted my contact info, services, and prices to local online communities. I worked for a young, wealthy couple cleaning a condo two to three times a month. I got around $600 extra per month for just a general cleaning. I also now include move-out cleans, which can get me $400-$600 per job. It's not huge cash, but it helped me kick a car note down from $24k to $16k. And that was with one client."

23. "I got a box truck and run deliveries on the weekend for a retail store. It's mostly like furniture and wood. Sucks some days, but in the thick of the summer, my monthly income is about two and a half times higher."

24. "During the winter, I sell 3D-printed ornaments and make between $100 and $300 a week for the first two to three weeks of December.

"I specifically target the last-minute crowd and get most of my work through word of mouth. Production cost per ornament is $1.04. It takes me under an hour to make/edit the model, and then it takes 5-8 hours to print, but that can be done while I'm sleeping. I charge between $15 and $25 for an ornament. Last year, I also started selling name ornaments for $5 a pop, but they take under two hours to edit and print, so they're easy to make in large batches. These customers also tend to message me throughout the year, so I make around $600 during the Christmas season and $20-$100 other months. So kinda $20 here and there with a big yearly payout."

25. "Real estate Photography. It's usually $150 per house, $300 if it's a large property, and I need to use a drone."

"It takes about an hour to shoot and less than an hour to edit. I usually do two to three houses throughout the week. I'll stop on my way home from work, then on Saturday, I can group appointments by location. My busiest Saturday was seven houses. It's really easy. You just need a camera capable of HDR and a lens with a wide angle. I use a Nikon 16-24mm and a tripod."

Do you have any side hustles that are bringing in a little extra cash each month? Dont' gate gatekeep! Tell me about them in the comments.