Many Americans work multiple jobs for a variety of reasons–including but not limited to–raising a family, saving up for a vacation, or living comfortably enough to go out for dinner every now and then.
A majority of these second jobs are freelance work or part-time gigs to supplement one's income.
While they may be hard to come by, having connections is a huge advantage.
Curious to hear from those who've held side hustles that seemed too good to be true, Reddit zackmann08 asked:
"What is the easiest, LEGAL way to make money on the side?"
Need someone to look after things in your stead while you're away? You needn't look any further.
Looking Over A Domicile
"Housesitting. No, seriously; people will pay you to just sit in their house while they're on vacation even if they don't have any pets to take care of"
– CNRavenclaw
It's Ruff Work
"I dog sit once a month, at least. If you're good with dogs, than it's an easy gig. Plus the last time I dog sat was closer to the ski hill so I rode a few hours every day. I've never worked with Rover on this side of the coin but it might be worth looking into. All I have to do is mention that I dog sit and people are asking for my number. Just be respectful to the dogs' people, be good to the dogs, and word spreads and more work opens up."
– jovial_finn
Be A Nanny
"Babysitting. I sh*t you not, if you watch people's kids you can make easy money. I watched two 8 year olds a couple times a week and it was great. Cooked a meal, hung out with some good kids, helped with homework, put them to bed and did my own thing/cleaned until parents got home."
"I made $20-25 an hour. Less if it's just one kid."
– User Deleted
These resourceful Redditors found a way to manage their time to do extra work.
Call As Needed
"I am an electrician and generally handy, have a truck, and I work off the task rabbit app. It has really helped fill the gaps in-between pay checks."
– PBRpleez
This Takes Dedication
"If you have the space and the means of transport, get free/cheap furniture on Craigslist/marketplace/etc and refinish/fix and resell. I did this through college on top of having a part time job, so it wasn't the most consistent based on how much free time I had, but on good months I could make a couple thousand bucks with not all that much work."
– AggravatingDot6
Part Of The Early Morning Rush
"Uber, crap full time, but good way to make extra money p/t. I just worked M-F mornings 6am - 9.30am, no drunks, no one wants to talk, everyone just wants to get to work or the airport."
– greedyboy61
Started As A Hobby
"My buddy tried scuba diving and thought it was a really cool hobby. So he spent like 2-3k on equipment for his weekend hobby. He started selling his funds online. Fast forward 6ish months and he quits his job because him scuba diving every other week and selling shark teeth he finds on eBay and to bulk buyer companies was making him more than his job as an EE. Last year he made over $100k doing this."
– pro185
Caveat For Delivery Service Work
"Food delivery depends on your area, for those scrolling through here."
"Doordash, Instacart, Ubereats, etc. will all earn you NEGATIVE INCOME if you live in a sh*tty area that doesn’t tip. Last summer I tried all three in the metro Atlanta area, and each one of them after weeks came out to negative income after gas mileage and packing lunches."
"If the people don’t tip, you only make six to nine dollars an hour before gas money. Where I live, most orders didn’t tip."
– brannanvitek
Sell It
"Selling sh*t on eBay or similar online market place. It requires little skill so anybody can do it and you would be surprised at the junk some people are willing to buy or the stuff you have sat around your house gathering dust. As long as you check the postage first and put the minimum price as more than postage then you are golden."
"I'm only talking about this to make a little side money like the OPs title. Obviously if you are going to be a full time Ebay trader its a different ball game."
– JavaRuby2000
Be In The Background
"Being an extra."
"You essentially get paid a couple hundred for essentially doing nothing."
– sawinnz
Who knew these jobs existed? These Redditors, that's who.
Working With Student-Athletes
"Officiate youth/high school sports. I generally make at least $30/hour and it’s good exercise."
– myjunkermail
Be A Guinea Pig
"Right now I'm in a paid medical study. I'm gettin $10k for 3 weeks of my time. You take drugs that are going through the whole approval process. If the drug gets this far, it's generally known to be safe already. They are testing for how long it lasts in your system with various dosage amounts, fasted vs unfasted, etc..."
"Edit: Lots of people are asking where to find out about these. I'm at a study for PRA Health Studies/ICON. PM me if you're interested, I get a fat bonus if you list me as a referral ;)"
– Sabiann_Tama
Niche Writing
"If you have even the slightest amount of writing talent, you can get commissions from weird furries (or other niche fandoms) to write pretty mediocre stuff for a fat pay check."
"Eg; I know this guy whose paid (on multiple occassions) 70USD a pop for poorly formatted, more or less amateur short stories (under 5 pages) about furries and pokemon or whatever."
"Seriously, these people will gladly pay mad cash for literally any quality of writing as long as it indulges their interests"
"edit:
Useful list I can think of thus far:
Furaffinity.net
Smashwords
r/eroticwriters and other erotica subs
LitErotica and other such websites
Any writing/art discord server, any furry server - especially useful cuz its straight to the source and direct
Amazon if you're looking to publish/set up a rep (Wouldn't recommend if you're only making it a side hustle)
Word of advice here though, use a damn alt - for everything but your paypal/fiver, if you dont care about starting your rep from scratch (eventually), then use an alt and spare yourself from some weird person who keeps dming you or trying to force you into doing more."
– HellOfAHeart
Want Plasma?
"Donate plasma. Especially right now. New donors in my area are getting 100-175. Ubereats or doordash. For me, I prefer Ubereats."
– Mourningair-
Furry Artists
"Well, I heard that the furry community pays artists pretty well. If you're goot at art, it might be worth looking into."
"Speaking of art-related things, virtual streamers are kinda big right now, so assets like Live2D models and backgrounds sell for quite a lot."
– LtAgn
Forget Laundry
"I know someone that sold ‘used’ underwear online."
"They had an ad in an adult magazine, a PO Box where they got requests and gifts and got a lot of money from it. Just get some cheap underwear and an open can of tuna and that makes a lot of happy clients."
"Not illegal where I’m from and super easy."
– Rwhitechocmuffin
If you're ever worried about landing a job, at least some of these side hustles mentioned above could help you through a slow period until you get lucky.
And even after finding a full-time job and you feel like you need more cash for that cruise in the Bahamas someday, you can always pen a furry story before going to bed for some extra cash.
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Unlike introverts who tend to shy away from engaging in random discussions, those who are comfortable–or too comfortable–in their own skin love to get all chatty.
That doesn't mean they have anything significant to say.
"What’s the weirdest thing someone casually told you as if it were totally normal?"
People whom you don't know tend to overshare as these Redditors experienced.
A High Request
"A story from a friend - in Colorado, someone once asked, 'Could you watch my wolves, I can pay you in weed.'"
"There's a lot to unpack in that question!"
– surlymoe
"You don't unpack wolves, you keep them together."
– hwarang_
Unsolicited Prediction
"Husband (30) and I were pushing our shopping cart out of the grocery store when a random man (who honestly looked like dumbledore) looked at my husband and said 'take my hat, you're gonna need it, you'll be bald very soon.' Obviously my husband didn't take it. It was super odd of him to say because my husband had a FULL head of hair."
"Three months later, my husband was diagnosed with a condition that made him lose all of his hair. Weird coincidence."
– hollyjollyaf
Self-Casting
"A guy once told me how he loved the feeling of wearing casts, so he'd put casts on himself- for days or weeks on end. Even if it meant he couldn't drive and would be stuck at home the entire time. He'd use vacation time just to wear full leg & arm casts."
– Present_Dust_2308
Homophobic Homosexual
A homophobic guy I know: 'Being gay is a choice.'"
"I said something like - ok, choose to be gay for a day, an hour, a single minute if you can."
"Guy - That's easy, I'm attracted to men all the time, I just choose to only like girls because I'm not gay."
"Me - Ummm..."
– discostud1515
Longheld Grudge
"Once, an older woman came up to me on the street, took hold of my wrists and simply said 'they ripped out my afterbirth', and then carried on walking."
– JennyW93
"It's strange to grab strangers. But one day in Walmart, my granny walked ahead of me, and reached to grab me to show me something, without looking and she was pulling on an old lady's arm obliviously, and the old lady's eyes were like O.O."
"My grandma didn't even apologize, she just let go and yelled at me to stay closer."
– chzygorditacrnch
A Hairdresser-In-Training
"I was getting my hair done this last weekend by my daughter at her cosmetology school. One of her fellow students was excited to meet me. She talked nonstop and eventually told me that she has hemorrhoids and that she has her husband push them back in. So much TMI from a stranger!"
– Digjam823
You never know about the personal lives of people you see on a regular basis.
Squeaky Clean
"I had a college professor on the first day of class say that she is obsessed with Q-tips and cleaning her ears and that her family has to limit her to 3 a day-"
– lokeilou
Here's The Story...
"That they have 6 kids, all with different dads & each dad is in prison."
– ChyCgx2
"I once had a coworker who had seven kids with five different women and he'd constantly complain about how most of his paycheck went to child support. You uh, dug your own grave, pal. I'm really not sympathetic to your plight."
– apocalypticradish
It's the end of the world as we know it.
End Of Civilization
"I know a guy, we don't talk often but due to business we cross paths on occasion. More or less every time we talk he asks if I'm ready for the total societal collapse coming next week, or Tuesday, or at the end of the month.. and so on."
"I just tell him that it's not gonna happen; he usually then asks about my "crystal ball" so I remind him that I've been right every time."
– rkpjr
Zombie Apocalypse
"I went to a ComicCon type event in my city years ago(Walking Dead was a new show, first season for reference) and went to a panel about zombies. They talked about historical zombie lore, the first zombie movies, and the exciting first season of the new show Walking Dead, with some actors on the panel. When they opened it up to the audience for questions one of the first ones was, 'what kind of zombies do you predict we’ll have in a real zombie apocalypse? (Fast vs slow)'…panelists don’t really know how to answer, each gives their personal favorite or worst case scenario. Then we get to, 'What do you think the timeline is for the start of a coming zombie apocalypse?' Panelists are kind of like….? Talk about how things usually play out fiction."
“'No, but exactly WHEN do you think we’ll need to be fully prepared for zombies in real life?' Like, guys, these are actors and media studies academics, first of all they don’t have the level of belief you do and second, the people you should be asking about this stuff are probably biologists."
– AlternativeAcademia
Whenever I feel threatened by a homeless person who is pressuring me to hand over them cash, I tell them, "I''m allergic to corn."
The random phrase throws them and in the brief moment they assess what they heard I'm afforded more time to distance myself from them.
It always works, especially when they realize I'm all kinds of crazy and not worth targeting.
