No matter whether times are tight, having some extra money in your back pocket is never a bad thing and having some passive income streams is even better. With the internet opening the doors to a world of possibilities, there are more ways than ever to make extra cash, whether it's online or in the real world. If Covid taught us anything, it's that relying on one source of income is risky - as livelihoods can be put on the line in the blink of an eye.
That's why we've rounded up 50 different ways to make some extra money on top of your normal day job. Now of course, it's nearly impossible to do all of these (and for some... you might not want to!), but hopefully it'll give you a few ideas and maybe a nudge in the right direction to a decent side hustle.
So without further ado... here's some of the ways that we've found, that should hopefully get you some extra money:
1) Start Your Own Blog
If you like writing and have a hobby you’re really passionate about... why not try starting your own blog?
It’s not a quick way to make money, as you’ll have to grow your audience to earn income through advertisements or sponsored articles - but this side hustle could turn very lucrative in the long run.
It may cost a little bit to set up your own website, but there are some people that earn 6 figures and even more from a blog they started in their bedrooms.
2) Sell Your Stories
Have you witnessed something happen? Perhaps you have photos or videos of a severe weather event such as a storm or blizzard. Newspapers and magazines are always paying for stories.
You can either go direct to newspapers and keep 100% of the money they pay you, or go to syndication services like Sell Us Your Story - although they’ll take a cut.
You can get paid anywhere from £50 up to £1,000s depending on the type of story. You can also follow journalists on social media, as they are usually looking for case studies and pay modest fees for comment.
3) Sell Your Driveway
If you have a driveway near a train station, town centre or notable attraction - you can earn good money from it.
You can choose what you charge, and which days you rent it out. If someone needs a parking space, they’ll book it from you.
Go to websites like Just Park and register your driveway. You can set a price and when it’s free to be used, and you can get £5-£20 per day.
4) Rent Your Rooms
If you have a spare bedroom in the house, or perhaps a garden studio - you can rent these on places like Airbnb for extra money.
You can usually charge cleaning fees to keep your rental in order after someone has left, and if you have a lockbox or keyless entry - you might not even need to speak to the people who are renting from you!
Depending on how nice the room or place to stay is, you could charge upwards of £50 a night.
5) Complete Surveys Online
If you have some spare time while watching the TV, filling out some surveys may earn you some extra cash.
Websites such as Swagbucks, OnePoll & Toluna all pay you for completing surveys.
Some surveys might not be tailored for you, so it can be a bit of trial and error, but there’s still some money to be made. You could make £5-£10 a week if you're committed to it.
6) Get Strangers To Buy You A Ko-fi
Ko-fi is a way that followers and people online can buy you a coffee (by sending around £3 to you).
Once you’ve set up Ko-fi, you have a personal link that people can click on and send you £3, either as a thank you or as a gesture of goodwill.
If you’re quite a prolific tweeter, or post funny things online, having a Ko-fi link might net you a few payments from generous people.
7) Become A Mystery Shopper
You can earn some money (or total freebies) by becoming a mystery shopper. This is basically someone who is given tasks to carry out in a restaurant, shop or gym, and report back on the service received.
If you’re eating at a restaurant, your meal is normally covered, you can get free gym memberships or be paid to go clothes shopping.
Websites such as Pro Insight are the best places to go to be given your undercover assignment.
8) Gig On Fiverr
No matter what skill you have - you can sell it on Fiverr. It’s a marketplace for freelancers in which you can sell HR work, graphic design, video editing, proofreading and more.
List your skill on the website, and people can purchase your services. It was originally that you can get it from a fiver ($5), but you can now charge much more.
If you stick at it and get lots of reviews, you can end up making £1,000s through the platform.
9) Enter Game Shows & Quiz Shows
If you’ve got the bravery, brains or brawn, you could apply for TV quiz and game shows. There’s a lot of money to be won, and somebody has to win it.
Shows like The Chase and Pointless are always looking for contestants, and brand-new shows are being developed all the time.
You have a better chance of applying for new series of shows, where people don’t know what they’re getting themselves in for - and fewer people apply.
You could end up winning big and becoming a millionaire! See our TV Quiz show guide.
10) Become a TV/Film Extra
If you have a love for the big screen, you can be a part of it. Background actors (also known as extras), are cast for many productions around the UK and paid for their time.
Sign up to websites such as StarNow or Mandy to get news about auditions and castings.
You can also find casting calls on social media groups and Twitter accounts advertising, so keep an eye out.
11) Enter Free Online Lotteries
Instead of spending £2 per ticket on the National Lottery, you can enter free lotteries online.
The prizes may not be as big, but you can still win £10s or even £100s for being drawn as a winner for free.
Sign up to websites such as Pick My Postcode, Win A Dinner and DOB Lottery, and check back each day to see if you win.
12) Become An Uber Driver
If you have an approved car, you can become an Uber driver and work in your spare time for some extra cash.
You can pick it up and put it down when you like, and Uber drivers take 75% of the fare that riders pay.
You'll get more work if you are prepared to work in some of the big cities around the UK, and you could earn £100+ per day if you put the hours in.
13) Drive For Deliveroo Or Uber Eats
You can deliver food in your spare time, earning money (and tips) for delivering people’s takeaways.
You can either use your car or a bike to deliver food around town, and you get paid a small fee for each delivery you make.
You’re able to pick it up and put it down when you want to work, so there’s no pressure.
14) Become A Professional 'Comper'
There are 1,000s of competitions out there, and each has to be won by somebody.
You can become a ‘comper’ and enter as many competitions as physically possible to try and win a prize.
You can win a number of prizes including holidays, gift vouchers and even cash. You do need a little bit of luck, but you can win big from it. Persistence is key.
15) Sell Your Old Gadgets
If you have an old phone lying around your house - don’t keep it in the drawer, sell it for cash.
This goes for any old gadget that you’re not using anymore. It’s worth either selling them on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.
Whenever you upgrade your tech, it’s worth selling the old one straight away, because as the years go by, they start to lose value.
16) Write An E-Book
If you have a great idea for a book, it’s not that difficult to turn it into a proper book and start selling it.
Amazon allows you to sell your book in both Kindle and Paperback format and print on demand.
If you charge £2.99 or more for your books, you take a 70% royalty payment on each one sold - which if you sell a lot, can add up to a lot of cash.
17) Become an Audiobook Narrator
If you enjoy voicing characters, for example when you read to your children, you could become an audiobook narrator.
On Amazon ACX, you can audition to read audiobooks of both fiction and non fiction categories.
You’ll either be paid commission per audiobook download, or a price per hour of recorded VO.
You can audition for roles and potentially be chosen as the narrator for a number of books. It could add up to a big pay day if you land a book that is downloaded a lot.
18) Try Affiliate Marketing
If you have a Facebook page or blog, you can make money through affiliate marketing.
If you link to products for people to buy, you can turn them into paid affiliate links, and make small commission every time someone buys something.
You’ll need a lot of volume to make a decent amount of money from it, but each sale you get is a little bit of cash.
19) Become A Tutor
If you’re well versed in a specific school subject, you can tutor kids (or even adults) for a few hours at a time.
For the most part, you’ll need qualifications and a DBS check, but it could be a route to a decent wage.
Websites like Tutorful can help you pair your skills with someone that needs help in that subject.
20) Sell Your Photos Online
If you like taking pictures, even on your mobile phone, you might be able to sell them for cash.
There are apps and websites that pay you royalties for use of your photograph. You can’t usually upload photos that are associated with brands, such as the Walt Disney World Cinderella Castle or Times Square with numerous billboards, but there still should be plenty you can sell.
Places such as Stockimo and Alamy will give you a cut of each photo sold, and if a lot of them sell, it could mean a decent income.
21) Try Life Modelling
If you are confident in your own skin, you could make a lot of money from life modelling.
You can sign up to the Register of Artists Models, and if selected for a job, you can expect to earn between £10-20 per hour, or around £100-150 a day.
22) Get Paid To Walk
It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not! If you’re active, you can start to earn coins every time you go out for a walk.
The app Sweatcoin monitors your outdoor steps, and pays you in coins when you stretch your legs.
For every 1,000 steps you take, you get paid 0.95 coins. You can track up to 5,000 steps per day, and after a while you can trade your coins for prizes.
The easiest ones to get are subscription service trials, but after a while, you can withdraw money via PayPal or by vouchers.
23) Take part in clinical trials
If you don’t mind having things tested on you, or staying in scientific test centres - there is a lot of money to be made through clinical trials.
Now obviously, you’ll need to evaluate the impacts on your health when signing up for these, but there is usually a number of clinical trials that are looking for healthy adults to take part.
Companies such as Parexel and London Trials offer a number of options, with most paying in the £1,000s for completed trials - even for testing new remedies for things like eczema or psoriasis.
24) Sell On Etsy
If you’re creative, or make something in your spare time, you can set up an Etsy shop and sell it around the world.
Etsy is a marketplace for homemade things, so no matter whether you’re new to it or a seasoned pro, you can sell things on there.
Depending on what you make and what you sell it for, it's fairly easy to make a solid return, as many people look to ‘shop local’ in order to help small businesses.
25) Try Bank Switching
Lots of banks will give you rewards for switching current accounts from them. Sometimes this can be £100+ for one switch.
You could make a tidy profit by switching banks every once in a while, and they handle all of the switching of direct debits and bills.
It can affect your credit score if you switch often, but even just 1 switch per year, can net you a nice bonus. Check out our article 'Best bank account switching offers' for more information.
26) Become A Master Reseller
Have you seen people selling an old Wii bundle for £10 on Facebook marketplace, or giving away something for free while trying to move house?
There are people that make a living picking up local bargains and selling them at their true value elsewhere.
This is called Reselling or Flipping and could make you a fair amount of money. If you know the value of things and have a good eye - it could turn a healthy profit.
27) Rent Out Your Posh Clothes
You can rent basically anything these days and that includes your clothes. People are always looking for smart wear, whether it’s for a wedding, party or fancy dinner.
So if you have a designer label dress in the back of your wardrobe, or a fancy suit that’s not being worn, put them on websites such as Hurr or By Rotation - so you can start earning.
For one rental, it’s not out of the question to get £20. Get a few of those and the clothes will basically pay for themselves!
28) Create Digital Printables
Do you know your way around an Excel spreadsheet? Creating bespoke sheets or even word documents for people to buy online can be quite lucrative.
There are people selling pretty looking spreadsheets that do everything from planning your day to invoicing clients and you can get anywhere from £1 to £10 per sheet.
If you know how to formulate everything and make it look extra special, selling multiple copies on Facebook, Etsy or eBay with free delivery can net you a nice income.
29) Email brands for coupons
Brands love feedback from customers - whether it’s good or bad. It’s one of the key ways they can grow.
If there are brands in the supermarket that you really like, it might be worth sending them an email to let them know. They may send you coupons in the post as a thank you.
The more effort you put into the emails, the better too. For example, sending a poem, song or picture could result in £10s worth of freebies or coupons.
30) Refer Your Friends
Plenty of different websites and apps have refer-a-friend schemes that offer you money, vouchers or freebies for referring friends to use them too.
If you have a few friends (or even a partner or family member) that you can refer, it could earn you a bit of cash.
Cashback websites regularly run refer-a-friend promotions offering £10 as a cash incentive and investment platforms such as AJ Bell can pay up to £100.
31) Get Paid To Advertise On Your Car
There’s a way for you to earn money just for driving around. Websites such as Car Quids match an advertiser to a car willing to drive an advert around.
Companies do pay everyday commuters around £100 a month to have advertisements on the side of your car
You’ll need to have a vinyl wrap on your car, which can be taken off after the campaign is over - but it can earn you a decent amount of money.
32) Become A YouTube Creator
People have made millions just from creating YouTube videos, but you don't need to have lots of subscribers to start bringing in an income.
If you have a niche that you want to talk about, or just enjoy creating videos, it might be worth starting a YouTube channel and seeing where it goes.
Once your channel is monetised, you can start to earn money from ad impressions. It'll be a slow burn, but if you're passionate enough, you could be on to a winner.
33) Transcribe Audio Clips Online
If you’ve got a good ear and can type fast, there’s decent money to be earned from transcribing audio clips.
You can sign up to be a transcriber for websites such as Rev.com and earn money for turning an audio file into text.
The only sticking point, is that you have to be accurate, even down to the commas and breaks in speech.
Successful transcribers can earn £100s a month, but it may take a lot of work to get to that point.
34) Get Paid To Test Products
Believe it or not, there are companies that send you free products to test and sometimes pay you for your time too.
It can be something as small as a razor, or as big as a brand new washing machine. With all of them, putting your name forward is really the only step, then just cross your fingers to be chosen to test.
Websites such as Toluna and Clicks Research are good reputable places to sign up for product testing, where you can hopefully get freebies.
35) Poll Clerk During Elections
When election season comes around (or if there are by-elections in your local area), you can earn some money from it.
Each election, the local council looks for individuals to help out at polling stations and also help tabulate the votes at counting offices.
You can earn up to £200 for the day and you can usually apply for positions on the local council website. As there are often multiple polling places in a single area, there should be a few roles available.
36) Snap Old Receipts For Cash
If you buy something and get a large receipt for it - don’t throw it away. It may only be small amounts, but each receipt you get could earn you some cash.
Some companies collect data on what people are buying by offering people money to snap their receipts and send them in.
Websites and apps such as Shoppix and ZipZero will give you a few pence for each receipt - which will add up over time. You can redeem rewards for Amazon vouchers and sometimes get paid via PayPal.
37) Freelance In Your Spare Time
No matter what you’re skilled at, you can become a freelancer in your field and earn money from it.
There are websites such as People Per Hour and Upwork, where you can apply for jobs that fit your skill set.
If you’re hired, you complete your freelance contract with that company and get paid through the platform. You'll usually negotiate pricing before you start the work and after the website takes a 20% commission, you can keep the rest.
It’s a great way to find extra work that you may not have had before and if you’re good at what you do, you can earn a nice extra income.
38) Rent Your Spare Storage Space
If you have extra space in your garage, attic or spare room - people will pay you to store their stuff.
It works very similar to people putting their possessions in storage centres, except it's in a garage or space inside a family home.
You could earn £10s or £100s a month for taking in people’s stuff on websites such as StashBee or Store Mates. Everyone is fully vetted, and it could mean turning your garage into a goldmine.
39) Become An Airbnb Tour Guide
Airbnb isn't just for renting a room, you can also sign up as a tour guide or offer an experience to people through Airbnb.
If you really know your local area and feel confident enough to show people around, it's a great way to make a bit of extra money.
Airbnb usually take 20% commission, but you keep the rest. It could be a nice way to earn some extra money through your own knowledge.
40) Spot Abandoned Properties
If you come across a house that looks abandoned, it could earn you a small fortune. There's a company called You Spot Property that will pay you for finding them.
How it works is quite simple, if you see an abandoned property, send them the address and a picture. They'll report it to the local council on your behalf and send you a £20 voucher for sending it in.
But here's the interesting bit... that company also develops abandoned properties, so may end up purchasing it. If they do buy it, they give you 1% of the purchase price in commission, capped at a maximum £10,000.
So for example, if you see a property that's bought by them for £300,000 - they'll give you £3,000 as a thank you. Getting lucky with this once would be a huge payday!
41) Amazon Delivery Driver
It might not sound overly glamorous, but delivering Amazon parcels can be a nice earner.
It works in a similar way to Uber and other delivery services in the sense that you work when you want, and can pick up rounds of deliveries when logging on to the portal.
According to Amazon’s website, you can earn around £15 per hour when delivering for them. You can usually choose which depot you pick up from and the areas you deliver to.
You’ll have to factor in your fuel and running costs for your car/van when delivering, but it’s a nice thing to pick up if you have free time.
42) Buy & Sell Domain Names
Someone somewhere bought Hotels.com before it was made famous and it was eventually sold for $11 million in 2011.
Buying and selling domain names can net you an absolute fortune, but it could also be a flop.
If you have your finger on the pulse for what domain names people might want to buy (or you find a particularly good one that nobody has bought), you can try your hand at selling them.
GoDaddy and 123Reg offer you services to help sell domains you want rid of and you can even set up a website to advertise the fact that it is for sale.
43) Get Paid To Tweet
If you have a decent amount of followers on Twitter or Instagram, you may be able to earn money for sponsored posts.
Companies who want to spread the word about their product might post campaigns on apps such as Tribe.
On Tribe, if you see something that you’d be happy to post about, you can send a sample post to the company, and if approved, you can post it and earn some money.
You could earn £100s for each campaign, but not all will be suitable. Check back often to see the new ones added and start earning money from your Tweets!
44) Create Online Courses
If you really know a topic, creating online courses can be a big seller. Putting your knowledge base into writing, coupled with the right marketing is what you’ll need.
You’ll need to come up with a full course, including videos, slideshows and action points - but once the course is done, you can sit back and watch the sales pour in.
You can sell courses for any price. One of the most successful online courses was created by a blogger explaining how affiliate marketing works and it has earned her over $1 million in downloads.
45) Streaming On Twitch
If you like playing games, you could start earning money while still having fun.
Twitch is a streaming service that allows people to watch along while you play games. Viewers can give donations if they’ve enjoyed watching you and largely followed accounts can earn money from advertising too.
You can sign up to Twitch for free and start playing any game to stream. You’re mostly relying on the kindness of strangers (or your friends), but it could be a fun way to earn some extra cash.
Some successful streamers are now earning £100,000s a year!
46) Earn Through Browsing The Web
Googling can actually earn you some cash. Searching the web normally unveils a whole host of ads across a number of websites, that you maybe don’t want to look at.
A browser extension called Gener8 ads replaces those annoying ads all around the web with their own - which are usually pictures of nice things like cute dogs and tropical getaways.
What’s more, they pay you through tokens each time you view these adverts. You can exchange these tokens (once you’ve earned enough), for Amazon vouchers, prizes or donations to charity.
47) Become A Virtual Assistant
If you’re good and efficient at completing tasks like managing emails and calendars, there’s a lot of money to be made by being a virtual assistant.
You could earn anywhere from £25+ an hour to sort out things for people virtually when they don’t have the time or resources.
You'll usually get briefed on the task and you can then charge by the number of hours it takes to get it done. You can advertise your services as a VA on social media or through Virtual Assistant websites.
48) Start An Ironing Side Hustle
You could make a decent amount of money doing the jobs that people hate.
You can offer to iron your neighbours clothes, or people in your town on social media and you’ll usually get a good response.
If you’re going to take it seriously, you may need to invest in a good iron, as ruining other people’s clothes with a cheap iron wouldn’t go down too well.
49) Walk Your Neighbours Dogs
Dog walking is always popular, especially when the weather is cold and wet. If you like dogs and enjoy walking (and maybe wanted to earn money from walking too), this could be a good option.
Marketing with a few flyers through your neighbours doors should spark interest, and you’d likely earn around £5-10 per dog walk. Don't forget, you may be able to walk more than one dog at a time, so the money can soon mount up.
50) Get Paid Cashback For Purchases
Whenever you buy anything online, you should be getting cashback on it - if not, you’re leaving money on the table.
Websites such as TopCashback* and Quidco give you back a percentage of what you spend as cashback.
You could earn £100s a year and to get it, you just click through either the TopCashback or Quidco websites before you buy something.
It works on everything from car insurance to clothes and even holidays. It’s worth checking before you buy anything to see if you can get cashback.
Summary
With all of these different ways to make money, there should be something here to suit you. Combine just a few of these ideas and you'll likely be able to make several hundred pounds a month.
If you end up making a nice income from one of these tips, be sure to let us know! Also, if there's a way you make some extra money that we've missed, do get in touch.
If a link has an * beside it this means that it is an affiliated link. If you go via the link, Money to the Masses may receive a small fee which helps keep Money to the Masses free to use. The following link can be used if you do not wish to help Money to the Masses or take advantage of any exclusive offers - TopCashback
