As the cost of living continues to put financial stress on vulnerable households, it makes sense to increase your income wherever possible. One of the easiest ways to go about it is to consider side hustles that require little capital to start and don’t require lots of previous knowledge or experience.
They should be side hustles that are free or require no more than £100 to start. They should also be flexible, allowing you to work around your main job and other commitments, and have growth potential. Here are three examples of such side hustles to help you start your journey towards financial security.
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1. Online freelancing
This is simply providing digital services through freelance websites. The services can include writing articles, becoming an admin assistant, doing data entry and research, video editing or even graphic design. The list is endless!
All you need to do is sign up to free freelance websites and build a portfolio for the services you’re offering. The websites earn by taking a percentage of your profits. Some of the most common freelancing websites include Peopleperhour, Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork and Bark.
How much you can earn depends on the service you provide and how technical it is.
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2. Drop servicing
This involves a model similar to dropshipping, but you deal with services instead of products. It’s suitable for those who don’t have the time to do the hard work themselves.
How does it work? Let’s say you want to offer a service, like building dropshipping stores for people or making logos. Instead of doing it yourself, go to a freelancing website as a client and find a freelancer offering the service. Find out how much they charge and mark up the price. You can then advertise the service elsewhere, and when you get requests, go back to the freelancer, have them do it, and keep the profits.
You could make upwards of £7 per task, keeping in mind that you don’t want to mark up the cost too much. But this also depends on the particular job. Note that there will be a lot of back and forth between you, your customer and the freelancer. You might also need to spend on advertising if you don’t already have an advertising platform.
3. Print-on-demand
If you’re good at creating designs, especially eye-catching and trendy ones, they can be printed on items like clothing and sold on print-on-demand platforms. Examples of the most popular platforms include Teespring, Merch by Amazon and Redbubble.
The great thing about this is that all you need to do is create the design and upload it on the print-on-demand platform. The platform will do the rest – create a listing and then print and ship the item once a buyer places an order.
You’ll simply watch your passive income grow and, of course, regularly upload your trendy designs. How much you earn depends on how catchy or trendy your designs are, but some freelancers have reported earning more than £400 a month. You can increase your sales by uploading your designs to multiple platforms.
