These days, we can all use a side hustle to boost our income. The gig economy is growing faster all the time, so there are more ways than ever before to make extra money in your spare time.

Depending on which side hustle catches your eye, you might get paid weekly or monthly—or even right away. Sometimes there’s a minimum dollar amount you have to reach before you can withdraw your earnings, so look carefully at those types of details and choose one that fits what you need.

How to find the best side hustles

The Earn & Save section in the Brigit app is one of the best ways to search for side hustle opportunities in one convenient place. Many of the gigs in this article are available there, often with special incentives, so signing up for them through the Brigit app is the way to go!

You can search Earn & Save for part-time or full-time gigs, by category. You can find jobs that you can do from home, or in-person work that’s based in your area. New gigs are being added all the time, so you can keep checking for new opportunities that interest you and match up with your availability.

Here are the best side hustles of 2024, how much you can potentially make with each, and how to get started.

1. Driving side hustles

If you’d enjoy a little social interaction while you work, you might like driving for a rideshare app like Uber or Lyft. Because you’ll have actual human passengers, there are some requirements you and your car will need to meet. You can find out more about those in our article on rideshare side hustles.

The way rideshare companies compensate you can be complex, because there are usually incentives for reaching particular goals (and those incentives and goals change often). How much you can make will depend on the area you’ll be working in, but the average U.S. rideshare driver makes about $15.50 per hour.

Average potential earnings: $310.00 for 20 hours

2. Food delivery side hustles

Want to drive but don’t want to worry about chatty passengers?  

Food delivery is one of the more popular side hustles, and you can transport anything from groceries to  restaurant meals. When you sign up to be a delivery driver with an app-based food service, you can accept incoming delivery jobs in your area whenever you mark yourself as available.

The amount of money you’ll make with food delivery depends on which service you deliver for. Each one has a unique structure for how they pay their drivers.

The national average for a food delivery driver is $18.75 per hour. 

Average potential earnings: $375 for 20 hours

  • UberEats – With UberEats, you’ll get orders to pick up from restaurants, grocery, and convenience stores, and deliver to the customer. Customers can bundle orders from different stops as well. You’ll be paid for each order you deliver, and you can often earn bonuses for meeting certain goals. You also get to keep 100% of the tips you earn.
  • DoorDash – Doordash works pretty much the same way as UberEats. One difference is DoorDash lets you schedule the hours you want to work up to a week in advance. That’s a nice advantage, because it’s a way to make sure you’ll get to work at your preferred times.
  • Grubhub – Just like the other services, Grubhub pays you for each delivery, and you get to keep 100% of your tips. You can schedule your working hours in advance, booking blocks of time you’re available. How far ahead you can schedule depends on your program level; things like ratings and the number of orders you accept or decline will affect your level.
  • Instacart – Instead of delivering restaurant meals, Instacart drivers shop for customers’ groceries and then deliver them. You get paid per delivery, and all of the tips you earn are yours to keep.

3. Package delivery side hustles

Don’t like your car smelling like pizza? Package delivery might be your ideal side hustle. 

There’s usually a lot of flexibility with package delivery gigs, because they can be delivered pretty much any time during the day or evening.

The amount you can make delivering packages depends on your area, but the average is $18.52 per hour. Check out Amazon Flex or Roadie to get started.

Average potential earnings: $370.40 for 20 hours

4. Dog walking side hustles

Do you like animals a little more than people? There are days we all do. How about walking dogs and getting paid for it?

You can set the dates and hours you’re available to take dogs out for walks, or to stop in at customers’ homes to feed or spend time with pets. 

If you’re available on a consistent schedule, you can probably build a regular client base, walking the same dogs every day or several days during the week. You can set whatever rate you like, but a lower rate will get you more opportunities (and you can always increase it once you build positive reviews and a good reputation). The national average a dog walker makes is $16.50 per hour.

Average potential earnings: $330.00 for 20 hours

Some of the top apps for dog walking (and beyond) gigs are:

  • Wag!: Wag! Has been around a long time, so it will have lots of potential clients for you in your area. (If you have the right setup and experience, you can also offer pet boarding or training.)
  • Rover: Like Wag!, Rover lets you offer dog walking, pet sitting, or boarding. It’s different from Wag! in that it doesn’t offer training, but you can offer doggie daycare services.
  • Fetch!: Fetch! also has pet sitting, dog walking or drop-in visit opportunities. You can also offer your services to administer medications to pets while their owners are away.

5. Side hustles for pet lovers

If you’re available to care for pets while their owners are gone, then you can earn money pet sitting. It’s kind of like a free Airbnb – with pets. 

Average potential earnings: $360.00 for 20 hours

While some of the dog walking apps offer pet sitting too, these apps are strictly focused on sitting and other care, instead of walking.

  • Meowtel: Are you more of a cat person than a dog person? Meowtel is the app for you! You can do drop-in visits or stay in the cat owner’s home to care for their feline friend in their own domain.
  • PetBacker: PetBacker goes beyond just pet sitting—it has ‘pet taxi’ opportunities if you’re interested in chauffeuring pets to places they need to go.

6. Child care and elder care side hustles

If you enjoy taking care of children or senior citizens, there are various ways you can get paid for helping out and making a difference.

Average potential earnings: $400.00 for 20 hours

  • Care.com: As you can tell from the name, Care.com is focused on caring for various living things: children and seniors, as well as pets.
  • Sittercity.com: if working with children is what you love, Sittercity will match you with babysitting or nanny work in your area.

7. Get paid to drive kids

This is a great option if you love children and don’t mind driving them to or from school, or to appointments or sports practice.

Average potential earnings: $600.00 for 20 hours

  • HopSkipDrive: If you’ve been a parent for 5 or more years, or you have professional caregiving experience as a teacher, nanny, nurse, counselor, babysitter or daycare worker, you can apply to be a HopSkipDrive CareDriver.

8. Professional or handyman side hustles

Find gigs that let you make money helping out with just about any tasks you’re skilled at and enjoy doing. List your skills on your profile for people to find you, and also search for gigs and apply to them directly. 

You can typically expect to earn $20-28 per hour, though specialized areas like accounting, web or mobile development, and legal work usually pay more. 

Average potential earnings: $400-560 for 20 hrs

  • Fiverr: If you have skills in video editing, graphic design, or data entry, Fiverr is a great place to find project-based work.
  • Upwork: Upwork usually has larger, more complex projects than Fiverr, and they’re often ongoing. You can offer your services in customer service, design, and social media account management, plus a lot of other areas.
  • Thumbtack: With Thumbtack you can offer your services to help people with all sorts of things, from home improvement and appliance repair to moving and hauling junk.
  • TaskRabbit: TaskRabbit helps you find flexible work that is mostly in-person in the area where you live. It has some of the best handyman side hustles—you can offer your help with things like house moves, fixing things, building a chicken coop, or putting together furniture.

9. Taking surveys for money

There are quite a few sites where you can take a survey to share your opinions and get paid for it.

Each survey can pay anywhere from .50 to $5.00. There are a limited number of surveys, so this hustle might not have enough work to fill all of your available side gigging time. You’ll probably average about $2.50 per hour, so this hustle is best for just filling a few spare minutes here and there. In addition to surveys, you can also play games to earn money with most of these apps!

Average potential earnings: $50 for 20 hours

  • Survey Junkie: With Survey Junkie you can take surveys for points, which you can redeem for cash or other rewards.
  • Branded Surveys: Branded Surveys is a lot like Survey Junkie, except that it usually has more surveys available. The key is responding quickly to survey matches—that way you can maximize the number you complete and make more money.
  • Swagbucks: Swagbucks has the advantage of a very low minimum payout. You can cash out once you earn just $1, so you’ll get access to cash much faster than with the other apps (who require $5 or more in earnings before you can withdraw.)

    Swagbucks also gives you $10 just for signing up, so it’s definitely worth checking out!

Inbox dollars: In addition to offering surveys, Inbox Dollars also pays you for playing online games.

10. Get paid to test apps or sites

Do friends tell you you’re too critical? Becoming an app or site tester is another cool way to make money online. The average pay is $10 for a 20-minute test, so the theoretical earnings per hour could be $30. But the limited availability of tests means you may only get to take one to three per week.

Staying active on several testing sites can help you take more tests, but it’s still hard to count on how much you might be able to earn each week.

Average potential earnings: $30-75 per week.

  • UserTesting: You can earn money for testing apps and games, just like the name suggests.
  • Scrambly: With Scrambly, you can earn money by trying (and reviewing) new products and services, taking surveys, and playing games.
  • testerup: Works like the others, except it has a higher minimum payout of $70. So you’ll need to accumulate more earnings before you can cash out with testerup.

11. Get paid for focus groups near you

If you’re interested in focus group side gigs and open to sometimes participating in-person in your area, there are some additional options. These in-person focus groups generally pay a lot more than online ones. The same limited availability applies, though—you’ll likely only be able to average up to 1-2 focus groups a week. Once again, joining multiple sites will help you find more opportunities and maximize your earnings.

Average potential earnings: $100-300 per week.

  • Find Focus Groups: In-person focus groups are a big part of Find Focus Groups’ business. If you live in a metropolitan area, you can sign up on their site to be notified when opportunities are near you. They also offer a limited number of online surveys for more flexibility and the ability to do the work remotely.
  • Respondent: Like Find Focus Groups, Respondent also offers opportunities to get paid for in-person focus groups. They’re a little different in their remote offerings, though—they have more of them, and instead of just offering remote surveys, they have remote video calls and focus groups that often pay $50 to $150 or more.
  • Fieldwork: Fieldwork is another primarily in-person focus group platform that offers video-based remote focus groups and research calls. General compensation for participating ranges from $50 to $200 per hour. 

12. Do laundry—and get paid

Yes, you read that right. A relatively new trend in side gigs is the opportunity to get paid to do other people’s laundry. If you have your own washer and dryer and don’t mind doing laundry (and folding it), this could be the perfect side hustle for you. There are a couple of popular apps that will match you up with people in your area who are looking for this service.

Average potential earnings: up to $1500 per week.

  • hampr: With hampr, you can sign up to become a washr (see what they did there?). That enables you to set your own schedule and work from the comfort of your home. You get assignments via the app, and then pick up the laundry (which can be contactless if you prefer). After that, you wash, dry, fold, and then drop it back off at the client’s home.
  • Poplin: Poplin works the same way as hampr, with an app handling everything from matching you with gigs to paying you via direct deposit. These types of laundry apps are seeing a big surge in business as more people go back to the office. As long as demand remains high, there’s enough work for these gigs to be pretty lucrative—especially if you have the time to do a lot of loads per day.

13. Training AI chatbots for money

Training AI chatbots is a relatively new side hustle that’s starting to take off. They need to learn all sorts of tasks from humans—writing, accounting, and coding, just to name a few. Sign up and list all of the skills you have and areas you’re knowledgeable in, and get matched up with training tasks.

Average potential earnings: $100-$400 per week

  • Remotasks: You can sign up in minutes to start getting matched with chatbot training tasks and cash out your earnings via Paypal.

14. Get paid to notarize documents

Becoming a notary public is surprisingly simple—in many states, you don’t have to complete any training. You can set your own hours and offer mobile services—so a notary side hustle is a very flexible way to earn money in your spare time. Most appointments are 20 minutes or less, and you can earn $65-$100 per hour.

Average potential earnings: $200-$800 per week

  • National Notary Association: You can find out what’s required to become a notary in your state and anything else you want to know on the NNA website.

15. Rent out your car for money

Make your car work for you by renting it out when you’re not using it. All you have to do is arrange a time and place for your renter to pick up the car and hand off the keys.

Average potential earnings: $300 – $600 per 20 hours

  • Turo: Turo is a helpful app for renting out your car—it’ll advertise it to potential renters and handle all the paperwork and payments. You can rent your cars for hours, days, or weeks.
  • HyreCar: HyreCar works very much like Turo, except its renters are usually rideshare 

drivers, so the rental periods are generally longer term.

16. Rent out a room in your house

If you have some extra space and you don’t mind a little company, renting out a spare room is a great way to make some extra cash. You can, of course, do it the old-fashioned way by putting out the word on Craigslist or your network, but using these apps is much faster.

Average potential earnings: $600 per month

  • Airbnb: If you want flexibility to rent out a room only at certain times, Airbnb makes it easy to set specific dates it’s available. 
  • SpareRoom: For a more permanent roommate arrangement, SpareRoom helps you find the right match, and handles the paperwork.

17. Get paid for tutoring

Can you rock a polynomial equation? Or do you know all about grammar and sentence structure? Whatever your superpower, you can make money tutoring someone who needs help.

Average potential earnings: $400 – $600 for 20 hours

  • Tutor.com: Once you sign up with Tutor.com, you can just log in whenever you’re available and want to work, and you’ll be matched with students who need your help.
  • TutorMe: Allows you to set a schedule, or simply log in when you’re available to tutor.

18. Mow lawns for money

Got a lawnmower and want to make some extra cash? A lawn-mowing side hustle is a great fit for you! Just download these apps to help you find clients and handle payments.

Average potential earnings: $500 – $700 for 20 hours

  • Lawnhiro: You can mow lawns in the summer and offer snow removal services in the winter with Lawnhiro.
  • MowMagic: If you want to get bookings and go mow whenever you’re available, MowMagic lets you set real-time availability and get gigs instantly.

19. Make money moving furniture

Have a truck or van? Want to get some exercise without going to the gym? Behold, the furniture moving side hustle –  where you can do just that while making money on a flexible schedule. 

Average potential earnings: $600 – $1000 for 20 hours

  • Lugg: If you want to help people move a piece of furniture, or assist with small moves or store deliveries, Lugg is a great app to list your services. 
  • GoShare: With the GoShare app, you get alerts whenever there’s an available delivery in your area. You can accept it, and then get paid for delivering it to its final destination. 

20. Make money shoveling snow

If you live somewhere it snows and you want to make some cold, hard cash, a snow-shoveling side hustle could be perfect for you.

Average potential earnings: $300 for 20 hours

  • Shovler: the Shovler app connects you with people who need snow shoveled in your area. You can accept the gig and get paid through the app—it couldn’t be simpler.

What’s the best side hustle for you?

Did you ever imagine there would be so many ways to make money on a flexible schedule? What a time to be alive! Happy hustling, and don’t forget to check out Brigit’s Earn & Save for even more ways to start earning today.