10 Side Hustle Ideas & How Much Money We Make From Them

1. Airbnb

The first business is an Airbnb rental, and so far, in February, up to the 17th, we've made $1,029. Last year we made $24,000. We average about $2,000 a month on Airbnb.

We had a rental property that we could have rented out traditionally, but Airbnb was hot. So if you can come up with a business idea that works for your situation, that's also very popular at the time, focus on that. Ride the wave.

For our Airbnb, we just had a guest leave today, 10:00 a.m. this morning, and $349 went into our account for that one.

2. Dog kennel

Our next business is our dog kennel. It's just a small four-stall dog kennel we built on our property.

Often, we'd have folks come with dogs, and they'd want to go and spend the day somewhere, and they didn't have anyone to watch their dogs, so it came out of necessity.

Do something you love. Our family loves animals.

We charge $35 per night for the dog kennel, so we're pulling in $140 a night when the whole thing is full. If we only have one kennel filled over ten days, that still turns into $350 extra in our pocket. 

3. Freelance work

Our next business is freelance website marketing and search engine optimization. My job is to help people get their websites ranked higher in search engines and make more money for their business. I've been doing this for ten or 15 years. The price varies, but it averages out to $214 per day. 

4. YouTube channel

Our fourth business is our YouTube channel. The first one we started five years ago. We've done several hundred videos. Looking at our YouTube revenue, we made $34,232 over the last 365 days.

Now, if you're considering starting a YouTube channel, here's my best advice: don't just do it to try to make money. If you have a hobby or something that you're good at or passionate about, create YouTube videos around that. That's the only way you're going to be successful. 

5. YouTube craft channel

Speaking of YouTube, let's quickly move on to the next one here. Jen is passionate and interested in doing crafts, so she started her own YouTube channel. She does craft projects with her Cricut machine.  

She makes wood signs, t-shirts, and things like that and makes videos about them on YouTube.

You do the work upfront one time; you put it out to the world, and you forget about it. Years later, we're still making income off that, which is incredible.

6. Craft sales

So what are craft sales? When Jen builds crafts for her YouTube channel, she always makes extra. Then she goes to our local consignment store.

She worked on an agreement with them, and she sells on consignment. They take 20%. She doesn't have the overhead of starting a store. 

If you have a hobby, like woodworking and doing crafts, think about selling it. She monetizes it both ways. She makes money on YouTube, and then she makes money selling the crafts.

7. Amazon Affiliates

The way Amazon Affiliates works is when Jen does a craft, she says, I use this Cricut machine. People that watch her YouTube channel say, what Cricut machine do you use? I want to buy that one.

She puts an Amazon link in the description of her video. If somebody clicks on it and then purchases that, she gets a small percentage. It's all through Amazon. Anyone can sign up as an Amazon affiliate or associate. 

8. Garage sales

The next one is a garage sale. Anybody can do this one too. Go to garage sales and auctions to buy stuff and flip it. Jen and I had a blast last summer doing this. 

It's off-season for garage sales in Wisconsin because it's February. So this is the only one of the ten businesses we don't have income for now, but we will in a couple of months. 

9. Freelance photo and video work 

We do photo and video work for other companies. People pay us to take photos and 4K footage and drone shots of their product. We've had a couple of companies take us up on that. 

10. Amazon influencer program

Now, the last business idea I wanted to show you is the most exciting because this is new. The Amazon influencer program is for anybody with a Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram following. 

You sign up for this Influencer video program, and any purchase that you've made on Amazon, you can do a video review for. You get a commission on sales from your video.

From February 1 to the 18th, we've already had a couple of big days, which is why Jen has been putting so much effort into doing more of these videos. We made $81 in one day from this new business. If we could do $81 a day, 30 days a month, that would be $2,400 a month. 

Our daily average for a business in February is $512. And we've made $9,217 this month, just to February 18. We still have ten days left, so we're doing pretty well. 

Side hustle ideas

I hope that helps and inspires you. What sort of home businesses, small businesses, or side hustles are you doing? What side hustle ideas do you have? Share in the comments below.