Whether you need extra income or an outlet that takes you away from the parenthood zone, side hustles for Moms can help. You’ve all read the endless articles about doing surveys or saving money with apps. A side hustle for Moms should be lucrative, worthwhile, and enjoyable. After all, who wants to spend their free time doing something tedious and mind-numbing? Here’s a round-up of what to try for your next weekend side hustle.
Sell Low Content Books
Some of the most popular self-published books on Amazon are blank journals, notepads, calendars, a round-up of quick tips, and more. These are called “low content books” and earn big paydays on sites like Amazon KPD. Amazon’s “Kindle Direct Publishing” (KPD) allows you to self-publish ebooks, paperbacks, and hardcovers for free. When your item sells, they take a cut for hosting and fulfilling the orders. You can set your sights beyond low content books and sell ebooks from fiction to your pro tips, like time management tips for Moms.
There is a learning curve in creating covers and tweaking your journals or content. However, there are plenty of free programs and customizable templates to help you get started. Once you have the hang of it, you can design your own low content book, upload it, and have it ready to sell the same day. Despite the vast potential for selling low content books, it does take time to work up to steady sales, but persistence really pays off with this side hustle for Moms.
Get Organized
I envy organized people who love to dig through their closets or garages and make them look like something out of the Container Store catalog. People will pay big money for organizational services, but there are ways to stand out and earn more. Offer to organize messy playrooms, office spaces, basements, or overrun garages. You’ll also differentiate your services when you offer a strategy as part of your services. When you clean and organize playrooms, create a system that kids can follow, like taping graphics and pictures to bins, so they know where the toys go.
There are also ways to earn more beyond organizing. If part of the request is to haul away the junk, you can ask for permission to donate or resell the items and spin-off a second side hustle for Moms with your organizational biz.
Rent Out Your Extra Car
My husband and I both work from home, and our status as a one-car family saves us a bundle. However, if I had a second car, I would immediately sign up for Turo. The world’s largest car-sharing marketplace connects drivers who need a car with people who have a vehicle for rent. You control the price, days, and duration you rent out your car. It’s perfect as a small income stream, or you can scale this idea. Some people even buy cars to create their own fleet to rent out on Turo specifically.
Work with a Mom Blogger or YouTuber
If you’ve always dreamed of being a mom blogger or a YouTube superstar, you can get paid to learn from the pros. Offer your services to established Mom bloggers or YouTubers to do everything from inbox management to creating Pinterest Pins. Position yourself as a Virtual Assistant to take time-consuming tasks off a Mom’s plate.
You can offer general administration services or niche down and simply focus on social media management or uploading content to their blog or YouTube. I work as both a Virtual Assistant and Freelance Writer and love the work. This side hustle for Moms also works if you want to work with an Instagram influencer or course creator. Virtual Assistants are always in demand, and you don’t need a ton of skills or experience to get started. It’s not difficult to get started, but you need an idea of how to structure your offers and where to look for clients.
Sell Craft Scraps Online
I didn’t know this idea existed until recently but wish I had known it sooner. You can sell your leftover scraping materials from fabric to buttons on Mercari, eBay, Etsy, and more. This side hustle for Moms takes nothing but looking around your house and cleaning up the scraps. If you find something you don’t think you can sell, like leftover wood, do a quick search on a site like Mercari and see if it’s listed there and for how much. Clean up your scraps as much as possible. For example, wash, iron, and trim off any fabric and make it look photo-worthy before listing it on your favorite platform.
What if you don’t have any scraps to sell? There’s always a way to find something to sell. Thrift stores often have a crafting section with leftover supplies marked down for next to nothing. Keep in mind some scraps cost nothing but the time in collecting them. Pinecones, pine straw, and even tumbleweeds are on sale on sites like Etsy and Amazon.
Learn more ways to sell things around your house here.
Offer Meal Prep Services
Why spend so much time meal prepping for your family when you could get paid for doing it? Busy Moms, single people, the elderly, and everyone in between need meal prep services. Offer to shop, prepare, and drop-off done-for-you meals that just need to be cooked or defrosted from the freezer. Depending on the clients you serve, you can even use your usual go-to recipes and get your own personal meal prep done at the same time.
Finding clients for any side hustle can take some time to get rolling. Your best resource is your own network and Facebook. Beyond sharing your services with others, look at local Facebook Groups catering to busy Moms and entrepreneurs who already understand the value of time-saving meal prep and will gladly pay for it.
Turn to Upwork
Upwork is a freelance platform where thousands of new jobs are posted daily. In its early days, Upwork wasn’t well-regarded by professional freelancers. Today, big brands are looking for freelancers on Upwork, and it is still possible to stand out as a web designer, virtual assistant, data entry help, video editor, branding strategist, transcriber, or anything else you’re looking to do.
As someone who has used Upwork as both a client and a freelancer, I can confirm that many proposals people send are not professional, thorough, or related to the job position at all. You can make a few hundred dollars a month or scale your way up to a full-time living while working part-time hours. I regularly earn upwards of $5,000 a month on Upwork without putting in the full-time hours.
Help Someone Move
Just thinking about packing and moving makes my stomach turn. I genuinely detest the entire process, and even when we’ve hired movers to do it, there’s always so much left undone and things that were missed. I even tried, unsuccessfully, to find a moving helper who could manage the process.
Moving help is in high demand, especially if you’re highly organized and responsible. Offer to manage the entire process from packing to overseeing the movers and ensuring everything gets unpacked. You can find clients by leaving flyers at local coffee shops and cafes or using TaskRabbit. Consider offering tiered packages from hourly packing help to a lucrative flat rate to manage the move and alleviate the stress for homeowners.
Offer After School Classes
After-school classes can be fun, flexible, and highly lucrative with the right approach. You can pitch your services to your local school to offer art, jewelry making, creative writing, and more. Your kids can attend the classes to fit with your schedule, or you can offer them at home. You can charge more for supplies and materials or provide DIY craft kits that kids can take home and replicate their work with their families. If teaching in person isn’t a possibility, try teaching on Outschool instead. Outschool hosts over 140,000 interactive online classes ranging from Legos to math and can turn into a big payday as you grow your presence and offerings.
Pick and choose your favorite side hustle for Moms, or combine a few to create the income you’re looking for. Need more ideas? Get 19 job ideas for a stay-at-home Mom.