Lucrative Side Hustles

Happy New Year! Did you miss me? I surely did. Good news is am back. As we turn over a new leaf, I thought its best we share some ideas on how to make a couple gees on the side. I am a firm believer in having multiple income streams going so as to ensure financial security. Now, these are not get rich quick ideas but with proper planning and diversification you may be able to fund your wildest dreams or match your salary over time. You will thank yourself in the future. It is unfortunate some of us learn the skill of making money late in life and nobody seems to teach us early on. Irrespective of your profession, understand that we all need to learn how to sell and make money. So, where do we start? Let’s see…..

Everyone has talents or something they are exceptionally good at. Sometimes it can be something you don’t mind doing like mowing the lawn. You could even offer writing services to customers or develop apps and websites to businesses. Instead of just doing it for free or not doing it at all, try and come up with a way to charge for your services. Remember that it is not always about selling a service for a hefty sum like a thousand dollars, the little figures can also stack up pretty nice and fast because everyone can afford it. 

Have you heard of drop shipping? I am sure you have. If you have not then allow me to explain:  this is when you sell products to customers without holding on to any stock. Yes, no warehouses just accept orders from the customer, get their details, pass on this information to the manufacturer and the manufacturer handles everything till the product lands into the customer’s hands. How do you get paid? Well, you decide on and set a margin say, for example, 5 percent that is added to the product price. Drop shipping is great because it requires less capital to start although it’s a highly competitive niche. You could also sell your own products like digital artwork in your store and handle everything from payment to delivery depending on your financial muscle. The success of your store is a healthy balance of effective marketing and good product quality. Get that right and the happy customers will market your product for you.

When using this method you may feel like you are making money on auto-pilot once you have understood how it works. It does take a bit of effort but over time, the dollars start adding up. Affiliate Marketing is selling a company’s products and services for a commission. You register with the company as an affiliate then whenever a sale goes through to them via you, then you get paid your share. The difference with drop shipping is that the commission is fixed and determined by the company mostly. The companies provide online tools to help you market their products using your own special tracking code over different channels such as social media or your own website.

Making videos, audio (music) and writing articles is a profitable side hustle. How? I know it does not make sense at first, but then why is almost everyone doing it? There is some money in this niche. Take for example, a content creator that makes viral videos with many views. Every unique views is a potential customer and advertisers know this. So advertisers approach these creators either in person to endorse their products or via the platform the content creator publishes on and has set up monetisation on their content. It is also very possible to earn revenue from a “pay to view” setup. Bloggers can also set up adverts alongside their content and affiliate marketing links.

A word of caution…you need to understand how it works first before you take a nosedive. Instead, you could find an expert who understands financial markets and can manage the money for you. This is convenient because your money begins to work for you and grow with time hence it’s a good investment. What you need to bear in mind is that always diversify your portfolio by spreading it across different instruments or markets.

Like I said, these ideas take time and require effort to produce the desired result. Do not expect to make money overnight, give it a couple of months. You may have other money making ideas of your own, feel free to share them in the comment section if need be. The lesson is diversify, diversify, and diversify.