Not everyone wants to work from home full-time or replace their day job. Sometimes it’s a matter of paying down debt, saving for a house, or taking that dream vacation that motivates people to search for ways to make extra money.
While earning an extra $2,000 a month, or $24,000 a year, might seem impossible, there are many legit side gigs you can do to meet your financial goals.
Whatever your ultimate goal, there are several ways you can easily work from home to make an extra $2,000 or more each month.
Here are some of the best side hustle ideas for earning an extra $2,000 a month from home!
1. Freelance Writing
Whether you work for a content mill, start freelancing, or try your hand at blogging, writing is a popular way to earn money from home each month. And, considering you can make as much as $250 an hour as a freelance writer, it’s pretty easy to reach $2,000 a month just by putting your words to work.
Remember, while you don’t need any professional writing experience to get started, it’s often helpful to learn the tools of the trade as a newbie.
To find freelance writing jobs, check out Freelancer, Upwork, and ProBlogger. Or email your dream clients and pitch them your services and even set your own rates.
2. Become a Virtual Assistant
Technology makes it easier than ever to stay connected with others, regardless of location. This means you can work for someone else, even if they’re a thousand miles (or more) away.
Being a virtual assistant allows you to do just that without ever stepping foot out of your home office. As a virtual assistant, you can help busy professionals tackle their to-do lists or assist small businesses with their social profiles.
And, considering virtual assistants can earn up to $63 an hour, it’s a realistic way to make $2,000 a month while working part-time hours.
3. Give Direct Sales a Go
Direct sales isn’t for everyone. But it can be an easy way to start earning money from home each month if you enjoy selling and are great at marketing.
The key to direct sales success is finding a company with products you know, love, and stand behind. For example, if you love rings, bracelets, necklaces, and other accessories, consider becoming a stylist at one of the many direct sales companies that sell jewelry.
When you’re genuinely enthusiastic about a company and its products, it never really feels like you’re selling, which actually makes it easier to make sales!
It’s not unreasonable for a new direct sales rep to earn $2,000 each month as they work to build their network and increase their reach.
4. Try One of These Side Hustle Ideas
If you spend your days at home with no other obligations, consider using a smartphone app to make money. For example, offer to babysit young children, get groceries for someone, or perform dog walking duties.
Apps like Rover, Instacart, Bambino, and DoorDash make it super simple to set up a profile in minutes. From there, you can apply for work, message potential clients, and start accepting side gigs that let you earn extra cash each month from the comfort of your own home.
On average, an in-home babysitter earns over $13 an hour, and full-time pet sitters can net $1,200 a week for their services, making both an easy way to reach your monthly income goals.
5. Become a Freelancer
Chances are, you already have an existing skill that you can turn into a profitable freelance offering.
It’s true! From working on SEO to graphic design and even data entry and digital marketing, there are many ways to earn money as a freelancer.
Check out some of the most popular freelance categories on big sites like Upwork or Fiverr for a bit of inspiration.
While it might take a little bit of time to get your freelance offerings off the ground, it can pay off in the long run. On average, freelancers earn more than salaried workers. The average hourly wage for freelancers comes in at $21 an hour! That means you can easily make an extra $2,000 a month from home while working less than 40 hours a week.
To get started, create a profile on Upwork or consider a marketplace site like Legiit. You’re just one skill away from making extra money from home!
6. Get Creative
Are you an artist, designer, crafter, or DIY maker?
Put your right-brain ways to work each month by channeling your creative energy into a money-making website like Etsy, Teespring, Teemill, or Spreadshirt.
Some Etsy sellers earn six figures a year! And designers on Zazzle have entered into the six-figure range too.
The best part? When you make designs for sale on sites like Zazzle, Teespring, or Redbubble, you get to earn your extra $2,000 a month from home passively. That is, you create one design and sell it repeatedly.
The more you make, create, and design, the more you’ll earn.
7. Start a Blog
Writing blog posts is an excellent way to make money from home while writing about a topic that you’re passionate about! And with startup costs being minimal, blogging is a great way to make an extra $2,000 a month!
To start a blog, you’ll need to purchase a domain name and hosting, which are fairly inexpensive. Holly has step-by-step instructions here if you need assistance.
One of the great things about blogging is you can monetize your blog in numerous ways like affiliate marketing (passive income), advertising, sponsorships, selling products, courses, e-books, services, printables, and more!
While you’re not going to make money overnight, depending on your drive and mindset, many bloggers can earn $2,000 a month in six months to a year. If you’re interested in going this route, check out this post with more info on monetization methods and income reports from other bloggers.
8. Become a Proofreader
If you’re great at catching typos, spelling, and grammatical errors, becoming a freelance proofreader is an excellent way to make $2,000 a month! One of the nice things about proofreading is it’s completely flexible. You can work late at night or early in the morning as long as you meet your deadlines.
If you don’t have an English or journalism degree, you can get your grammar skills up to speed by taking a proofreading course like Proofread Anywhere. One of Proofread Anywhere’s students, Melinda, makes $2,000 a month editing books in her spare time.
If you’d like to proofread documents from home, check out Upwork, Scribendi, Elevate K-12, and Language Bear for remote gigs.
9. Virtual Bookkeeping
Another straightforward way to make a couple thousand a month is by becoming a virtual bookkeeper. Business owners, big and small, need qualified bookkeepers to manage their income and expenditures. If you don’t have prior experience, you can take an online course that will teach you everything you need to know. The one I recommend is from the Bookkeepers, which has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
According to this interview with Ben Robinson of the Bookkeepers, full-time bookkeepers can earn $42,410 a year working as an employee. However, if you choose to start a business, he estimates you can make at least $60 per hour — which, if you worked 10 hours per week, would be $2,400 a month!
Check out Robert Half, Kelly Services, Accounting Principals, and Supporting Strategies for remote bookkeeping gigs.
10. Social Media Management
Do you have extensive knowledge of online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok? Then you can make good money as a social media marketer. It’s an ever-growing field, from setting up accounts and content creation to running Facebook ads and moderation!
My friend, Kristin Larsen, launched a successful Pinterest management company and, within her first six months, was averaging $3,600 a month – working part-time! Today, Kristen teaches others how to launch their own Pinterest management companies in her course Become a Pinterest VA Today.
If you’d like to make a couple thousand a month working on social media, check out $99 Social, Appen, Belay, and SocialBee.
11. Rent Your Stuff for Cash
You probably have items you’re not regularly using; why not rent them to make money? With on-demand sites, it’s never been easier to rent out stuff to make cash quickly.
Here are a few things you can rent and your estimated monthly profits.
- Airbnb – $3,137 a month renting your house
- Airbnb – $1,715 a month renting a spare room in your home
- HyreCar – $720 a month renting your car
- Spinlister – $500 a month renting your bike
- StyleLend – $125 a week for a Gucci item
These are just a few of the items you can rent for cash! Rent out multiple items every month, and you can easily make an extra $2,000 per month! See this list for unique things you can rent for cash!
12. Become an Amazon Entrepreneur
You probably know that Amazon has many full-time work-from-home jobs, but did you know that there are many ways to make money as an Amazon entrepreneur?
You can sell handmade items, write and sell e-books, do audiobook voice-overs, join their affiliate marketing program, and lots more!
I’ve not read this e-book, but the author Patricia Esposia earns $2,000 a month from Amazon’s FBA program working part-time hours!
If you’re unfamiliar with this program, FBA stands for fulfillment by Amazon. With FBA, you find products, usually on sale, and then ship them to Amazon’s warehouse for fulfillment. You basically buy low and sell high, thus making a profit.
To find out how you can make money as an Amazon entrepreneur, head over to this post.
13. Resell Stuff on eBay
If you enjoy going to flea markets, thrift stores, and garage sales and finding hidden treasures, this next side hustle is for you! When people declutter their homes, they often just donate or toss away items that can be sold for cash!
My friends, Rob and Melissa, make six figures annually selling flea market finds on eBay!
They scour flea markets and second-hand sites for cheap finds to resell on eBay for a profit. Because they’ve been so successful with this side hustle, they started teaching others how to do the same in their course Flipper University. While Rob and Melissa are full-time sellers, you can easily make an extra $2,000 a month reselling items on eBay in your spare time.
To learn more about reselling on eBay, check out this article.
14. Start a YouTube Channel
Maybe you’re great at doing makeup, or perhaps you have a talent for singing; whatever your expertise, you can monetize it by creating YouTube videos. The great thing about this side job is all you need is an internet connection, a laptop, a smartphone with a camera, and some editing software.
Once you have your account set up, you can start creating videos. But before you can make money with YouTube’s Partner Program, you’ll need at least:
- 1,000 subscribers
- 4,000 hours of watch time in the past 12 months
While it may take some time to reach these milestones, you can monetize your account in other ways, such as affiliate marketing, selling your own products or services, and sponsorships!
One gal interviewed here on The Work at Home Woman earns over a million dollars a year making YouTube videos! While these results aren’t typical, you should be able to make an extra $2,000 a month once your channel has a decent-sized viewership.
15. Complete Short Tasks
Short tasks, sometimes called microtasks, are jobs that you can do in a short period of time. Tasks like taking surveys, translating, answering questions online, tutoring, and transcription. The great thing about short tasks is you can log in anytime to make a little extra money.
Here are some of my favorite short tasks and estimates of what you can make:
- Respondent (focus groups, surveys, and website testing) – $60-$140 per survey
- User Interviews (focus groups and surveys) – $40-$200 per survey
- Course Hero (tutoring) – $1,500 a month or more
- Studypool (answer homework questions online) – up to $7,000 a month
There are also lower-paying short task sites like Swagbucks, InboxDollars, and Survey Junkie, which are good fillers when you have downtime.
I suggest signing up with multiple platforms so that you also have a pipeline of work and can meet your goal of $2,000 a month.
16. Sell Stock Photos
If you’re an amateur photographer, you can make good money taking high-quality photos and selling them on stock photo websites. Bloggers, business owners, and various media publications use stock photos to enhance their articles, stories, websites, and marketing assets. Popular stock photo categories include lifestyle, pets and animals, nature, travel, food, business, career, and seasonal shots.
Each stock photography company has its own set of terms for submitting work and its own payment structure, so you’ll need to explore all the details before jumping in. However, once you’ve picked a few companies to work with, you can upload your photos one time and make money passively each time a photo sells. The more pictures you upload, the greater your chance of making your goal of $2,000 a month!
Check out this article for a list of 33 stock photo websites where you can sell your photos for cash!
17. Design and Sell Printables
If you enjoy creating calendars, coloring sheets, or templates making and selling printables is a great side hustle you can do on your own schedule. If you don’t know how to use a design program like Photoshop, you can always use the free design platform Canva which is excellent for beginners. Make sure you read through Canva’s content licenses for commercial use before you start designing. Once your printables are designed, you can upload them to a marketplace like Etsy for just $0.20 a listing. Or, if you have a blog, you can sell them directly from your website.
Holly started selling printables (planners and templates) a few years back, and she earns an extra $1,000-$2,000 a month from this revenue stream. If designing and selling printables sounds like a fun online business to start, check out Julie and Cody’s free workshop, which will give you ideas for creating printables, how to get started on Etsy, and how to 10X your sales!
18. Narrate an Audiobook
Are you an extrovert with an expressive voice? Narrating audiobooks can be a fun way to make an extra $2,000 a month from home! According to Backstage, it takes a voice actor approximately 20 hours to record one 10-hour audiobook, which they recommend breaking into 5-6 days to record. Voice actors can expect to earn $2,000-$5,000 for narrating an audiobook, which makes this an excellent gig for meeting your financial goals!
Of course, you’ll have to invest in some voice-acting equipment, and you’ll need to learn the ropes of the industry. Julie Eickhoff earns a full-time income from voice acting, and she helps others who want to break into the industry. If narrating audiobooks is appealing, check out Julie’s free mini-course, which will help you determine if this is the right path for you.
Make an Extra $2,000 a Month From Home
Whether you’re a Type A doer or a right-brain creator, there are many opportunities to make extra money from home.
The key to generating added revenue from home is to find something you genuinely love and enjoy.
When you put your skills and interests to work, it’s easier to earn and keep on earning month after month. Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to making $2,000 a month (or more!) without having to leave home.
Originally published on April 18, 2018. Content updated December 2022.