Ever fancied starting a cheeky little side hustle to pull in a bit of extra cash?

I reckon we all do from time to time.

Let’s face it, even the wealthiest people on the planet always want a bit more (even if they appear to have it all already)!!

Bottom line is, nothing beats having a little cheeky money coming in over and above your main source of income.

For us mere ‘average’ mortals it’s not even necessarily about having all the things we crave… the holidays, the flashy cars, luxury houses…

It can simply be about having a little more to cover an unexpected bill, pay for a decent night out or maybe just helping out with stuff for the kids!

The good news is…

Here in 2023 there are now more opportunities than ever to start a lucrative side hustle, primarily because of the way the digital world is dominating virtually every aspect of our lives.

Digitisation is here to stay… no point in fighting it… so we might as well take advantage of it!

What is a side hustle?

The term side hustle has become quite fashionable in recent times but all it means really is something that’s been around for years.

Sideline, nice little earner, cash on the side, moonlighting even… basically anything that involves earning some extra funds without it being your main source of income!

Of course many people start off with the intention of just earning a little extra cheeky money but very often their side hustle turns out to be more profitable than expected.

There are many cases where, for these lucky people it’s become their main business and it’s absolutely changed their lives!

The thing is, whether you could simply do with a little help to cover the mortgage or loan repayments or you’re looking for a full blown life style change, starting a side hustle is definitely something that could easily be on most people’s agenda these days!

So what are the benefits of a side hustle?

One of the main advantages of setting out to earn ‘a bit on the side’ is that not only are the potential profits effectively limitless…

… but you can you can pretty much start this kind of side business with practically zero (… or hardly any) risk!

Think about it – by not giving up your day job, you can start your entrepreneurial journey knowing that you’ve always got your main income to rely on should it not work out as planned.

Another major advantage is that you can make some decent cash out of things you love!

It’s a lot easier keeping motivated about things you’re passionate about to make some extra ‘moolah’ rather than trying to profit from something that bores you to tears!

Here are a few other reasons why starting a side hustle is a great idea…

• The phenomenal rise of the internet has effectively given us an almost infinite amount of opportunities to exploit and make money with!
• Because you’ve already got your main income to support you, there’s no hurry – you can simply take your time to discover what works and what doesn’t!
• It can provide you with invaluable skills that can benefit you throughout life – even in your day job!
• Even if you were to lose your main income in the future, if you’ve secured an alternative ‘salary’ through your side hustle, you could still be sitting pretty!
• Many employers are quite happy for you to have a decent side hustle because they too can benefit from your newfound skills (… newfound skills that you may not even know you have incidentally)!
• You can try things out or ‘test the market’ without any major commitment to see if something looks like it’ll be a ‘goer’ or not!
• Unlike starting a traditional business you generally don’t need to invest large amounts in employees, expensive premises or have a huge budget that can suck away your profits!
• You can effectively get started right now!

In fact because you’re reading this article, it could be your very first step… so now you’ve started, there’s no reason to stop!

So now what?

Ok, so you’re ready to go for it?

Now’s the time to contemplate what kind of side hustle would suit you best.

The obvious choices are to start selling items on Ebay and Amazon (… although other online shopping channels like Etsy and Shopify are also becoming extremely popular).

It’s no secret that the phenomenal rise of Amazon and Ebay has pretty much revolutionised the way we shop nowadays.

What you may not know though is that many Amazon and Ebay sellers are some of the wealthiest NEW entrepreneurs in the country with many becoming millionaires in the last few years alone!

Because of the recent global pandemic, HUGE numbers of people have been forced to shop online, even if they’ve never done so before and what makes this even more exciting is that the stats seem to show, because people have learnt how easy it is, most people will continue to shop this way in the future.

Which is why now would be such a great time to start a side hustle selling on these platforms.

A simple way to get going with this is by utilising something that you’ll find on pretty much every high street in the country!

Because of the ‘haveitall’ society we live in these days, it’s so easy to find bargains in charity shops where people just want to ‘unload’ stuff that’s too good to throw away.

There are plenty of people who ‘scout’ these venues for cheap, good quality gear and then sell it on Ebay for a profit! You can easily do the same!

Alternative side hustles

Ok, if selling physical products yourself online doesn’t really do it for you, there are many other side hustles that are really easy to start in 2022.

You can find plenty of suggestions online about other nice little earners by doing a quick Google search.

Here you’ll read about people making additional income from say cake making, dog walking, baby sitting, taxiing, freelance photography, that sort of thing.

These are all great and easy to set up but the one major drawback of this type of side hustle is that you’re limiting what you earn from it to the amount of time you have free to dedicate to it.

Naturally this means that you’re also limiting the amount of money that it’s possible to earn from it (… there are only so many hours in a day after all)!

If you’re happy with that, then great, go for it. You could realistically be up and running in the next few days.

However, when you use the power of the internet, there are many other opportunities which can not only give you the potential to earn so much more from your side hustle…

… but they can also allow you to make residual income passively!

This has got to be the ‘Holy Grail’ of earning extra money.

Passive income – earning money while you sleep!

The easiest way of describing residual or passive income is exactly that… earning money while you sleep!

Of course it doesn’t have to be while you sleep – the concept of passive or residual income means that you’re bringing in money while you’re not actively spending the time doing it!

Obviously this is perfect for a side hustle because it means you could be earning additional income while you’re actually doing your day job!

To give you an idea of what I mean…

If you write a successful song for example, the royalties you get from it after the initial work is done would be residual or passive income.

The rent from a property that you let out to tenants would be another example.

Receiving dividends from stocks and shares would be another.

Unfortunately, few of us can realistically expect to write a song that would be successful enough to provide a decent passive income and renting out property requires owning the property in the first place.

Now owning stocks and shares is a pretty good bet, especially if you buy them through a platform like eToro.

It’s pretty easy to get into as well. But stocks and shares still usually require a fair bit of investment to make the dividends worthwhile.

There are however other ways that require little or no investment to generate passive or residual income (… other than a little time to set up) which can be highly rewarding as well as potentially very lucrative.

Here are some examples of possible passive income ideas.

1. Dropshipping

This is where you set up an online store and sell physical products to your customers BUT, you don’t actually get involved in the shipping or handling of the products yourself (… that side of things is taken care of by the supplier or manufacturer, leaving you to just deal with the marketing).

Unfortunately there can be pitfalls along the way with this business model.

Finding reliable and trustworthy suppliers who will dropship for you at a cost that still allows you to make a profit is one potential problem. After all, they may very well be selling their products themselves so they’re not going to sell to you (… their competition) at the same cost as them!

That said, if you take the time and effort to iron out these kinds of issues and find suppliers who will make it worth your while, dropshipping can be a fantastic side hustle that gives you a great passive income!

2. Selling information products

Although the initial ‘work’ required can be a little daunting, selling information products such as ebooks, video courses or ‘how to’ guides, can be a fantastic source of additional income.

In fact there are some savvy internet marketing types who have quite literally made millions from this sort of hustle and continue to do so!

But how do you start?

Well, they say that everyone’s got a novel in them and while that’s not necessarily the case, creating content for information products is far easier than you think.

If you have any creative flare at all you can obviously do it yourself but if not, there are plenty of places online where you can ‘outsource’ your content creation for relatively little cost.

The website Fiverr is a great example of this!

A proven way of selling information products is to offer cheap or even free ‘front end’ content in order to build up a following and get potential customers to trust you!

Once you’ve ‘earned’ credibility then it’s relatively easy to sell more expensive ‘back end’ products to those individuals who want to take your offering to the next level!

3. Become an affiliate

For many, affiliate marketing is ‘the daddy’ when it comes to a decent side hustle!

When you become an affiliate you’re effectively acting like ‘the middle man’ to generate sales.

You can do this in a number of ways but essentially it involves sending customers or leads to a company and then when they buy a product or service, you get paid a commission.

Obviously the beauty of this model is that you have absolutely nothing to do with the product or service delivery (… although it can be beneficial to buy it or use it yourself for promotional purposes)!

Affiliates simply market the products or services by placing adverts on their websites, blogs or any other advertising medium they choose to use.

4. Blogging

Blogging is effectively an online journal about things you’re interested in.

Now it might be about your hobby, sport, finance, business, in fact anything that you’re happy to write about.

However, what makes blogging a great side hustle is the fact that once you’ve got a following, you can easily make money from it by running adverts or promoting products as an affiliate!

Of course to monetise your blog it will need visitors so the more passionate you are about a subject, the better because you’re much more likely to continue creating decent content if you actually enjoy what you’re writing about.

Then the visitors keep coming, keep clicking on the ads or affiliate links and you earn some commission.

What could be better?

5. Sell designs online

This is a little more unusual but if you have any artistic skills, particularly with digital art, you can sell your designs all over the world.

Now the great thing about this side hustle is, because the products you create are digital, you only have to create them once and then they can be ‘downloaded’ over and over again for a fee!

Alternatively, you may be able to make a decent profit by selling physical items with your designs printed on them. Take T-shirts for example, or caps, mugs, cushions etc. These are all highly desired products which you can sell online through a printing partner such as CafePress or Zazzle.

Again, do the work once and then sell these types of products over and over again on ‘autopilot’ and you can earn a very decent passive income!

By the way, these printing partners will handle and ship the products for you without you having to directly invest in the merchandise itself. This is great news because there’s no major investment for you apart from your time.

Sidenote: It’s worth pointing out that if your designs do really well you might want to make even more money by actually stocking and shipping the items yourself. This way you’ll get better pricing, but that’s something for the future!

6. Create a YouTube channel

This side hustle is becoming much more popular especially with the youngsters (… but don’t let that put you off if you’re getting a bit long in the tooth)!

It’s estimated that YouTube has over 2.3 BILLION users worldwide!

That’s not much short of a third of the people on the planet!

Creating videos and content that people enjoy watching is definitelty a side hustle worth pursuing, especially if you’re interested in a specific topic that plenty of other people are into as well!

Whether it be sailing, walking, golf, making cakes, diy or whatever (… the list goes on), if you make videos that others enjoy watching, after a while YouTube will pay you a nice bit of cheeky money to place adverts on them. Not only that but you can also promote products as an affiliate in the videos and earn even more cash!

There are many people who literally make hundreds of thousands of pounds a year from this side hustle (… although most of them drop the ‘side’ part when they get to this level) and some people have even made millions!

Of course if you’ve never created a video in your life or haven’t a clue how to start, there’s a really easy way to find out what to do…

Check out YouTube!!

So there you are…

There are so many side hustle opportunities out there because of the digital age we live in.

The suggestions on this page are just the tip of the iceberg.

If you have the will and a desire to start out on the exciting new journey to making a little extra cheeky money on the side, there’s nothing stopping you apart from you!