Whether you want extra spending money for your holiday, need more cash to put into your savings for an important purchase, or simply want to boost your budget with some additional monthly income, you can probably find a way to earn more by doing the things you love.
Your hobbies are a great source of enjoyment for you and it’s probably what you do to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. BUT you could also be monetising your skills and making a bit of extra money on the side by doing your hobbies for someone else. Let me explain:
There will always be things that you enjoy doing that other people don’t enjoy or don’t have the time to do. Think gardening, sewing, organising, designing and using your PC skills.
Gardening
Are you a keen gardener? Do you tend a veggie patch or an allotment, like me? If you’re someone who loves to be outside in nature and surrounded by plants, why not try to get an income from looking after other gardens? You don’t necessarily need to have any qualifications to start doing the odd hour of gardening here and there – as long as you know how to tend to your own plants and mow a lawn, you’ll probably have the skills needed to tidy up someone else’s garden once a fortnight.
You can start a part-time position of gardener or groundkeeper and work freelance. That way, you can fit it in around your regular work, perhaps during the long summer evenings. You could earn anything from £15+ per hour (and much more in some areas – do your research and set your own price!) to do regular gardening tasks such as weeding, edging, grass strimming, pruning and so on. If it’s a hobby that you already enjoy, why not pop a couple of paid hours in your calendar and do it as a side hustle?
Often, gardening jobs are seasonal, as gardens need a lot more tending in the summer months, so you could make a little extra cash on the weekends during the summer – plus, you’ll still get to be outside enjoying the lovely weather and won’t need to drag yourself out of bed to work outdoors on cold winter mornings.
Another way you could make money from gardening is to simply offer a plant-watering service to people when they go away on holiday. You could grow plants in pots to sell on through a market stall or carboot sale. Or, if you have excess produce from your veggie plot, why not sell your spare potatoes, courgettes and tomatoes etc?
Sewing
It’s a skill that s fewer and fewer people have, but we all need something stitched up from time to time. That’s where you can make a little extra money – by being repairing clothing, taking up skirts and trousers, adjusting little bridesmaids’ dresses to fit them as they grow, taking in the waist of a dress to fit the wearer. As long as you have a sewing machine and you know what you’re doing with it, you could earn money to do these repairs during the evenings and weekends.
To you, these probably sound like simple little sewing tasks but to most people, they wouldn’t know where to start. Plus, many people wouldn’t even have a needle and thread in their home, let alone a sewing machine, tape measure and fabric shears, so it makes sense for them to get someone else to do the task for them, rather than investing in all the equipment needed.
One of my grandparents did work as a seamstress on the side to make a bit of extra money, but it’s something you see less and less these days. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible – I’ve even earnt money from sewing fancy dress outfits in the past, so it’s certainly a service that you can offer and perhaps make some money to add to your savings pot.
Organising
If you’re an organised person and like to keep your home tidy, with a place for everything and well-arranged storage, there will definitely be someone who isn’t like that and needs your help. Think Marie Kondo – could you be a home organiser on the side and help a client to clear their clutter?
Sometimes, we just need the motivation to start clearing out the wardrobe or decluttering the kitchen and many people hire home organisers to kick-start the project. It’s not just about throwing out old stuff, it’s also about encouraging the person to make changes, getting the storage sorted, labelling boxes and keeping a record of important items.
Rather than being an ongoing job, this task is more of a solid task that’ll take a day or two in one go, so you’re not committed to regular hours. This means you can just do it whenever you can find a block time to tackle the decluttering project all in one go, and the results will be all the more impressive for it.
Also, while we’re on the subject of organising, are you really good at organising your paperwork, your PC, your music collection or your emails? Perhaps you could help someone else to get on top of their inbox by doing a few hours of work as a virtual assistant? Many people just can’t find the time to get their tech or files organised and could do with some help with this – and are willing to pay for that assistance.
Plus, if you’re good with tech, you could even train people to use their new devices. I know many people who could use help getting to grips with their new smartphones, tablets or laptops. Even if they’ve got an elderly or disabled-friendly mobile phone, it can be tricky for some people to navigate through the options and you could help them with learning how to use it via a one-off training session.
Design
If you’re a fan of design – whether that’s websites, interiors, graphics, artworks – you can use those skills to earn some extra money as a freelancer. You could make and sell your own wall art prints on Etsy, you could be hired to create a logo for a small business, you could provide coding tweaks for personal blogs, or you could put together a design scheme for a friend’s home.
If you enjoy using your design skills for your own home, for your own website or to create artwork for yourself, I bet there will be someone who would like to use your skills to improve their own home or blog. I’ve certainly paid for help with website coding in the past – and I’m a cheapskate, haha! So, it’s definitely a way that you can make extra money in the evenings, working around your usual job.
On a more practical note, if you’re good at putting together flat-pack furniture or doing the odd DIY jobs around your own home, you could also make money from your skills around the house by taking on one-off tasks for a fee. Have a think about what practical interiors-related things you could do and find out what the going rate is.
Let me know if you can think of any other hobbies that you might be able to turn into a freelance venture on the side of your regular work. I’d love to hear about your own side hustle ideas that you’ve tried – please leave me a comment below to share your top money-making tips. And, don’t forget, every little extra bit of money you can earn all contributes to your savings and will help you to cope with the cost of living crisis.
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