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9 Unique Side Hustles that Pay In Cash

By Lili • Mar 31, 2024

Maybe you’re a full time employee looking to gather some play money.  Or you’re crushing it as a freelancer but going through a slow season and wanna pay off some debt. Perhaps you’re just looking for a side hustle to go towards your Rainy Day fund. Whatever your needs, getting a little cash is a great solution to quickly position your finances in the black. Apps like Steady use technology to put power back in the American worker by offering a variety of ways to offer flexible work opportunities and earn cash now. But when you’re looking to make some extra cash right now, what jobs are best for you?

We all know watching someone’s most valuable possession comes with a cash prize – like becoming a nanny, walking neighborhood dogs, or managing a suburban home garden. But when you’re looking to make some cash without needing to learn a laborious skill like landscaping, here are 9 jobs to help you earn a little extra cash on the side so you can save, spend, or invest – whatever fits your fancy! 

Food Stands

Growing and selling produce can make great income, but when you have a passion for fresh produce but no means to grow it yourself – reach out to local farmers markets and see if they need people to manage their stalls. Managing a food stand can often pay in cash, and allows you to up your local culinary expertise at the same time.

Online Course Instructor

You’re a baker, or a nanny, a housekeeper, or a potter . Whatever it is you do, we bet you have tips and tricks that make you the very best at what you do. So utilize your expertise and pass it on! Signing up to teach online courses on sites like Udemy or SkillShare allows you take your full time job to your weekend passion & pass your knowledge onto others while pocketing some extra spending money. 

Photography

While any full time photographer may be remiss to admit it, cell phone cameras, with the right set up can seriously rival more expensive cameras. If you’re a side hustler with a creative job and a great eye, consider offering photography services to those in your inner circle. This can be anyone from your comedian friend who needs someone to take photos of their set, to friends with newborns looking for a adorable prints, to your friend with the shea butter company that needs product shots, offering your creative eye could put some extra cash in your pocket. Anything from high quality wall art, to content to fill their social media feed, getting paid to make your inner circle’s stuff look dope is a great way to support the community while making some cash. 

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Product Tester

If you’re obsessed with the idea of trying products before they hit the market, become a product tester! Trying out consumer products like gadgets, soaps, lotions, foods, cosmetics, toiletries, cookware and more can not only land you some free product that you get to keep for life, it can pay $200 a day or more! 

Translator

From print journalism to Network TV interviews, news & media  sources around the globe are often seeking day hires to translate a script, an interview, or some text for an upcoming project. If you speak two languages, you could find work literally anywhere utilizing that rare skill, and, especially for smaller publications, can ask to be paid in cash. 

Website Building

Whether or not you’re a professional coder – chances are you’ve had experience building an appealing website – your own! So why not take what you learned making yourself more marketable, and providing that same service to other freelancers & side hustlers? Website builders like SquareSpace or WordPress make building a professional website a cinch, so once you’ve mastered one of those sites with your own website, take it to the people in your network and offer to replicate that same success for a small fee.

Social Media Marketing

As a freelancer or side hustler, you are a small business owner. Part of that work includes marketing your goods and services to gain more clients, and keeping up with social media trends so anyone looking for your services can find them. Which means you already have an idea of how to take the best parts of a business and market them to others.

From landscaping companies to cafes  to local markets, all companies could use a little more marketing. Swinging by small local businesses & presenting yourself as someone who could help build their businesses following, just like you built your own, is a great way to make some extra cash, or even start a long term side hustle! 

Task Apps

Listing yourself as a professional day laborer on a task app is an incredible way to get last minute, cash paying jobs that are curated to what you do best. Nextdoor, for example, is a virtual platform that helps you support local business. The site does more than just post jobs, letting you buy & sell furniture in your own hood, and crowdsource local goods and services. Those goods & services include landscaping, finding a babysitter, help planning a local event, pet sitting, and more. Its’ an amazing way to book last-minute, cash paying gigs, and since it’s all local, the app does it all without a far commute! Other apps like this include Rover, Decluttr, and Task Rabbit, which lets you list local services ranging from baked goods to last minute drivers to movers. Most of these apps pay digitally through the app, but clients are often expected to tip in cash. 

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Mover

Speaking of task rabbit, one of the most popular listings on that app is movers. And there’s good reason for that! For movers – depending on your city and the size of the job, you can get paid $50-$500 or more for only a few hours of work. Why? Moving can be rough! Maybe a client didn’t start packing soon enough and is in a time crunch to get things in boxes, or their furniture is heavier than they anticipated and need a muscle getting that sofa down the two floor walkup, or maybe their friends didn’t show up for moving day and they just need extra hands- whatever the case maybe, listing yourself as a mover for renters is a great way to get paid in cash for just half a day’s work. If you live near a college campus, you can even offer cheap moves to students moving off campus! 

Once you’re out in the world racking up that extra cash, deposit it right into your account at one of Lili’s more than 90,000 participating retail locations (RiteAid, CVS, Walmart) across the US, and manage it all in the Lili app.

Written by
Team Lili