If you’ve spent any time on social media throughout the coronavirus pandemic, you’ve no doubt become familiar with the concept of the side hustle.
A friend may be flogging craft figures on Facebook, another might be living out their designer dreams on Instagram. Your auntie is suddenly a Tik Tok star? Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch, but it can feel like everyone suddenly has a hidden talent they’re trying to profit from.
While this all feels typically middle-class-lockdown, there are a lot of good reasons to consider starting your own side hustle. It’ll bring money into the home, help pass the hours indoors and, potentially, be the start of that career change you’ve always dreamed about.
To help you get started, we’ve pulled together a list of six fun lockdown side hustles you can start from home right now.
Sell your clothes
There’s perhaps no easier way to break into the ecommerce world than selling clothes online.
Amazon and it’s competitors have been some of the real winners of the coronavirus pandemic. Sales are through the roof and anyone who wasn’t already exclusively shopping online has become more than familiar with the concept of next day delivery.
We would recommend ecommerce as a great side hustle, but that’s far too general. Clothes though? Everyone needs them, and there’s never been more ways to sell.
If you’re a creative into the hipster scene, you can try reworking vintage clothing for a new audience looking for ways to stand out. Want to take a more industrial approach? You can order plain t shirts in bulk and print your own logo on them for massive upsale.
Thanks to platforms such as Depop, selling online has never been simpler. Yeah, there’s a little bit of legwork running back and forth to the Post Office, but selling clothes online offers both a creative outlet and a way to learn about the practicalities of the modern online marketplace.
Become a e-tutor
Education is one of the hot button issues of the coronavirus pandemic.
It feels like every day someone is debating the benefits and drawbacks of sending kids to school and how a year of online education is affecting kids’ health.
While many children are now back at school during this second lockdown, there are still parents out there who fear their child may be falling behind due to, well, everything going on right now.
That’s where you come in.
You don’t need a straight A background to become a tutor. Tutoring is about having unique skills, an engaging personality and the ability to make learning outside of school both fun and informative. If you can offer expertise on anything from algebra to American literature you might just have a future as a lockdown virtual tutor.
Again, like selling clothes, technology has made this easier than ever before. Just set yourself up as a tutor on a freelancing search platform, find some clients, plan a couple of hour-long lessons and sit down in front of the webcam.
Fill in online surveys
Still wasting your time giving away your opinion for free on Twitter? Time to turn those hot takes into cash!
Okay, so no one is going to pay you to spout your opinion on the politics of Little Mix or how chocolate bars are getting smaller, but there is a way to be paid for offering feedback.
Paid online surveys have become a hugely popular way of making easy money at home. To get started, you just need to sign up on a site such as Swagbucks or OneOpinion and start answering surveys honestly.
Most surveys consist of ten questions and won’t take you more than a few minutes to finish. Another avenue is to review websites and apps for cash. This is growing ever more popular, as businesses begin to understand the importance of a positive rating.
You won’t become a millionaire overnight, and it’s hardly the most stimulating way of making money, but it’s possible to make a few hundred pounds. Considering the effort required, that’s absolutely worth it.
Make online video content
This is the odd one out on our list. Making video content takes a lot of time and effort, but even if you aren’t rolling in cash by the end of lockdown you’ll have a litany of brilliant new skills to slap on your CV.
The YouTube and Tik Tok stars make it look easy, but creating great video content requires a huge amount of time and experience in filming, editing and idea conception.
It’s not impossible though.
The ad revenue generated by great online video content can be an excellent little top-up at the end of the month. You can make lockdown vlogs, stream workout sessions or just upload yourself playing video games all night. There’s an online audience for everything and if you’re good enough, they’re willing to pay.
But, more importantly, the ability to make quality video content with everything from a handheld camera to your smartphone is a hugely desirable skill in the modern marketplace. If lockdown is making you consider a career in the media or marketing, this is one of the best side hustle hobbies for you.
Offer freelance assistant services
Lockdown might be a bore for you, but for some people, business is booming now more than ever. If you’ve got the time and don’t mind being bossed around now and again, consider offering your services as a personal assistant.
An online assistant of course. The pressures of the pandemic and remote working has left many businesses (particularly startups) spread incredibly thin. More than anything, they could use a pair of (virtual) hands to tidy the papers, answer messages and make sure their calendars aren’t bursting at the seams.
Freelancing may get a bad rep for its lack of security, but even if a business doesn’t need a copywriter or video editor, they could certainly use someone to check for mistakes and chair Zoom calls.
Freelance assistants will be expected to spend a couple of hours a day arranging meetings, checking over documents and liaising with other colleagues. Every day is different, so if you value variety this is the lockdown side hustle for you. Again, just head to a freelancer platform and sign up to get started.
Start a blog
Consider yourself a bit of a writer, do you? Think you could do this for a living?
Okay, I’ll stop with the gatekeeper stuff. Blogging can be difficult, but it can be a hugely rewarding experience.
Just like video content it’ll take a while before the money starts coming in, but blogging can be a great crash course in creative skills, how the internet works and how to build a personal brand.
There are a number of brilliant ways to start blogging. You can build your own website using a template builder, join a recognised blogging platform or start contributing to other sites. Whatever you want to do, there will be an audience willing to read it if it’s good enough.
The joy of blogging is it can be as personal or technical as you want. You can simply write about your own life or write weekly deep dives into classic Spiderman comics. Internet users are turning to one-person blogs for information and inspiration in droves, as they lose trust in the news and look for original opinions.
To really succeed in blogging you need patience and consistency in equal measure. Good luck!
Side hustles take many forms. Some are quick ways of getting money through nothing more than a few clicks. Others end up requiring more of you than your full-time job.
But in many ways, isn’t that just what we want from a side hustle? They can be an autonomous bit of your life and a training session in equal measure. Follow what you’re drawn to and throw yourself into it fully. There’s no time like lockdown!
