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Just because you feel a little awkward in social settings doesn’t mean you cannot boost income and make extra money. If you’re willing to put in the effort, are diligent, and have good time management skills, consider trying any of the following gig jobs that best suit your skill set and goals.
This list is especially helpful because it covers a diverse genre of occupations that are not seasonally dependent. If you enjoy any of these side hustles, you could boost income and add extra cash to your budget all year long.
1. Become a Looker
Businesses often need people to gather and verify information physically, but they only sometimes have someone available nearby. That’s where you come in. WeGoLook pays people to collect information in the field.
For example, an insurance company might need photos of damaged property. A construction company may need someone to visit a site and confirm workers are following safety procedures.
You choose when to work and accept only the jobs you want. If you own a smartphone, you can complete the onboarding process and start right away.
Most jobs take less than 20 minutes to complete and pay $15 to $20. It won’t be enough to quit your day job, but it’s extra cash for simple work.
2. Collect Free Cash
The last time I opened a bank account in person, I got a free wall calendar. Times have changed. Credit card companies and banks now offer cash incentives for opening an account.
Banks might offer a cash bonus for new accounts. Some cashback credit cards offer more for certain types of purchases, like travel, gas, or groceries. Flat rate cards return a standard rate of cash back for all purchases.
There are usually a few hoops to jump through before you can collect your free money. With cashback credit cards, you may have to spend a certain amount within a specified time period to qualify. For bank accounts, you might need to deposit a certain amount, maintain a minimum balance, or sign up for direct deposit.
If you can use your new accounts responsibly, stick to the terms, and avoid drastically altering your spending habits to get credit card rewards, you can take advantage. Use your new cash-back credit card for transactions you usually make and pay the bill in full every month. You want to avoid getting in over your head or tanking your credit score chasing free money.
You won’t build wealth or a sustainable 6-figure side hustle from collecting bonus money. But you could earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars in cash and travel awards just for buying things you normally would.
3. Be a Virtual Assistant
To start a virtual assistant business, you don’t have to be an extrovert. Being a VA could be a good side hustle or full-time gig for anyone who wants less personal interaction.
- There are many services you can offer that don’t require face-to-face or phone contact, including:
- Inbox management
- Blog management
- Ghostwriting
- Blog post editing
- Keyword research and other SEO tasks
- Pinterest management or social media posting
- Email outreach
All of those tasks can be completed remotely. Any communication with your clients can be handled through email or chat.
4. Keep the Books
If you love numbers and are well-versed in bookkeeping software, you can offer your virtual bookkeeping services. You’ll be generating financial statements, invoicing customers, paying bills, categorizing expenses, and performing other general bookkeeping duties as needed. The top 5 reasons to consider starting a virtual bookkeeping business are:
- Every business needs someone to do the bookkeeping
- You don’t need to be a CPA or have an accounting degree
- It’s a low startup-cost business
- Profit margins are high
- With cloud-based software like QuickBooks or Xero, you can work from home
There might be times when you need to call or video chat with a client, but for the most part, you can work quietly and alone.
If you have no experience but love numbers and the idea of being a bookkeeper speaks to you, look into courses or certificate programs at local colleges. You can also get all the training you need to start a virtual bookkeeping business at Bookkeepers.com.
5. Jump Into the Vending Machine Business
Owning and operating vending machines requires no special training and provides a steady stream of income. Starting a vending business requires seed money to buy a machine, find a good location, and sell the right products. Getting your machines placed requires speaking with local business owners, but once your sites are established, there’s little human contact required.
If you’re not keen on starting your own vending business, the other option is working for a vending machine company, either part-time or full-time. Once you land the job, most of your time will be spent alone driving from site to site, stocking machines, and collecting the proceeds. There is very little customer interaction involved.
6. Read Books Out Loud
There’s a vast market for audiobooks. That means there’s a lot of demand for audiobook narrators.
You can get paid to read books aloud if you:
- Have a clear speaking voice
- can read with expression
- have a quiet environment for recording
- Are able to edit audio files
Amazon runs a job platform (Audiobook Creation Exchange) for authors and narrators to find each other. There are usually hundreds of audio books open for auditions. You can get paid per finished hour of audio or opt for a percentage of royalties on audiobook sales instead.
7. Play Video Games
You’ve probably seen ads or heard about games offering real cash prizes or gift cards for playing bingo, solitaire or trying new games on an app like Mistplay. The truth is, it’s difficult to generate more than $50 in a month. You’ll either spend way too much time playing for pennies or depositing and losing your own money.
If you want to make money playing video games, consider YouTube. Some of the top earners on YouTube are gamers.
Uploading videos of your gameplay to YouTube or streaming on a platform like Twitch could lead to a six-figure income. A large following opens the door to ad dollars, affiliate revenue, and sponsorships.
You could also start a video game blog, sell strategy guides for new players, or offer coaching services for the most popular games. You could combine one or more of these strategies, as any of them can lead to big paydays.
8. Take Surveys
Market research companies pay people to provide feedback, give their opinions, and share their experiences on various topics or products.
Survey Junkie is one of the more popular survey sites. They recruit consumers to provide feedback on brands and other issues. You earn points you can redeem for PayPal cash or electronic gift cards.
Online surveys are not the answer if you’re looking for a consistent and sustainable source of extra income. It is a way to generate some pizza money while standing in line, watching TV, or commuting.
9. Complete Micro Tasks
You can make extra money doing small tasks that require human intelligence on sites like Clickworker and Amazon Mechanical Turk. You might participate in very brief research studies, determine if two photos are the same, or perform a Google search and record the top 10 results.
The pay won’t come close to a decent annual salary. You might make a few cents for a few seconds of your time or a buck or two here and there, but it does add up. There’s no boss, no quota, and you can work from home any time you want.
10. Manage Social Media for Others
Social media managers spend a lot of time online. Face-to-face contact with your clients isn’t likely, and most interaction with clients can be through email. Social media marketing is an excellent opportunity for an introvert who enjoys and is active on social media.
If you’re familiar with popular social media platforms and can manage multiple accounts, you might have a future running social media marketing campaigns. You can do the job from anywhere on your phone or computer as long as you have an internet connection.
Your responsibilities will include the following:
- Creating social media accounts for clients with no existing presence
- Coming up with a strategy to build the brand, grow followers, and generate leads
- Creating and posting content
- Auditing existing social media accounts
- Integrating social media with other campaigns and marketing initiatives
Becoming a social media manager isn’t as straightforward as becoming an accountant or lawyer. If you can demonstrate your ability to post engaging content and grow a following, that might be enough to land your first client. You can also pursue additional training in social media management through online learning platforms like Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, and Skillshare.
11. Teach an Online Course
You can learn just about anything online these days. You can make a lot of money creating online courses if you’re OK with talking to a camera. If you have a skill or a talent others would want to learn, share it to make money without speaking to anyone.
You won’t be giving lectures in front of an audience or doing live one-on-one instruction via Zoom. Once you come up with a course structure, you can record video lessons. Upload your videos to Udemy or Skillshare, and you can tap into a massive audience of eager learners.
After your course is uploaded, it becomes a source of passive income. You might have to update the material or respond to questions and feedback, but you can handle that without talking to anyone.
12. Deliver Food for Restaurants
If you have a reliable vehicle, delivering for one of the food delivery apps is a good way to make money without much human contact. It’s much better than rideshare driving, where you’re forced into chit-chat with strangers.
The money is decent, you are your own boss, and you can work when you want. It’s also possible to make full-time money if you work the busiest hours around meal times and hustle.
Most of your time is spent in your car. You do have to run into restaurants and drop off orders at customers’ houses, but the interactions are minimal.
Restaurants want to get you on your way, and customers want their food. You can be pleasant for a few seconds if you have to talk to restaurant staff or hand an order to a customer.
You don’t have to limit yourself to working for just one service. You can combine driving for DoorDash with another service like UberEats or Grubhub. You might be able to catch two orders from different services headed in the same direction, which will increase your hourly rate.
13. Deliver Groceries
Working as an Instacart shopper is another way to make some money without talking much. On the off chance you’ve never heard of it, Instacart is an app that enables users to order groceries and have them delivered by a personal shopper.
You can set your own schedule, and you get paid weekly. Instacart’s complicated pay structure factors in base pay, number of items, mileage, heavy order pay, and tips. Making $10-$20 per “batch” or full-service delivery is a reasonable expectation.
As an Instacart shopper, your time will be divided between being on your feet grocery shopping for others and delivering orders. Checking out and dropping off orders won’t require much, if any, personal contact. It might not be for you if you prefer to avoid crowds or chain supermarkets and big-box stores like Costco at busy times.
14. Make Faceless YouTube Videos
Faceless YouTube channels are a hot side hustle for anyone who isn’t comfortable on camera but wants to tap into YouTube’s massive potential.
As someone with an introverted personality, the thought of appearing on camera probably doesn’t appeal to you. Fortunately, there are ways to make money on YouTube without being on camera. For example, you could make:
- Product unboxing videos where you unpack a product and show what’s in the box
- Dog and cat videos are always popular
- Software tutorials with screen recording software
- How-to videos where you show just your hands
- Videos of you playing video games for fans and players of the game.
If you can make helpful content or fresh content people want to see, the earnings can be life-changing. YouTube channels can be monetized through ads, sponsorships, affiliate products, and selling your own products.
It’s a way to make money online without talking to anyone or building client relationships in person.
15. Sell Gently-Worn Clothes on Poshmark
If you’re a fashionista or someone with a lot of clothes in the back of your closet you don’t wear, selling clothes on Poshmark can generate some extra cash or turn into a full-time business. Poshmark has tons of users wanting to buy fashionable clothes and accessories in good condition at reasonable prices.
You can actually make money on Poshmark selling your old clothes if you can take nice pictures and write thorough and honest descriptions. You can’t make money without customers, so excellent customer service and fast shipping are important.
To turn it into a side business, you need a steady source of inventory. That could mean scouring stores for clearance or heavily discounted items or sourcing from thrift shops. If you can get trendy or popular items cheap, you can make a nice profit.
16. Flip Furniture
Most people can’t be bothered to fix up furniture that’s seen better days. They would rather get rid of it and buy new stuff.
You can find cheap furniture through Craigslist, Facebook, thrift shops, and yard sales. If it’s in decent shape, all it might take to make it look new again is a little sanding, fresh paint, or new hardware.
When it comes time to sell, there are plenty of websites and apps for selling used furniture. If you’re willing to ship, you can use eBay, Etsy, or OfferUp. If you want to sell locally, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist are good places to start, but you would probably have to meet the buyer face-to-face.
17. Play With Dogs
If you are not much of a people person but are very much a dog person, try making money as a dog walker. If you love animals, being a dog walker might be a brilliant opportunity to make hundreds of dollars doing something you enjoy.
Dog owners don’t always have the time to walk or play with their dogs as much as they should. Work, travel, and other obligations get in the way from time to time. Many dog owners are willing to pay someone to ensure their fur baby gets the exercise and attention they need.
Rover.com is a website dog owners and dog walkers use to arrange walks or pet sitting. Sign up as a dog walker, go through the vetting process, and you’re in business. Check rates from other dog walkers in your area, then set your price accordingly.
18. House Sitting
House sitting involves watching someone’s house when they’re away. A homeowner might need little tasks done, but mostly, they want the house to look lived in to prevent burglaries.
The homeowner might need you to stop by at certain times to bring in mail, water plants, and make sure things are OK. You might find a house-sitting gig that requires staying overnight or occupying the place for an extended period.
House sitting can be a good side hustle because it’s a win-win for both parties. The homeowner gets peace of mind and assurance that their pets and belongings are looked after. The housesitter gets cash and possibly a place to stay.
You can find house-sitting gigs on TrustedHousesitter.com, MindMyHouse.com, and Nomador.com.
19. Pressure Wash Homes and Driveways
It takes hard work plus startup money for equipment and marketing, but you can make some real money with a pressure washing business. Homeowners want to keep their sidewalks, driveways, and houses looking clean. They’ll typically pay $100 to $300 for a pressure wash.
You can buy a heavy-duty pressure washer in the $600 to $1000 range. You can look for used equipment on Craigslist. You could also give the business a trial run by getting a customer first and then renting a pressure washer from Home Depot as long you can make a profit.
The work itself requires no human contact. If you promote your business through online ads and by distributing flyers locally, you won’t have to go knocking on doors to find customers. You can also market yourself to real estate agencies, HOAs, landlords, and property management companies.
20. Clean Houses and Office Buildings
Cleaning houses or offices usually requires little discussion. Offices are typically cleaned after business hours. Homeowners might prefer you to come when they’re at work or out.
The homeowner or the service you work for might give you some instructions, or you may have some questions, but you’re usually left alone to do your work. Hourly wages are typically around $15 an hour, depending on where you live and who you work for.
If you’re thinking of starting a cleaning business, potential clients will want to meet you before they let you into their homes or offices. Once you get a client, though, they will probably stay well out of your way while you do your job.
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