The best side hustles for women focus on earning money while finding a fit it into your already busy life. The more money you earn, the more opportunities you’ll be able to take advantage of, like investing, buying real estate, and saving for retirement.
The American Association of University Women estimates that women statistically earn 84 cents to every dollar a white non-Hispanic male makes. Women who also identify as people of color make even less, sometimes even less, like Latinas, who earn an estimated 57 cents to the dollar. Therefore, having various lucrative income streams as a woman is essential.
I’m proud to announce that I have been side-hustling since I was in grade school. My parents would buy me these cool pencils that everyone else wanted, and I happily sold each pencil for $1 each.
Related: Best Side Hustles Overall In 2024
Online Tutoring Or Teaching
How It Works: Connor Ondriska, CEO of SpanishVip, has noticed that women excel at teaching subjects in person and facilitating workshops online. Communication and the ability to explain concepts are skills that many women naturally possess, making online tutoring and teaching a potentially lucrative gig.
“With the increasing popularity of online learning platforms and the demand for personalized learning experiences, women can leverage their knowledge and passion to provide valuable educational support to students or learners worldwide,” shares Ondriska.
I facilitate online workshops for university students who wish to know more about money management. It allows me to harness the power of knowledge with excitement that only I can bring.
Benefits: How much time you commit and what you teach or tutor is going to make a difference in the benefits. You can earn anywhere from $20/hr to $1,000 per month, depending on the subject, time commitment, and more. With services that allow online tutoring, you can even work in your off-hours for a very flexible schedule.
Getting Started: The lowest hanging fruit when it comes to finding tutoring clients is to sign up on tutoring websites and create a profile. Several of these websites require that you take a subject test proving your proficiency in the subject. Once you have done that, the website will allow you to start taking on clients.
The following is a list of tutoring websites you can check out:
Time Commitment: Low Time Commitment
Get Paid To Be Marie Kondo
How it Works: Become a professional organizer if you are passionate about helping people declutter. This can involve helping individuals or businesses organize their homes, offices, or, as Ondriska mentions, “Specific areas such as closets, kitchens, or storage spaces.”
Women can assist others in simplifying their lives while earning income by providing practical solutions. You can also help other women create functional spaces and places they want to come home to.
Benefits: How much you'll earn varies, but you can expect to earn $100 or more per visit to help someone clear and organize.
Getting Started: The easiest way to get started helping others organize is to showcase your work and ideas locally. Think Facebook Marketplace or Nextdoor.
Time Commitment: Low Time Commitment
Play Grand Theft Auto Live
How It Works: If you’re like me, you enjoy the occasional video game like the next person. But did you know you could make gaming a side hustle with some serious focus and niching? You can earn money through gaming by winning competitions or building a thriving community with live streaming through Twitch.
You can also build up a YouTube following and run a Discord. You can also have members pay for custom content through Pateron.
Benefits: A survey of Twitch streams highlighted that even small streamers (with 5 to 10 average viewers) can earn anywhere from $50 to $200 per month. If you can get that average viewership up to 100 on average or more, you could be making $1,000 per month. And women have a knack for gaining a larger following quickly.
Getting Started: You want to start streaming, find a game you love, and setup Twitch and get started. You're going to need a combination of both gaming ability, and social media skills to interact with your audience.
Time Commitment: Medium Time Commitment
Use Your Handyman Skills
How It Works: It’s estimated that only 5.7% of all handymen are women. This is an untapped market if you have the skills. Why? Women hesitate to let men they don’t know into their homes (and for good reason!), which means they might put off maintenance issues, which will most likely cost more in the long run.
Benefits: Depending on what you want to offer, you can expect to earn $20 - $100 per item/project or more.
Getting Started: Some women on TaskRabbit focus on providing handyman services to female clientele to help clients feel comfortable while getting the maintenance they need to be taken care of. You can always upgrade your skillset by attending free workshops offered at Home Deport, taking an evening class at a local community college, or even watching YouTube videos.
Time Commitment: Low Time Commitment
Predict The Future
How It Works: If you have strong intuition and a compassionate wisdom about you, consider becoming a tarot card reader. A tarot is a set of cards used to divine insights about the person who is receiving the reading. Tarot readers learn how to read individual cards, which include their meaning and which can then be used to give insight to a client's life or answer questions. Once a practitioner has dealt a round of cards, they explain each card's meaning to help guide them with a current situation or question.
Benefits: Depending on the services and style, you can expect to earn $80 - $150 per reading.
Getting Started: You don’t have to be a psychic to do this, and can make money on your own time through platforms like Etsy.
Time Commitment: Medium Time Commitment
Join OnlyFans
How It Works: Stay with me here. If you're not familiar, OnlyFans is a subscription-based content site where people (most women) can sell content they create. Yes, this content usually is pornographic in nature, but it doesn't have to be.
70% of content creators on this platform are women. Women also outrank men in the earnings department by reporting up to 78% more revenue. 85% of the top earners are women.
Benefits: The earnings potential with OnlyFans is limitless, and the time commitment is completely flexible. Both of these things are very appealing to creators. However, to be a top earner, it takes a lot of time and effort. Beyond creating content, you need to market yourself, engage with your fans, and more.
Getting Started: To get started, simply sign up on OnlyFans. You need to verify your identity (which can be private to your fans), and then figure out what type of content you want to create and sell.
Time Commitment: Medium Time Commitment
Sell Your Hair
How It Works: If you have hair that grows fast or have been dying to cut it anyway, why don’t you try selling it? Wig makers will buy hair directly from sellers if your hair is in good condition, which means no chemically treated or processed hair. They’ll also pay more if your hair is longer than 8 inches and if it is thick.
Benefits: I saw hair going anywhere from $350 upwards to $1,000!
Getting Started: You can sell to a wig maker or other organizations who help with hair loss sufferers through a reputable website such as Hair Sellon.
Time Commitment: Low Time Commitment
Put Your Plant Babies On The Market
How It Works: As a self-identified plant lady, I’m obsessed with collecting plants. If you have a green thumb, you can buy small plants inexpensively and then sell them for more when they get larger. If you are good at propagation, you can also buy the plant once and then sell the cuttings once they are established.
Benefits: Depending on the type of plant and the condition, you can get anywhere from $25 to sometimes $100 in online marketplaces and trade groups. My friend is great at doing this with her snake plants and monstera albo, which can sell for a lot.
Getting Started: You have to first grow some plants. Succulents and other easy to care plants are popular. You can sell on online marketplaces like Facebook, or through various plant communities online.
Time Commitment: Medium Time Commitment
Be A Friend
How It Works: If you have a knack for talking to random people, rent your services out to those looking for them. It might sound odd, but some people just want companionship, or company to an event, or just someone to talk to. This thing is purely platonic.
Benefits: If you’re great at making friends, this could be a fun and lucrative way to profit from it. Many friends start at $10 per hour and go up from there.
How To Get Started: People post ads looking for others on websites such as Rentafriend.com for various events. Some people are looking for someone to pretend to be their boyfriend or girlfriend for a family event, while others need a buddy for a social outing. Others just need someone to talk to.
Time Commitment: Medium Time Commitment
Side Hustling Tips
You can maximize your side hustle potential profits by taking care of a few critical items before you get started:
Identify Your Skills And Interests
Not all side hustles are for everyone. If you’re an introvert, you might prefer to do something in your own home that doesn’t involve direct contact with many people. You probably wouldn't be great at tarot if you think it's all malarky. And no matter what, someone can always tell if you hate something or are uncomfortable, so don’t fake it till you make it.
Research Your Local Market
As mentioned, some side hustles can be oversaturated in your area, which means many people are trying to do the same thing. On the other hand, there may not be a need for the services you’d like to promote. Putting time aside to research before setting yourself up to hustle can save time and frustration.
Market research can be done by browsing local online listings and communities like Nextdoor. If you see a service going for way below market value, that indicates a lot of competition and may not be very lucrative.
Set A Realistic Schedule
Writing may now be my full-time gig, but it was just a side hustle for quite a few years. I would write whenever I could and got pretty crazy about trying to fit it into my schedule around my full-time job. It was hard to produce consistent work and avoid burnout.
One of my top tips for anyone starting a side hustle is to look into creating a routine. Pick designated days and times that work for you, and allow yourself time for breaks and chores. Setting up a schedule for yourself can eliminate decision fatigue distractions and help you stay consistent with your output to start to stack that cash.
Have you tried one of these side hustles? Were you successful? We want to hear about it!
Frequently Asked Questions About Side Hustles For Women
What is the best side hustle for women?
The best side hustle for women balances earning potential with scheduling, and alignment with passions and interests.
How can women make extra cash?
There are a lot of ways a woman can make extra cash, including driving, delivering, organizing, tutoring, and more.
Which side hustles make the most money?
The side hustles that make the most money are the more entrepreneurial ventures, including sales, starting your own business, and even streaming.
Can a mom with children start a side hustle?
Yes! A mom with children can definitely start a side hustle, but time will be a constraint. However, we've seen women with children take their children along with them while they side hustle - which allows both earning potential and teaching your children the value of money and work.
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Athena Valentine Lent is a finance columnist for Slate and the author of Budgeting for Dummies. Her writing has appeared in BuzzzFeed, Tripadvisor, and Slate, among other places. Her personal finance blog, Money Smart Latina, won the Plutus Award for “Best Personal Finance Content for Underserved Communities” in 2020 and was nominated for “Blog of the Year” in 2022. When not working she can be found reading Stephen King with her main man, a polydactal cat named Harrison George.
Editor: Ashley Barnett Reviewed by: Robert Farrington
