Some side gigs are better than others. There are five that standout for people who need or want to work from home.
Photo:Bruce Mars/Unsplash
Night deliveries can be a perfect solution for people who work long shifts at home and need something past bedtime.
SNS - As much as we would like to think it is, the COVID-19 pandemic is not over, even though most countries and aspects of life are returning back to normal. Facing the facts, the way we work and live has changed forever. In many respects, the pandemic has brought a new level of financial insecurity that might never ever fully go away.
Thousands of people were laid off in the last couple of years thanks to the global pandemic. For many, their earnings have been significantly reduced or put on pause. This increased the need to look for alternatives to full-time jobs and ways to earn money from home.
If you are looking for a side hustle rake in extra cash when you can’t go to the office, here are five pandemic-proof side gigs that will inspire you to jump into multiple income streams and make ends meet during the next pandemic outbreak.
Step up the delivery game
With people staying at and doing more from home than ever, the number deliveries on a daily basis has increased drastically. Nearly everything - food, drinks, medicines, and even building supplies - can be delivered to
the customer's front door.
Kindel Media/PEXELS
Use this opportunity to step up the delivery game, and instead of joining big companies such as Uber Eats or Door Dash, go for something out of the ordinary.
Carefully research local delivery trends in your city. Look to see if there is a need for something else. Night deliveries can be a perfect solution for people who work long shifts at home and need something past bedtime. Plus, after hour deliveries are billed at a premium, too, so you can earn quite a bit of cash this way.
Sell and rent things you don’t need
Spending more time at home probably gave you time to clean up your home and eliminate the items you no longer need. You should consider selling some of these items and earn some extra money.
Also, renting excess stuff or space in your home is a great way to earn more without making a big commitment.
For example, people living in big cities often have storage issues in their homes. City dewellers are always looking for more space, and renting out space in your storage unit, shed, garage, or basement might be a low-stress way to bring in extra cash without having to really work at it .
Have an RV? Rent by the day, week or even month to people who love to travel. If you have a truck, you might rent out for a day to someone is moving to a new apartment or home.
Renting is a great side hustle because it is a relatively passive income, makes money from things you don’t use, and is incredibly versatile. You can rent almost anything – just be sure to market it correctly.
Become a content writer
Put those good grades in English grammar and information from all the books you have read for school or pleasure to work. It has never been a better time to be bookworm.
All sorts of websites and companies are looking for good writers to develop and provide content for their online platform. Writers who are creative, good with words, and can produce work on deadline will find no shortage of opportunites. Even working part-time, you can earn hundreds of dollars creating online content.
Photo: Alexander Grey/Unsplash
Concentrate on niches you are familiar with to make it easier to do research for you articles and write pieces quickly. And, who knows, this might become your full-time job!
On top of that, content writing is a career you can easily work from home at your own pace. It is one of the best pandemic-proof side gigs! All you need is a computer and an internet connection.
You will also need a place to work where you can focus. Create a writing nook or home office to help you stay away from noise and other distractions.
Virtual assistant – helps others be organized and efficient
If your old job was not the right place to show your organizational skills, punctuality, and creativity, this one might be the right for you. Working as a virtual assistant is a perfect way to demonstrate superior multi-tasking and problem-solving skills while helping others run their businesses smoothly or deal with significant life events organization.
While you can help a business owner deal with time-consuming, repetitive tasks such as managing calls and emails, you can also help people organize events such as weddings or even relocating to new cities.
Let’s say someone needs to move a big household without taking a break at work – you can step in and assist them with the packing organization, hiring a moving team, and other tasks, and show them they can stay productive during the move even when there is a lot on their plate.
Remote tutoring
Another pandemic-proof side-gig you can do with almost any skill you are good at is online tutoring.
The internet has given us the power of live communication, making it easy to teach someone the same way you would in person, so use this to your advantage and earn some money. You can teach kids, older students, and adults – just pick a skill or subject you are really good at and be ready to share your knowledge.
However, tutoring is not something everyone can do. You will need a lot of patience and excellent communication skills, not to mention the ability to adapt to different styles and paces of learning for your students. If you have a skill that is ready to share with others, this is the right side gig for you.
Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has caught the business world off guard, and many people struggled to make ends meet. A lot of Americans still have not recovered to pre-pandemic financial health.
This era brought many financial, physical, and mental health issues that we must deal with for years to come. With these pandemic-proof side gigs you can continue to earn money, explore your creativity, skills, and possibilities and feel better about yourself.
Staying at home during a pandemic can be challenging. Finding a way to keep moving forward and working is essential to your mental health and helps to keep anxiety and depression at bay. Throwing yourself into a new opportunity is a great way to develop an always-adapting mindset that will help you overcome hard times, such as job loss, and use your skill set to take advantage of the situation.
Photo: Brooke Cagle/Unsplash
Tutoring online or in-person to help others succeed is a fun and rewarding way to earn money during a pandemic or whenever you need to make extra cash.
Knocking on doors is as American as apple pie. Politicians, sales persons, clergy, girl scouts, federal census workers, and the list goes on of persons and professions who have depended on knocking on doors.
When I was a child, I sold Grit newspapers. I needed to knock on a lot of doors to sell 20 papers which made me a cool $1. Serving churches for years, I have probably knocked on over a thousand plus doors to invite people to church. I’m so glad no one shot me.
The recent shooting of a 16-year-old teenager in Kansas City, mistakenly knocking on the wrong door, is beyond insane. The teenage boy was at the wrong house to pick up his brothers who were a block away. Who shoots through a door without reason unless the individual is crazy or on drugs or perhaps both? The problem is, we do have a severe mental illness epidemic in America and a drug crisis. Throw in America’s growing gun violence issues and therefore knocking on strange doors becomes a scary scenario.
I admit hearing someone knock on the door at dinner time is a bit aggravating. Usually for me, it’s a high school band member selling mulch to raise money for the band. Or, it’s someone raising money for another school project. You can’t be irritated with a 15-year-old kid is out trying to raise money for his school. Unless, you are crazy or on drugs. Then anything might tick you off. By all means, don’t be this person.
For the most part, more and more industrious people are relying on social media to try to gain new business. It’s true you can reach more people more efficiently via Internet advertising, social media and other media sources than by taking all day to knock on a few doors. If people want it, they will respond to your advertising.
People have rightfully withdrawn from knocking on doors because they are paranoid of disturbing someone’s favorite television program, meal or nap. This is never a good environment for making a sale or making a friend.
Maybe the day of selling magazine subscriptions, brushes, vacuum cleaners, and stuff like that door-to-door is in the past. Do any ministers ever knock on your door and invite you to church?
If someone does knock on your door, don’t immediately invite them into your house. They should have a picture identification badge for you to see. They also should talk to you about a future appointment when you can make time for the pitch. In addition, they should present you with some information containing a phone number so you can call them if you have further interest. You can always say “no thank you,” and shut your door. If you have a chain lock on your door or a glass locked door you can talk through then you are even better off.
Give consideration to the hard work some people put into knocking on doors. Give careful consideration to how you answer the door.
