I have started really small right now. I am currently engaged in two side ventures: taking online surveys and Peer to Peer Lending. Let’s dive into the two ventures.
Surveys
I’m sure this is the first and “easiest” side hustle to start with. All you have to do is answer questions and get paid for your time, right? While the simple answer is yes, the process has been anything but. For starters, these surveys pay so little. Most of the ones I am taking pay around $0.20 to $0.40 for 15-20 minute surveys. That’s definitely not solid, but it is a start. At this time, I am only involved with the following companies: Survey Junkie, InboxDollars, and Swagbucks. I will probably sign up for more but these are the 3 that I have found to be the best. One challenge that I have faced with these surveys is that it is very hard to qualify. Many times, you will be screened out. And while it is nice that you get paid something (3 cents) for at least trying, it can wear on you after a while.
I first started with Survey Junkie as it came recommended by most of the side hustle sites that I viewed. It started out great but slowly became a grind with being unable to qualify, low paying surveys, time consumption, etc. I had to check out others.
In came SwagBucks. This was also a grind, but Swagbucks had more options to get paid besides Surveys. I could use their search engine (instead of google and yahoo), I could watch videos of things that interested me (news, sports etc), and I could play some games. I’m still discovering all of the things I can do on there, but I’ve definitely found enough to keep me going once I tap out my daily opportunities on Survey Junkie.
But even Swagbucks got old. There were things I wasn’t ready to try yet and I’d also run into the same qualification and time problems as Survey Junkie. So what to do? Enter InboxDollars. They are similar to Swagbucks in terms of things to do.
Starting with surveys are definitely a slow, grindy, and tough ways to start. However my mindset is to focus less on what I can’t control (qualifying) and focus on what I can control (exhausting all options to earn). I’m at the point where I am able to earn about $5/day among the 3 sites. I know that is laughable, but that is all I can do until I complete my research on the other ways to earn. But assuming I can maintain or exceed that dollar amount per day, that’s $150/month (assuming a 30 day month) that I did not otherwise I have. If I wasn’t filling out those surveys, I’d probably be wasting my time doing something else. So while the earnings are laughable to some, it’s sill extra money in my pocket and money I can save away.
Peer to Peer Lending
So I’ve actually been doing this one for quite some time. In fact, I view this as one of the many ways to earn significant side income. I have been experimenting with this for about 3 years using small sums of money. I have taken a fairly conservative approach, favoring small yet stable returns over large yet risky ones. Through some trial and error, my own experience in lending via my day job, and review of others’ strategies, I have been able to churn out roughly $25/month. I have simply reinvested this amount into another loan (the minimum investment is $25/loan) and built my portfolio of loans. If you want to play in this field, you’ll need about $1000 to build a small yet diversified portfolio. I also recommend investing no more than $25 per loan. The more micro-loans you have, the more diversified and safer your portfolio will be. After 3 years of about 60 or so loans, I’ve only had 3 go bad. Not too shabby if I maintain strict discipline. I intend infuse this account with more cash (about another $1000) and see if I can increase my returns to $50/month.
For now, I’m at $175/month as side income. Nothing crazy, but also nothing to write off either if it’s going to the side as pure savings. But getting to $200/month as savings, well that just gets me one step closer to getting that elusive “3rd check.”