The Best Side Hustles for Students In Their 20s

Whether it’s to pay student loans or to go out to party with your friends, it’s completely understandable that you want to make some extra money without spending a lot of time. The good news? There are many options for you. These are the best side hustles for students in their 20s. 

Creative freelancing

Selling your own work or art to independent media can be a great option for you—especially if you’re already good at some of the following: writing, photography, video or podcast editing, lettering, website building and anything else you can come up with. And if you’re not but you want to learn, that’s good too, although it may be time-consuming. A very good place to start is by reaching out to people via Instagram and offering your services. Don’t start by offering the New York Times an article, or a prestigious private collector one of your paintings. They’re likely to reject you. Find smaller accounts whose values and ideals align with yours, and reach out! 

Flipping luxury items

This one has become very popular lately. It doesn’t take a great amount of skill to start. However, it is a good idea to understand the market by doing as much research as you can before you get into it. One example would be flipping exclusive sneakers: you find someone who is eager to get rid of an exclusive pair, buy them for a low price, fix them up by taking better pictures, washing them and repainting them and sell them for twice the price you bought them for. 

Content creator

Being a content creator is hard, but if you succeed, the reward is probably greater than all of the other side hustles combined. Nowadays, you only need a phone with a working camera, some speaking skills and a story to tell. Once you gain an audience, you can start monetizing your account by selling sponsored products or, in the case of YouTube, earning money from ads and number of views. The hard thing is, this is not like a math exam, where you study consistently and probably get a good grade. In social media, there is no guarantee. You may spend months consistently posting good videos and get 0 likes. 

Tutoring

This one’s a classic. If you get good grades at school, you can teach younger students, whether it’s private classes or bigger groups, and charge a premium if their results start improving. This can also help solidify your knowledge in something known as the Feynman technique. You can even do this online through platforms like Preply. Moreover, you can teach others something you’re good at; it doesn’t have to be academic. For instance, if you’re fit and passionate about sport, you can become a personal trainer. This is usually known to be well-paid. However, this is a clear case of you working for your money, not your money working for you. This is because it’s a very time-consuming side hustle, and you are selling your time. This means it may not be the most optimal form to receive money quickly.

Online surveys

You can do this 100 percent online with no complications. You just log into a website such as Swagbucks, Survey Junkie or InboxDollars, participate in surveys (they can be smaller, like a 5 question form, or bigger, like a 2 hour zoom meeting focus group) and get paid in money or gift cards just by giving your opinion.

Selling your study notes or documents 

This is probably by far my favorite because it’s simple and your money works for you, which means you could easily make money while you sleep. The people who learn this are way more likely to become millionaires, since they understand that cash flow doesn’t stop when they leave the office, go out with friends or sleep at night. If you usually get good grades, you can upload your notes into websites like Studypool and get paid up to 10 dollars every time someone downloads them. To get more downloads, it helps if your notes are part of a specific curriculum or preparation for an exam, like IB, AP, SATs, IGCSE, A Levels etc. As well as that, it’s better to chalk up the topics into smaller, more specific ones. You need no money to do this, no skills and almost no time, since it can become passive income every month once you publish them.