Being in debt is hard. It can ruin your sleep and make you constantly worried about money and your financial situation. It can affect your relationships, turn you into a bitter person and prevent you from dreaming bigger and ever changing your situation.
But there are ways out of it. One great idea is to start something on the side to earn extra money and pay off your debt.
Whether it’s student loan debt, your partner’s loan, medical debt, tax debt, car loan or a mortgage, you can start one of the easy side hustles listed below and get closer to being financially-free.
Even if you don’t have a big loan now, you might need to take another one in the near future from a site like PaydayMe.com (once you buy a house, start a family, or due to unexpected bills, for example). In any case, an extra income every month can help you take control of your finances.
I consider the best side hustles to be the online business ideas as they can be started from home, in your free time, and don’t usually require any investment or special skills. Anything can be learned and then tested until you find the one side hustle idea that will make you money.
5 Easy Side Hustles to Get Out of Debt
1. Make Money Blogging
Did you know that you can start, grow and monetize a blog without knowing anything about blogging? What’s more, you can make thousands a month from ad revenue, sponsored blog posts, affiliate marketing, and selling digital products.
Of course, getting your blog off the ground takes time. You need to carefully define your niche and start producing good content (and post frequently). That content then has to be shared across social media and optimized for search engines so people can find it easily in Google.
That will help you get some initial traffic and your first email subscribers after which you can only grow your blog and improve your blogging skills.
Check out my free guide on How to Start a Blog and Earn $1000/Month to get started.
2. Become a Freelancer
The next one of the easy side hustles you can try to get out of debt is freelancing. You can take any skill you have and offer it as a service online.
I started my digital business by writing articles for clients long before I became a full-time blogger. It helps pay the bills, use that to pay off your debts, and even set some money aside.
In addition, freelancing allows you to build your client list and your reputation and start charging more over time. That can turn from a part-time side hustle into a full-time career if you take it seriously and devote all your time to it.
Get started as a freelancer with my free course How to Make Your First Money Online Freelancing:
3. Start a Dropshipping Business
Ever considered eCommerce? These days it’s easy to start a dropshipping business with online platforms like Shopify. That means you can sell physical products without actually dealing with any inventory.
It can be highly profitable and that one of the easy side hustles can be your way out of debt.
Just check out the story of Becky who paid off $80K of debt thanks to her Shopify side hustle.
4. Get Paid to Pin
Pinterest is an amazing platform. You can find great articles to read, products to buy, ideas to design your home, and people to connect with. But it can also be highly profitable if used strategically.
One way to use Pinterest is to be a blogger, create beautiful graphics for your posts, share them on Pinterest and get traffic. Then, you can monetize that traffic.
However, there’s an even quicker and simpler way to make money using Pinterest. You can combine it with affiliate marketing (you sign up for affiliate programs, get a special link, promote other people’s products and get a commission any time someone purchases through that link).
One such example of a successful pinner is Dale from Blogging Her Way. She started making money from Pinterest while she was still a student and later became a full-time blogger thanks to that side hustle.
Just think about it. You can design graphics for Pinterest using a free tool like Canva (no need for any design skills), upload these images to Pinterest, add a good description and a few hashtags so the right people can find them, and get clicks on your links.
Over time, you’ll become better at this and start earning every month, week and even day. Once a Pin of yours gets viral, you will even earn passive income as so many people will see, click and potentially buy, that you won’t even need to be in front of the computer to handle this.
5. Become a Virtual Assistant
Another great idea to earn extra money that you can use to pay off debt is to become a virtual assistant. Luckily, that requires no experience and can earn you a lot.
It all starts with finding your first client (same as freelancing). There are plenty of online platforms out there connecting employers and freelancers. You can check out the job offers for virtual assistants and apply to those that seem like a good fit.
You will charge less in the beginning but can understand more about what clients need and offer better services. Then, you can land more clients and increase your rate, which means more money every month that can be invested in paying off your debts.
Such easy side hustles can be life-changing.
Not only do you make some money on the side that you use to get your finances in order, but you’re also making it possible to eventually leave the 9 to 5 and turn your side hustle into a full-time business.
Stock Photo from 4 PM production @ Shutterstock