With the cost of living rising and wages remaining relatively stagnant, more people than ever are looking for ways to make extra cash.
If you’re one of these people looking for a side hustle that has the potential to make you extra money every month, this guide will reveal opportunities that are slightly more lucrative, each with the potential to earn you $2000 per month or more.
Whether you’re looking to increase your income to cover unexpected bills, pay down debts, or quit your job to become a digital nomad, we’ve got you covered with 8 solid ideas of how to make an extra $2000 monthly even if you are currently working a full-time job.
8 ideas on how to make an extra $2000 a month
1. Sign up for get-paid-to websites
The method to make extra monthly income with the lowest barrier to entry is signing up for a “get-paid-to” (GPT) website. These platforms offer various simple tasks that require no formal skills, including taking surveys and watching videos. While these websites alone are unlikely to get you to your $2000 monthly goal, they can certainly contribute.
Popular GPT sites include Swagbucks, Prolific, and Survey Junkie. Simply create a profile and follow the instructions to complete tasks to receive points you can cash out for real money once you reach minimum thresholds. You can also find individual get-paid-to opportunities through communities like Reddit’s /r/beermoney subreddit.
2. Become a virtual assistant (VA)
The demand for Virtual Assistants (VAs) is continuing to increase as more companies are shifting to managing a company with a distributed workforce. As a VA, your duties will cover a variety of administrative tasks, with examples including email management, appointment setting, and social media scheduling.
While most companies will outsource VAs to overseas countries that sell them at lower rates, if you have a formal background and can prove that you can act as a specialized VA that’s worth the premium, you can charge a higher hourly rate so you can hit your $2000 per month income goal.
3. Join the gig economy
Each year, more individuals are joining the task force that makes up the gig economy. This is mostly thanks to startups such as Uber, Doordash, and Instacart that allow you the option to sign up as a gig worker to perform various tasks on your own schedule with very few qualifications beyond a basic background check.
In addition to delivering, driving, or shopping for people and getting paid through one of these gig apps, you can sign up for gigs on job boards like Indeed and Craigslist where more companies are offering part-time gig work to cover basic labor for events. You can also find gigs through companies like Gigsmart and Thumbtack where you can create a profile and match with available jobs.
Hitting your $2000 monthly goal as a gig worker can be done on weekends alone with work such as rideshare driving or bartending offering lucrative rates on weekend nights especially.
4. Offer up your services
One way to build a respectable side income is to offer specialized services. Examples of physical services you can offer include help with moving, cleaning gutters, mowing lawns, or power washing. You can even get creative and offer services such as home holiday decorating, offering light installation and take down, and capitalizing on temporary holiday crazes.
If you prefer to offer your services online, you can create a profile on a platform such as Fiverr and Upwork. Be sure to highlight your professional skills, showcasing all past relevant work that can help to attract clients. Popular, in-demand online services include graphic design, copywriting, short-form video editing, and web design. If you have the skills, you can seek higher-paying niche services such as conversion rate optimization, business consulting, or even help with AI prompting.
The more specialized your skills are and the more professional experience you have in your field, the higher the rate you can charge so it can be quite easy to reach your $2000 monthly goal once you find your first clients.
5. Flip for profit
The simplest formula in business and making a profit is buying low and selling high. Flipping items for profit, or reselling, is one of the easiest ways to profit from this formula. You can get your start by selling in person via Facebook Marketplace or local classifieds such as Craigslist, or online on a free platform like eBay and Amazon.
In terms of consistently sourcing profitable inventory, you’ll first need to know which items are best to resell, making note of the fair market range of prices and determining each product’s potential based on that or by seeing if there is a premium over the retail price on the resale market.
Once you know the exact goods to look for, you can scour thrift store shelves, garage sales, or even the same online marketplaces you’ll be selling on to look for inventory.
You can get started flipping with any budget as the market covers everything from low-cost collectibles and clothing that you can find dirt cheap in thrift stores all the way up to high-end watch flipping or pricier inventory sourcing strategies such as buying from a wholesaler.
No matter which route you choose to pursue in the realm of flipping, with consistency and the right method, you can hit or surpass a goal of earning $2000 per month fairly easily.
6. Try trading
While trading stocks or cryptocurrencies especially can be risky and requires careful research and well-thought-out strategies, it can also be the path to earning a few thousand dollars or more in monthly income. Start small so you can hone your craft and practice risk and portfolio management without exposing yourself to too much potential loss, and also practice paper trading–that is, practice trades where you don’t move any real money.
Trading is not a practice that you should go into blind. It’s important to seek accurate advice from reputable experts and to fully understand the risk you’re getting into, maintaining a positive yet realistic outlook by accepting the chance of loss with every trade you enter.
Consider joining a private group so you can get trade signals and guidance while learning valuable strategies that you can eventually practice on your own. Becoming a full-time trader isn’t for everyone, but with so much potential upside particularly in the realms of crypto and the future, it’s at least worth looking into what’s going on.
7. Open an ecommerce store
If you’re up for the challenge of opening up your very own ecommerce store, this is a path that has the potential to give you income that can far exceed $2000 per month. Many individuals have created six and seven-figure businesses with ecommerce and quit their job because of their success.
You can start by choosing a niche that you’re passionate about or knowledgable in, as this will give you the best chance for success as you’ll have a natural edge against competition that is clueless or less aware than you are.
Start by reviewing what type of business model you’re willing to take on based on your budget in both time and money and from there, take action one step at a time. On the lower end of the budget for ecommerce stores, there’s dropshipping and reselling, and on the higher end, there’s private label Fulfillment by Amazon or creating and selling your very own product.
Finding success combines having a good sense of product-market fit, being aware of the competitive landscape, and knowing how to reach your target audience and convert them into customers with effective marketing.
8. Sell digital products
Digital products are the most promising items you can sell to hit a goal of $2k per month thanks to their numerous inherent advantages, including production that can be done at little to no cost and their high level of scalability thanks to a profit margin that already starts at virtually 100%.
Another huge benefit to creating and selling digital products is the ease of fulfillment which includes no need for inventory management, the latter of which can be a highly restrictive bottleneck for physical products even if you only want to make a few thousand dollars per month.
The diversity of digital products also allows you to sell something that is aligned with your skillset: ebooks, video courses, SaaS, and digital art are all examples of products that are earning their creators $2000 per month or more. You can even sell ready-made PLR products to launch your business with minimal to no product development.
However, when it comes to selling digital products, the platform you choose to host and sell your product on can make or break your business. Platform fees, ongoing subscriptions, and effectively and efficiently granting access to your products are all important factors to keep in mind in addition to the ease of use and overall experience of using a digital products platform.
Ready to start selling your digital products? Discover the best places to sell them for free.
What's the easiest way to make $2k a month?
Among all of the options we’ve gone through in this guide, selling digital products stands out as the easiest path to making $2k per month or even more.
Whether you’re an expert in a particular field, have a unique skill to teach, or have created a useful tool or template, there’s likely a market for your digital product once you take the time to get it done.
Once you’ve created your digital product, whether it’s an ebook, course, or software, you can sell it repeatedly without any additional work. This is also what makes digital products one of the most effective paths to earning passive income.
Getting your initial sales comes down to effective marketing, which will start with knowledge of your specific niche and target customer. From there, you’ll carry out strategies that can combine both organic and paid marketing, paying attention to metrics to keep doing what’s working and cutting out what isn’t.
For more specific strategies for digital product marketing, check out our in-depth guide here.
As we stated previously, picking the right platform is crucial. Whop is home to one of the largest communities of both customers and creators of digital products, making it an ideal platform to launch quickly right in front of your intended audience.
Over 2000 creators on Whop have made over $2000 in September 2024 alone, so the numbers point to the fact that selling digital products, especially on Whop, is an effective path to hitting that coveted monthly figure.
Choosing the right side hustle for you in 4 easy steps
Now that you know which side hustles are best for getting you to $2000 per month or more, it’s important to take the time to choose the one that’s best for you.
Here are 4 simple steps that will allow you to do this:
1. Honest self-assessment of your skills
Making $2000 per month with a side hustle is a bit of an aspirational goal, especially if you’re committing time outside of a full-time job. This means that to hit this goal, you’ll need to maximize your income potential in this limited time, something that’s best done if you’re skilled in the area of your chosen hustle.
Take a look at your skills and interests in addition to your available time, and assess the options. Ideally, you’ll have a natural overlap with your skills and interests so that your hustle doesn’t just reward you financially but personally as well. Avoid things you lack interest in as you will likely lack the motivation to hit the $2k per month mark.
If you don’t have the skills yet, take advantage of the abundance of information on the internet that can teach you everything you need to know to become a relative expert in a certain skill.
2. Market research
Once you’ve identified an interesting side hustle aligned with your skills, do some market research to figure out how viable the idea is. This initial research will give you a greater chance of success as it will show whether or not your idea or product has the potential to do well amongst the competition.
One of the most effective ways to do market research is to act like a customer and look for competition. For example, if you want to be a DJ or a photographer, look up the existing options and rates while visualizing how you’ll fit in and stand out as an attractive choice for a potential customer. Researching the competitive landscape for digital products is easier as you can browse social media to figure out current interests and competition, along with exact marketing strategies that others are using to build their businesses. Sometimes, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, you can simply copy what’s working for others while putting your unique twist and passion so you stand out.
3. Put yourself out there
Everyone who wants to make money knows that sales is the most important skill to meeting financial goals, and when it comes to making $2000 a month in a side hustle, you’ll have to get good at selling yourself. This means putting yourself out there–this is the biggest aspect of your work in the early stages of your hustle, and while it may take a lot of work in the beginning, understand that this will pay off big in the long run.
Social media is one of the best ways to get yourself out there in front of an audience that includes potential customers. Create a dedicated profile in your chosen niche, and consistently put out helpful content that speaks to your target customer’s needs and interests. Over time, you’ll grow an organic audience that will act as an essential part of your marketing funnel so you can have a steady flow of customers coming in to keep funding your hustle.
Growing your social media presence can become a side hustle on its own, becoming an influencer is a path many are using to build a side income or full-time living thanks to the golden opportunity presented by the rapidly growing and highly lucrative creator economy.
4. Stay educated
The business world is constantly evolving, so every successful entrepreneur knows that learning never stops. Even if you have a good existing knowledge base, there’s always more to learn, so take time to constantly review the latest news and updates on trends, strategies, and changes in your chosen niche.
Consume content from experts in your field, enroll in courses, or join an expert-led private community that can help you level up your knowledge so you can stay ahead of the competition. Learning also comes from your customers: seek feedback, ask questions, and be willing to iterate on your offerings to keep satisfaction high.
Ready to get started on a side hustle? Check out these remote side hustles that you can do from anywhere.
Join Whop and start making $2000 a month every month
Ready to build a side hustle with a digital product that allows you to cash in every month with the potential for passive, recurring income? Become part of the growing group of savvy internet entrepreneurs cashing in on Whop’s thriving marketplace.
Not only is it quick and easy to create your digital product store and securely upload and host products with Whop, but it’s also completely free - you just pay a small commission on any sales you make. Whop lets you build your very own corner of the internet with your own whop that you can equip with apps such as chat, forum, file hosting, and more, all with one-click installs. From ecommerce advice to sports betting tips, life hacks to musical education, you can sell it all with Whop.
Once you create and launch your digital product on Whop, $2000 per month could be your first milestone–a growing group of sellers on our marketplace are making six figures or more, so if you’re looking to print money online, you’re in the right place.
