The 15-Minute Side Hustle: How You Can Earn up to $100 a Month in Your Downtime
Written by
Sarah Li Cain
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Zuri Anderson
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You don’t need a full-fledged side hustle that takes a ton of your time to bring in extra cash. In fact, there are plenty of ways to turn small pockets of time into decent monthly income. There are plenty of options like testing websites to short consulting sessions.
Sure, you need to take some time to set it all up, but you could earn several hundred dollars or more per month, even if you work in 15 minute bursts. Here are five to check out.
1. Test Websites and Apps
It’s true: Companies pay users to test websites and apps to get feedback before their launch. All you really need is about 10 to 20 minutes each. Depending on the company, you could get $10 to $20 per test. If you’re efficient, that could be up to $80 per hour.
You will need to sign up and meet certain requirements, but the small effort could be well worth it. Some websites to check out include UserFeel, Trymata and UserTesting.
2. Scan Your Receipts
It’s not your typical way of earning money, but you can get money back for buying items you were going to anyway. Apps like Ibotta, Fetch Rewards and CoinOut lets you scan your receipts or complete short bonus offers to earn cash back.
While it’s not a lot, spending 15 minutes of your time this way will at least help you earn something.
3. Join Paid Research Panels
Companies and researchers will pay qualifying consumers for 15 to 30 minute feedback calls. These typically involve questions related to your lifestyle or professional life.
You can usually get anywhere from $25 to $75, which can add up the more you do. Of course, there are higher paying amounts, but it’ll probably take you longer to complete.
To start, you can create profiles on websites like Respondent.io and User Interviews to see what research panels you may be able to match up with.
4. Do Small Tasks Online
Think of these tasks as super simple ones that someone doesn’t have the time or skills to do. It’s a win-win because you can take on as much work as you want and complete it within a short amount of time. For your client, they pay a small amount of money and save time.
The range of tasks can differ, whether you choose to do data entry, transcribe clips or tagging products in e-stores.
Like scanning your receipts for cash, you are not going to earn a whole lot. Many tasks on websites like Clickworker, Microworkers or Appen will pay around $1 to $5, which ends up being a little less than minimum wage. But you can do it on your own time and at home.
Depending on how you feel about the subject, you could find tasks that help to train AI to earn higher rates.
5. Offer 15-Minute Consultation Sessions
If you have expertise you can offer to others, especially if you’ve been in certain industries for a while, you can get paid for your time. Consider using platforms like Clarity.fm where you can set a per-minute rate for someone to ask you advice or questions related to topics you can advise them on. Intro.co allows you to set a price per session, which can range from 15 to 30 minutes.
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