So today let's talk about the 13 best side hustles you can start at every age. Having side hustles gave me an extra income on top of my normal job that allowed me to save and invest a lot more money to create passive income than would have been possible from just a 9-5 job.
Hi guys, it's Mark. If I had to pin down one thing that really helped me become successful, then it would have been all the little extra jobs I did on the side from when I was a teenager, and even through to today.
Having a side hustle helped me to have extra money on top of my normal job, and that had allowed me to save and invest a lot more money than would have been possible from just a nine-to-five job. But deciding what side hustles are the right one for you can be tricky. I mean, there's just so many options out there.
That's why today I'm going to run through some of my favorite ways you can make some extra money at every age. I'm also going to share with you my financial targets I aimed for at each stage.
If you watch the video until the end, you'll know the perfect side hustle to start at whatever age you're at and how you should pivot and adapt over time to make the most money possible—from 13 years old, all the way up to my age, 33.
I think I got away with that, didn't I? Well, just. Think of it like a Pokemon. You start small with just a few skills and then you evolve and become more skilled and a lot more powerful. Maybe one day you'll be powerful enough to absolutely destroy that thumbs up button and subscribe at the same time.
Level 1: Ages 13-16
So let's start off with level one, which is when you were 13 to 16 years old. My side hustle target for this age was around $50 to $150 per month. Of course, this is just a benchmark for you to aim for, but if you're making more than this, then you're ahead of where I was at that age.
When I was younger, I didn't have much money, so I had to start a side hustle that was cheap to get up and running. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to try everything and figure out what I did and didn't like. I also made a lot of mistakes, but you know what, really, it doesn't matter because I didn't have much money to lose in the first place. All I had was my time, and I had plenty of that.
1. My first idea for you is starting some kind of service-based business. When I was 14, I washed cars. I used to charge $2 per car, and then $1 if they had a second car. It was great because the start-up costs were really low and all I needed was a sponge, a bucket, and a bit of hard work.
You can also pick up these pressure washers now from the home depot, which only costs $149. And you could use this to clean people's driveways. If you charge $50 per drive, then it's only going to take three jobs and you've got a jet washer that's paid for itself. So everything after that is a hundred percent profit.
2. One of my customers worked for a big chocolate company and as a tip, he would always give me a massive box full of candy which I never thought about eating as I was more interested in selling it at school. This is something you can think about doing as well.
A boy in the UK did this and he was making over 50K per year in multiple different schools until he got shut down. Wherever there's a demand, money can be made. At school, there was always a demand for candy. You may have to check if this is allowed at your school, but I didn't. I just got on with it.
You could just sell this from your backpack, but what I would suggest if it's really successful is get your friends to sell it for you and you can pay them based on a commission. So for every candy bar they sell, you could give them 25 cents. It's amazing how much you can learn about business and entrepreneurship by doing this from a really young age. It helps you understand how to manage people and make a profit. It was definitely a big reason I fell in love with being an entrepreneur.
The only issue was starting a side hustle at school is you can only make money during the week.
3. So a good way to make some extra money at the weekend could be to become a sports referee. This is a great side hustle as you get paid to stay fit. It keeps you mentally strong as you have to make decisions quickly and you get to meet lots of interesting people. You can start at $14 and expect to make around $16 a game, which ain't bad at all really.
Level 2: Ages 16-18
This is when you're between the ages of 16 and 18. When I was at this level, I had a much better idea of what I enjoy doing and what I really didn't like doing. I used this time to focus on getting better at the things I love doing and developing my skills in those particular areas. My side hustle target for this age was between $250 and $400 per month.
4. One of the easiest things you could do is become a tutor. Let's say you earn around $20 per hour, but if you're not the greatest at school like me, for example, and you don't think that option is open for you, then you don't have to just teach school subjects. Most people have some kind of skill. Other people are interested in learning, and it's all about finding that skill and offering to teach it to them.
So like I said, I wasn't the best at school. There was no way someone would pay me $20 to teach them English. That's for sure. So instead I used to teach people to fly model helicopters, a bit like this one. With any tutoring side hustle, the money is always limited to the amount of clients you can get. And most of them only want an hour of your time.
5. So it's a good idea to find another way to sell something of value to your clients as well. As I was able to make most model helicopters fly better by tuning them up, I decided to offer this as a service and take their models home with me after they had a lesson.
So it's all about finding that win-win for your clients. A good idea could be selling your school notes or charging to be in an online group where they can ask you questions whenever they want.
6. The next side hustle is drop-shipping and it's great for anyone that is good with computers and the internet. Drop-shipping is where you advertise someone else's product, send them to an online store, and then the manufacturer sends out the product directly to your customer. You physically don't have to touch the product, which is great.
But Mark, drop-shipping is terrible. It adds zero value to society. Do something decent instead, terrible advice. Now, hold on, let me explain. Drop-shipping probably won't make you a millionaire like the online gurus selling courses are going to tell you. The market is extremely competitive, the profits are very low, and it's not a great long-term business model.
But I still think it's worth doing as it's a great way to learn how to run a business with very little startup costs. Drop-shipping is like a trial run. You're jumping in at the deep end of an extremely competitive market. It might take a while to make a profit, but the skills you are learning along the way are going to be worth so much more to you. In fact, they're going to be worth more to you than the money you'll probably make.
Most of the boomers running huge companies have no idea how to use social media to boost their business. And their physical stores are going bankrupt. They're being bought out by younger entrepreneurs who have developed these skills, and they're able to use those to make the businesses more profitable and moving forward into the digital world.
So think of drop-shipping like a video game. The more you play it, the better you'll get and the more valuable skills that you'll learn.
7. And if drop-shipping isn't for you, but you still want to learn digital marketing, then YouTube is a very, very similar side hustle. It's very competitive and it will focus you to level up your video production and your marketing skills. And all you need to start this is a phone, a decent internet connection, and some editing skills.
Level 3: Ages 18-29
Right, so now level three, which is between 18 and 29 years of age. My side hustle target for this age was $800 to $1.2k per month. My main focus was making the most out of the skills that I had mastered. Lots of people call this working in your genius zone.
For the next 10 years or so, it's all about working as smart as possible. And now you're 18, you can start investing that extra money long-term instead of spending it.
For example, if you just put $250 per month into a simple low-cost index fund, at a 7% average return per year, then by the age of 65, you'll have $1.1 million. And that's just a small part of your side hustle income. So it shouldn't affect your day-to-day life. I explained this in my last video. So make sure to check it out if you've missed it.
The key here is to look at the skillset you've been building up over the last few years and think about how you can level them up and charge more. If you did drop-shipping when you were younger, then maybe you could upgrade to (8) selling your own products or (9) running social media marketing adverts for other businesses.
You can get paid a lot for helping other businesses with their social media marketing. Just by hiring you, they're actually going to be making more money instead of losing it. You effectively pay your own wages, which means you can charge higher prices. A good way to get your first client is to offer to work for them for free for a few weeks.
Use your skills to boost their sales. And then they're unlikely to say no when you ask them to start paying you for your skills. Even if they do say no, you can go to another business. You can say, "Look what I did for them. I can do that for you too." And the great thing about this is you can do it all from the comfort of your own home in your spare time.
If you had a YouTube channel when you were younger, (10) you could upgrade and become a graphic designer or a photographer or videographer. A friend of mine is a teacher in Australia, and his side hustle is wedding photography. And he's booked out every weekend for next year.
For me, instead of just improving people's radio control models, I started building them from scratch. If you wanted a good quality radio-controlled model and didn't have the ability to be able to build it yourself, I was the only option in my area. And this was how I met one of my mentors.
He had seven Ferraris and a Bugatti Veyron. I just loved working in his garage. I was surrounded by all those cool cars. And to this day, I'd say I gained more from his words of wisdom than I charged for the job. So by upgrading your skills, you're able to start earning a nice bit of extra income. And we all like a bit of extra cash.
11. A great way to use this extra income to create another side hustle would be saving up for a down payment on a duplex house and getting a mortgage. This is called house hacking. It's one of the fastest ways to increase your net worth when you're in your twenties. A duplex has two separate living areas, and the idea is that you're able to rent out one side of the house and live in the other.
By doing this, the other person pays a big part of your mortgage for you. This means you could end up with a completely free house when the mortgage is paid off, and you also have a place to stay in for free. All the money you would've been paying on rent you can use to invest instead.
Level 4: Age 30 and Beyond
So now the boss level, level four is for 30 and upwards. My aim was to shift my side hustles to make more passive income, as I had more money to invest in different opportunities. By this stage, what I valued more than money was time, and I wanted more of that to spend with my family. At this point, I was looking to make $1.5k to $3k per month inside households, but I've definitely surpassed that now.
12. I decided to invest in property. And to this day, it's one of the biggest extra income sources. When I bought my first rental property, it needed loads of work being done to it. I took on the challenge and used up all my spare time I had to fix it up. With YouTube, you know, there's really nothing you can't learn, and I was able to do all the work and have the house rented out within six weeks.
Now, of course, I get professionals in to fix up the house, but when you're starting off, it's sometimes more profitable to do it yourself. And to be honest, it was definitely a fun challenge. That first rental property still pays me a passive income to this day.
At 30 plus, you'd have gained lots of knowledge that is valuable to other people.
13. So you could use this to coach in areas that you're super confident in. This could be anything from carpentry to fitness, to business. There's a market out there for coaching everything that you can think of.
The key is to do this one-to-many online, rather than one-to-one, as you're able to help more people and not sell your time. To do this, you can create a digital product, or you could create a YouTube channel that helps people for free. Just like I've done.
By working your way through all of these levels, you'll have a massive array of skills, multiple rental properties, digital products, and a huge investment portfolio. When you reach this, you'd have passed the tipping point where your side hustles are bringing in more than your day job.
This means your money is working for you and not the other way round. And this is what the truly rich have known and done for years.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SX6mOaXy7M