7 Bomb Side Hustle Ideas for Moms (that you can Turn Into a Full-Time Job)

Side hustles, y’all. (Does anyone else kinda hate that phrase? It sounds sketchy, right?)

But having a side hustle can mean that you have a business of your own that consistently generates extra income for you and your family, and that’s pretty much the opposite of sketchy. So I guess I’ll let it slide. I wish we had a better name for side hustles, though!

Side jobs? Extra income-generators? I really think side hustles are part-time small businesses, but that’s a few extra words compared to “side hustle” so I guess it’s just easier this way.

Anyway, I wanted to get out this list of side hustle ideas for moms that you can potentially turn into a full-time job because I think having your own business can be INCREDIBLY rewarding, both financially and personally.

There’s just something about doing a thing that you love and getting paid for it. All of these side hustle ideas are jobs that I’ve personally done or jobs that I have a friend who does. Most of these are jobs that I’ve seen people go full-time doing, too!

Disclosure: This contains affiliate links which means that I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through one of my links (at no extra cost to you.) You can read the whole affiliate disclosure here if you want to. Thanks so much for reading and supporting!

Reselling clothes online

Guide for how to get started here: How to Get Started Selling Clothes Online (Ultimate Guide)

I did this for a few years part-time to bring in an extra few hundred a month, but there are a lot of moms making a full-time income by reselling clothes online using websites and apps like eBay, Poshmark, and Mercari.

I have the most experience doing this on Poshmark, but I’ve made quite a few sales on eBay and dabbled in Mercari and Depop as well.

You can expect to make anywhere between $20-$500 per week if you do this part-time (I made about $200/week when I did it) But like I said, a lot of people take it full-time, which is awesome.

List your clothes on these apps/sites to get started:

• eBay
• Poshmark
• Mercari
• Depop
• Vinted

One of the most common arguments against reselling clothes online is that you’re doing something negative by purchasing clothes from thrift stores to resell and that resellers shouldn’t be allowed in thrift stores.

The main reason why I don’t agree with this is that a huge number of items in resale stores (especially clothing and textiles) ends up in a landfill.

If you, as a reseller, can save an item from going to waste by photographing it and selling it to someone who will actually make use of it, you’re doing a positive thing. It’s also a good idea to purchase secondhand clothing since it’s more eco-friendly.

Also, the mission of most thrift stores is usually to add jobs to the community or to provide money from sales to a charity of some sort. So, resellers are helping with that mission as well. 

The argument that resale shop clothing is only for people who can’t afford to purchase new clothing is weak because it’s a good idea for absolutely anyone to buy secondhand clothing regardless of their economic status – it’s just better for the planet in most cases.

To start selling clothes online, you’ll need to be able to leave the house 1-2 times per week to go thrifting and at least $100 or so in startup money to buy some initial inventory. If you’ve got some extra clothes laying around the house, that’ll help you cut down those initial costs.

Keep in mind that popular brands and styles typically sell for more and sell quicker. This might seem unfortunate but it’s just the nature of selling fashion online.

And on the positive side of things, this does mean that there’s a rhyme and reason to what you should be looking for in the stores for maximum profit.

Here’s a full guide to reselling clothes online and another one on how to start selling clothes on Poshmark (the easiest platform to start with in my opinion!)

Opening an Etsy shop (Digital or physical products)

You can expect to make $5-$250+ per week as a beginning part-time seller on Etsy.

Whether or not you’re a crafty person, you can make a good amount of money from Etsy.

To sell on Etsy, your products are supposed to be handmade. So if you are good with a particular skill, like woodworking, knitting or crocheting, drawing, painting, embroidery, wood-burning, sewing, leatherworking or another craft, you’ve got an advantage here!

That being said, you can also sell digital products on Etsy. This is where the real “passive income” from Etsy is, in my opinion. You’ll have to answer customer service messages of course, so it’s not truly passive, but you don’t have to create a new item for every sale.

Being able to sell a digital file over and over again is an awesome time-saver and money-maker as a mom is game-changing. My digital product shop only makes me a few hundred dollars, but it’s income that you don’t have to do too much to earn. It’s such a life-changing side hustle idea for moms purely because of how hands-off it is after the initial grind of creating the products for your shop.

Here’s some options for digital products you could sell:

• Checklists and worksheets
• Homeschool lesson plans
• Planner pages
• Social media templates (I sell some of those)
• Website templates (I have some of these in my shop)
• Invitation designs
• SVG files for Cricut designers
• PDF templates (You can design planner pages, lead magnets, and ebook templates for other people to modify and resell)
• Sewing patterns or other craft guides

Of course, you can sell your crafts on Etsy as well, but if you’re looking for something a little less time-intensive, I’d go with selling digital products.

Here’s a few high-quality Etsy how-to resources if you plan to get started with your own Etsy shop:

• Fuzzy and Birch (Etsy blog + online courses)
• Crochetpreneur’s Website
• Etsy SEO Tips over at The Merriweather Council. They also have a podcast for Etsy shop owners!

Photography (Pick a niche for the best results!)

You can expect to make between $50-$1000+ per week as a part-time photographer depending on the hours you put in, your local market, and your niche.

If you’ve thought about doing photography on the side and possibly going full-time with it, you might have run into one of these common objections:

There’s too many photographers in my area. My photographer website will never rank on the first page of Google for my area because there’s too much competition. I have to price myself ridiculously low to get any clients.

Here’s the thing, though.

I’ve worked with a few different photographers to revamp their website, marketing, and services. Even in really photographer-dense areas (Colorado Springs, for example!) and the number one way we were able to change the trajectory of their business is by niching down.

Picking a specific type of photography to shoot and showcase will help you become a specialist rather than a generalist and you can more easily master your craft and command higher rates (if you want to.)

Some of the best photography niches to pick in terms of flexibility and profit are these:

Branding photography.

This is my number one recommendation for you as a photographer because of the lower competition, the high earning potential, and the chance to work with some really cool people.

People will pay more for a service if it’s something that they expect to get a return on investment on. This is important because customers are less likely to ask for discounts or give you issues related to pricing. And you can absolutely feel good about providing a service that will help your customers achieve a return on their investment!

The first time I spent money on a branding photoshoot, I was over the moon about feeling comfortable enough in my business to be able to invest in the project. I loved the experience even as an introvert and I now have a library of photos to pull from when I need something for my site, social media, or if I’ve been invited to speak at an online summit.

These usually aren’t headshots (though you’ll probably be asked to take some of these) they’re usually more styled shots of the business owner or team doing their work. 

Lifestyle photography

A lot of social media influencers and even some families are turning toward the trend of lifestyle family sessions. Lifestyle newborn sessions are a thing, too. Basically, they are like traditional family sessions, but a lot more “candid.”

And what I mean by candid, is styled, of course. Haha.

You’ll be creating scenes of the family doing things together so that the shots you get appear more natural. Some lifestyle photographers just like to follow the family throughout their day and get truly candid shots of the family interacting with one another, but many of the scenes are intentionally styled, as well. You’ll probably end up doing a bit of both!

So, some situations you may be photographing:

• The family cooking/eating breakfast together
• Siblings doing a craft together
• Kids brushing their teeth together before bedtime
• A family and their pet interacting with their newborn baby

Lifestyle photography is a keyword that people are searching for, both on Google and on Instagram (which is a good way to get discovered as a photographer) so if you’re able to niche down and put that keyword on your site, you’ll have a good chance of getting discovered by people who want these kinds of photo sessions done.

Blogging or social media (or both)

You can expect to make nothing from blogging or doing social media influencer work for several months, but after 6-12 months, part-time bloggers can make $50-$350 per week with some bloggers making much more.

Blogging can still make decent money (yes, even in 2020 and beyond.) There’s a popular myth out there that blogging is dead, but it’s just not true. The most important thing to recognize with blogging and social media work is that it takes months or years of consistent work to build a following before you’ll make consistent money from your blog or social media.

As long as people are searching for solutions to their problems online, blogs will stay relevant. Blogging is one of the best ways to share your experience with the world and help people with specific problems.

Videos, of course, are sometimes the preferred way to consume content today. But there is still a big need for written information, of course. And you can create videos or audio versions of your blog posts to reach a wider audience if you’d like to (I do this for some of my own posts.)

As a blogger, you can earn money in several ways. Some of the most common are ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts or content, selling your own digital products, and selling freelance services.

Related reading: How to Make Money as a Mom Blogger (5 Ways)

Freelance writing or proofreading

You can make $20-$1000 per week as a part-time freelance writer or proofreader. It’s a wide range, but it really depends on how persistent you are in terms of landing projects in the beginning! Once you have more experience under your belt, you’ll likely have repeat clients coming back to you for regular work.

As a freelance writer, you’ll be writing whatever you want: Blog articles, email newsletters, website content, sales page copy, ad copy, press releases, social media captions, and more. Most freelancer writers pick just one or a few of these to offer so that they can do their work more efficiently rather than trying to spread themselves too thin.

As far as pricing goes, writers price themselves per word, per page, hourly, or with a package-based rate (say 5 emails for $XXX or 4 blog posts for $XXXX.)

For proofreading, you’re usually paid per word, per page, or hourly. You identify and mark mistakes in written content and then return the content to your clients. You don’t do any editing, you just find the mistakes and mark them so that your client can see what you’ve found and decide whether they’re going to heed your corrections or not.

Both writing and proofreading are heavily in demand because businesses need consistent content for their various marketing channels. More often than not, they have to outsource this work for freelancers because their in-house staff doesn’t have the capacity to handle it all.

For more information about freelance writing, check out my full guide to getting started with freelance writing! I used to write a lot of blog posts for clients and now I really only write for my own websites and blogs.

To learn more about proofreading, I definitely recommend checking out Caitlyn Pyle’s free General Proofreading webinar. You’ll get a lot of questions answered and learn a good amount about what it’s like to work as a proofreader. She has an online course you can take if you end up wanting more guidance.

Baking

Your ROI will depend widely on the cost of good for the items you bake! Id’ say you can realistically make $50-$500+ per week in profit as a part-time home-based bakery.

Starting a home-based bakery is a great idea if you live in a relatively affluent area (or there’s one pretty close by.) Check out cottage food laws in your state or area before you start on this journey! You want to make sure you understand the legalities of this kind of business before getting started.

Custom baked goods is not a necessity, which means that if you’re good at making stunning cakes, cookies, pies, or whatever, you can absolutely charge a good amount of money for them. People frequently pay over $100 or even $200 for a custom cake. You don’t want to price yourself out of the local market, but you can and should price your goods considerably higher than store-bought bakery cakes. 

Be clear about what each item on your menu costs for you to make, consider your labor costs, charge extra for delivery, and add in a fee for use of your equipment and consider the cost of any licenses, fees, or taxes.

I know a few home-based baking businesses who are KILLING IT and are booked out months in advance for their work. And I love to see it.

Pinterest marketing

You can expect to make $40-$350+ per week as a part-time Pinterest marketing specialist. If you go full-time, you can make 5-figures monthly – there are quite a few Pinterest managers doing this, especially if they also help with Pinterest ads.

Pinterest marketing is a lower-maintenance freelance service that can have a hugely positive effect on your clients’ businesses. It’s so empowering to be able to make money AND massively help your clients grow their businesses, which is why Pinterest marketing landed on this list.

On top of that, Pinterest marketing can be such a great side hustle ideas for moms especially because of the flexibility it allows. You’ll rarely have any tasks that need to be completed at a specific time of day, unless you schedule video calls with your clients. Most of your work can be done ahead of time in big batches so that you can just sit down early in the AM or after your kids go to bed and get work done for the next couple of days or weeks in one sitting.

Y’all. I’m not kidding when I say that Pinterest is a goldmine for getting traffic to your website or blog. And that’s why business and blog owners are willing to pay for Pinterest strategists to work for them on a monthly basis to keep that traffic flowing and explore ways to get more.

If you’re able to drive thousands of clicks and views to a client’s site and that results in $1000+ in profits for them, why wouldn’t they pay you $300-$600 per month to keep that money coming in and to find ways to improve that?

As a Pinterest manager, you’ll likely be pinning your client’s content through their Pinterest account, adding new pins and creating new pin designs, auditing the performance of their account and making plans to improve it, pinning other, relevant content to the account, adding new boards to your client’s Pinterest account, and doing some keyword and audience research on the platform. You might help set up and manage Pinterest ads for them, as well.

There are plenty of free and paid resources out there for you to learn how to do all of these things. And I’d say that the average Pinterest manager charges between $200-$600 per month per client to offer some or all of these services.

Here’s some of the websites I go to when I want to make sure I’m up to date on Pinterest marketing and strategy:

• Vanessa Kynes (She’s a Pinterest strategist)
• Pinterest forums
• Halycon Hive (She’s another Pinterest strategist!)

Wrapping up: 7 realistic + lucrative side hustle ideas for moms

Alllllll of these side hustle ideas for moms allows a decent amount of flexibility in terms of your schedule and none of them take a lot of money or time to get started. If any of these side job ideas sound like they might be interesting or a good fit for you and your family, I say try it out!

Here’s the list of side hustle ideas for moms again, just to put everything in one place:

• Clothing reseller
• Pinterest manager/marketer
• Baker
• Photographer (Lifestyle or business branding are some of your best bets, IMO!)
• Content writer
• Proofreader
• Etsy seller
• Blogger/influencer

No matter what you end up doing or trying, know that you’ve got this. It’s totally possible to earn an income online as a mom no matter what anyone says. Something like 35% of Americans and a sizable percentage of Europe does freelance work. And a lot of people make their whole living through freelance work or money they earned online. It’s really only a gimmick if you make it out to be, but it does take a lot of hard work and dedication to be successful in the long term.

This list of side hustle ideas for moms is a bit more relaxed in terms of time demand and startup effort, though, which makes all of these things a little less intense, which is great if this is your first online business. (Especially if you’re a newer mom and trying to juggle learning how to be a parent AND how to start a business at the same time! Been there, haha. ?)

Best of luck with your new business idea and let me know if you’re going to try any of these job ideas out! I’d love to hear what your plans are and if you have any questions about any of these ideas.