5 Side Hustles That Pay For My Groceries (and More!)
Update: Since the original post, just using these side hustles, I can cover groceries for my family of 5, gas for 2 cars, and am now covering some bills! I’m making more than $1,500 a month from my side hustles. It’s possible to make money from side hustles!
Everyone loves making money. It’s just a fact.
I’m a stay-at-home-homeschooling-mom of 3 active boys and my husband is the breadwinner in our house, but we do live off of his one income. It wasn’t until recently that I started looking for ways to make money from side hustles.
Together, we decided that if I could bring in enough to pay for groceries in the month, we would be able to live comfortably. Wait… I have to find a way to make HOW much money?!
It’s said that your grocery budget should be $100 per person in a month. We have a family of 5 and we should be spending $500 a month on groceries. Even though I’ve worked to keep our weekly food budget (because I hate monthly budgets!) under $75, $300 is still a lot of dough to bring up just in side-hustles!
But here’s the craziest thing… it CAN be done!
A few duds, and a lot of trial and error, and I’m so pleased to say that I’m not just able to cover our grocery budget, but also cover all of my blogging expenses AND part of our transportation budget! I’m bringing in more than $1,500 a month by making money from side hustles!
Related posts for ways to learn how to make money from home (some can even make full-time incomes!):
- Make a Full-Time Income Proofreading
- How to Work at Home as a Transcriptionist
- How to Start Selling on Amazon FBA and Make a Full-Time Income
- Make Money as a Freelance Writer
- Make Money Taking Surveys
- How I Earn Money as a Stay-at-Home Mom
- How Bloggers Make Money
- 30+ Real Ways to Earn Money From Home
- Earn Extra Money For Christmas NOW
- How to Earn a Full-Time Income from Etsy
- How to Become a Virtual Assistant and Make a Full-Time Income Doing It!
Here’s what I do to up my side hustle game to pay for groceries and then some.
Usertesting
I can’t get over how much I love Usertesting. You get to view websites or apps before they’re launched, check out layout designs, see what menus work best, tell a company where you would find a category of product of their site, tell companies what you like or dislike about their color schemes… basically, everything you would ever WANT to tell a company, they’ll pay you to do it!
Now, don’t go quitting your day job yet. In really good weeks, I’ve made $80. But on an average week, I’ll make $20. And I’m on my computer a fair amount, so I can grab tests right when they come up. But I’m still not telling my husband to quit his job over this! But it’ a great way to make some side-dough!
Each test pays $10, so it’s not like you’re doing 80 tests in a week to try to make it to $1, like some other sites. Depending on the amount of detail that they want from you from each test, it could take anywhere from 3-12 minutes to take a test. Usually, they’re between 5 and 7 minutes. Not a bad payout for 5 minutes of work!
Here are some of my “pro” tips to making the most from Usertesting:
- If you’re on the computer, keep a tab open for Usertesting’s website. Turn your volume on so that you can hear when there’s a new test available.
- Download the Usertesting app on your phone. They ALWAYS have phone tests!
- Make sure that you do your best to sound like a crazy person. By that I mean, they want you to think out loud. They want to see why you chose option A rather than options B or C.
Want to learn more about Usertesting? Check out all the details here!
Bestmark
This is a new one for me, but so far I love it! Bestmark is a secret shopper site. And unlike a lot of other secret shopper sites that I’ve seen, this one is legit.
I found Bestmark because I read another blogger say that she never pays for oil changes! Whaaaaaaat?! And sure enough, they’ve not only pay you for your time, but they’ll also pay for the oil change too! Totally serious.
You have the opportunity to go to car dealerships and test the knowledge of the salesmen, or test drive new cars, or even go into BestBuy and test the knowledge of the floor employees on certain policies. I’ve gotten paid to make web inquiries about new cars. You can even get a nice dinner for free (2 entrees, an appetizer, 2 drinks, dessert), all for completing the instructions that they give you!
I just started doing Bestmark last week and I made $63 last week while I was running errands and most of that was made at home!
Disclaimer about Bestmark: It’s very detailed and you really need to be secretive. It feels a little weird at first, but once you remember that you’re being hired by the company to help them ensure that they’re employees are top notch, it really helps get past the whole “but I’m lying to this person” thing.
Want to find out more about Bestmark? Check out all the details here!
Ebates
I love Ebates and I think everyone should, too! I truly believe that it will help people. But why is this a side hustle? Because their product is great, but their referral program is uhhh-mazing! $20+ per referral (last year at Christmas it was $25 per referral) is nothing to scoff at. Not to mention that you get a free $10 gift card when you sign up here.
If you do any online shopping, or you have friends that do, check out Ebates. So how does Ebates work? Without doing anything, you’ll get a percentage of money back. PLUS telling friends about it means that you earn $25 per friend who buys something using Ebates.
I hate being sales-y. I’m not a salesperson. But Ebates has made me $100 in a month before (usually it’s between $25 and $50), so it’s worth telling friends and family to try it out. And did I mention that they get $25 for signing up, too? Yup! In the form of a big fat check.
Check out more about why Ebates is absolutely worth having HERE!
Swagbucks
I like Swagbucks a lot. If you have some time to do a lot of different things to add up to Amazon gift cards, then Swagbucks is the way to go.
They give you a lot of different tasks that you can complete on Swagbucks, but the easiest ones are to click on a link and go to a page, and they give you 3 Swagbucks for it. 450 Swagbucks equals a $5 Amazon gift card. You can read the best ways I use to earn Swagbucks here.
I started off a BIG Swagbucks fan, but I don’t go nearly as hard trying to make money off of it as I used to. Now, I use it to watch nature videos with my sons for school and earn Swagbucks that way.
If you sign up for Swagbucks here and use the code cowcountry15, you’ll get 100 Swagbucks to start!
Find out more about how I used Swagbucks to pay for back-to-school shopping and more.
Of course, blogging!
What kind of a blogger would I be if I didn’t throw in a plug for blogging as my favorite and most profitable way to earn money from home?
I started my blog last August and I’m (very slowly but surely) making some money from it. I can attribute a LOT of that growth to my Pinterest strategy and the amazing courses that I started taking to make the most from blogging.
Get my blog resource guide for free here:
Since starting, I’ve gone from 100 to 14,000+ pageviews a DAY!! WHAAAAAT?! In a nutshell, that basically means at least $85 a day in ad revenue alone!
Unlike the other options from above, blogging isn’t a get rich quick kind of thing. It’s more of a labor of love that has the potential to pay off in the long run.
So far, for me, it’s been so worth it!
Update: I made $8,300 in one month from blogging ALONE! Crazy!! Find out exactly what I did to make money as a blogger.
It’s possible to make money from side hustles to help pay for some of your own household expenses. Even if it’s just paying for a tank of gas each month, that’s $40 that you didn’t have before. And you could easily make more than $1,500 a month from your side hustles! Honestly, what could YOU do with an extra $1,500 a month?
So what have you got to lose? Give some of these side hustles a try and see how they work for you!
What is your favorite side hustle?
Join the FREE 10 Day Side Hustles That Work Challenge!
Here's my challenge to you:
Can you pay for your grocery bill with your side hustle?
Take the challenge!
(PS - NONE of them have to do with sales!)
Bring in extra income without having to spend a penny. I want to share with you the side hustles that I love that help my family every month.
You have a great asset, a mind that will not stop until you succeed. Sounds like a winner to me, and just wait a while and you will be at the top of your game. The ideas are great and you have the $$$ to prove. Good luck. Please stop by The Woman’s Post and see what we are doing too. Not the same subject but some family.
WOW, I just shared with a SAHM because she could use these services. What a great idea on all accounts. Thank you very much and blog on.
The user testing sounds very appealing to me because I imagine that I would learn a ton about design and get inspiration.
Renee groskreutz recently posted…How To Make A Free Twitter Header With A Canva Template
Just signed up for swagbucks and clicked the button that should have given me 300 sb. Didn’t get them. Any ideas why?
Hi Robin! Let me know the email you used and I’ll email my contact at Swagbucks about it!
I used your link too for swag bucks and didn’t get the 300 points either. Just a heads up in case you get referral points. I’d hate for you to lose them as a perk of this great post.
Hi Christina! Thanks for the heads up! I have an email out to Swagbucks, and they’ll set this right. I’ll get your email sent to them and have them fix you up with your 300 SB right away!
I definitely need to look into some of these! I enter a lot of competitions which usually covers all my gift giving occasions, and I send photos / tips / comments into the women’s magazines every week. I usually make about £30 a month from that which is a week’s grocery shopping for us. 🙂
Thanks so much for sharing over at #FridayFrivolity!
Jess Powell (Babi a Fi) recently posted…10 Worst Types of Ebay Buyer
I am a big fan of User Testing, and even reviewed my experience with them on my blog. I have had a lot of fun providing feedback to help businesses create more customer friendly websites. I can see continuing to work with them for quite some time.
Cathy @MonetizeMyMins recently posted…My Blog Went Live On Accident
Tried to find the user testing app you were talking about, but couldn’t. What’s the exact name?
Hi Chloe! Usertesting is a website where you can test out websites and get paid for it. It’s usually a 10-minute investment in time, and it’s really worth it! They do have an app, but you have to have an account first on the website before you get the app. Thanks for bringing this up! I’ll make sure to clarify that in the post!
I have seen usertesting mentioned as a way to earn money, but your post is the first I have seen to actually share some good details and information about it!
Jenn recently posted…Garden Update
Hey Caroline! I love these ideas. We also live on one income and are working to replace my income so I can be home with our kids more, and at least be able to take off work here and there to attend their school activities without our budget suffering. That’s my big goal. I use Ebates and love it. Swagbucks is another great one and I use it to accumulate my SB to save for holiday shopping. How much time on average do you spend on Swagbucks in a week? I am doing an experiment – I am spending 30 minutes a day (my lunch break) for 30 days, and I am interested to see how much I can earn in that time. Ibotta is another one of my favorite apps to earn money – it’s not necessarily a side hustle, but it does earn me a consistent $25 – $50 per month. I will be signing up for Usertesting – thanks for the recommendation. While each of these may not make a ton of money individually when you combine your income from all of them it really makes a difference!