61 People Reveal The Offbeat Side Hustles That Actually Pay The Bills

Side hustles, contrary to what the name would suggest, seem to be serious business—less an “aside” than a necessity for many. Last year, Bryan Robinson, Ph.D., author of Chained to the Desk in a Hybrid World, even went so far as to say, “Side hustles are becoming the new normal.”

And there seems to be something to that. Bankrate’s 2025 Side Hustle Survey, conducted by YouGov among 2,616 U.S. adults, found that 27% had a side hustle at the time, with 35% of side hustlers using at least some of the extra income for regular living expenses.

More recent research from Integra Credit suggests that, for many people, side hustles are more than just a way to make a little extra cash. In a survey of 1,121 U.S. adults, 73% said side hustles were a financial necessity, while a striking 93.9% said they either currently had a side hustle or had had one at some point in the past five years.

And this doesn’t necessarily look like a passing trend: 82.4% of those with side hustles said they had been working on their current ventures for between three and five years. Even among those without a side hustle, 70.6% said they had considered starting one.

And if you thought a side hustle was just a ‘little side project’ people squeezed into a couple of spare evenings a week, you might be surprised to learn that the research findings also revealed that 39.1% of those surveyed said they had held five side hustles simultaneously, while another 37.5% had held four. As Integra Credit notes, America’s side hustlers sure are an ambitious bunch.

And they’re apparently willing to put in the hours, too. Among those surveyed, 39.7% said they spent 31 to 35 hours a week on their side hustles, while another 36% reported putting in 26 to 30 hours.

With people dedicating that much time to their side hustles, it’s probably fair to assume that they’d like to see a decent return on their investment. But here, too, you might be surprised by some of Integra Credit’s findings. Because, nope, as Robinson explains for Forbes, “The highest-earning side hustle isn’t driving for Uber, delivering takeout or selling products online.” Instead, some of the highest-earning side hustles are ones you might not necessarily expect.

According to the same Integra Credit research, teaching, tutoring and coaching came out on top, with respondents reporting average earnings of $1,600 a month, or $19,200 a year. Professional services followed, with an average of $17,742.84 annually, while making and selling crafts also made the top 10, averaging $14,073.96.

In other words, as Robinson explains, a successful side hustle can be as straightforward as turning something you already know how to do—or simply something you enjoy—into an additional income stream. And sometimes, with a small investment and a little creativity, you can even turn something unusual about yourself into something that makes you money.

Take NASA human performance engineer Eryn Andrews and her “gravelly” voice, for example. In March 2022, Andrews was a newly divorced single mom in Houston, looking to make an extra $200 a month so she could treat her daughter without feeling guilty about the expense. So she Googled “single mom side hustles” and found “voiceover acting” in the results.

A $200 voiceover class, a microphone and a 1-inch mattress topper from Walmart later, and she’d built a mini-recording room in her guest bedroom closet. She made $1,000 in her first month, and her side hustle now brings in an average of around $32,400 a month, according to CNBC Make It. In fact, her voiceover earnings began outpacing her six-figure NASA salary in 2025.

It’s an extreme example, but Andrews’ story makes an important point: a side hustle doesn’t necessarily have to resemble your day job—or require a huge investment to get started. Sometimes, it can simply be a matter of recognizing something distinctive about yourself and finding a way to put it to work.

And while voiceover acting might not be the first thing you’d expect from a NASA engineer, it’s still only the beginning of how unconventional some side hustles can get. In fact, some of the ideas on this list are so specific you might wonder how anyone thought of them, let alone found people willing to pay for them. Others are surprisingly clever, showing that sometimes the difference between a passing idea and a viable income stream is simply being willing to give it a try.

But that’s part of what makes all of them so fascinating: they show just how far a little creativity can take you when you’re looking for a way to make some extra money. And if a NASA engineer can turn $200, a gravelly voice and a guest room closet into a lucrative side hustle, perhaps it’s worth taking a second look at what you have to offer, too.

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