Summer Side Hustles: Fill Your Wallet With These 18 Fun Side Gigs

Make extra money fast with these fun summer side hustles. Instead of burning through your money this summer, make money instead. There are lots of part-time and flexible side gigs here so you can fit them into your life.

There are LOTS of side hustle ideas here so let’s dive right in!

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

And for 11 winter side hustle ideas, check out this post.

18 Summer Side Hustles to Make Money This Summer

1. Make Money House Sitting

Housesitters can earn up to $38 a day and at the same time, you are getting to live somewhere rent-free! This is one of the easiest summer side hustles on this list.

Years ago I became a house sitter after I graduated from university. I loved it! House sitting allowed me to stay in way nicer places than I could afford in my early twenties. I was able to save a lot of money since I was working full-time and paying zero rent.

Because I didn’t want to be moving in and out of different places every week, I looked for longer-term housesitting gigs. The house sitting jobs that I chose ranged from 3 weeks (the shortest) to 5 months! The 5 month gig had a gorgeous hot tub where I would spend evenings after dinner looking at stars. It was pretty sweet!

If you have a family you can treat house sitting as a vacation you get paid for! Look for a bigger family-friendly place either in your city or not, and make some money while you relax!

And if one of the ways you relax is by reading, check out 11 legit ways to get paid to read books.

Summer side hustles to add sizzle to your wallet (two women relaxing on floatie loungers in a swimming pool)

2. Get Money Back with Rakuten

I love using Rakuten! It is a cash-back site that is legit, free to join, and gives you money back into an account from your online purchases. I have gotten money back from buying things from Amazon, Sephora, Best Buy, and even cash back from a plane ticket!

You earn between 2% and 15% back from your purchases. You can even get cash back from buying gift cards and e-gift cards.

Sign up for Rakuten here and get a sign-up bonus (woot, woot!)

3. Walk Dogs or Pet Sit: The Cutest of the Summer Side Hustles

If you love animals, this is one of the most fun summer side hustles (that you can do year-round!)

Welcome a furry friend into your home while its owners are away and make some easy money caring for their pet.

You could also offer dog-walking services and get your fresh air and exercise in while you’re getting paid!

Start your own pet sitting business or for an even easier summer side hustle, sign up as a pet sitter through Rover.

You can earn $25/night dog sitting. If you dog sit for a month, that’s $750!

Apply to Rover here

4. Instacart

Several of the moms in my private Facebook group for work-from-home moms (you can request to join here and I’ll let you in asap!) work for Instacart and LOVE it! It is their year-round side hustle and they say they like the flexibility and income it gives them.

You get paid to do the shopping and delivering of people’s groceries – this is one of the easiest summer side hustles. And Instacart hires regularly so it’s an easier side gig to land if you need money quickly.

For a full review on working for Instacart, check out Instacart Shopper Review: Is It Worth It to Work for Instacart?

Apply here for Instacart

5. Decluttr

If you have an old cell phone kicking around gathering dust (I actually have 3 “retired” phones!) you can make money by selling your old tech on Decluttr.

Other than selling used phones, you can also sell old CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays, video games and consoles, and even books and Lego!

Decluttr is BBB-approved (Better Business Bureau). It’s really easy to use. You just search for the product you want to sell, and it will tell you the amount they’ll offer for it. You send in your stuff for free. Then you get paid by direct deposit or PayPal. One of the easiest summer side hustles! Plus you get rid of your clutter at the same time.

Decluttr pays you on the day after they receive your items, so it’s a quick way to earn money too. For other fast ways to earn money see this post.

Make money while you declutter here

6. Take surveys: One of the Easiest Summer Side Hustles

There are lots of scam survey companies out there but there are some legit survey companies too. You won’t get rich taking surveys but I love it as an easy way to make money fast.

You can take surveys while you’re watching Netflix and make some extra cash or gift cards for Amazon.

My favorite place to take surveys for money is Swagbucks. You can make money taking surveys, and also by watching videos and shopping online. Signing up is free and using this link gives you a sign-up bonus too!

To date Swagbucks has awarded over $ 557,055,405 to its members!

7. Tutor or Teach Online

With the pandemic came off and on school closures in many cities. Our city still has mandated school at home until our numbers get better.

With all these disruptions in school, more parents are looking to supplement with paid private tutoring or teaching online for their kids.

I wrote an info-packed post with everything you need to know if you want to find a tutoring job online. Some places ask for teaching experience; others require a degree, but there are some that say no experience necessary.

For school at home tips, check out these posts:

8. Turn a Hobby into a Summer Side Hustle

Why not make money doing something you already love?

It is probably easier for you to learn how to make money from something you are already doing, than to learn a completely new skill.

There are LOTS of ideas in this post of the best hobbies to make money – check it out!

9. Freelance: A flexible summer side hustle

Use the skills you already have to make money this summer.

Some skills are more obvious; maybe you can do graphic design, or bookkeeping.

If you’re not sure what skills you have that people will pay you for, you just have to do a little brainstorming. Are you great at writing resumes and cover letters? Do you have a knack for building up social media accounts (even if it’s only your own at this point)?

There are TONS of people and companies hiring right now on these freelance websites – go browse them and see what you can find that fits what you’re good at.

10. Start a Blog (one of the most lucrative summer side hustles)

I make between $2500-$3500 a month working around 10-ish hours a week blogging. I LOVE my business. It’s creative, flexible, fun, and the income is great too!

You can start a food blog or a mom blog, a fashion blog, deals/coupon blog, book reviews, the possibilities are endless.

Check out my easy tutorial on how to start a blog here (you can get yours started in the time it takes to drink a coffee!)

The only expense you need to start a blog is web hosting, which costs about the same as a latte per month. It’s one of the most affordable home businesses you can start from home. You also don’t need any experience or a degree – you can start one today if you’d like. It’s pretty exciting!

Start a blog here

Related reading:

11. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of my favorite ways to make money online.

Making money using affiliate marketing can be done through a blog, social media, an email list, or a combination.

Affiliate marketing is not all about dropping links here and there and everywhere in hopes to make tons of money. The right way to do affiliate marketing is to find products you already use and/or like, and share them with your followers. It’s a way to be helpful and serve, not to be pushy and salesy.

Two of my favorite affiliate networks are Amazon and Shareasale.

Amazon is Amazon and works with pretty much whatever audience you have. Promote the Amazon products that you think will be relevant and helpful to your followers.

Shareasale has lots of companies that you can promote. From clothing if you are into fashion, to beauty brands, kitchen and household, tech, pregnancy and postpartum, kids toys, there are lots of options.

The best affiliate marketing course:

To learn more about affiliate marketing in depth, my favorite affiliate marketing course is this one. There are some super expensive courses out there and this is not one of them yet it’s PACKED with everything you need to make money as an affiliate marketer.

Find out more about the course here

12. Mystery Shop

Mystery shopping is one of the first side hustles I ever tried. I had always thought mystery shopping was a scam but I was curious too so I decided to try it out for myself. You can read my mystery shopping review here.

So spoiler alert:

There are legit mystery shopping companies out there (and lots of scams too).

This is one of the companies I recommend for mystery shopping jobs.

Even though there are still restrictions in places for in-person visits, there are online, telephone, and curbside mystery shops available.

Apply to be a mystery shopper here

13. Organize People’s Lives

Are you a master declutter-er?

Put those organizing skills to good use and help out us more organizationally challenged people! As the world opens back up, people are feeling more comfortable having people come into their homes again.

I anticipate a bigger demand for organizing and housecleaning services as people host dinner parties, movie nights, and even kid playdates again.

Develop a business plan and offer different packages. You could charge hourly, or by the room organized.

You can earn between $30-$80/hour depending on your experience.

Read all about how to become a professional organizer here.

14. Rent our your bike

You can rent your bike or other outdoors gear while you’re not using it and make a profit. With the pandemic, there is HUGE demand for bikes, stand-up paddleboards, surf boards, and other fun active outdoor gear.

Stores can’t always keep up with the demand.

This is where you can come in my friend! Make money renting your gear! What a super easy summer side hustle!

You can either organize it yourself or use an app like Spinlister.com. On Spinlister you can list your bike for $10 an hour, $50 per day, and $150 for a week.

15. Make Money Gardening

It might seem obvious that gardening can save you money on food.

But there are also LOTS of ways to make money gardening! Up to $1000 a month!

Now there’s a sweet summer side hustle if you love gardening like I do.

Check out all the ways to make money gardening here.

16. Doordash

Another similar food delivery company to Instacart is Doordash. You can apply to both to maximize your options and then choose the deliveries that work the best for you.

Apply to Doordash here

17. Amazon Flex

Working for Amazon Flex is an extremely popular side hustle right now with everyone pandemic buying (these were my personal pandemic impulse purchases!)

You make between $18-$25 an hour delivering Amazon packages to people around your city. You get paid in hourly blocks and it’s completely flexible so you can work when you want.

Secret tip: You can set up a FREE Amazon Business account to shop for better deals! I just heard about this recently and want to pass it on to you – it’s a great tip! You can use an Amazon Business account even if you’re a solopreneur!

18. Make money on your phone by taking pictures

You can download an app called Job Spotter and upload job postings to their site. You can make an extra $30 a month with this easy summer side hustle.

Job Spotter is owned by Indeed and they want to pay you to take good quality photos of job listings to add to their site. The more detailed the job posting is, the more you will get paid!

Final Thoughts on Summer Side Hustle Ideas

Well there you have it! What summer side hustles have you done before? Were you ever a lifeguard when you were younger? I had pretty much the opposite of a lifeguard or camp counselor job when I was younger. ?

I balanced bank statements and did simple accounting for my dad’s company. Probably not your typical summer side gig for a teenager! lol

If you’re looking for cheap summer activities for the kids so you can save money this summer, you need this post!!!