Times are hard for many people and getting harder thanks to the Great Job Slowdown, Donald Trump’s import taxes, and ever-rising inflation. If you’d like to leave your current job for a better one but cannot find opportunities, you’re not alone. Nearly everyone is in the same situation.
Many companies are, thankfully, slow to fire employees they’ve trained and whose performance they know is reliable but at the same time they are slow to hire employees who may be more expensive than their current workers, will take time to train, and may not work out.
So many of us are looking for ways to make more money on the side. Fortunately, there are a few options for all of us. If you have access to the Internet you’re already set up for a no-cost method to make more money. But I’m going to be honest with you: all the working solutions either take time, require effort, or both.
But First, You Need A “Bank Account”
Regardless of what you decide to do for passive income, that money has to go somewhere. Many people are still working in a cash-based economy. Maybe you’ve been a day worker, or you’ve taken odd jobs where you get paid directly in cash or goods. If you can find this kind of work on a regular basis maybe that’s all you need to do.
But if you want to drive for Lyft or Uber, or do online freelance work, or build up an investment portfolio, or create a Website that runs advertising, or sell things on the Internet – whatever – you need a bank account.
If you don’t have a bank account, read my article “What Is The Best Bank Account for Low Income Workers” on the Low Income Aid blog. I’ve shared a lot of time-tested and timeless banking advice on that blog. Anyone who is unsure about the banking system – regardless of their income – should have at least one good banking relationship.
I always recommend credit unions, for what it’s worth. But non-profit savings and loans are also good.
The Absolute Best Passive Income Strategy
The only tried and true passive income strategy that has clearly established best practices is to set aside some money in the stock market. “But I don’t have any money!” you scream at me. I know. We’ve all been there.
Thanks to online brokerage services like Robinhood, though, you can invest small amounts of money whenever you have a few dollars you can live without. It’s better to start with small amounts of money than to wait until you “have enough to invest”. You’ll never have enough to invest. If you’re thinking (today) that you need at least $100 to start investing then by the time you have that $100 you’ll convince yourself you need $500. And by the time you have the $500 you’ll convince yourself you need $1000.
All you’re doing is making excuses. Do you tell your kids to stop dragging their feet and take the trash out to the curb or dumpster? Do you tell them to stop complaining and just wash the dishes? Come on! We all deal with someone who makes excuses not to do a relatively small, simple task.
When it comes to investing in the stock market, it’s now easy, inexpensive, and convenient. You can do it on your phone. All you need is a bank account and an investing app. Here are the three best apps in my opinion:
Those are all clean links. I won’t make any money if you click on them and sign up. They all offer good platforms for first-time or inexperienced investors.
If you can put as little as $10 a month into an investing account, you can start building up a portfolio that will earn you money. I know, that doesn’t pay the bills today or tomorrow, but the sooner you get started – and the more consistent you are about adding money to that investment portfolio – the sooner you’ll get to a point where you’ll actually see the money coming back to you.
And the best thing of all is you don’t need to learn how to pick stocks. Just buy into a Standard & Poor 500 index fund. They will give you the best return on investment over time. They’ll pay you dividends every quarter. You should set your account to automatically reinvest the dividends in the index fund so that your stake grows more quickly.
If you want more ideas, read my article “How To Invest In Stocks With Little Money” on the Low Income Aid blog.
If You Have Money To Invest, Here Are More Ideas
For those of you who can muster up maybe $200 a month, things will look less intimidating for you. An investing strategy will pay off more quickly but, again, you’re not going to get rich overnight. A reasonable annual return on investment will be in the 5-6% range.
I studied the Standard & Poor 500 index’s growth from 1999 to 2025 and found that it grew an average of about 6.28% per year. Yes, that’s much less than the oft-cited “10% annual growth”. The U.S. economy experienced 3 major recessions during those 26 years, including the 2020 Pandemic Recession. But that’s actually an unusually long period with so few recessions.
By the same token, I’ve experimented with a number of dividend-paying stocks over the years. In every case where I invested in a stock paying more than 5-6% annual dividends I lost my money. Why did that happen? Because those companies were trying to compensate for declining stock prices.
If you’re going to pursue dividend investing, then stick with long-standing companies that have weathered many recessions, whose stock prices are stable, and whose prospects for the future are not looking bleak. Or – better yet – put your money into an index fund. Index funds pay dividends, although they are usually much lower than 5-6%.
If you want to make money faster with your $200 per month you’re going to have to speculate in the stock market. That just means picking stocks whose prices are rising and look like they’ll continue to rise for some period of time. I’m not talking about day trading (which is extremely risky) – I just mean if you’re investing in, say, a technology company you want to pick one whose stock price is likely to be higher in 6 months to a year.
It’s best to hang on to a stock for at least a year so that you only pay long-term capital gains tax on your profits (assuming you make any when you sell). Online brokerage platforms will tell you when your shares are eligible for long-term gains status, or whether selling them (at market price) will make you a profit.
If you can sell a stock at 10% or more than you paid for it, you’re doing good. Yes, you’ll find stories of people who sell shares for ridiculously high profits, but there’s always a catch. A 10% annual increase in price is reasonable for most stocks. Some rise faster and higher – but when they come down (and they all come down eventually) their drops tend to be farther and harder.
You have to decide how much risk you want to take on.
Index funds will pay you back in dividends and/or interest on a monthly or quarterly basis. The cool thing about index funds is that you can also speculate in them, but there is less risk involved. So let’s say you have $1000 to invest. You can put that into an index fund if it looks like the market or sector will keep growing stock valuations for at least a year. You’ll be paid some interest or dividends during that year and the share price of your index fund will be higher.
So then you can take some profit off the table and sell your shares. Or you can just reinvest the dividends and keep building that stake.
When the market or sector enters a down phase (a “correction”, maybe) the index fund’s share price will decline with the market or sector but it will keep paying dividends. And unlike individual stocks, index funds that pay dividends are only passing on what they’ve earned from the various stocks they invested in. So index fund dividends are more reliable than individual stock dividends.
Which Are The Best Index Funds To Invest In?
Index funds are also called exchange-traded funds or ETFs. They’re like mutual funds except the ETFs are managed by computer programs that simply follow indexed categories like the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the Standard & Poor 500.
You don’t need to follow the news if you only invest in index funds. You don’t need to investigate or analyze companies. Index funds manage all the risk for you. They experience ups and downs, naturally, but they are reliable and don’t fail if one of the companies they invest in fails. It’s really hard to lose money with an index fund.
That said, I’ve tried a lot of index funds. They all entail some risk and some of that risk is regional in nature. For example, I’ve gotten better returns in 2025 from European index funds than from the S&P 500 funds I’ve invested in. I still keep my money in both types of investments.
Other Ways To Make Money Without Investing
If you don’t have any money to invest – and some people don’t. There are still things you can do to earn money. The old adage “it takes money to make money” is only partially true.
If you’ve got a reliable vehicle, you can sign up with Lyft or Uber. I’ve never worked with or used either service, but I’ve seen many people who have worked for both services say they prefer Lyft. However, Uber has the greater name recognition and in your area you may need to stick with their platform.
In some areas the competition for rides is extremely challenging. You may find yourself working long hours. Some drivers turn to alternative strategies like delivering food for Doordash or Uber Eats. I’ve never driven for these services but I’ve seen the drivers in my neighborhood. I know these services are still popular – at least in major metropolitan areas – despite the state of the economy (in late 2025 as I write this article).
Beside the long hours, the greatest challenge for drivers is the wear and tear on your vehicle, not to mention the cost of fuel. You have to absorb all those costs. And if you’re not covered by health insurance at your day job, you’re responsible for your own insurance when you do freelance work. You may have to get insurance through the Affordable Care Act. That I did use myself some years back. It was a fairly simple process for me but I don’t know what the future will bring for ACA insurance plans.
When I was in college I tried delivering pizza for a local restaurant. My job lasted half a night. My car broke down before I could finish my first run. So if you’re going to start driving freelance, my advice to you is to get your vehicle serviced BEFORE you do your first run.
That’s expensive, honestly. I wouldn’t just get an oil change and tune-up. If you haven’t managed your tires well since you acquired the vehicle, you want to drive on good tires. I hate buying 2 tires for the front and replacing the rear tires with the old front tires, but if that’s all you can afford then do it.
If You Want To Just Make Money Online, It’s Tough
The online economy isn’t what it used to be. There are several reasons for that. One of the most important changes to the online economy is a huge influx of laid off technology and publishing industry workers who cannot find jobs. These people are leveraging their skills to build Websites, start social media influencing, provide freelance coding and design services, and so forth.
All of these new freelancers are competing with existing freelancers and agencies that have been grown by older freelancers who hired people to help them. You’ll be going up against experienced people, people with skills you don’t possess, and one more major competitor: AI tools.
The advent of AI tools has unsettled the freelance services market. AI tools will now do many tasks – including creating content, analyzing data, and providing “advice” – that human freelancers have made money from for decades. Some people are still reluctant to replace their human freelancers with AI tools, but many freelancers are nonetheless turning to AI to speed up their own performance (and – in my experience – turning in lower quality work).
I’m painting a bleak picture to set your expectations. Some people are doing really well in these service markets. They rise above the challenges and find ways to leverage what they know, what they can do, and their time to provide high-value service to paying clients.
If you don’t have time to do freelance work but want to make money online, that leaves a few other options:
- Drop shipping (other people’s products)
- Advertising (other people’s products and services)
- Affiliate marketing (similar to advertising)
- Producing your own products for sale
- Generating subscription revenue
A few women (I don’t know how many) have earned millions of dollars through their OnlyFans accounts. I have not studied or worked in that industry but from what I’ve read most women earn at best a few thousand dollars per month. That’s good money, but it comes with risks – especially risks to your reputation that can impact you in your offline life. For example, several teachers have lost their jobs because their OnlyFans accounts were discovered by students.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but some men lower their expectations (and respect) for women who use their bodies to make money. They don’t behave well in offline situations. These are not good men. Some of them are dangerous. So just because you can set up a camera in your home or go to a professional studio and create adult content doesn’t mean it’s completely safe for you. I hope only the best for women who choose to make money that way.
I commented first on online sex work because it’s a very popular industry among women and men. In some countries thousands or hundreds of thousands of women are doing this kind of work.
However, there are other kinds of subscription income. You can publish newsletters, create premium videos, or just write an exclusive blog. I would say millions of people are making some money from these kinds of activities. I’ve written for an exclusive marketing newsletter for many years. There are numerous platforms that will process payments for you, although many people are settling on either Patreon or Substack (and you may need to connect a payment processing account to those platforms anyway).
If you’ve got value to sell, it may be worth trying. But you need an audience who appreciates what you have to offer. You may have to create a lot of free content to sell yourself. The magic is not going to happen overnight for most people. And I don’t know anyone who has created a successful online subscription business in less than a year. Honestly, as someone who has managed YouTube channels, blogs, and newsletters – it’s a constant time suck. I’ve backed off on these activities in recent years. The marketing newsletter is the only regular subscription service I still produce on a weekly basis.
To sell advertising or earn commissions from affiliate marketing you need a Website (or several) and you need to create content. It helps to have expertise in the subject, especially as Google is trying to emphasize content created by real experts. An expert is someone who can talk about a subject in detail and ways that the typical freelancer (and AI tool) cannot. In other words, if you’re thinking “I can just use AI to create expert-level content” – it’s not that simple.
Numerous online experiments that have been shared on social media claim that these kinds of Websites do well for about 3 months and then crash. So I wouldn’t waste my time with these cheap strategies. And if you go looking for advice, sooner or later you’ll run into people who tell you, “You have to buy links to succeed.” That’s a complicated one, and it’s a path rife with fraud and abuse. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t buy links.
And anything to do with retail – whether drop shipping or selling your own products – also requires visibility. That is, you have to get people to want to come to your Website to buy the products you’re selling.
Conclusion
Are there other ways to make more money on the side? Sure. But if you scan the Web you’re going to find all sorts of time-consuming (and sometimes outdated) suggestions like taking surveys, participating in focus groups, selling blood, etc.
You have options. I hope you find something that matches your skills, flexibility, and needs.