Young people often find themselves helpless when looking for ways to earn some extra money. Actually, they find it challenging to find a reliable and manageable side hustle that will allow them to juggle both school and work. But, don’t worry! We’ll break down the most unique side hustles for youth and college students. 

In this article, we will cover the 14 best side hustles to start in 2023. Moreover, we’ll also see what makes them a profitable choice for younger people. That way, we can find the side hustle that best fits our time and skills and earn some profits. 

14 Best Side Hustles To Start In 2023

Let’s get started! There are various great side hustles to start in 2023 that can make us some money. With that said, let’s take a look at the 14 best side hustles for youth and college students: 

1. Become An Online Freelancer
2. Start a Blog
3. Become a Dog-walker/pet-sitter
4. Sell Your Stuff
5. Start A Dropshipping Store
6. Deliver Goods
7. Become An Affiliate Marketer
8. Start A YouTube/TikTok Channel
9. Start A Podcast
10. Tutor Students Online
11. Start A Print-on-Demand Business
12. Wash & Clean
13. Test Websites
14. Exterior House Painting

Become An Online Freelance 

To begin with, one of the most popular side hustles for younger generations is becoming an online freelancer. As online freelancers, we need to post our expertise on platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork. 

To explain, people look to freelancers to work on a task based on what they excel at. For example, if someone needs a Japanese translation of a document, they can find a Japanese freelance translator. So, by offering our skills we can land shorter jobs and make money while managing school. 

Start a Blog

Writing a blog has emerged as a popular and rewarding side hustle for youth. With a laptop and an internet connection, we can either write blog articles for others or run our own blog. The more successful our posts are, the more income we can generate.

One way we can go about this is by generating blog content for others. In this case, we work as freelance blog writers and can get paid per word or per post.

If we run our own blog, we can capitalize on working with affiliate links and getting paid to include affiliate links in our post. We can also get paid to write product reviews and get sponsored by brands.

Become a Dog-walker/pet-sitter

Now, a more physical side hustle we can get into is dog walking or pet sitting. It’s quite simple! By becoming a dog-walker we can get paid per walk and work with multiple clients. On the other hand, as a pet-sitter, we get to hang around with pets and get paid by the hour. Either way, it’s super easy to manage and coordinate with our schedule. 

Sell Your Stuff

A great way to make some extra cash fast is to sell our unused things we have lying around the house. Surely, everyone has a bunch of things they haven’t used or worn that they can sell.

But, the best and most cost-free way to do this is by using a marketplace that has organic traffic. For example, we can sell on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Etsy, etc. 

Start A Dropshipping Store

Finally! We made it to the most profitable, worthwhile, and manageable side hustle that can get us to some real money. Start a dropshipping store! A dropshipping store allows us to sell a wide array of products without any upfront investment. 

Dropshipping is an eCommerce business model in which dropshippers do not keep products in stock. Instead, when a customer orders a product, the dropshipper then purchases the item from a third-party supplier.

At last, the supplier then ships the product directly to our customer’s door. Dropshipping is an ideal way for entrepreneurs to start their online stores with little upfront capital.

The dropshipping model is low-risk, low-investment, and has a huge profit potential. By offering a wide range of products we can cater to various demands and maximize our sales.

However, doing this manually can be daunting and allows for errors. So, when we start getting more sales it’s best to automate our dropshipping business and let the software do the work for us. 

With AutoDS dropshipping automation we can easily scale our business by automating our product importing, listing optimization, and order fulfillment. Plus, we won’t have to worry about price or stock changes since they also get automatically updated.

The AutoDS is an all-in-one dropshipping automation tool that does all the work for us. As such, we can have more free time for other responsibilities while making solid profits and becoming entrepreneurs. 

Deliver Goods

Most commonly, young people and college students work as delivery people. It’s a very easy and convenient side hustle with no learning curve. Plus, it’s easy to navigate against our schedule.

There are many directions we can go in if we choose to work in delivering goods. We can deliver groceries or food, or we can deliver packages. Regardless, it’s an easy way to make a quick buck. 

Become An Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing involves promoting another person’s or company’s products or services online. Then, we receive a commission for every sale through our referral, often facilitated by a unique link or code. 

This method presents a fantastic opportunity to combine multiple side hustles effectively. Whether we host a podcast or operate our own store, venturing into affiliate marketing can be an excellent means of generating passive income. Plus, if we work with as many brands or people as possible, we can see more substantial income. 

Start A YouTube/TikTok Channel

Another way we can make some extra money is by starting our own YouTube or TikTok Channel. Now, you may be wondering what is the difference between the two?

Well, if we want to make longer videos, tutorials, reviews, educational videos, etc., then we use YouTube. But, if we want to make shorter, trendy, punchy videos, then TikTok is our platform. 

To get started, we need to find the niche we love, for example – unboxing products. Search YouTube/TikTok for unboxing videos and see what our competitors are doing.

Then, we can start recording videos and make them better than theirs. However, we need to stay consistent, and as our views rise, we’ll be able to monetize our YouTube/TikTok channel.

To make some profit from this, we need to ensure we’re making interesting content that can get many views.

However, we can earn a profit after gaining at least 1,000 subscribers/followers and having 4,000 hours of our content watched in the past 12 months. Then, the more views we get, the higher the profit. So, unique content that appeals to our viewers is our golden ticket in this side hustle. 

Start A Podcast 

Podcasting has become an essential part of the vast realm of online content. In fact, podcasts have been gaining increasing popularity with each passing year since their inception.

Moreover, podcasting is a relatively affordable side hustle. With little equipment required, we can start podcasting right away. Apart from working with brands and advertising on our podcast, we can offer premium content or apply a subscription to make a profit. 

Tutor Students Online

As a college student or youth, a great and common way to make some income is by tutoring students online. Notably, by doing it online, we can save money on transport and reach more students. 

We can also provide online courses or mentorship programs with a one-off payment method. Or, we can adopt a more classic tutoring method and do one-on-one sessions and get paid by the hour. 

Start A Print-on-Demand Business

Starting a print-on-demand business can be a fun and low-risk side hustle. Moreover, we can mark up our products slightly more than we would in a regular eCommerce business. The customizability allows us to put slightly higher prices than on regular printed shirts. People like to be unique and would do that little extra to express that. 

Platforms like Printful, Printify, and Gelato offer a convenient way to upload our custom designs onto t-shirts. These designs are then printed and shipped when a customer makes a purchase, eliminating the need for large inventory investments in advance.

Wash & Clean

The most common way younger generations can make money is with the oldest side hustle of all time – mowing lawns or cleaning cars. The job is pretty self-explanatory, we wash someone’s car or mow their lawn for a specific price. Basically, we provide a service and get paid for it. For example, we can use the app TaskRabbit where we can easily and quickly connect with potential customers and find jobs. 

Test Websites

Now, a more technical side hustle is to test websites. We can make a good buck by sitting on our laptop and just clicking through a website to test if everything is working properly. For example, we click through the website buttons, test out the responsiveness, find aesthetic errors and so on. 

Interestingly, we could get $10 for a 15-20 minute approved testing video and make even more if we’re certified. There are a bunch of websites that make it easy for us to get started. For instance, we can utilize websites like UserPeek to get into this side hustle and make some extra cash. Seems like a solid, low-effort side hustle that offers a lot of flexibility. 

Exterior House Painting

And lastly, we have another classic side hustle – exterior house painting. It’s a common side gig, but labor-intensive. So, we should prepare to invest some time and effort into each painting job. 

However, if that doesn’t work out for us, we always have a myriad of other great side hustles to try out. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

There we have it! The 14 best side hustles for youth and college students. Plus, we’ve seen how we can leverage each of these side hustles to make some money. By finding the one that fits our skills, we can easily see some income flow in. 

It’s also a good idea to determine our time commitment and choose a side hustle that will allow us to juggle both work and school. Plus, having a side hustle allows us to perfect our skills and learn how to manage our time. As such, we can be better prepared, more responsible, and have better time management later on in life.