If you’re searching the internet and trying to find the perfect side hustle to make some extra dough, you’re probably seeing the same sorts of things on every site. Start a blog! Start a YouTube channel! Flip furniture on Facebook Marketplace or eBay. Hell, I’m sure we’ve covered some of those side hustles in one of our past videos. And that’s because they work!
Flipping furniture is still a solid way to make some extra dough if you have an eye for quality and an ability to find buyers. And there are people out there making a ton of money from blogging. But, maybe you’ve tried those mainstream side hustles and you’ve decided that they aren’t for you. Or maybe you just want to add another revenue stream into your life.
Well, it’s time to start thinking outside the box. We’re going to talk about some weird but profitable side hustles that probably never even crossed your mind. And some of the gigs on this list can earn you thousands of extra dollars on top of your main job so you can reach your financial goals even faster.
These are 8 weird but profitable side hustles for 2022. Let’s go!
#1: Selling Snails on eBay
Believe it or not, eBay actually allows people to sell live creatures and ship them through the mail to buyers. It sounds insane, but you can actually buy and sell snails on eBay. And, depending on the size of your operation, you can actually make some solid money doing this.
I found a listing for five pink ramshorn snails for $20. Why would anyone want to pay money to buy snails online? Well, snails actually eat algae, so people like to put them in their fish tanks to help control the level of algae from getting out of hand (too much algae in a fish tank can kill the fish). Plus, snails are cute too!
Well, even if you don’t agree with that last statement, you can still make some nice profit off of selling snails online. You just have to get a big aquarium, breed some snails, list them on eBay, and, then, when you get an order, you can put them in a Ziploc bag with a wet paper towel and they’ll arrive happy and healthy at the buyer’s house.
#2: Sharpening Knives
Now, I first came across the whole knife sharpening side hustle when I saw a flyer for someone offering knife sharpening in my local supermarket. And I was thinking, Who needs someone to come and sharpen their knives? Doesn’t everybody own a knife sharpener of their own?
Well, as it turns out, there are a lot of culinary enthusiasts out there who are crazy about making sure that their knives are extra sharp. And they’re willing to pay people with professional knife sharpening kits to come in and do their sharpening every few weeks.
It doesn’t really take any expertise to learn how to sharpen knives well and you can pick up a solid knife sharpening kit for like $35 on Amazon. I found a kit from Whetstone for that price. That’s a low-cost, professional-grade kit that you could have delivered to your door by the end of the day. And that kit will pay for itself the very first time that you get a gig.
I found a pricing chart online from a professional sharpening company that said that they charge $15 to sharpen one single knife between 6 and 9 inches. And, if someone calls you up to sharpen their knives, that means that they probably want 4 or 5 knives sharpened, which means you’re walking out of each gig with like $60!
If you can get twenty $60 gigs per month, that means you’re making $1,200 a month from sharpening knives. That’s your rent right there! Just make sure you don’t cut yourself!
#3: Selling Scrap Metal
Now, selling scrap metal definitely doesn’t sound like the most glamorous side hustle out there and you’re probably going to need to have a pickup truck if you want to make any significant amount of money doing this. But, you can actually make a good amount of money from delivering loads of scrap metal to scrap yards.
The first thing that you have to do is find sources of scrap metal. Some people go around to people’s homes who are moving and take away their old appliances and other large metal items. In some cases, the homeowners will even pay you to remove their scrap. Then, you can turn around and sell those metal appliances to the scrap yard and make even more money.
Shooting ranges are also a great place to get scrap metal. Their floors are littered with brass shells that you can collect and resell for around $1 to $2 per pound. That can translate to some serious cash if you can collect enough.
Another great place to look for scrap metal is storage companies. Pay a visit to your local branch of CubeSmart and see if they have any appliances or other scrap metal left behind by renters. If you can develop a good relationship with a local storage company, they’ll probably start calling you all the time and telling you that they have loads of scrap that you can come take.
You can also look for scrap at farms where they may have old equipment that doesn’t work anymore. Or at medical care facilities where they might have old wheelchairs or beds or lamps to offload. Wherever you decide to find your scrap, you should also make sure that you find the scrap yard that’s going to pay you the most money.
Make some calls to all of the scarp yards around you and find out which ones are offering the best prices for which kinds of metal. In some cases, you might be going to one yard to sell copper and another yard for tin. Follow the dollar sign and selling scrap metal could end up making you some serious cash.
#4: Host Trivia Nights
With the COVID-19 pandemic coming to an end and restaurants and bars opening back up, local dining and drinking establishments are working harder than ever to get people through their doors. And, one great proven way to get more people into your venue is by hosting trivia night!
And that means that there’s an opportunity for you to make some money. Market yourself as a trivia host and start selling your services to bars and restaurants. Tell them that you have a fully complete trivia game ready to go, say that you’ll host the trivia event for a flat fee, and then promote the shit out of your trivia night through social media to make sure a ton of people show up.
It’s a win-win-win. The venue is going to make money off of the food and drinks that people buy while they’re participating in trivia, you’ll collect your flat fee, and you’ll probably have a ton of fun in the process.
Plus, the money you’ll make isn’t too bad either. Trivia hosts can usually walk away from an event with $50 to $100. And, if you can do that 3 nights per week at three different bars, you can be making between $600 and $1,200 per month. That’s your car payment covered by just hosting trivia!
Plus, you’ll probably make some great friends, get a couple of free drinks, and just generally have a great time along the way.
#5: Pet Portraits
Now, here’s a side hustle that you may have heard of before. I actually know several people who do this. It’s exactly what it sounds like: you put ads online telling people that you will do a portrait of their pet for money. It’s that simple.
Now, I know that this sounds incredibly random, but you would be astonished at how much demand there is for this service online. I found an ad on Fiverr where this person was charging $75 to draw a realistic portrait of your pet. Now, personally, I would probably not pay that much money for a portrait of my dog. But, apparently, some people will because this person had 753 reviews, meaning that 753 people have paid them to do a portrait. If we do the math, that means this person has made over $56,000 from drawing people’s pets. That’s insane. Good for them.
People are absolutely crazy about pet portraits! And, while most people don’t charge as much as that specific seller, or get as much business, there’s obviously some money to be made from pet portraits.
Start out by doing portraits for your friends and then use those as your portfolio. Then, advertise your work across the internet and list your services on sites like Fiverr, UpWork, or Reddit.
You can also just make an entire website dedicated to your portraits. Then, get your paintbrushes or markers out and watch the business come in.
#6: Voice Acting
Now, in 2022, there are more ways than ever to get paid just to speak into a microphone. People are podcasting and making lots of money, people are streaming themselves on Twitch just talking about nothing, and they’re raking in the dough too. But, have you ever thought about being a voice actor?
That’s right. You can actually make some solid money as a voice actor these days. And it can be a ton of fun too. I found a woman on Fiverr who was charging a minimum of $25 for voiceover work and has had over 1,000 clients. That means that voiceover work has made her at least $25,000. That’s enough to buy a new car just by speaking into a microphone.
Now, obviously, there is a bit more to it than that. First, you’re going to have to record a demo reel, which is essentially just a recording of your voice that shows off your skills. Then, you need to set up a profile on Fiverr and UpWork and sites like that and start marketing your skills.
You can also reach out to people directly through Reddit or via email and try to land gigs that way. There are tons of different types of voice-acting gigs. You could be the voice of a cartoon character, the voice in one of those car commercials you see on TV, the voice that tells people what stop they’re at on the subway, the voiceover on a YouTube video, in an e-learning course, in a video game, and much more.
There is a huge demand for voice actors, especially as the online media industry continues to grow. And, according to ZipRecruiter, even entry-level voice actors can make around $30,000 a year, which is a whole lot of money if you’re just doing this as a side hustle. And, if you can network within the industry and keep getting jobs, experienced voice actors can make up to around $200,000 a year. At that point, your voice-acting work could buy you a freaking house,
Plus, you’ll have the pride of knowing that that’s your voice behind that nationwide commercial or popular animated movie. That’s pretty cool.
#7: Selling Feeder Insects Online
Now, if you suffer from entomophobia, which is the fear of insects, this is most definitely not the side hustle for you. However, if you’re a little bit weird and you don’t mind dealing with cockroaches or crickets, then you can make some serious money selling these kinds of insects online.
Why? Well, because there are a whole lot of pet lizards and other reptiles out there that have to eat and there aren’t many people out there willing to breed the insects needed to feed them. I found a testimonial from a Vice article saying that a guy makes $900 bucks a month from selling insects online. And they only had to invest $50 to get started!
Essentially, you’re just going to need some tanks where you can start breeding feeder insects, which are insects that reptiles like to eat such as crickets, silkworms, hornworms, and, yes, certain types of cockroaches.
If any of you weirdos out there like bugs, then you can make some major profit selling these feeder insects through eBay or by setting up your own website. You may even be able to sell them directly to pet stores too. Just make sure that you don’t let your bugs escape because I’ve heard some horror stories of amateur breeders letting their bugs escape and then the whole house is infested. That sounds like an absolute nightmare.
#8: Selling Hot Sauce
If you’ve ever been to your local farmer’s market, you’ve probably come across someone selling homemade hot sauce for like $8 a bottle. And I’m not hating on the hot sauce industry but have you ever looked at the ingredients that go into that $8 bottle? It’s usually just some sort of pepper, vinegar, and water.
Sometimes these hot sauce guys get fancy and throw some pineapple or mango in there for flavor. But, hot sauce, in its simplest form, is just those ingredients: pepper, vinegar, and water. How easy is that?
If you want to get into the hot sauce business, you can start out by creating some sort of pepper-growing operation, which is fairly easy, as peppers are a pretty easy plant to grow. Growing your own peppers is the best way to keep your costs down. However, it’s going to be rather labor-intensive.
Alternatively, you could find a local farmer who produces hot peppers and buy them in bulk. That way you won’t have to deal with growing and harvesting peppers and you can focus all your efforts on making your hot sauce.
You could also buy your peppers from a supermarket but that’s going to be the most expensive place to buy them, which is going to cut into your profit margins.
Once you have your peppers, you can go ahead and start experimenting with different hot sauce recipes. Start off simple and then try adding in some other flavors if you like. Once you find the ideal hot sauce recipe, you should start focusing on marketing. Get a bottle and label that are going to catch people’s eyes. Make some t-shirts to wear while you’re selling your product. Find all the local farmer’s markets you can and try talking to local markets that might consider stocking your hot sauce.
Then, watch your profits soar. The reason that I recommend making hot sauce over other types of food products is that it’s fairly easy to make a pretty good hot sauce and people these days go crazy for craft hot sauces.
So, if you have a high spice tolerance and a passion for the culinary arts, this could be a great side hustle for you to make some good money and have a ton of fun.
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