Updated Nov. 2, 2022
Imagine if you could make an extra grand a month. What would you do with it? While 1k isn’t a ton of money these days, it’s still a HUGE boost if you’re struggling to make ends meet or if you have something you’re excited about saving for.
This post will give you some ideas for how to make an extra $1000 a month in 2023, using anything from skills you’ve got, competencies from your day job, or even your hobbies.
How to make an extra 1000 a month:
- Start a consulting business
- Start a side hustle
- Teach a course
- Start a community
- Investing
- Editing videos
- Photography
- Freelance writing
- Start a blog
- Social media specialist
- SEO consultant
- Virtual assistant
- Graphic design
- YouTuber
- Web developer
- Tutoring
- Selling stuff
- Teaching a foreign language
- Selling your art
- Flipping furniture
- Editing
1. Start a consulting business
Consulting is HUGE business, as it’s expected that companies will spend $132 billion on consulting. While some of that could go to big firms like Bain and McKinsey, a lot of it goes to small, individual consultants.
If you’ve got a clear, marketable skill that companies need, you’re in a great position to start a consulting business. And–just to be clear–that DOESN’T mean that you need to know how to do regression analysis or be a CEO.
“Consultant” is just a fancy word for “hiring someone for a set amount of hours to help us do X thing.” Usually, consultants carry certain expertise the company doesn’t have and doesn’t want to hire someone full-time to do. Sometimes the company also just wants an outside perspective.
And, if you were wondering, companies hire consultants for:
- Social media marketing (“WTF is TikTok?”)
- Financial audits
- Program design
- Human resources
- Sales & business development
It can be pretty quick to set up a consulting business, and just use FreshBooks for invoicing.
Read more: What My $40,000 Client Taught Me About Starting a Consulting Business (Video)
Try the bookkeeping software that lets you get your consulting business up fast!
2. Start a side hustle
There’s not always a clear difference between consulting and other types of side hustles. But for the purposes of this article, let’s just say that consulting is when companies hire someone to tell them what to do, and many side hustles are more like “contracting”–doing something the company needs done but doesn’t have the capacity for.
I’m going to talk about specific side hustles below, but let’s start with the blanket idea of a “side hustle.”
Side hustles can be lucrative, especially if you pick the right thing. The right side hustle can earn you an extra $1,000 a month easily. For example, I do some content writing for other sites. I usually earn about $100/hr.
A great side hustle doesn’t have to be complicated. Pick something you’re good at: writing, video editing, numbers, data, or social media. Do your homework to figure out how companies use THAT THING and then see if you can connect with them and pitch your services.
Upwork has made contracting SUPER easy since you can set up a profile and bid on work. Do take the time to make your profile shine, since there’s a lot of competition. But by combining Upwork and, say, LinkedIn, you can build a pretty great digital presence and sell your services.
Read more: 12 Side Hustles You Can Start in 2023
3. Teach a course
I know that just about everyone is telling you to teach a course online. Let me clear up a few misconceptions.
I’ve spent months creating an online course and made $276 from it. It’s fricking hard to make a course, and it’s even harder to sell them. EVERYONE is trying to make courses. And at some point, you have to ask, can we really all get rich teaching online courses?
But having said that, I do believe there’s still a market for online courses. The very best way to do it is to get a razor-sharp idea of who your ideal client is, what their pain point is, and building your personal brand in a way that positions you as the expert on that thing.
And if you’re saying, “Oh F*$%, I’m not an expert on anything,” let me remind you that people buy online courses in everything from how to apply makeup to how to juggle. Many people do have something they could teach with an online course.
What platform should you use to teach an online course?
If you’ve got your own website, you could simply host the course there. But there’s a lot of good reasons to choose a marketplace that already has a lot of people on it, especially if you don’t have a huge personal brand.
Udemy: The thing I like about Udemy is that you keep most of the money you make when you bring someone onto the platform (97%) but people can also discover your course and take it (in this case, you keep 37%). In this case, it’s a no-brainer, because you keep all the money you’d get if you hosted your own course, and you’ll get sales you wouldn’t otherwise have.
Teachable: The thing I like about Teachable is that you can create your own domain name for your course, which is nice if you have your own website. It also has affiliate programs built-in, which means you can enlist others to sell your course for you and give them a share of the revenue.
$1000= $75/course x 13 students/mo
4. Start a community
There’s a lot of bullshit around making money online. So let me tell you, one of the things I think is REAL is the potential for starting communities online.
Communities exist for EVERYTHING, from people working on writing their first novel to first-time moms trying to figure it out. There’s so much potential for communities.
If you can bring together a group of 33 people and charge them each $30/mo for membership, you’ve just found an easy way to make an extra $1000 a month.
But the next part is important too. You need to deliver. Start great conversations. Invite guests. Host drop-ins for the group to get to know each other. This is the stuff that makes a community work. It doesn’t have to be a full-time job, but you’ll need to do some work to keep engagement up.
I run my community on Mighty Networks.
$1000=30 members paying $33.
5. Start Investing
Ok, so investing is a viable way to make $1000 a month. But you’ve got to have some money to start with, and you’ve got to know what you’re doing (at least a bit). I’m not going to tell you that you’re going to plop $100 in the market and come out with $1000 every month.
Bitcoin, NFTs, pfft. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re gonna get burned.
BUT if you do, and you’ve got the money to put up, go make $1000/mo.
6. Editing Videos
I sort of talked generically about side hustles above, but I want to start breaking these down into some specific options. Editing videos is a fantastic side hustle. Charge anywhere from $10-25/hr, depending on how good you are. (I use Adobe Premiere for my video editing).
You can build a profile on Upwork to sell your services.
$1000= 12 hours a week at $20/hr
7. Photography
If you’re a good photographer with an eye for a great picture, you could consider photography. I’m a guy with kids, and one thing I’ve realized is that people will drop just about any amount of money for great family pictures. You could also choose weddings and spend your weekends eating free food and shooting beautiful people.
Making money with photography will probably require a portfolio, you could start by seeing if people you know will let you take their pics for free. You could then set up a basic Squarespace site with your shots and some booking options–and promote the crap out of it on Facebook.
$1000= 3 shoots a month averaging $330
8. Freelance Writing
If I would have known how much you can make as a freelance writer, I would have forgotten about doing a PhD or becoming a policy analyst (my first career), and just focused on freelance writing. There are a bunch of different types of freelance writing, but some, in particular, are really lucrative.
It’s funny because you can hire writers for $10/hr online. But GOOD freelance writers are hard to come by, and people will pay for really good writers.
I have a guide to freelance writing here: How to Become a Freelance Writer
$1000= 4 articles x $250
9. Start a blog
I’m still blogging and still talking about blogging because I really do believe it still works. People search the internet all day every day, and if your blog is the thing they find–you WIN. You can monetize your blog in a ton of ways, including affiliate links, advertising, or linking to a product or service you sell.
I used the web host Bluehost to set up Roostervane and it served me well. If you’re going to start a WordPress blog they’re the way to go.
Read more: How to Make Money Blogging in 2023 – 7 Ideas (VIDEO)
Click here to see the host I used to start Roostervane
10. Social marketing specialist
If you’re good with digital marketing, you might consider becoming a part-time social marketing specialist. There are probably all sorts of businesses in your town that have no freaking clue how to run their social media feeds. That local restaurant or clothing store could be bringing in WAY more business if people in town actually knew they were there.
Maybe this is where you come in. If you love all things social media, could you offer to manage a local business’ social media feed for $1000/mo? It wouldn’t be full-time (probably just a few hours a day), and if you can bring them some real eyes and traffic it will be the best marketing money they’ve ever spent.
Here’s a Skillshare course on how to create ads for local businesses!
11. SEO consultant
SEO, AKA search engine optimization, is the process of making sure your website comes up FIRST in Google searches. It’s a huge need for businesses, since being the first result on Google can add a ton of extra money in revenue every year.
If you already know or want to learn the in-demand skill of SEO consulting, you can easily charge $150/hr for your work. SEO takes a combination of technical chops and writing chops–and honestly, it’s not hard to learn.
I’m great at SEO, and I love the technical side too, and I’m not a techy person.
One of the first courses I’d recommend is Rand Fiskin’s Intro to SEO on Skillshare! It’s one of the best from an industry expert, and since it comes with your Skillshare Membership it’s a no-brainer!
$1000=$150 x 7hrs/mo
12. Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants are everywhere. People hire virtual assistants to help with everything from scheduling to email to social media posts to just about every other task you can imagine. Being a virtual assistant requires being a bit of a jack or jill of all trades. It will take some good people skills, and probably some organization.
To get started, you could create an account on Upwork and post your services there.
$1000 = $20 x 13 hours/week
13. Graphic Design
I’ve told the story before, but my spouse–who does all the design for this site–chose to leave her social work career after we had kids and chase her true passion: graphic design. It pays better and she LOVES it.
If you’re a graphic designer or if you want to learn design, it’s probably the perfect way to make an extra $1000/month. Although you could charge by the hour, I’d recommend just charging by the project. For example, a brand redesign for a local business is definitely worth $1000.
Do one of those a month and you’ll hit your target.
$1000 = 1 brand redesign
14. YouTuber
I’m going to go here. You can make $1000/mo as a YouTuber. But I’m not going to tell you that you can do this with monetizing through ads. While it is possible, it would take 1 million views/month to earn $1000 on YouTube. And getting that many views is not easy.
Instead, you could either activate one of YouTube’s new monetization features (like a store or paid subscribers). OR, create a YouTube channel but use it to sell coaching, consulting, or a course.
It’s a way better way to use YouTube to make that sort of cash.
15. Web developer
If you’re a web developer, you’re golden. It’s a super in-demand skill and there are never enough (check out our list of high-income skills you can teach yourself). Post your services on a site like UpWork or advertise on LinkedIn. You might need a portfolio of what you’ve built–which you can use GitHub for.
The truth is, even if you’re not a developer, you could start a pretty profitable side business as a website creator. While some sites like Squarespace let you create drag and drop websites, it’s still a notch above what some business owners are willing or able to do. (See Bluehost vs Squarespace)
So creating websites for businesses or people who might want one never goes out of style.
$1000= 2 x $500 website
16. Tutoring
Tutoring is big business, so if you happened to ace English or Math in school, you might be in demand. Tutors work one-on-one with students to help them improve their grades. At the high school level, parents are willing to pay well for good tutors, especially as students approach college or university age.
You could post your services online, or go through one of the many online tutoring sites.
$1000=$20 x 12 hours/week
17. Selling stuff
It’s not as sexy as some of the things on this list, but you can pretty easily make an extra $1000 a month in 2022 just by selling stuff. To start with, you might just get rid of stuff you have lying around and don’t need.
You can sell things either online or locally, but I prefer to sell stuff locally. It’s so easy to throw things up on Facebook Marketplace and someone comes to your door and pays cash.
Once you run out of stuff to sell, keep an eye out for people getting rid of stuff. Once a year, my town has a “get rid of everything” garbage day, when people put furniture, electronics, and more out at the road. This could be a great time to put up some extra merchandise to clean up and resell.
18. Teaching a foreign language
Teaching a foreign language is a great way to earn an extra $1000 a month. And it’s probably even better if the language is one you speak all the time. There are lots of sites out there that let you sell your language teaching skills. There’s a list here.
19. Selling your art
If you’re an artist, you could make an extra $1000 a month selling your art? It’s not easy to find clients, but people are willing to pay for art. Try a site like Etsy, or create a Facebook page and go to local art shows to see if you can generate some sales.
20. Flipping furniture
If you have some carpentry and/or upholstery skills, flipping furniture might be for you. If you can focus on finding some great pieces with some good bones you can paint or put new fabric on, you might be able to turn a profit. One of the best things to flip is old, wooden tables and cabinets, since they were built much better back in the day. See if you can find them at garage sales or thrift stores, sand and paint/varnish them, and get them up on Facebook marketplace.
If you play your cards right, you could make $1000 with 2-3 pieces of furniture.
21. Editing
Can you spot typos and grammatical errors in manuscripts or content with the eyes of a hawk? Maybe you should start a side hustle editing. Editors are in demand, with so much new written content being created every week. Whether you’re editing web copy or someone’s first novel, you can make an extra $1000 a month from it.
The best place to get started is probably on Upwork, and you could advertise your services on LinkedIn too.
Conclusion
Think about what you could do with that extra $1000. Would you travel? Save for the future? Get together a down payment on a house?
No matter who you are, hopefully, this list has given you some ideas for how to make an extra $1000 a month in 2022! The hardest part, seriously, is starting. It’s hard to take the initiative and put yourself out there.
Good luck!
Read More: 11 High Income Skills You Can Teach Yourself in 2023
