18 Easy Side Hustles Stay at Home Moms Can Do (+ Make Money)

Want to know the best stay at home mom jobs for you? Learn the proven ways to make money at home.

Looking for legitimate ways to earn money online can feel like a maze, right mama?

You hear about stay at home mom jobs on Pinterest, Google, Instagram and Facebook and can’t tell the difference if this is it! Can this help you make a living at home so you can finally quit your job?

Well, I want to refresh you with hope by giving you 18 practical ways to get started making money from home as a stay at home mom!

And you know what? Many of these mom jobs need no startup money!

How I Make a Living At Home As a Stay At Home Mom

When I had my twins I knew I wanted to stay home. I didn’t want to go back to work, but I had no idea how I was going to do that.

My husband has his own online business but I never knew that I could do something online.

I tried my hand at going to people houses to help them with their child with autism. I would create programs and social skills training for parents to help them with their child.

While I love doing this job, I found I was out of the house almost all day. My husband had to take care of our twins and couldn’t work. We didn’t want to use daycare as this would just eat up any income I was earning.

I found that staying home was a better option – don’t have to pay for gas, no wear and tear on the car and no daycare costs.

That seemed like a win-win situation for this stay at home mom to work at home.

For, me I learned about offering a service and found the freelance writing and blogging is my thing! I’ve been doing this for a few years now and I’m making a living!

1. Start a Blog

A lot of people don’t understand the concept of blogging or how you can make money doing it. There’s definitely a huge income opportunity with blogging but it does take time to build.

When I first started my blog, I had no idea what to blog about, how to gain an audience or how to grow my blog traffic.

In a nutshell, you can choose to offer blogging services to your clients or you can monetize your blog in the following four ways:

  1. Affiliate marketing
  2. Selling your own products or services
  3. Sponsored posts
  4. Google ads

You might think you need to be “techy” to start a blog, but you really don’t. There are free YouTube videos and free help (my post offers tutorials on WordPress too) to get you started.

When starting a blog, you need to also understand your audience. Who are you blogging for? If you want to use this as a way to promote your service, then your blog needs to attract the right client.

If you want to blog to make money with your blog posts, then finding that right audience and where they hang out – Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram – is key.

Check out my post where I walk you through step by step on how to build your own blog from scratch. If you’re not tech savvy, don’t let that stop you. It’s easier than you think! 😉

2. Sell Tailored Cooking Services

There is always a struggling mama who is either pregnant and unable to make her own meals (morning sickness) for her and her family or a postpartum mommy who wants to cry when she thinks of cooking.

That means there is a need to fill! A lot of moms out there will gladly pay for help on a weekly basis until they can get back on their feet.

3. Mindswarms Consumer Studies

Mindswarms is different from many of the other consumer study platforms out there because they pay well and the process is so simple. This is a video mobile survey that any stay at home mom can do when their baby is sleeping!

While you do have to qualify for each study, it won’t amount to hours of your wasted time.

Each set of prescreen questions is usually less than 10 questions. To set up an account is free. They never ask you to pay anything. Ever!

They pay anywhere from $50-$75 per study.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started:

  • A PayPal account to receive your payments (they usually pay within 24 hours)
  • A camera to record video (for recording your answers)

4. Sell E-Commerce

Selling online has never been easier! Not kidding. That’s why you’ll find people from all backgrounds jumping into this opportunity. If you’re diligent and keep outstanding customer service as your highest priority, it’s very possible to make a full-time income working part-time.

Amazon, Etsy, Ebay and Shopify are the more common online selling platforms which get a lot of traffic. There’s also Offer Up, which is geared more towards local selling.

Pro tip: If you lived in the United States, you can schedule for the post office to pick up your packages to ship right from your front door!

5. Create Lesson Plans for Children

If you love design and are passionate about education you should give this try! Teachers Pay Teachers is an online platform that allows you to sell your own lesson plans that teachers and homeschooling parents can use to teach their children.

6. Make Deliveries

This is technically not something you do from home but it made this list because of the flexibility. If you have a car, you can make an extra income picking up and dropping off people’s deliveries from the store to their house.

My MIL does this for the elderly women that live in her complex. Once a week, she takes orders and spends the day shopping for these women that can’t get out of the house. This is especially true in the winter when there’s snow!

Check out platforms like Uber Eats and Instacart. Instacart even has a cool referral system where you can earn $10 for every new customer you refer who makes their first order.

7. Dog Walking or Pet Sitting

If you’re not at animal person, don’t try this. But if you love pets, you can find recurring work, mama. The good thing is your experience or lack thereof really doesn’t matter. For the most part, people just want to know their pets are in good hands.

What’s great about this service is that it’s recurring. You can know your income every week or month and this has the capability to scale too.

You can start promoting your services close to home right in your neighborhood. Ask around to find out who may need a hand.

8. Become a Teacher/Tutor

It’s amazing how these days you can turn your passion or skill set into a paying job even without a college degree. And there’s a pretty good chance you have some type of knowledge others in this world need.

Take cooking for example. Boiling a pot of water, adding a variety of veggies and throwing in a few seasonings is one thing. Yet it’s quite another to be able to whip up a flavorful, creative, yummy, and healthy meal! Especially budget-friendly! Can you do that? If so, I can guarantee you that people will pay you to teach them how to cook.

Or maybe cooking isn’t your thing. What are you good at? Here are just a few ideas of what you could teach:

  • Computer technology (coding, working with different computer programs or even navigating basic email accounts) – Some people do not know how to do this and would gladly pay to be taught because it will help them grow their business or learn how to navigate the internet to search and apply for jobs.
  • Photography
  • Marketing – Every business needs to constantly be up-to-date in their marketing efforts and continually work to develop an effective strategy. Companies and entrepreneurs will pay to get advice on how to up their game and increase their ROI.
  • Cleaning, organizing or planning
  • Sketching or drawing caricatures
  • Social media marketing – if you know Pinterest or Instagram or any other social media platform, you can teach this to your audience offer a service!

Sites like Udemy, Teachable, or Skillshare are places where you can market your services. The best thing is that you can teach from the comfort of your home. You also can set up your courses in a way where you lay the groundwork, create the content, and spend the following days only updating and marketing the course. In other words, you don’t have to teach in real time!

9. Become a VA

Honestly, you probably already possess most of the skills you need to be a successful VA (virtual assistant). You’re the glue of your family. You plan, you help execute, and you organize. It’s on you to make sure the kids get from point “A” to point “B” and on time! It’s you mama that makes sure every soccer practice and game makes it in the calendar (and the fridge too if you’re really on your game).

Your help is gold in your family! So why not bring that same skill-set over to start earning you some money.

If you can do any of the following, you can become a VA:

  • Receptionist work
  • Managing calendars and emails
  • Booking appointment with clients
  • Writing blog content and/or basic graphic design skills

Being a virtual assistant is a business, and not a overnight revenue generator. It does take time to build.

Abby from the Virtual Savvy has been helping people build their VA businesses from scratch. And not only that, but she shares her best tips on how to market yourself, find clients, and build a successful lasting business.

10. We Go Look

With you smartphone in hand, you can “look” your way to getting paid. You can help businesses owners find and validate the information they need by completing simple tasks. You don’t need any special experience, and you can work when and where you want!

11. Dig Into Your Skillset

The best way to explore your options is to ask yourself what lights you up? What do you love and what are you already good at doing. Your answer will vary drastically from other mothers and even from me.

Start by making a list of all the things you love doing and are passionate about. Make the list as long as you can without talking yourself out of certain ideas before even finishing the list!

Then brainstorm ways you can create an income around your top 5. Then narrow those top 5 down to your number one choice.

In case you’re doubting how you can turn your passion or side hobby into extra cash, check out this guy! He’s taken balloon art to a whole new level. He teaches people how to make really detailed balloon art. Anything from animals, to swords, to cartoon characters.

If you already have a degree, put it to use! Start thinking of ways leverage your knowledge and make that degree work for you!

Don’t worry if you can’t come up with ideas in a day or two. Just keep working on it and developing a vision around the things you already can do or love to do. The best opportunities to increase your income are the opportunities you create for yourself.

And once you find that idea, you can start a blog and create posts or tutorials or even video tutorials on your skill.

12. Sell From Your Garden

Sometimes we tend to overlook money-making opportunities that are right under our noses. If you have a garden, why not sell the extras at your local farmers market or to neighbors?

13. Car Detailing

Do you love transforming junky, dirty cars from the inside out into something the owner will be proud of? You can make great money doing this!

Darren Priest is the Master Detailer, and has been in this industry for over 30 years. As you can imagine, he has a LOT of great tips and advice to share with others breaking into the same industry. His website and Youtube channel have a lot of information on how to become a professional car detailer.

Beginning any business venture usually requires that we take a risk if we truly want to be successful. Not just in money, but the involvement of our time and mental efforts. That’s what’s truly amazing about learning from an expert. It can take months or years off of your learning curve.

14. Fiverr

Fiverr allows you to price your services as low as $5, although you can go higher if you want to. There are plenty of categories to choose from. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a fat budget to get you started in a long-term, more sustainable business, Fiverr is a great place to start with what you have.

15. Wash and Fold Service

This one is simple, especially if you have little to no startup money. You can cater to those other mamas who are struggling to get loads of laundry done for her entire family.

You can also help those who either don’t have the time or are physically unable to do it themselves. It’s a nice little way to make some extra income and you don’t even have to leave the house.

Just make sure your fees cover the cost of your time, materials, and energy it takes to run the loads in the washer and dryer.

16. Find Gigs on Craigslist

Ever tried searching Craigslist in the local Gigs section.

You’ll be amazed at what you find. If you need cash fast (like yesterday!) head over to see what local gigs you can find. Sometimes people need help for just one day. Sometimes the work they need done is right up your alley and extremely flexible and quick to complete.

17. Teach a Language

Are you fluent in several languages, mama? Are you good at explaining things to others in a way they can understand? If so, becoming a language teacher may be a great fit for you.

Italki is a platform that connects students to teachers. You can set your own prices and choose to have one student or a virtual classroom of students.

Italki has over 5 million students and over 10,000 teachers teaching 130 different languages!

18. Get a Work From Home Job

More and more companies nowadays are making it possible for their employees to work from home. These companies do exist and yes, they do hire people like you and I. You just have to know where to look.

Here are list of a few sites where you can look for work from home jobs regularly:

For more ideas, check out this guide on other creative ways to make money at home!

Stay At Home Mom Jobs

There you have it! 18 realistic jobs for stay at home moms. It’s totally possible and feels great once your income starts creeping up to what you once made when you worked outside of the home.

No matter what money-making road you take, just remember one thing, mama. Be consistent and always deliver a high level of customer service. No matter what industry you dive into, strive to deliver your products and services better than your competition.

You got this!

Over to you now. What ways have you tried to make money from home that’s been successful? Share with us in the comments below.

Please remember to pin for later!

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