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This has been a tough year for many people. Businesses were shut down for nearly two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the governmental responses to it. Even as businesses were allowed to reopen, many reduced employees’ hours or temporarily furloughed at least some of their staff.

However, the economy has some pent-up demand. So far, government stimulus payments and supplemental unemployment benefits have kept the economy afloat. As a result, enterprising workers are finding temporary, part-time, or side jobs to make more money and occupy their free time.

Here are ten ideas for side jobs to make more money this year:

Use Your Land and Home

If you own a home with extra space or vacant land, you can use that idle space for side jobs to make more money. A few ideas for putting extra space to work include:

• Rent it out: Find a tenant to rent a spare bedroom, basement apartment, or guest house for one of the easiest side jobs to make more money. The greatest risk is non-payment of rent, so make sure you use background checks and credit checks to screen your tenants.
• Use it for storage: Another one of the easiest side jobs to make more money is to rent your extra space out for storage. When you rent your space out for storage, you do not even need to worry about letting a stranger into your home. If you join a < href=”https://www.neighbor.com/”>storage directory service, the directory will help you find customers and process payments for you. All you need to do is keep your customers’ items, vehicles, RVs, or other “stuff” safe.
• Raise or shelter animals: If you have a pasture or other land, you can raise small domestic animals, like chickens, alpacas, or goats. These animals can become side jobs to make more money without, well, dispatching them — chickens lay eggs, alpacas grow wool, and goats give milk. Just make sure that you comply with local animal control regulations for domestic animals.

Seasonal Temporary Jobs

Many seasonal jobs are tied to tourism. Unfortunately, in a year where many people have changed or canceled their travel plans due to COVID-19, tourism will not need as many seasonal workers as usual.

However, even during a recession and pandemic, seasonal workers will be needed to perform other jobs.

• During the spring, summer, and fall, farms need temporary workers to plant and harvest crops.
• Commercial landscape services need temporary workers to mow lawns, trim trees, and landscape grounds.
• Campgrounds, parks, and trails need workers to keep recreation areas clean and safe.
• During wildfire season, some areas need temporary workers to monitor public lands for fires. These areas also need trained firefighters to extinguish any wildfires that are detected.
• During the winter holiday season, retailers need temporary workers to stock shelves, check out customers, and clean stores.
• In some snowy regions, side jobs to make more money during the winter include shoveling snow or plowing roads.

Moreover, some temporary jobs have been created as a direct result of the pandemic. For example, restaurants, retail stores, hospitals, motels, and hotels have had to hire extra cleaning people so that the property can be deep cleaned every day. Similarly, medical testing labs and some government offices have had to increase staffing to meet the demand for additional services. The advantage of these side jobs to make more money during the pandemic is that they may turn into a long term position when the pandemic is over.

Sell Your Things

If you were able to do some spring cleaning during the economic shutdown, you might have found some stuff (or even a lot of stuff) that you can do without. Rather than throwing your unneeded possessions into the trash, create side jobs to make extra money for yourself and your family by selling them.

There are a few ways that you can go about selling your extra stuff:

• Apps: You can download an app to list the stuff you want to sell. The advantage of using an app is that it is usually free to use and exposes your listings to a huge audience.
• Classified ads: As newspaper readership has declined, classified ads have moved online. Websites like Craigslist now take the place of the old classifieds section, with listings of used goods for sale. Like phone apps, these websites expose your listings to a huge audience.
• Auction websites and apps: Auction websites like eBay have captured a previously untapped market, making buying used stuff into a contest. This added excitement has given eBay an enormous audience.
• Social media: Social media platforms, such as Facebook Marketplace, allow sellers to reach a big audience with an added benefit — users can send ads of interest to their friends, potentially allowing your ad to go viral.
• Consignment shops: While they are not as common as they were in the past, consignment shops still exist. Consignment shops sell your stuff for you and cut you in on the sale price.
• Search engines: Simply search for where to sell my jewelry or other stuff to find buyers in your area. Pawn shops, precious metal buyers, antique shops, and other businesses that buy used stuff will come back in your search results.

Flip Goods

In a variation on the previous side jobs to make more money from your stuff, you can become a broker of sorts, by buying and selling goods. This is analogous to flipping houses. You get a good deal on goods, either used or new, and re-sell them at a profit. For example:

• Bulk goods: Shop online for bulk goods and resell individual units or small lots. For example, during the pandemic you could buy a case of face masks and sell individual boxes of masks from the case, making a profit on each box.
• Collector items: Find collector items that the seller might have under-priced and resell them at a profit. Toys, art, sports cards, autographs, and other collectibles can turn a nice profit under the right circumstances. These items can be found anywhere, including classified ads, garage or yard sales, estate sales, and storage unit auctions.
• Precious metals: When the economy goes down, investors often flee toward precious metals. If you buy gold, silver, or platinum, you might be able to flip it at a profit relatively easily as the economy slows. Precious metal buyers include wealthy investors, gold pawn shops, and precious metal brokers.
• Real estate: The popular view of flipping assets comes from real estate. Just be aware that flipping real estate takes a lot of money to buy a home and fix it up, the real estate market might go down during a down economy, and buying and holding real estate might make it more difficult to turn a profit with expenses like real estate taxes.
• Cars: Buying used cars and fixing them up before you flip them can turn a good profit. However, be aware that you might be considered a car dealer if you sell more than a couple used cars per year. If you are considered a car dealer, you will be subject to lemon laws and credit reporting laws. In New York, for example, a car that cannot be fixed after 3 attempts at warranty service is considered a lemon subject to lemon laws.

Start a Home-Based Business

One of the best side jobs to make more money is to start a home-based business. Keep in mind that any of the ideas listed above could, technically, be a home-based business. Under the IRS’s regulations, a home-based business is entitled to deduct a portion of expenses related to the home as a business expense if:

1. A portion of the home is regularly and exclusively used for business: This means that the area of the home used for business is only used for business and is not used for any personal use.
2. A portion of your home is your principal place of business: This means that you cannot deduct a portion of your home expenses if you also have an office, store, or another principal place of business.

Even if you are not able to deduct a portion of your mortgage, mortgage interest, utilities, and home depreciation as business expenses, you can still deduct ordinary business expenses. For example, business supplies, computers, and commercial office desks and furniture are all ordinary business expenses that would are usually deductible on your taxes. Just be sure to do it all legally, otherwise you might end up calling a bail bond company to get you out of the slammer.

Work from Home

Perhaps you do not want to take the risk of starting a home business as one of your side jobs to make more money. You can still work from home for many types of employers. Some examples include:

• Assembly work: Stuffing envelopes, assembling electronics, and sewing are jobs that are outsourced to home workers.
• Telephone work: Call centers hire home workers to provide technical support, reservations, and orders, and phone sales.
• Freelance work: Artists, musicians, and composers, and writers often work from home as contractors or freelancers.

Turn a Hobby Into a Business

One of the most satisfying side jobs to make more money is to make money from something you love. For example, if you have a hobby, you can make money by turning that hobby into a business. Some ideas include:

• Crafts: If you knit, sew, tie flies, carve, or make other crafts, you can sell them to a local retailer or set up your own online store to turn those crafts into money.
• Collections: Collecting stamps, coins, toys, and other collectibles can be an expensive hobby. You can support your collection, and make some additional cash, in many ways, including writing guide books, rating the condition of collectibles, or selling parts of your collection to toy, stamp, or silver buyers.
• Guide videos: Many hobbyists make money from streaming videos on YouTube or other video platforms. Regardless of your hobby, there are almost always others interested in it. You can create a popular and profitable streaming video channel with nothing more than your knowledge and passion.

Build Things

If you love to work with your hands, building products can be a good side business. This is particularly true for tradespeople who can build custom products.

For example, if you have been to welding school, you might be able to build custom products that cannot be purchased off the shelf. In some areas, a welder is a highly valued member of the community who can help repair irrigation pipes and build steel fences, ramps, barns and workshops, and even animal troughs.

Similarly, if you are a carpenter, you might be in high demand to build furniture, deck and stair railings, fireplace mantles, and other wood products. Since this work is custom ordered, these side jobs to make more money can be highly lucrative.

Repair Shop

Side jobs to make more money are not limited to making something new. You can also create a business specifically directed to repairing other business’s products. Some examples include:

• Electronics repair: Over the past few years, electronics repair services have been in high demand. The main reason — cell phones. Almost everyone has cracked a screen or bricked a phone by dropping it into water. Rather than spending hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars to replace it, owners can have them repaired for a fraction of that.
• Auto repair: If you have the tools and skills, automotive repair can be an excellent side job. This is particularly true for repair technicians who specialize. For example, diesel mechanics, RV mechanics, and semi-truck and trailer mechanics can always find customers for tune-ups, repairs and trailer alignment.

Salvage Work

One side job that is often overlooked is turning junk into profit. Salvage work can include “dumpster diving” to retrieve things that can be refurbished, repaired, and resold. While these products might not be hugely valuable, they cost very little or nothing but your time to retrieve and fix up. Thus, in volume, this side job can turn a good profit.

Better yet, you can focus on products that can fetch a higher profit. For example, if you have automotive knowledge, you can hunt at junkyards or salvage yards for car, truck, and trailer parts that are still in good enough condition that they can be reused. With your ability to identify salvageable parts, you can focus on those that have greater value and are in better condition, so you can realize the highest possible return on investment.

This type of work does come with risks. You want to be sure that the buyer is aware that you cannot provide a warranty for the products you salvage. Moreover, you want to be careful not to break any laws in your city or state that prohibit dumpster diving or other salvage activities.

Side jobs to make more money are critically important to many workers during this pandemic. With reduced hours, furloughs, and layoffs, many workers need the additional money just to make ends meet. Fortunately, the economy provides many opportunities for side jobs. Whether you build your own business or work for someone else, side jobs can provide the additional income you need.

More importantly, developing a side job from something you love and are good at can make the job much more enjoyable. This could take the form of a hobby that you turn into a business or a skill like repairing or building things. In either case, your side job may bring you not just profit but happiness and satisfaction.