If you and your partner share similar skills and interests, as partners often do, why not use those skills and interests to make some money on the side while still spending time together?
Here are some ideas for side hustles for couples. See which option suits you best, and start making some money on the side together!
1. Look Into Car Washing/Detailing 🚘
Many people like to keep their cars in perfect shape but don’t have time to bring them to a car wash. That opens an opportunity.
If you and your partner go into car washing, you won’t need to make any significant investments to get started. All you need is access to water, a good vacuum cleaner, and a few supplies, such as car wash liquid, sponges, microfiber towels, and the like. You can attract clients by offering washing services to your neighbors and marketing yourself on social media.
If you go into car detailing, you’ll need a bit more experience and a few more supplies. Detailing, as the name implies, requires more attention to detail. You’d be cleaning every minute nook and cranny of cars, making them look almost brand new when you’re done.
💰 Earnings potential: Of course, while it takes more time, effort, and upfront investment, it also pays better. You can earn $800 a week just by offering detailing services on weekends[1].
2. Try House Cleaning 🧹️
For some people, cleaning is a headache-inducing chore. For others, it’s an opportunity to relax. If you and your significant other are closer to the second category of people, you might want to consider making some extra cash by offering house cleaning services.
You don’t have to become a full-time maid. You can still keep your regular jobs and offer cleaning services as a side hustle on the weekends or during the holidays.
Provide general house-cleaning services such as washing windows and deep-cleaning carpets and furniture, or become more specialized if you like. You can help clean houses when the residents move, offer cleaning services after a catastrophe such as flooding, and more.
💰 Earnings potential: On average, house cleaners charge between $40 and $50 an hour, depending on the size and condition of the home[2].
3. Gardening/Landscaping 👩🌾
Spending more time outside is always good, especially when you can earn more money in the process. Gardening or landscaping is one of the best ways to make money while enjoying your time out in nature.
As gardeners, you’d be responsible for tasks such as mowing lawns and raking the leaves. You’d also need to maintain existing plants. As landscapers, you’d have a more physically demanding job, but you’d be more involved with planning out gardens and creating more aesthetically pleasing environments.
💰 Earnings potential: While the pay for gardeners isn’t always the greatest, averaging around $15 an hour, it can help you and your significant other add a few hundred a month to your budget.
4. Try Your Hand at Freelancing 👩💻
If you and your partner are more of homebodies rather than outdoor enthusiasts, apply for some freelancing positions on popular platforms like UpWork, Freelancer, or Fiverr. Virtually any skills, talents, or expertise you have can be monetized on these platforms. From data entry to analysis, marketing, web designing, and tutoring, you can find millions of freelancing jobs with relative ease.
You get to set your own rates and schedules, choose your own clients, and work at your own pace.
💰 Earnings potential: Since there are so many different jobs and opportunities, it’s difficult to say how much you could earn as a freelancer. Some of the best-paid positions include copywriters, web developers, and digital marketing consultants.
5. Start Blogging ✍️
If you want complete freedom and independence as you make some side money, consider blogging. First, you and your significant other should start by choosing a niche. It can be anything from food and travel to financial advice, fitness, interior decor, and pet training – any niche you are an expert in or are simply interested in.
Once you’ve chosen a niche, you should start coming up with content relevant to it. Share entertaining, educational, or “edutaining” posts that deliver value to the readers.
Keep in mind, however, that you won’t immediately start making money with your blog. You need to attract a large enough readership before you can monetize it through affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and ads.
💰 Earnings potential: Once you start monetizing, the sky is your limit. You could earn upwards of $45,000 a year[4].
6. Host a Podcast 🎤
While blogging can certainly be lucrative, it isn’t for everyone. Since it’s mainly about sharing text-based content, it can be challenging for those whose writing skills leave much to be desired. If your and your partner’s writing skills are nothing to write home about, you could consider an alternative: podcasting.
Spoken blogs and podcasts allow you to share your insights into various topics, connect with a larger like-minded community, and make some cash.
If you’re camera-shy, you can publish audio-only podcasts and still make enough to impact your budget significantly.
💰 Earnings potential: Depending on how many listeners you have, you can make well over $500 a month[5].
7. Start a YouTube Channel 🎥
A step up from both blogging and podcasting is starting a YouTube channel. Of course, it isn’t easy to become a YouTube celebrity. You’ll need to choose your niche, develop entertaining videos that your target audience will enjoy, create new posts frequently, and stay engaged with your followers.
There will be a pretty significant upfront investment. You’ll need high-quality audio and video equipment and get your hands on reliable video editing software. And don’t expect to start making money as soon as you post your first video.
💰 Earnings potential: While you could earn an average of $1,154 per week as a small YouTuber creator, it will take some time to build up a large enough following and start monetizing your channel[6].
8. Create Online Courses 💻
If you don’t think that YouTube is the platform for you, but you’d still like to create video content, you and your partner should look into online course creation. The prerequisite is that you have the skill or talent to teach others.
You could be a fitness instructor or a health coach and create courses others could join. You could create WordPress courses, music lessons, writing courses, and more.
When creating online courses, you’ll have two options: create pre-recorded course videos and sell them or host live courses. Of course, you can also mix and match if that’s your preference.
💰 Earnings potential: Your earnings will vary significantly based on your chosen niche and the number of students you attract. You’ll also be able to set your own rates, potentially earning just a few hundred a month or well over $33,340 a year.
9. Organize in-Person Classes 👨🏫
Of course, not everything has to be internet-based. You and your significant other could give in-person classes a try.
You could organize casual one-time art or pottery classes for adults, arts and crafts courses for kids, or commit to longer programming courses with pre-set curriculums and more. After-school tutoring for kids in your neighborhood is another option. Whatever subject or topic you know well enough to teach, you can teach in in-person classes.
💰 Earnings potential: As a private tutor with enough experience, you could earn over $100 an hour. As a casual instructor, your earnings will vary based on your chosen rates and the number of students you and your partner attract[8].
10. Try Voice Narration 🎤
If you and your partner enjoy reading and you both have a knack for voice acting, voice narration could be just the side hustle for you. In a nutshell, your task would be to create audio content for audiobooks, ads, apps, or even video games.
You’d need to be able to read aloud with emotion, do different voices, and approach every task with the utmost professionalism, even if your job is to do voices for characters in a children’s book.
💰 Earnings potential: You and your partner could be a voice narration duo, or you could each find individual gigs. Depending on your skills and the clients you find, you could each earn over $100 an hour for your work[9].
11. Sign up as Hosts on Airbnb 🏡
If you and your partner have a home large enough for hosting, consider signing up as a host on Airbnb or similar platforms. It’s one of the easiest ways to earn some money on the side without investing too much time and effort into a second job.
If your property isn’t large enough for you and your potential guests, you could only list your home when you know you’ll be away while you’re visiting family or traveling.
💰 Earnings potential: Depending on your home’s condition, size, and location, you could easily earn over $200 a night renting out your property[10].
12. Flip Furniture
You’ve likely seen countless before-and-after images of restored furniture online. Some people just know how to breathe new life into old items, and it’s not necessarily complicated. If you and your significant other are interested in refurbishing old furniture, this could be the perfect opportunity for you to make some extra cash.
Flipping furniture can be a fulfilling and lucrative endeavor. You need just a few basic tools, some of which you probably already have around the house, like screwdrivers and paintbrushes, sander, sandpaper, furniture cleaner, etc.
💰 Earnings potential: You and your significant other can find cheap furniture at thrift stores, play around with it, then sell it on platforms like Facebook Marketplace. Depending on the items you find and the quality of your work, you could make over $1,000 a month.
👩 Real people, real stories: I started furniture flipping as a pandemic hobby and turned it into a flourishing business. Here’s how I make $1000+/month flipping furniture.
13. Start a Photography Side Hustle 📸
Photography is perhaps the most popular choice for a couple’s side hustle. As long as you have a decent camera and some talent, you and your partner could offer photography services for profit.
You could start with simple portraits or senior pictures. Once you’ve gotten some experience, you could become an event photography duo, offering your services at birthday parties, weddings, gender reveals, and more.
Besides, you could always make some extra cash by selling your photos on stock photo marketplaces like Shutterstock, Pixabay, etc. You won’t earn excessive amounts of money from this alone, but you could get decent commissions when someone buys your photos.
💰 Earnings potential: As freelance photographers, you could earn as much as $1,538 a month, if not more[11].
14. Offer Event Planning Services 🥂
If you’re both well organized, you and your partner might find the most luck offering event planning services.
If you’ve ever planned even a small party, you’ll know it’s not easy. You need to find caterers, book a good band, find decorations, schedule a venue, and pay attention to every last detail that will affect the entire event. That’s why many people prefer hiring event organizers rather than bothering with it themselves.
You could offer services for birthday parties, weddings, business team-building activities, and so much more.
💰 Earnings potential: You can earn $20 an hour or more, depending on your clientele and the events you organize[12].
Final Thoughts
From cleaning cars to creating online courses, getting into YouTube, and trying your luck as event planners, there are plenty of opportunities for making some money on the side as a couple. Talk to your partner, look at your shared interests, and see how you can combine your skills and passions and start earning more!
