The cost of living in Ireland has gone crazy in the last year. Who wouldn’t say no to a few extra hundred quid every month to ease the pressure? I have compiled a list of 9 Side Income ideas to help you start making some extra cash and who knows maybe some of them could end up replacing your regular 9-5 job.
1. Become a Writer on Medium.com
Everybody has some hobby or niche interest that where they are an expert, why not write about it and make some doing it in the process? Medium.com is an online publishing platform where you get paid based on views and engagement with your blog posts.
The requirements for becoming part of the partner program are 100 followers and a minimum of 1 published post. You can increase your views by applying to contribute to one of the 100s of publications on Medium which are groups of writers publishing stories on a particular topic. The great thing about Medium is that it has a global audience.
This is one I have tried out personally – I only publish 2 stories in December of 2021 and still made $60 which was a pretty good return. ( You can follow me here https://medium.com/@walterdunphy1990 ).
2. Rent A Room
This one requires you to have your own property which is quite difficult in Ireland at the moment.
If you are one of the lucky ones, there is a fantastic opportunity to earn a tax-free income of up to €14,000 with the Rent a Room Scheme. Just remember that if you earn even €1 above €14,000 then the full income becomes taxable.
3. YouTuber
Everybody wants to be a Youtuber these days ( me included). While it is not a get rich quick scheme, there is potential to earn some decent side income from making YouTube videos.
The downside of starting a YouTube channel is that you will have to reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time before you can become part of the YouTuber Partner Program. The time to achieve this will differ for everyone – personally it took me just under 6 months to hit both of these targets.
Once you are monetised you will get paid monthly from advertisements placed by YouTube at the beginning, middle and end of your videos. Youtubers can commonly earn between €2-€20 euro per 1,000 views on their videos. The more you post the more the income compounds over time.
For example in November of 2021 I earned €343.11 for 38,450 views in that month (€8.92 per 1,000 views). While this isn’t enough to quit the day job it was certainly a nice side income to be making.
(Like and Subscribe, you know the drill https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUVIfsud4NiVLMtv1v60hXg )
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing involves creating content that reviews and recommends different products and services, you will earn commission on any sales you drive for the businesses you are partnered with. There are 1,000s programs in all different niches that you can work with.
One of the most popular schemes is the Amazon Associates program where you can earn a percentage of any recommended sales that you have driven on Amazon through you affiliate links. Here is a list of the commission rates for the common categories.
Your success with this will depend on how big of an audience you have to pitch to. Growing an audience whether it be a YouTube channel, podcast, newsletter or blog will take time – so this needs to be factored in.
4. Are you any good with a camera?
With the sheer about of online content being produced every day there is huge demand for stock photos and videos.
There are many platforms where you can upload your stock images/videos and get paid every time someone licenses your content.
One such platform is Shutterstock, where you can earn between 15-40% of the license fee paid by customers depending on the number of times your content has been downloaded.
5. Start an Ecommerce website
You do not need to know anything about HTML or CSS to build a website anymore, platforms such as Shopify and Squarespace have democratised website building to the extent you could be up and running with an online business within a couple of days. You simply select a theme of the website and customise it to your needs.
All you need then is a winning product or service – one common place to start is using Alibaba to source cheap products that you could repackage and rebrand. You will have to contend with wait times though as goods get shipped from China.
Many Irish people have been able to blow up with new products overnight by using slick product advertising on the like of TikTok to drive a lot of organic traffic to their websites.
If you have got a knack for design then, print on demand is another avenue you could pursue. This involves creating a design for a t-shirt, hat, cup, photo etc and when these are purchased from your website the manufacturer makes the product with your design on it and ships it directly to the customer.
6. Become a Freelancer
Leveraging the skills you already have may be the quickest way to success. Platforms like Upwork and Fiverr allow you to create a profile showing what skill you have to offer. No matter how niche your skills are, you are guaranteed someone is looking for them on these platforms.
The beauty of this is you can apply for jobs that suit your experience levels and the time you have available as well as setting your own rates of pay.
7. Social Media Management
Social media moves at breakneck speed, the older generation has barely gotten used to Facebook now there is Instagram, Tiktok and Snapchat. You can get paid handsomely for managing a businesses social media pages.
Find local businesses in your area that has a poor social media presence and offer to manage it for them for a fee, once you have one client on board you will have a testimonial you can use to get a few more on board. You may be able to bring a lot of value to these businesses if you can spend a few days learning about how to run Facebook and Google Ads.
8. Selling Digital Products on Etsy
Etsy is like Amazon’s creative little brother – you can find anything from jewelry, arts and crafts home items, clothes and even digital products.
The digital product section has become very popular on Etsy with people selling things such as household budget planners, tax calculators and CV templates. This is a great business model as when you create your digital product you simple upload it to Etsy and every time someone buys your product it is automatically sent to them. Etsy will also actively promote your products to customers.
This is another one I have personally tried out – I created 4 Excel templates in the Finance niche which did not take long to put together. Even with just 4 products I made 21 sales in the space of three months. There are many digital products stores that list 100s of products that pull in thousands in revenue every month.
9. Dividend Investing or Crypto Yield Farming/Staking
One of the only true passive sources of income is dividend investing or yield farming crypto .
Dividends: when you invest in a company such as Coca Cola for example they will pay their shareholders a divided quarterly (approx 3% per annum for Coca Cola).
Yield Farming/Staking : Yield farming and staking are two methods of earning the equivalent to interest on the crypto that you own. This deserves a whole separate blog post but in certain instances you could be earning 10% interest which is far more than what you would be making in a deposit account with a bank. (There are significant risks though when it comes to crypto.)
The downside with these forms of side income is that you need to already have a significant sum of money invested to see some real returns. It may be something that is worth waiting to do until you have already some additional sources of income coming in.
Honourable mentions
Here are some ideas that didn’t make my list this time but would be worth exploring.
- Selling photos on platforms such as Shutterstock
- Crypto Mining/Stake Pool Operator
- Start and Instagram Theme page
- And if there are no other options there is always OnlyFans
Disclaimer: this blog post is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice.
