32 People With Side Hustles Earning Over $100K

With inflation continuing to hit consumers' budgets, housing prices skyrocketing, and recession fears looming, there has never been a better time to start a side hustle. Side hustles are a fantastic way to earn extra money on top of your full-time job and can lead to a business of your own bringing in big bucks. If you really want to get inspired about the possibilities, keep reading to learn about people earning over $100,000 from their side hustles. The range of side gigs people have created for themselves just goes to show how it's possible to make nearly anything profitable if you put your mind to it. Who knows, maybe you could be next to join the list. 

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Whitney Eakin is a traveling physical therapist who started an online business with her fiance in which they educate and mentor current and aspiring travel therapists to help them start careers in travel therapy and gain financial independence. Their business began as a blog, writing about their adventures and experiences as travel therapists, as well as educational content about travel healthcare logistics. It has grown to include two websites, an online course, and various social media platforms where we create content to continue to educate and mentor therapists. 

Eakin says it took her side hustle about five years to reach over $100,000 in revenue. Now she recommends, “If you want to start a side hustle, find something you're passionate about, and consider ways that this business can turn a profit. But in the beginning, it's most important to stay consistent and dedicated because most side hustles aren't profitable initially. It takes time to grow an audience or client base and prove that you are a leader or authority in the area.” 

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Forrest McCall has earned over $100K in 2022 and with what has transitioned from a side hustle to a full-time job. He started his blog Don’t Work Another Day right before the pandemic in 2020 teaching others about personal finance and how to manage money. McCall says it took around 2½ years to reach the six-figure mark from his blog, but the patience was well worth it. Currently, he is making over $150,000 from his portfolio of blogs and couldn’t be happier. 

“If you’re looking to start a blogging side hustle, there are a few things you have to do," says McCall. “First, you need patience. It won’t happen overnight, no matter how hard you work or how much time you put in. Second, your growth will not be linear. You will go through ups and downs along the way. Learning how to be persistent during tough times will help you go much further in the long run. Last, investing your income back into your blog is key. This can help you grow exponentially by creating more and better content which will help to grow your blog even further.” 

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Although it took her several years to build up her side hustle, Nicole Tocci’s hard work is now paying off in a big way. She started her jewelry design business One Vintage Button in 2016 and in November 2022 had already earned nearly $413,000 from the side gig for the year. Tocci does all this working only three hours per workday now. Surprisingly, she still works at a typical 9-5 job at another company she owns. She says organization and time management are important to having a successful side hustle. 

After spending a couple of years in corporate America, working in corporate financial planning and analytics, VanHeyningen was looking for something he was more passionate about and that could replace his six-figure income. After reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki, VanHeyningen says he decided to try his hand at real estate. “Still maintaining my 9 to 5 job, I began wholesaling real estate in my chosen market of Memphis Tennessee. I started this side hustle back in July 2021, and I closed 2022 achieving my goal of reaching 175k with my last deal of 2022 which was an assignment fee of $12.6k.” VanHeyningen says wholesaling real estate is not easy, but the reward is that you can scale your income proportionately to the amount of work that you put into the business. 

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If working an hour a day and making $14,600 a month sounds too good to be true, think again. That’s exactly what Ryan Hogue is doing. He began his print-on-demand side hustle with what he calls a “poorly drawn Loch Ness monster” T-shirt. Eventually, he quit his $85,000-a-year web-developer job to work on his side hustle full time. “I want people to know that they don’t need a degree in graphic design to succeed in the print-on-demand business. They just need a little bit of creativity and a lot of drive,” says Hogue. 

“I've been making 6 figures for years from what is almost as simple as going for a walk each morning,” said Brian Winch, founder of Clean Lots. Winch provides a parking lot litter cleanup service outside commercial properties for property management companies. He started in 1981 with little money, skills, and education, but plenty of passion, patience, and persistence. Winch scaled his business from a side hustle to a one-man operation grossing $100,000 in about two years. The business now routinely does $650,000 to $710,000 a year. Winch himself still earns over $100,000 working just three hours a day on his morning walk as he calls it. “Anyone can duplicate my success so long as they enjoy what they're doing. Don't chase the dollars. If you enjoy what you do, the money will follow as you'll be seen as an 'old pro,' ” advises Winch. Winch also teaches others from across the country how to do the same in his book "Cleanlots: America's Simplest Business."

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Randall Gibbons worked as an RV repairman and began answering RV-related questions on his lunch break. Little did he know his side hustle would turn into a job earning him over $115,000. He uses his prior experience as a mechanic to answer people’s questions on JustAnswer, a website where verified professionals provide 24/7 answers to people’s questions related to their field. Have a question for a vet in the middle of the night? A JustAnswer certified vet is likely available to respond to your question. Gibbons earns $20 per answer and responds to approximately 300 questions a week. He says the work isn’t easy and that often he spends 50 hours a week responding to questions. However, the upside is he has the flexibility of working when and where he wants. He doesn’t have a specific quota of responses he must meet, so the schedule is flexible and even allows him the time to volunteer. JustAnswer’s website says experts can earn $2,000 to $7,000, which makes Gibbons among the most successful experts. 

Nica Yusay has always loved vintage purses and made a side hustle out of finding purses and reselling them. From January to July of 2022, she earned around $1 million in revenue from her Shopify store, FashioNica. She spent about $15,000 in startup costs to purchase initial inventory. Taking the leap was “extremely scary,” especially considering how much she spent on the initial inventory. “I think it comes from [growing up in] a single-parent household. I felt financially insecure,” Yusay tells CNBC Make It. “This is not a stable job in any way. If you don’t even sell one bag, you made zero dollars this week.” Still, the side hustle turned full-time job had massive potential and allowed her to confidently leave her previous employment. 

To get his side hustle going, Jim Battan had to have a lot of initial capital. He spent $110,000 on installing his backyard pool in 2012 but always considered it to be an investment. Now Battan rents out his pool on a website called Swimply, which is like Airbnb but specifically for pools. He began renting the pool in 2020 and made $159,000 in the first 21 months of operation, spending as little as 12-14 hours a week on the side hustle. It hasn’t been without cost though. Battan says he spent around $37,000 on maintenance and repairs for his pool and pool house as a result of the rentals. Swimply also takes 15% of the rental rate, which is another cost of doing business. 

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Despite dropping out of high school at 16, living off food stamps, and being marginalized for his skin color, Josh Fabian has become an extremely successful entrepreneur. He left a six-figure job at Groupon to pursue a video-gaming side hustle. Fabian originally began earning money by coaching people how to play specific video games but quickly realized scaling the business was the way to go. In 2020, he launched a video game startup called Metafy. Metafy lets amateur gamers book 1-on-1 coaching sessions with professional gamers across a range of video games for various prices. “The company’s growth trajectory and market potential has allowed it to attract $33.7 million in venture funding to date (in July 2021),” according to Forbes. 

When Kat Norton first started her side hustle, which now has multiple 6-figure months and sometimes 6-figure days in mostly passive income, she says she was “living at my parents’ house and buried in student debt.” In June 2020, she launched her company, Miss Excel by posting a video on TikTok teaching Microsoft Excel. In November, she began selling a comprehensive Excel course on her website and just a short while later, in January 2021, she quit her full-time job. She has also since helped her mom retire early. The advice she has for others is this: “If you are on the fence about starting your dream side hustle, I encourage you to take the leap. It can be scary to put yourself out there, but you’ll never know until you try.”

What started as a hobby for Gabby Beckford eventually led to her quitting her engineering job in 2020. Now the travel blogger at Packs Light makes $171,000 a year from her blog. “When Packs Light started, it was just a hobby, and I had no idea how to create content that would grow readership and attract clients. I had to find mentors, ask questions and embrace failures. The key to success is to be a self-starter and a continuous learner. If you’re serious about building a business, you must be willing to take on as many roles as you have to,” says Beckford. 

Tori Gerbig started her business, Pink Lily, as an eBay store side hustle when she was working at an insurance job paying her $25,000 a year. Her store made around $300-$1,000 a month for the first few years. She quit her full-time job and pursued Pink Lily full-time after three years and has since increased her company profits even more, growing Pink Lily into a $65 million brand and employing over 250 people in her hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Gerbig’s advice to other would-be entrepreneurs is to find a gap in the market, reinvest your profits, and engage customers on social media. 

Emily Jump, a cosmetic tattoo makeup artist, turned her side hustle into a full-time job during the pandemic. When she started learning about and offering microblading, a semi-permanent brow-enhancement procedure, she was simultaneously working as a marketing coordinator for a dental office and earning $34,500 a year. In June 2022, she finally quit her day job and now works on her once side hustle full time. She earns an average of $8,750 per month from her business. Jump recommends creating a business plan and attracting clients by initially offering services for free or a reduced cost. She also says it’s important to love what you do and never stop working to master your craft. “Sometimes, you can’t just wait for an opportunity to arise — you have to create it,” says Jump. 

Jake Kenyon started his side hustle, Kenyarn, in 2019 selling hand-dyed yarn through his Shopify store. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit that his sales started to take off as more and more people took to crafting during the stay-at-home orders. In 2020, he earned $125,000, and in January 2021 he quit his full-time job as a speech-language pathologist. That same year Kenyarn had over $200,000 in sales. Kenyon says building a successful side hustle requires a lot of time so if you want to make it you have to put the work in. He also encourages others to find their community and be authentic to themselves and success will follow. 

"You might not expect a lawyer to have a side hustle, but Wendi Weiner did just that. Although she was making six figures and was almost 12 years into her legal career, she simply wasn’t happy or fulfilled. This led her to start her side hustle, The Writing Guru, an executive resume writing company, in 2010. Although she was only making $5,000 a month initially, that number has since increased sixfold, and she has nearly tripled her prior salary as a lawyer. Weiner says she initially charged average rates but within a couple of years, her services and skills were so in demand she was able to significantly raise her rates, leave the practice of law to do this full-time, as well as niche into a specific area of working with executive-level corporate counsels, C-suite executives, and board members earning a median salary of $300K to over $500K.  She says business growth comes from hard work, putting yourself out there, and continuously analyzing and changing your business model. “If you’re thinking of launching a side hustle, my best advice is to start small and spend conservatively in the beginning. Think about the first few steps and just do it,” she says."

Tina Meeks never expected to become an Instagram Influencer. She originally started posting to her Instagram account, Her Life Sparkles, in 2015 because she was lonely and wanted to connect with other moms. Meeks’ side hustle brought in $1,000 the first year and her full-time job as an insurance adjuster had a salary of $55,000 a year. An unexpected pregnancy in 2018 led to increased followers as she documented her pregnancy journey and gave advice to other moms-to-be. Her increased followers resulted in many brand partnership opportunities. 

Meeks took the opportunity to strengthen her account by studying photography and purchasing professional equipment. Then, in 2020, she made over $300,000 as an influencer by collaborating with brands selling anything from diapers to clothing to soap. She encourages aspiring mom influencers to stay true to themselves, put forth the effort it takes, and make sure they keep some boundaries between their personal and professional life. 

Domonique Brown does not meet the criteria of a “starving artist.” In fact, she earns up to $267,000 a year working just two hours a day on her art side hustle. When the pandemic began, Brown was working 80 hours a week at two separate full-time jobs. Eventually, something had to give, so she quit one job and started her side hustle, DomoINK. 

She creates original artwork and then prints the designs on just about any product you could imagine. Now, not only does Brown make a lot of money for herself, but she also shines a light on the importance of Black culture and history. “My ultimate goal is to make DomoINK a lifestyle retailer that can be a source of representation for those who are underrepresented,” says the artist. 

You might not expect someone making a $240,000 salary to start a side hustle, but that’s exactly what Quinn Miller did when the pandemic started and his sales commissions at his job took a major hit. That summer he purchased two vending machines. What started as a small operation has now grown to net Miller an average of $30,000 in revenue per month. He has re-invested much of his earnings back into his business to buy more vending machines without having to take on any debt. All this with only around six hours of work a week. If you’re looking to get into the vending machine business, Miller recommends finding a busy location by making cold calls, buying a quality machine, ensuring you have a credit card reader on your machine, paying someone to move your machine to the location, and buying products wholesale. 

For proof that side-hustles-turned-full-time-jobs can stand the test of time, look no further than Graham Cochrane. He began his side hustle during the Great Recession in 2009. Originally his company, The Recording Revolution, began as a blog and a YouTube channel which he eventually monetized. At the time it was a way to make ends meet while he, his wife, and their child used food stamps to survive. When he lost his job, he went all in on his side hustle and turned it into a career.

Over the years, he expanded to include courses where he teaches others to do the same. In 2021, Cochrane brought in $1.2 million in mostly passive income. He recommends giving people a free sample of what you can offer in a full-blown course and to automate everything so you can enjoy your life more and work less. 

To earn extra money amidst the pandemic, Tim Riegel, a welder by trade, started a side hustle turning old propane tanks into fire pits. He began with just 10 fire pits, which quickly sold out, and now earns over $16,000 a month selling these recycled beauties on Etsy. He spends over 40 hours a week on the side gig but since he actually enjoys what he is doing, he doesn’t mind. Although his business is new and he has run into some headaches with shipping such large, heavy items, as well as sourcing metal which has continued to increase in price, Riegel says he has plans in place to continue to grow his new business. 

Levi Scott was working as a writer for a Fortune 500 real-estate company and an international crafts company when about eight years ago he stumbled onto Fiverr, a global marketplace where freelancers and people looking to hire can connect. It took Scott about two years to hit the $100,000 mark but now he has made a total of over $1 million from writing through Fiverr. 

“I generally make about 10-12k a month currently. Some months are higher depending on what the general economy is doing,” says Scott.

“My advice for people who want to become a freelancer is pretty simple. Stay focused, stay patient, and work hard. Talk to people who are looking for your help and be genuine about what services you're providing and the level of support they receive. The problem many people get into is that they're trying to do too much. I'm not a graphic designer, photographer, and data-driven SEO specialist. I'm a writer. I focus on what I'm good at and recommend other Fiverr sellers who cover things I don't. If you're trying to stretch yourself too thin, it'll show in the result. Being a freelancer provides a lot of flexibility in terms of time and creativity, but know that to be successful often requires a lot more effort than your typical 9-to-5. Above all, enjoy what you do. If you enjoy it, the work will speak for itself.” 

Selling downloadable documents like planners is Rachel Jimenez’s side hustle, which netted her a whopping $160,000 in 2021. She originally started her Etsy shop while working a full-time job, but with the success of her new business, she could quit and work a lot less giving her more time to spend with her young daughter. Jimenez says the key to her success was making a plan, breaking it down into steps, and then making the time to fit everything in. She would even work on her shop during her lunch breaks at work to keep her business moving in the right direction. 

It's hard to make it as an artist. After trying to produce art that was what people expected, Elena Gatti decided she would rather produce work that was authentically her. She posted her artwork on her Instagram account leading to more sales, 141,000 followers, and even a deal with Harry Styles. Her artwork was even the featured art for one of his tours. Gatti earned nearly $32,000 in just one month from her side hustle. Since then, other bands have reached out to her directly, including her favorite band, Mt. Joy. For now, Gatti is keeping her day job as an art director at global PR firm, Zeno. After all, that career had been her dream job since college. She still plans to continue growing her business on the side though.

Tanjong didn’t start her side hustle to make it into a profitable company. At the time, she was working as an operational manager making $86,000 but was extremely unhappy. Designing her handbags was simply a way to do something she enjoyed and which could honor her roots. 

She eventually took a leave of absence from her full-time job and traveled around Africa. While there she says, “I realized that there was a significant gap in the market. Women of color, and specifically Black women, have always been excluded from the luxury narrative. Building a brand that centers these women while also bringing forth African culture into the global landscape was like a bingo moment for me.” Now her company, Anima Iris, brings in over $100,000 a month.

Craig and Carrie Clickner started what is now a business empire as side hustles. They each had a side hustle while working their traditional 9-to-5 jobs. Eventually, they joined forces and created their company, Tandem Consulting, which was still a side hustle at the time. Now their company has grown to include eight streams of revenue, and they even founded a nonprofit. 

All told, they earn over $3 million in revenue each year. They have some advice for others looking to start a side hustle or full-time business. First, they say time management is extremely important. They also stress it is important for people to understand the difference between revenue and profit. Running a side hustle or a full-blown company costs money, which means there is less in your pocket. The Clickners also say it is important to reinvest revenue, start with lower prices and raise them as you grow, and avoid falling back into an employee mindset.

This side hustle started out as a desire by Maya Portorreal to have jewelry that wouldn’t bother her sensitive skin. At the time she was working as a retail assistant for the luxury brand Pierre Hardy in New York City earning $45,000 a year. She was frustrated because most jewelry either bothered her skin or was prohibitively expensive, which led her to start her side hustle company, Kitten Co. Jewelry. 

Initially, she made almost no sales, but now she brings in over $30,000 a month in revenue and $15,000-$20,000 each month in profit. In order to make her side hustle into a profitable company, Portorreal says the key was an online marketing class she took. She also worked long hours and reinvested her profits into growing her brand. She didn’t quit her day job until 2020 when she had been working on Kitten Co. for nearly a year. That same year she grossed $472,000 from her company. 

Like so many super side hustlers, siblings JJ and Rudy Jimenez started theirs for fun and to earn a little extra money. They made their homemade candy using traditional candies like Skittles and Sour Patch Kids and adding Mexican spices. Their company, Enchilositos Treats took off, and the side hustle ended up earning them $105,000 in revenue in their first year in business. JJ quit his job at a manufacturing company roughly three months into the business and in the middle of the pandemic to focus on Enchilositos Treats full time, which provided some additional pressure on the siblings to make their company succeed.  

Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. Arnita Johnson-Hall initially started her side hustle while living on welfare and after having been rejected from a job offering life-changing money because her credit score was too low. After the rejection, she learned everything she could about improving her credit and now her side-hustle-turned-full-time-business, AMB Credit Consultants, teaches others to do the same. 

Her business has since expanded to educate other aspiring credit consultants to follow in her footsteps. Now her company makes over $1 million in sales every year even while keeping her pricing affordable for her target market. Johnson-Hall encourages entrepreneurs to make their story part of their brand and focus on community. Then find and market your product to your specific target group. You can’t service everyone, but you can be fantastic at servicing a specific niche.

According to the nonprofit Plutus Foundation, Kayla Sloan turned her side hustle as a virtual assistant into a full-time business earning $10,000 a month. She did this by capitalizing on her ability to organize efficiently and communicate effectively. When she started her side hustle, she was working a day job. She began working as a virtual assistant (VA) in 2014 initially earning $15 an hour and making just over $16,000 the first year. Now, her work as a virtual assistant earns her over $140,000 each year, which is due in large part to sales of a course she created teaching others how to become successful VAs. 

A common theme among influencers is that often they didn’t start posting on social media with the goal of monetization. Jay Wey was one of those people and in fact, didn’t even want to use TikTok in the first place. However, after his now-wife convinced him, they started posting funny videos that were a hit with viewers. Wey shares videos about “being cheap” and saving money with a hint of comedy mixed in. He now has 1.7 million followers and partnerships with brands have led to him making $120,000 a year from the side hustle. According to CNBC Make It, “Wey isn’t leaving his day job any time soon, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t given any thought to his future in entertainment. Currently, he is in the process of building up his YouTube channel and eventually hopes to branch out into more long-form comedy.” 

Starting a dorm room side hustle was almost a fluke for Releford who tweeted her favorite beauty hacks one night as she procrastinated doing her homework. The next morning, when she saw it had 30,000 retweets, she realized there was potential for a side hustle to be born. She creates high-quality, affordable skin care products that she began selling at her college. 

Eventually, her business became a full-time job and her company, Mary Louise, was on track in the summer of 2020 to make over $1 million in revenue, even during the pandemic. Here’s her advice to others: “As an entrepreneur, you try to plan out ahead as much as possible, but the reality is this: You never know what the next day will bring. But creating a loyal community and trying your best to be as resilient as possible during times of adversity can put you ahead of the curve.”