There are endless listicles online about how to make extra income while working full time, but how many of those options are realistic for busy moms? As master multi-taskers short on time, moms often need flexibility if they’re going to take on a side gig.
Sometimes a hobby, passion or skill you do effortlessly can make you extra money. Other times, you may need to acquire certain skills to make extra cash. Four full-time working moms — including myself — share gigs that fall into both categories.
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Writing
Resume writing is one way Tonnesha Edmond, owner of Pretty Resumes and a mother to two kids in Lawrenceville, Georgia, makes extra income. Additionally, Edmond provides services like job application assistance and business proposals to clients.
“I’ve always been a great writer, so my family and friends would come to me to help them with their resume and I’ve always been a great researcher,” she says. “So even if I wasn’t super familiar with the job they were going after, I knew how to do the research so I could put together a resume that will actually help them get the job.”
Edmond started monetizing her skill over four years ago when her son was in the NICU for the first eight months of his life. She now juggles full-time employment and her side gig.
How much can you earn through resume writing? Edmond charges $175 per resume and offers packages with add-ons to increase her earnings. A perk of this gig is that her time commitment is only around 10 hours a week.
Edmond says that listing her business on Google has helped improve her visibility and attracted more clients.
Like Edmond, I have a natural knack for writing, and was able to turn that into a side hustle. I have gotten clients by sending out cold emails to entrepreneurs I think could benefit from the services I offer, then setting up consultations to gauge their needs. With online publications, I simply send story pitches to editors.
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Teaching English
Megan Holley, a mom of two in Fulshear, Texas, has been making extra money since 2018 by teaching students English online. Holley’s first teaching gig was with a company called EF Education First, but she currently teaches with LingoAce. Holley says she enjoys teaching English as a side gig because of the flexibility it offers. She typically teaches during late evenings or early mornings.
“I can kinda choose my own schedule, which is nice,” she says. “I really do actually enjoy teaching so that’s also part of it.”
In terms of earning potential, at LingoAce you can make base pay of $14 an hour as an ESL teacher and up to $30 an hour as a math teacher. However, you will likely need to get a certification if you plan to teach. Companies may require certifications such as Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).
The main challenge Holley mentions is acquiring enough students to get the amount of pay you want.
“The more you teach with the company, the more reviews you get and the more people you get saying that they liked your teaching style, then the more students you might get,” she says.
Reselling items online
If you’ve been avoiding decluttering, earning income from your clutter might be a good incentive to tackle it. Keola Harry sells items on Mercari, an international online marketplace for extra income. Harry, who is based in Atlanta, finds time to do this when she’s not working full time and raising two young children.
“So that’s me just reselling everything in my house that I thought at one point in my life I loved and I had to have it, and then I bought it,” Harry says. The working mom resells trendy baby items and furniture collecting dust around her home. She says the baby items are snatched up by buyers the fastest.
Harry makes around $600 a month reselling items in her home. This year alone, she’s made over $3,000. It’s also worth mentioning that Mercari may be an attractive platform because it doesn’t charge a seller fee.
Harry began the gig to bring in additional income during the pandemic after her husband got laid off. What started out as a form of extra income to create financial stability has turned into her rainy day fund.
“That’s one big perk of having that extra money coming in with the side hustle is that you can put it somewhere, like a high-yield savings account and just watch it grow a little,” she says.
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