Sometimes, I hate the term “side hustle.”
A lot of dishonest people throw it around as a buzzword, to attract eyeballs for their get-rich-quick scheme.
But I usually love it, because it makes perfect sense: you often do hustle, working really hard and busting your butt. And you do it on the side of your main career – whether that’s a 9-to-5 office job, or taking care of kids and a household 24-7.
Below is a list of 10 great side hustles for moms who want to earn an income from home, be it part- or full-time figures.
In other words: a list for SAHMs who want to become WAHMs.
This list is by no means exhaustive. You can make money doing just about anything these days – but these jobs might be a great place to start your job hunt.
10 Work-at-Home Mom Side Hustles
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure about affiliate links here.
1. Freelance Writing
This was my first side hustle, though I considered it a full-time job not long after starting.
You’ve probably heard that freelance writing is “feast or famine,” because some months you’ll get paid a lot…then struggle finding work for weeks afterwards. And repeat.
It’s true that freelance writing, like any form of self-employment, isn’t a guaranteed steady paycheck like a traditional job. But there are ways to mitigate that feast-or-famine effect.
First, save your income whenever you can, as much as you can. This will help even things out when times are lean.
Second, if possible, only live off your spouse’s income. This isn’t doable for a lot of families, so you’ll have to decide if the lifestyle changes needed to make this happen are too extreme.
My husband was earning around $25,000 annually when I started freelancing, so it was tempting to use my paychecks to supplement that. After all, we were spending $40 a week on groceries and baby formula, barely scraping by.
But we decided to throw everything I earned into savings accounts or at student loans, then pretend my income didn’t exist.
We got used to this lifestyle, so even as both our incomes increased, our spending didn’t – just how much we saved or how aggressively we went after our debt.
Third: treat it like a business, not a side hustle.
The more hours you work, then the more clients you land – and the higher the probability that you’ll gain regular, long-lasting clients.
When I started out, I worked 10-15 hours a week, sometimes 20. But most of that time was spent trying to find work.
After I bumped it up to 40 hours a week, then 60 (how? Answer: I just plain didn’t sleep much, honestly, and “housework” fell out of my vocab for a while), I saw far more paid hours and less “gig hunting” ones.
I’m back to 10-20 hours a week for freelancing writing now, but I have enough long-term clients from those “nose to the grindstone days,” plus better networking skills and a bigger portfolio – so I earn more, even though I work less.
Currently, I average $18 to $30 an hour freelance writing, and plenty of writers earn far more than that.
(Note: I know “get less sleep” or “forget the housework” is not helpful advice – I don’t recommend either, at least not to those extremes! Freelance writing is most lucrative when you have regular, repeat clients, so that’s the approach I took to get as many as I could, as fast as I could. Your approach can and should vary, to fit your lifestyle and goals.)
2. Wedding and Family Portrait Photography
An old friend I used to wait tables with now takes wedding portraits part-time.
She earned $70,000 last year. PS: she’s a stay-at-home mom with six kids!
Of course, it took a couple years to reach that level of income and success: when she started out, she told me, she was only charging $200 for 4 hours of pre-wedding, ceremony, and post-wedding bridal and party portraits.
The trouble was that she had no portfolio for clients to look at online. Likewise: no website.
Finding clients was hard, so she kept her rates low hoping brides on a budget would give her a chance.
First, she shot a friend’s wedding…for free. But the bride agreed to let her use those photos in her online portfolio, and she had to start somewhere.
So she got a simple website going, uploaded her portfolio, and…nothing.
No one was booking, even with low rates and great sample photos.
My friend then decided to put some of the photos up on Pinterest and share them on Facebook, which increased her site traffic but still didn’t land her any gigs. In the meantime, she kept shooting for free or at very steep discounts for family and friends.
She kept adding to her portfolio. Kept handing out business cards.
Finally, she got some bookings.
Then she did something that she says felt crazy: she upped her prices.
Suddenly, two years after starting her business, she was getting emails left and right from brides wanting bridal portraits, wedding party photos, and even women who’d already gotten married, asking if she did baby portraits too.
She works about 25-30 weekends a year now (wedding season) and charges between $1,500 and $3,000 for her services, depending on the packages her customers order.
Next year, she plans to add baby portraits to the mix, since most of her wedding jobs take place on weekends, but a lot of her mom clients have weekdays free. Now she can use hours her kids are in school to earn even more.
Moral: it’s okay to charge a little less when you’re new. Don’t, however, undervalue yourself – or potential clients will do the same, and think twice about hiring you.
Photography is a key skill that takes practice and dedication to hone, but if you’ve got that background (or the willingness to learn)…why not use it?
3. Start an Etsy Shop
My success example for this one might not sound as incredible as the last one, but I think it’s important to include it, anyway – because 1) a lot of moms want to sell on Etsy, and 2) it’s a first-year success story!
My cousin’s wife makes custom vinyl products and sells them on two platforms: her Facebook business page, and her Etsy account.
With a Cricut machine, vinyl, and pre-made products (think cute but blank tumblers, sweatshirts, and tote bags), she’s built a five-figure business in just 11 months!
Her first six months, she says, were rough: she was lucky to get a couple hundred dollars in orders, and almost all of them were from women at her church, ordering T-shirts for youth group and choir functions.
By month five, she’d only broken even on her initial investments.
Which was still great: most businesses don’t break even their first year. So she wasn’t ungrateful for the success she’d seen so far.
But she also knew she wanted more.
She experimented with different products and designs, increased her hours, then started posting to her business Facebook and Instagram accounts every single day, instead of a couple times a month.
Soon she was averaging $2,600 a month in revenue, and the total profit for her first 11 months was just shy of $10,000.
She plans on reinvesting most of those profits into the business, such as buying new inventory to give her customers more options. Her own website, independent of Facebook, is her next big project.
About half her income comes from Etsy, she says – so she advises Etsy sellers to consider it a tool for your business, not the business itself.
Multiple platforms (like combining Etsy and Facebook, and maybe even your own website or Amazon seller account) means more customers can find you.
4. Amazon or eBay Arbitrage
Arbi…what?
Arbitrage is buying something at a low price, then selling it for a higher one. But Amazon arbitrage is unique in that you don’t have to store the items yourself.
In fact, you don’t have to handle orders, returns, or shipping yourself at all – Amazon does it for you!
Let’s say you buy 20 brand-name candles on sale at a store, such as Homegoods or Target, for $5 each.
On Amazon, those candles might be selling for $20 each, to shoppers who can’t find the item in their area or just don’t know where to look. Whatever the reason, you’ve now got the supply, and they’re demanding it.
In the Fulfillment by Amazon program (FBA), you can ship these items to an Amazon warehouse, where they’ll be stored until someone orders one. Amazon then packages and ships the item to that customer, takes their fee, and boom – you get paid.
Of course, I’m simplifying it. A lot. I’ve never participated in the FBA program myself, though I considered it many times before deciding writing-based jobs were more my thing.
I first heard about this through The Selling Family, so I highly recommend that anyone interested check out their blog for more info.
Ebay arbitrage is a similar concept, except that you do store, organize, and ship the items yourself.
I’ve done eBay flipping casually over the years (mostly finding brand-name coats, purses, and shoes at thrift stores, then selling them on eBay at higher prices) and really enjoyed it, but only as a fun hobby kind of thing.
If, however, you enjoy thrifting, have room to store goods, and don’t despise the idea of shipping items – eBay flipping might be the perfect side hustle.
The best part is the barrier for entry is low: even if you’ve got no funds to invest, I’m betting you have some items around the house you want to get rid of.
Nothing is too small or ridiculous to sell on eBay. Search any item and check the box for “Sold Listings,” then you’ll see what something is selling for.
That old camera you can’t get to work? The laptop with the busted screen? Believe it or not, someone out there will probably want it – and pay to get it.
I once managed to sell a used baby wipe warmer on there, for $15 plus shipping costs.
Listen: if I can sell a used wipe warmer, then you can sell just about anything.
5. Babysitting or Daycare
This one’s kind of self-explanatory, but I’ll dig in a little, anyway – there’s a reason I included it in this list.
Babysitting and daycare can happen right in your home, so your kids can be with you the entire time.
This makes it an ideal side hustle for moms, because those two components are what eliminate a lot of possible jobs for us.
That said, sometimes there’s a limit to how much “kid stuff” you can handle in a given day, so I recommend this for moms who are pretty sure they’d love this career even if they didn’t have kids.
And look, I love kids. I think kids are the funniest, coolest, most genuine people on this planet.
But personally, I’d never want to take care of someone else’s for a living. I was a nanny in high school, which was fantastic and fun…but I also didn’t have kids of my own yet.
Caring for my own children uses all my daily “mom energy,” so I just don’t have any left over for kids that aren’t mine. At least, not long-term.
And I don’t feel bad about admitting that, because I know I’m not the only one! (Ever hosted a seven-kindergartener sleepover? Then you know what I’m talking about.)
But some moms excel at teaching, managing, and caring for larger groups of kids, so this side hustle would be perfect for them.
If that sounds like you, then babysitting for other moms or opening a full-fledged daycare center can bring in steady income, while utilizing your passion and skills.
It also helps your kids socialize – and keeps them on a schedule that not only doesn’t conflict with your work one, but flows with it.
6. Cleaning Houses
Cleaning houses was my “summer hustle,” I guess you could say, when I was in high school. I also did it a little after my first child was born, for a couple hours a week.
This one kind of follows the same rule of thumb as above: you have to really love something to do it for strangers, on top of doing it for yourself!
In the same way you can run out of “mom energy” to care for other people’s kids while caring for your own, you can run out of “cleaning energy.”
When you’ve spent all week repairing tornadoes in your own house, it might be hard to find motivation to wipe up dust and mop floors in someone else’s.
Personally, I love cleaning.
Like…Monica Geller status.
That’s not to say my house is spotless – actually, it gets downright embarrassing at times, because I’m a “binge cleaner.” But I do enjoy it, so I loved cleaning houses.
While working for a maid company wouldn’t give you the schedule flexibility and freedom to bring your kids that you need as a work-from-home mom, starting your own maid company would.
Think about it: it’s your business. You own it. Even if you’re the one and only employee – you’re also the boss.
To sum up, you make the rules.
So if you want to bring your kids along while you work, why shouldn’t you?
Kids can help you clean, watch some t.v., read, play quietly, or enjoy a few games on a phone or tablet while you work. Babies can hang out in a Pack-N-Play, or even a carrier on your chest or back.
Obviously, you don’t want to use fume-heavy or caustic chemicals around your kids, or do any dangerous maneuvers (like cleaning a ceiling fan) with your baby strapped to your body.
(I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that – who doesn’t know these things already? – but, just to be safe, I’ll throw it in.)
House cleaners in my area charge $15 to $30 an hour; check websites like Care.com to see the going rate for cleaners where you live.
The best part is that cleaning tends to be a repeat service. Clients can easily become repeat clients – which means steady, ongoing work long-term.
7. Airbnb
If you have a spare room, basement apartment (or a basement that could become an apartment), or a shed-turned-guesthouse, then you might consider renting it on Airbnb.
More and more people are ditching traditional hotels in favor of more interesting, cozier, and cheaper options, such as private properties listed on Airbnb.
If you’ve ever entertained the idea of being a landlady, but don’t really want to deal with actual tenants, Airbnb might be a good middleground option.
Not only is it temporary, but you can limit your property’s availability per your schedule and convenience.
How much can you earn? Almost half of all Airbnb hosts and hostesses make over $500 per month.
To clarify: that’s $6,000+ a year, for what is, essentially, part-time work.
Some hosts earn less; some earn more. A few even make $10,000+ a month, or over $100,000 a year!
(Note: I’ve never hosted an Airbnb myself, but I’ve stayed in quite a few. One of our hostesses set up a mini Keurig beside our bathroom sink, with a basket of K-cups for us to make our morning coffee without waking the rest of the house. So simple but thoughtful, and I remember it to this day!)
If you’re a natural-born hostess who’s always secretly wanted to run a bed-and-breakfast, this might be your dream job – or at least the start of one.
8. Become a Sweepstakes Junkie
Okay, this isn’t a “job,” and you might waste a lot of time filling out forms and entering raffles, all for nothing.
To be honest, I almost didn’t include it at all, for the exact same reason you won’t find “Fill out surveys” or “Watch t.v. and earn money” on this list: stuff like that requires a huge time investment before you ever see the payoff.
So why is it on the list?
Because I wanted to include just one option that literally anyone could do.
If you have no skills, no passions, no car, no capital, no education, no spare room, no equipment, or whatever it is that makes you shake your head to every other side hustle suggestion you come across…
…you can’t possibly say no to this one.
If you have a phone, tablet, or computer with access to the internet (and if you’re reading this, you obviously do), you can enter online sweepstakes.
Yes, you’ll lose more contests than you’ll win. But every once in a while, you’ll score something worth selling or trading for its cash value – and that’s essentially a paycheck. Not a lot, considering the hours you’ll put in…but it’s something.
An old roommate of mine entered sweepstakes when she was injured in a car accident and stuck on the sofa for four months, relearning how to walk.
For about six hours a day, she entered contests she found on Facebook, Reddit, and online sweepstakes lists. She binge-watched television while she did it, which was probably what she’d do anyway until I drove her to physical therapy. So why not?
In those four months, she won $10,000, a cruise to Jamaica worth $3,000, a backstage pass to a country festival worth $200, two new mountain bikes she sold on Craigslist for $600 each, and so many free samples and products we didn’t have to buy toiletries for the rest of the year.
Now, is this the first thing I’d recommend to a SAHM wanting to work from home?
Definitely not. I think the return on your time isn’t worth it at all (unless you beat the odds and score something crazy, like a dream house worth $500,000).
But…I do think it’s better than no side hustle at all.
If this sounds like it would appeal to you, I’ve got a surprise twist: this means you do have special skills, after all – persistence and optimism.
That’s the real reason it’s on this list – to prove my point that literally anyone can start a side hustle. You’ve just got to find your “thing.”
So as much as it makes me cringe to say “sweepstakes are a viable side hustle”…give it a shot, if nothing else fires you up.
But know that I’m only saying that because I’ve got a feeling you’ll come back to this list in a few weeks, suddenly open to the idea of more lucrative ventures.
And if not, I hope you at least win a dream house worth $500,000.
9. Become a Virtual Assistant
What do virtual assistants do? Anything a regular assistant would do that can be accomplished remotely (so no fetching coffee; think emails, marketing, copyediting, etc.).
The great thing about VA work is that you can keep it as broad or as narrow as you want.
Are you great at graphic design and Pinterest? You can become a Pinterest VA for bloggers, making Pins to link their posts to their Pinterest boards, as well as group boards.
Good with email? A mailing list VA can help businesses and blogs create, schedule, and send weekly or monthly newsletter updates to their subscribers.
On the other hand, a lot of VAs perform multiple tasks – a catch-all approach that may or may not work for you. Start out broad and then narrow it down, based on your strengths and the areas you enjoy best, over time.
For example: one of my other jobs is as an indie author. Lots of authors prefer to write, rather than spend their time creating and monitoring advertisements on Facebook or Amazon. However, these are crucial to selling books – so they have to do it.
The solution for many of those authors, then, is to hire a virtual assistant to create and monitor their ads for them.
If you teach yourself even just one skill like that, then you can serve a valuable niche market. This translates to steadier work – and higher wages – than more generic VA tasks.
As for pay, virtual assistants can earn anywhere from $12 to $100 an hour…or more, if you’re an expert in an underserved field.
10. …and, of course: Start a Blog
I won’t go in-depth on this one, ironically enough, because there’s so much I’d want to cover that I couldn’t possibly fit in a 10-item list post.
I will say, though, that this isn’t “fast money” like a lot of bloggers make it seem.
It’s a business like any other, and requires time, learning, commitment, and patience before you see serious returns.
Firstly, you need content. This, above all else, will determine if your blog tanks or succeeds.
Why? Because content is king. It’s the sole reason people will visit your site, then click your links and ads, or subscribe to your newsletter.
Engaging and useful content takes time to write and edit, so you have to be genuinely interest in the topic you blog about.
Secondly, you need at least a basic knowledge (or the time and willingness to learn) of formatting, graphic design, SEO, and a vast array of other topics.
In summary, blogging is not a single skill. Rather, it’s a mashup of several areas. And you have to know them all, at least a little bit, to get your blog off the ground and earning a profit.
Is it still worth it? Absolutely. There are bloggers earning $10,000 a month working part-time on their blogs – though these are rare, and many took years to reach that point.
But even brand-new bloggers can earn a couple hundred extra each month, or even a few thousand, if their content and marketing are in-demand.
Blogging has proved surprisingly fun for me, so I recommend it for anyone who loves writing. It’s also great if you want to become a freelance writer, because you can showcase your talents right on your website…then throw a “Hire Me” button up there, while you’re at it.
You never know who might stumble across your blog and love your work so much, they just have to get you writing for their company.
Hustle Hard and Hustle with Heart
Whatever hustle you choose, stick with it a year. If you don’t see the growth and income potential you need to stay motivated, try something else.
Whether you have 5 hours or 45 hours to spare each week doesn’t matter. All that really matters is how much heart you pour into those hours.
Learn all you can, keep striving for the next step – and above all, remember why you’re doing this.
Yes, the money matters. I won’t pretend it doesn’t. But what matters more than how much you earn…is how you earn it.
When I was brand-new and making peanuts for hours of work, it was discouraging, but I knew I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Because, at the end of the day, I think all of us would rather be underpaid with our child napping by our side on the sofa-turned-office…than overpaid in a corner office while they grow up without us.
Are you considering a side hustle to go from a SAHM to WAHM? If you’re already working from home, what advice do you have for new moms entering the home-workforce?
