Looking to make extra money for Christmas?

You’re not alone!

The average American spent over $900 on Christmas last year.

In this post, we’ll share our top side hustle picks to make extra money for the holidays. These were selected based on:

My 15+ years of side hustle experience
100s of interviews with side hustle entrepreneurs 
Schedule flexibility and earning power

Ready? Let’s do it.

1. Participate in Market Research

There are a couple online research companies everyone should sign up for.

User Interviews is a great resource for connecting with remote consumer research studies. I’ve made $105 in about an hour and a half so far — here’s my full User Interviews review.

Respondent is one of the best paying online survey companies I’ve found. Usually the surveys are one-on-one interviews either in-person or over the phone / video chat, and they pay an average of $140 an hour.

2. Flip Products for a Profit

My buddy Rob Stephenson is “the Flea Market Flipper” and makes a great living finding odd items to resell. He told me the story of finding a prosthetic leg for $40 and turning around and selling it on eBay the next day for $1000.

The pioneering auction site is still going strong and can be a good place to get your products in front of 130+ million potential buyers.

There are profitable deals everywhere!

Rob and his wife Melissa consistently earn thousands of dollars a month doing this part-time. They put together a free training on how you can get started and make your first sales as fast as 2 weeks. 

Now is a great time to get started as people are looking to get rid of unused stuff to make room for Christmas gifts. Depending on what you find, people are shopping a lot right now, which means you can sell quickly too.

3. Get Free Money from a Bank

You’ve got to promise to use this strategy responsibly, but it’s earned my wife and I thousands of dollars.

Putting all of your Christmas spending on a credit card to meet a sub, is a great way to rack up points as long as you have the cash to pay it off.

Related: Credit Card Rewards 101: How to Earn Free Cash and Travel by Spending Smarter

4. Gift Wrapping Service

If you love to make packages look their best with perfect corners and bows, offer gift wrapping. With Christmas being such a busy season, this is the perfect opportunity to offer this service.

Check out Nifty Package Co. for inspiration. 

5. Christmas Light Installation

Christmas lights can be a lot of fun to have up, but many people may not have the time (or desire) to get it done themselves.

If you don’t mind being up on a ladder, this could be the perfect way to bring in some extra cash before Christmas.

6. Take Online Surveys

Answering simple surveys is an easy way to turn your downtime into extra income. On an hourly basis, the pay isn’t great, but it’s something you can do from your phone while you’re watching TV or waiting in line.

Here are some of Side Hustle Nation’s favorite providers:

7. Handmade Crafts or Gifts

Handmade crafts and gifts are always a big hit at Christmas.

If you do woodworking, knitting, sewing, etc., now is a great time to promote your work. You can sell at local craft fairs or on sites like Etsy.

8. Seasonal Work

With the biggest buying season of the year almost here, businesses everywhere will be hiring to meet the demand. If you need some extra money for Christmas this year, consider picking up some shifts at a local retail store.

(Nationwide, retailers tend to add 500,000 – 700,000 seasonal jobs!)

JobGet is a leading platform to connect with nearby jobs in hospitality, restaurants, and retail.

Bonus: you may be able to get employee discounts where you work.

9. Pet Sitting

With people traveling for the holiday season, pet sitting is a great option.

Rover.com is “Airbnb for dogs,” and I’ve heard from several dog sitting hosts earning hundreds of dollars a month through this site.

(Meowtel is leading platform for cat-sitting.)

10. Care Giving

Babysitting and child care was my original income stream as a teenager, and is still a viable way to make extra money.

Between Christmas shopping and holiday parties, now is a great time to offer this service to parents.

Sites like Care.com and Sittercity can help match you up with families.

11. Maximize Your Cash Back

If you’re already shopping for Christmas presents, why not make some money back?

For example, the Fetch Rewards app gives you cash back just for snapping a picture of your receipts.

You can then redeem points for gift cards to retailers like Best Buy, Sephora, Staples, Gap, and more. (I’ve been cashing in for Amazon gift cards.)

Rakuten has been giving online shoppers cash back for over 20 years. A recent computer purchase from Dell netted me $160 cash back! (They were running a special offer.)

They’ll even give you a free $30 bonus when you create your account!

Use the free Upside app to get up to 25¢/gallon cash back on gas at thousands of locations all around the country. Plus, get a 25¢/gallon bonus on your first fill-up with promo code SHN25.

When your tank is running low, just check the app for nearby offers. Then all you have to do is claim it and say what credit card you’re using.

12. Residential or Commercial Cleaning Service

With holiday hosting around the corner, house cleaning can be a great way to make money in time for Christmas. Help homeowners (or businesses!) get ready for parties with a clean space.

Anthony and Jhanilka Hartzog grew their Dallas-area residential cleaning service to $25k a month in revenue. And the best part? They hire other cleaners to do the work!

More and more homeowners outsource this chore, and the industry remains highly fragmented. Those factors spell an opportunity for you to win clients.

13. Delivery or Rideshare Gigs

There is a reason these apps like Uber and Lyft are so popular. They’re quick and easy to start, and allow a flexible schedule.

One Lyft driver of mine on a recent trip put it this way: “When I want to make money, I turn on the app.”

In fact, these “gig economy” apps have helped create a multi-hundred billion dollar a year industry. Here are some options to get your piece of the pie.

Other options include:

Amazon Flex – Earn $18-25/hr making Amazon deliveries.
DoorDash – Earn up to $25 an hour as a food delivery driver for. For more, here’s our full DoorDash review.
Uber Eats – Make local takeout deliveries in your town with and earn up $25 an hour doing so.
Shipt – Drivers can earn up to $22 an hour shopping for and delivering fresh food and household essentials.

If you choose any of these driving-related side hustles, it might make sense to tack on an app like Hurdlr to automatically track your mileage, expenses, income streams, and tax deductions in real-time. On average, Hurdlr helps users find $5600 in deductions!

14. Go Grocery Shopping for Others

With lots of people hosting holiday parties, hosts and hostesses will be ready to hand off the grocery shopping to others.

Instacart pays shoppers between $10-20 per hour to deliver groceries.

As a full-service shopper, you take orders from customers, find and pay for the items on their list, and deliver the goods to the customer’s home. You get paid a commission based on the size of the order plus any tips you receive from customers.

Side Hustle Nation reader Kevin LaCombe is earning an extra $450-500 a week as a Full-Service Instacart Shopper:

15. Part-Time Remote Work

With legit jobs ranging from entry-level to executive and freelance to full-time, FlexJobs is the leading work from home jobs site. At press time, there were more than 30,000 openings in dozens of career categories.

This is a great option if you’d like to earn extra money for Christmas from home, whether you have a job or just need something for the next couple of months.

They charge a nominal monthly fee to access their listings, but you’ll easily earn it back (and then some!) with one job.

16. Donate Plasma

As long as needles don’t bother you, you can earn $20-50 per plasma donation. This is an easy, fast way to earn some extra cash in time for Christmas.

17. Thrift for Profit

Apps like Poshmark can help you clear out your closet or make money from your latest thrift store finds.

This is a great way to make some extra cash and make room for new Christmas gifts.

18. Baking

Do people love your desserts? Between Christmas parties and gifts, now is a great time to sell your baked goods.

A friend of ours has built a pretty serious following for her custom cookies—and sometimes sells out in just minutes!

19. Tutoring

Tutoring is a low cost side hustle that you can start easily to make some quick cash this holiday season.

Put your education to use helping students learn in a comfortable one-on-one setting. WyzAnt is one of the largest marketplaces in the online tutoring world, where you can set your own rates.

In this post, Matt Fuentes shared how he built his tutoring business up to $1000 a week.

20. Print on Demand T-Shirts

Upload your clever or artistic t-shirt design to Merch by Amazon or Redbubble, and collect a small profit every time it sells. You never have to touch any physical inventory; the platforms handle the shipping and fulfillment.

For years, this had been worth $50-200 a month for my wife and I, very part-time.

This can be a fun way to make some extra money for Christmas. This is also a great time to start a shop as t-shirts make great gifts.

Another platform to check out is Printful, which has tons of print-on-demand products and lets you syndicate your listings to Etsy and other stores.

21. Take Family Christmas Card Pictures

My wife’s holiday side hustle is family photography. Everyone wants that perfect shot for their holiday cards, and she earns $200-400 per session.

22. Mobile Laundry Service

If you don’t mind laundry, this could be the perfect side hustle to make extra money for Christmas.

According to the mobile laundry service Poplin, top “Laundry Pros” earn up to $6000 a month.

I actually connected with a reader who was doing this in Australia, and earning $400 a month. She didn’t mind the work and was thrilled to be “getting paid to watch movies”–how she passed the time while ironing.

23. Corporate Events

Brian McGovern is a party entertainer — he’s been practicing magic and performing since he was in high school. Thanks to company holiday parties, the Christmas season is his busiest time of year.

On The Side Hustle Show, he reported earning up to $10,000 a month doing something he loves.

Take a look at a site like GigSalad to get an idea of who’s getting hired and to connect with nearby gigs. 

If you have the tools for the job, this side hustle will allow you to pocket some quick cash for Christmas.

24. Mystery Shopping

Field Agent is an interesting money making app you can use to connect with local mystery shopping gigs.

There’s a bit of a treasure hunt feel to this one, and could be a fun way to turn your regular shopping trips into a side hustle.

Most of these gigs involve evaluating product displays or checking on inventory. They typically pay $3-10 apiece, depending on complexity and the time involved.

Major retailers like Costco and Walmart are listed for product surveys and audits. No purchases are necessary, unless you sign up for a product testing gig.

Earning Power: $10-25 a day.

25. Rent Out Your Attic or Garage

The Neighbor self-storage platform connects people with storage needs with those who have extra space. If you’ve got some excess storage capacity in your garage or elsewhere, list your space here to fill it and get paid.

According to the site, top hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations. Check out our full Neighbor.com review to learn more.

26. Junk Hauling Service

This is a great side hustle business if you already have access to a pickup truck or van. Bonus points if you can re-sell some of the junk!

I sat down with Brian Scudamore, the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, to learn how he took the business from a summer gig to doing around $1 million a day in revenue.

27. Residential Cleaning Service

Help homeowners get their place party-ready. Typical pricing is $150-250 per job, and you may not even need to be the one doing the work. 

For example, Anthony and Jhanilka Hartzog grew their Dallas-area residential cleaning service to $25k a month in revenue — and contracted with local professional cleaners to complete the jobs.

28. Christmas Tree Decorating Service

Amanda Ware quit her job as a teacher to become a traveling Christmas tree decorator.

She charges an average of $1,000 per tree and decorates “a minimum of 100 trees” a year. That means she can earn over $100,000 — and take 9 months of the year off!

29. Start a Christmas Tree Stand

This one requires a bit more planning and time commitment, but can definitely be lucrative. 

For example, Andrew Giancola reported earning $7,500 in profits from his first-year Christmas tree stand. He set up shop in a church parking lot, and sold trees, wreaths, and poinsettias. 

The Best Ways to Make Extra Money for Christmas: Your Turn

There are lots of great ways to make extra money in time for Christmas.

The best way to decide is to find ones that match up with your skills, interests, and goals.

If you have some extra time, hopefully you can find a side hustle or two that will allow you to earn extra money for Christmas this year.

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

It’s one thing to teach a toddler to read; it’s another thing entirely to transform that skill into a 7-figure business.

Spencer Russell built Toddlers Can Read from the ground up and achieved tremendous success in just 2 years.

Despite early setbacks with initial sales, he adapted by refining the course experience and struck gold with viral content on TikTok.

As Spencer innovates, scales, and plans a rebranding, he remains deeply committed to his mission—helping children everywhere unlock their reading potential.

Explore his strategies, learn from his experiences, and discover why he believes in giving your side hustle full-time energy.

Tune into episode 584 of The Side Hustle Show to learn:

How Spencer Russell found his niche in early childhood education
Strategies for delivering value and engaging customers
Leveraging social media for business growth
Expanding reach through blogging and paid advertising

Sponsors

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Identifying the Opportunity

Spencer Russell is an award-winning teacher and dad who saw an opportunity to help kids learn to read starting at very young ages.

When researching business ideas, he was heavily influenced by the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, which recommends focusing your efforts at the intersection of three criteria:

Something you can be the best in the world at
Something you’re excited to do
Something that can provide for your family

As Spencer shared:

“What are the jobs, the occupations, the roles that I could fill that would hit those three criteria? I had already taught my son to read, he was two years old, and I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m pretty good at teaching little kids how to read.’”

Spencer knew he had a natural skill set for this niche based on his experience as an educator.

He conducted competitive research and pored through the myriad online courses targeted at general parenting topics:

sleep training
motor skills development
behavior management
and so on

However, he found very few tailored specifically to building early reading skills for the toddler demographic.

Despite the massive market of anxious parents eager to prepare their children for kindergarten and beyond, this narrow sub-niche appeared wide open.

Preparing for Launch

Armed with a business idea he was confident could succeed, Spencer promptly entered an intensive learning phase. Although knowledgeable about childhood education, he had limited business experience beyond teaching.

He absorbed online business model concepts from resources like The Online Course Guy, Russell Brunson, and StoryBrand.

After consuming content voraciously for several weeks, Spencer pieced together a basic course and began collecting pre-orders at $49 with a mid-June release date. He promoted it verbally to his network of friends and family.

However, Spencer quickly realized that most people who expressed interest didn’t end up purchasing. After an agonizing 3-4 days of zero sales, Spencer finally made his first sale.

While far below expectations, this response still provided enough validation to move forward and ended up with 31-32 pre-orders from initial users.

Now it was time to double down on course development and finalize the content.

Optimizing the Customer Experience

With his “beta testers” granted access, Spencer tracked their engagement to identify improvements. He discovered most customers don’t actually finish online courses.

Rather than questioning his teaching, Spencer concluded he needed to optimize the delivery for his target audience. As he explained:

“My takeaway from that was I need to make it more engaging and make it easier to access. I thought my takeaway was going to be I need to teach this lesson more clear or explain this concept better.”

He transitioned the course onto the platform Kajabi, which allowed support for mobile and on-demand consumption.

This flexibility better matched how his customers—busy parents—wanted to learn. Spencer also re-recorded higher quality videos to boost engagement.

Spencer created a high-value course tailored to his audience by continuously refining the customer experience.

Gaining Social Media Traction

In parallel with finalizing his course, Spencer launched social media profiles to build an audience.

After months of consistent value-focused content, Spencer finally struck gold. A January 2022 TikTok video about teaching sight words went viral.

As he explained:

“Our first viral post was on TikTok in January of 2022, and it was a sight word post. And we learned from that post—sight words as a topic is a big thing. And so we started to do more posts about sight words than a lot of those posts picked up.”

This initial boost provided momentum to optimize future videos using data analytics. He would diligently test different variables like captions, visuals, video style, prompts, and more to pinpoint what resonated best with his audience.

If a particular video underperformed, Spencer broke down the data to determine exactly why.

“How many people were still watching after one second? What was the angle? Was there a kid in the shot? Where were the captions? Was it a negative hook?” he shared.

Diversifying Traffic Sources

While hugely reliant on social media, Spencer understood the need to diversify channels. He started blogging weekly, optimizing articles around targeted keywords.

He also began experimenting with paid advertising on Google and Facebook, driving traffic to a free online workshop funnel.

While new to paid ads, Spencer takes a data-driven approach to iterate toward profitable campaigns.

Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value

Visitors who make it through Spencer’s funnel can enroll in his reading curriculum—three courses available individually at $99 each or discounted as a bundle for $249.

He follows up over email with purchase incentives and delivers an automated nurture sequence, providing supplemental content to past buyers.

Although a one-time purchase model served him well initially, Spencer shared his regrets about not incorporating a subscription model from the start:

“Not having a subscription model … is my biggest mistake. And that structure would be what I would shift my business to if I could start over.”

He has expanded into physical products like workbooks and flashcards based directly on customer feedback. Spencer also envisions adding a paid membership program in the future.

Tools and Technology

Spencer built his course delivery on Kajabi but soon incorporated specialized tools like ActiveCampaign for email and eWebinar for his online workshop.

He accepts the high costs and complexity of migrating off integrated platforms in favor of best-in-class solutions.

Day-to-Day Operations

To manage everything smoothly day-to-day, Spencer divides his time into structured “success blocks” focused on priorities:

Morning ritual – Cardio, stretch, cold shower, cleaning
Learning – reading, journal, meditation
PQO: Prolific Quality Output from 8-11am without any distractions
Quick check on stats/dashboard from 11 am-12 pm
Content creation – Filming videos, ideating new lessons, designing graphics from 12pm-4pm
Working out and family time from 4pm-8pm
Evening catch-up – Processing emails, messages, and misc. to-do items from 8pm-10pm

He also adheres strictly to the “11am rule” where he ignores messages before 11:00am to reserve mornings for strategic work. This discipline enables him to effectively scale the business.

Looking Ahead

Given his success so far, Spencer plans on continuing to widen his course curriculum, physical product line, and even considering a company rebrand to serve a broader audience.

He plans to launch in additional international markets, localizing content where needed.

While his brand has a very broad global appeal, Spencer sees huge potential in tailored messaging and translations based on factors that differ across countries.

He also plans to rebrand. As he put it:

“The biggest thing that is on the horizon that we haven’t talked about much publicly is a rebrand away from the name Toddlers Can Read towards a more universal and inclusive name with programs targeted for different ages from toddlers to bigger kids to adults.”

He continues to listen closely to customer feedback to ensure his company direction stays aligned with their evolving needs. But he never loses sight of the core purpose—empowering parents to maximize their kids’ reading potential.

Spencer’s combination of genuine care for his audience and strategic innovation positions him for growth.

Key Takeaways

Embrace a blue ocean strategy. Thoroughly analyze competitors and customer needs to identify wide open niches worth pursuing.
Focus on quick wins on social media to get attention and solve problems. Adapt content for your audience, leverage social media for viral growth, and diversify traffic sources to avoid sole reliance on external platforms.
Listen to customer feedback and adapt accordingly. Customer input guided Spencer’s expansion into physical products and potential subscription model. Build what people want.

Spencer’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Don’t be afraid to go all in. Take a big step. Give it full-time energy, even if not full-time hours.”

Links and Resources

Toddlers Can Read
Good to Great by Jim Collins
The Online Course Guy
Russell Brunson
StoryBrand
Kajabi
ActiveCampaign
eWebinar
January 2022 TikTok video

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.