5 Practical Online Side Hustles for Students Below 20 Years Old

Practical Online Side Hustles for Students
5 Practical Online Side Hustles for Students

Practical Online Side Hustles

When you go to the internet and type inside hustles, you’d be greeted with results that look promising but difficult to execute, or side hustles that are not worth your time. If you’re studying and half of your focus is on school, we may have to look for online jobs that are more practical.  The side hustles that all you really need is a computer and the internet.

But first things first, let us set some expectations. If you want to earn money online, there is no such thing as EASY way. You’d always need to put in hard work to earn a significant amount of cash. Second, is the false promise of no skill required. If there is an online job that requires no skill, then there is a word for that, and that word is SCAM.

Here are 5 Practical Side Hustles You Can Start Today

Micro Jobs

Micro jobs are online tasks that can be completed in a span of 10 to 15 minutes. The tasks are very basic but need patience and a little bit of skill. Some of the jobs that belong to this category are product categorization, image annotation, and image text transcription. 

You can join websites like Remotasks, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and Clickworker to start working as a micro jobs tasker. Or simply type in "micro jobs website" in Google search and you’ll get a couple more suggestions. 

But important to note, that you will not get rich doing micro jobs. Some YouTubers use them as click bait and promises on their thumbnails that you would earn from $50 to $200 per day. Those amounts are very far from the truth. If you have the patience to side hustle with micro jobs, then at most, you can earn $20 per day. 

Micro jobs are practical side hustles if you want to earn extra bucks off your free time with something less mentally demanding.

Online Data Entry (Convert PDF to Word) Freelancer

Data entry jobs are still a thing today. If you browse on websites like Freelancers and Fiverr, you can still see successful freelancers working on these projects. Data entry is very practical because all you need to do is copy the text from a scanned document into a fresh word or excel file. 

As a data entry freelancer, the lowest rate you should charge would be $1 per page. This rate is fair between you and your client especially if you are just starting. Don’t worry, after serving 10 clients, slowly increase your rate.

You can create accounts on websites like Freelancers and Fiverr to look for data entry jobs. This type of online job is practical because there is a demand. And if you’re someone who’s quick on typing, then data entry jobs might be the best side hustle for you.

Online Transcriptionist Jobs

The most common jobs as an online transcriptionist are converting audio to text and text captioning videos. All you need here is a good sense of hearing and you are set. 

Online courses are becoming popular and the owners of these courses will be one of your clients. A learner can keep more of the lesson if he can hear and read the words coming out from the speaker. For this reason, online courses need subtitles, and not just online courses, also YouTube videos. 

Online transcription jobs are available on websites like Gotranscript which pays transcriptionists weekly. 

What you will earn will depend on the length of your completed project. But at Gotranscript, their successful freelancers are earning $1400 per month. 

Starting a YouTube Channel

What if you’re someone who doesn’t need the money now, but is looking for a way to earn money in the future? If you’re that person, gather all your courage to speak in front of the camera and start a YouTube channel. 

YouTube is a practical side hustle because it contains a lot of potential even beyond earning on Ads. You can consider a YouTube channel as an online asset if you put in hard work and figure out how to monetize your videos.

YouTube success is a process, and it takes time and patience. Thus consider building a channel that focuses on something that you love. 

Gaming channels and dance vlogs came from hobbies which in turn became very popular on YouTube. You might not see money right away, but give it a few months or a year to start seeing success.

Growing a Facebook Page

The same as creating a YouTube channel, Facebook is for students who are not looking to earn money today. At a first glance, you might think that starting a Facebook page is not practical. But let’s examine it this way, youth is on your side, you’re filled with creative imagination, and you are blessed with a chunk of spare time. 

Imagination and time are the basic ingredients of a successful Facebook page.

A Facebook page is a community where you can promote your business. But if you are just starting out, Facebook is a perfect community to build an audience. Access to an online audience is equal to a resource of money. 

Create a Facebook page from something that you love doing and invite people to follow your page. A page is like a stage and your followers are your seated audience. Every time you open that curtain and present something, you can be sure that there is an audience waiting to watch and listen. 

Affiliate marketing, brand promotions, merch selling, and many more can become successful on Facebook after you build an engaging audience.

The Practical Side Hustles

The word practical can be a point of argument. But let’s agree here that a practical side hustle is something fully online and all you need is a computer and the internet. 

Starting a side hustle while you’re still young is ideal in today’s world. The working environment is continuously changing and it is helpful to have a head start. The examples mentioned here are not get-rich-quick schemes and don’t need an expensive upfront investment. But, you can be sure of its benefits because aside from requiring basic investments, all these methods have an actual demand. 

Start one of the hustles now and learn which combinations are practical for your schedule.

Comments