Holiday Side Hustles: 6 Ways to Make Extra Money For The Holidays

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Last Updated on December 14, 2023 by Daniella

With 14 different religious holidays and even more events happening JUST in the month of December, you might be looking for creative ways to make extra money for the holidays.

Family gatherings and holiday parties aren’t cheap, especially if you’re expected to get gifts for several folks. Add grocery shopping, decorations, and maybe additional travel to see relatives and you might have quite the hefty bill to start planning for.

If you have children, you probably want to make sure they have the best memories of that holiday and gifts might be involved in that memory.

If gifts are too expensive and stressful to plan for, I recommend talking to your family and friends about this. Propose a Secret Santa or gift swap where it minimizes the cost. Or discuss with your family the idea of doing a gift-free celebration.

Trying to save for this occasion either way can be tough. With the help of side hustles and options to increase your income this holiday season, we have a few ideas that might help you out.

Table of Contents

6 Ways to Make Extra Money For The Holidays

We didn’t talk about options like making money with a blog, selling digital products, or paid research studies in this article. Even though those are all great options, they aren’t going to be able to get you the amount of money you need in time.

That still shouldn’t deter you from exploring other income options that you want to build well past the holidays.

Let’s dive in to these 6 quickest ways to make money for this holiday season.

1. Get Paid For Pet Care

If you love pets, use an app like Rover to make extra money.

The demand for pet sitters sky rockets in the months of November and December with the amount of people traveling to visit family for those holiday months.

With more people traveling, the more pets that are left behind and need care during that time. Also, for the folks that aren’t leaving town but there is more demand of their time to be with family or throw events, will need folks to help them out with their furbabies. They might need walking or several drop in visits which are also services you can do through the app.

Check out our review of Rover to learn more.

2. Make Extra Money With Gig Apps

If you have the extra hours each week to work a couple of gigs for extra cash, try out gig apps for a temporary holiday side hustle.

A couple of gig apps to download and try:

Instacart: Sign up to deliver groceries or be a shopper if you don’t have a car. This is a great way to earn extra cash during the holidays when several folks rather hire out their holiday shopping.
Shovler: Get paid to snow plow or shovel snow for others.
DoorDash: Sign up to deliver restaurant orders to people.
Hyrecar: Rent out your car using this app.
Handy: Find gigs in areas like carpentry, furniture assembly, decorating, cleaning, etc.
TaskRabbit: Do tasks for others such as cleaning, decorating, hanging holiday lights, repairs, painting, and more.

3. Freelance Out a Skill of Yours

Think of a skill that you have like writing, graphic design, or web development.

There are actually ways you can monetize those skills by reaching out to small businesses and online creators that may need your skillset (especially during a peak season like the holidays).

Here are some places you can start looking for those freelance jobs:

Search Facebook groups using keywords like “freelance + [skill]” like “freelance writing” and find groups like the Binders Full of Writing Jobs FB group
Twitter: Use the Twitter search to find freelance gigs. A popular hashtag I follow are #callforpitches.
Linkedin: For all types of freelancers and consultants. Opt to be a Linkedin Service Provider so your ideal clients can find you on Linkedin services page and in Linkedin search. Also search Linkedin posts for the words “hiring” and “freelance” to search for any short-term gigs that might be a good fit.
Problogger: For writing, ghostwriting, content, editing, proofreading, and more.
Upwork: A freelance marketplace and job board for all types of freelancers.
Behance: For graphics designers and creatives.

Check out this full guide on how to get started as a freelance writer.

Pro tip: Another option is to work as a freelance proofreader and proofread books, articles, courses, and even social media posts for others. You can get started with this free training.

4. Sell Items Online

You can also sell items online to make extra cash. These items can be past gifts you didn’t want or end up using or other items you already have but don’t need nor want anymore.

The absolute easiest platform to sell items fast (in my experience) is Facebook Marketplace. You can either sell the items locally and arrange pick up or sell to anyone regardless of location and ship the items to them through the app. The app also has secure payment tool integration with tools like PayPal that make payment pretty instant.

Keep in mind there is a haggle culture on Facebook Marketplace, so some folks will try and negotiate the price with you.

Other platforms to explore when selling or reselling items online:

eBay: Best for electronics and collectibles.
ThredUp: Best for selling clothes. What the platform doesn’t sell, they recycles for you!
Poshmark: Best for designer brands and accessories.
Mercari: Best for home and kitchen items as well as children’s toys.

Check out these 9 different selling apps to sell items online.

5. Become a Part-Time Remote Virtual Assistant

If you are savvy with social media, love organizing for others, or love doing anything technical, you can work as a virtual assistant during some of your free weekend hours as you try to save up for the holidays. You can find work by reaching out to small businesses on social media or looking on Facebook Groups where folks post virtual assistant jobs.

Places that are hiring VA’s include:

Search Facebook groups using keywords like “virtual assistant” or the specialty you do like “social media managers”, “content managers”, “proofreaders“, tc to look for folks posting that they are looking for virtual assistants and to build relationships with other virtual assistants.
Fancy Hands (use for starting out but doesn’t pay enough to continue work on – use it for starter experience)
Talent.Hubstaff.com
Delegated

7. Look for Part-Time Seasonal Work

If you rather have a more stable source of extra income this holiday season, I recommend you look into part time seasonal work in your area. Depending on your schedule, you could potentially pick up extra hours of work during night shifts, weekend shifts, and holiday shifts.

This could be:

Seasonal customer service jobs (including remote jobs)
Seasonal retail jobs
Snow removal
Holiday decorating
Holiday events like light displays, Santa meetups, parades, and more

Companies that hire for seasonal jobs:

Target
Grocery stores
Malls
Godiva
Nordstrom
Wayfair

Job boards to use to look for seasonal jobs:

CoolWorks: Find seasonal jobs in a variety of categories.
SeasonWorkers: Find seasonal winter jobs in hospitality, ski resorts, child care, and more.
SnagAJob: Find seasonal hourly work.
PeopleReady: Look for seasonal retail, manufacturing, distribution, warehouse, hospitality, hotel, and event seasonal jobs.

You can also browse part-time and seasonal work on our list of remote job boards.

Bonus Cash Opportunities

With all the different ways to take on extra work for an extra income source this holiday season, there are other ways to earn cash.

These simple hacks can help add a couple of extra bucks to your savings:

Open a high yield savings account to start saving for next year’s holiday season and earn interest on that amount.
Download Ibotta and Fetch and get cash back and rewards for your holiday shopping.
Get $30 when signing up for Rakuten and get cash back when shopping for gifts.
Make money with your data by downloading Nielsen on your devices.
Get paid for mini-studies on Respondent.
Negotiate your bills with Trim.
Earn free gift cards with this guide.
Look for missing money and unclaimed money.

They may not be able to get you much but they do add up.

Happy Holidays ❄

As you are looking through this list and thinking of all the possibilities, don’t get caught for too long comparing between the different options. Pick the one that best resonates with you and give it a go.

Which one are you going to give a try? Let us know in the comments.

Happy dabbling and happy holidays!

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Daniella

Daniella is the creator and author of iliketodabble.com. When their wife Alexandra and them aren’t globetrotting or playing with their 7+ animals, they are dabbling and working towards a future of financial freedom.