If you’re taking a break from studying to search for the best side hustles of 2023, you’ve come to the right place.
We get it. Being a student and making money don’t always seem to go hand in hand. But that doesn’t mean earning cash alongside your studies is impossible. On the contrary, students can easily make money during university. So while there’s never a more acceptable and understandable time in your life to be digging for pocket change, you should still be able to enjoy yourself and save for the future during school.
We’ve created a list of the best side hustles for students in Canada to help you experience university with a little more spending money and, hopefully, leave with a bigger bank account than when you started.
Blogging
Blogging is not a trend of the past! If you aren’t already knowledgeable about the strategy behind this side hustle, you may have to research before your blog is successful. But don’t worry. Blogging can be as easy as tapping your fingers on a keyboard and learning the basics of Google’s search engine. The key to blogging is finding a niche, writing some articles, and learning strategies to get your blog ranking on search engines. Then, you can monetize your blog through advertisements, brand partnerships, and affiliate programs, or they can be used to advertise your products and services directly. You can quickly get started today with blogging platforms and sites like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace.
Starting a Landscaping Business
If you’ve spent enough time staring at your screen, you may prefer starting an offline side hustle. For example, starting a landscaping business is as easy as knocking on your neighbours’ doors and offering competitively low rates to mow their lawns. From there, you can expand your services and enlist the help of other knowledgeable landscapers. You could even start by borrowing a lawn mower from your family or friends!
Babysitting, Pet-sitting, and House-sitting
Babysitting, pet-sitting, and house-sitting are some of university students’ most popular side hustles! People are willing to pay top dollar for all types of reliable sitters. Reach out to your community and make sure everyone knows you are ready and available to help care for their children, pets, and home. If you want to get started now, we recommend joining platforms like Rover (house-sitting and pet-sitting), Pawshake (pet-sitting), MindMyHouse (house-sitting and pet-sitting), or CanadianNanny (babysitting). If you’re going to babysit, check out the Canadian Red Cross for some important certification programs.
Freelance Proofreading
Proofreading is a great side hustle for students with a good eye for spelling and grammar. Whether you want to offer your proofreading services to classmates or you’re looking to proofread an upcoming novel, beginner proofreaders and experts have plenty of options. In addition, this business can be scaled into an agency by hiring other trusted proofreaders and taking on more work. You can get started as a freelance proofreader today on sites like Upwork and Fiverr.
Delivering Food and Groceries
Many shoppers and drivers receive a large portion of their earnings from tips.
You can start a profitable side hustle from the combined comfort of your local grocery stores and car by delivering food and groceries to your neighbours. Whether you offer your services directly through social media and referrals or sign up with one of the many food delivery platforms available today, you will have abundant opportunities with this profitable side hustle. Many shoppers and drivers receive a large portion of their earnings from tips. Start earning money delivering food and groceries today with Instacart.
Working as a Virtual Assistant
If you aren’t interested in working in an office, starting a virtual assistant business is a great side remote side hustle with lots of earning potential. Virtual assistants help individuals manage their emails, provide customer service, manage social media accounts, and more. Of course, it all depends on your client’s specific needs. Depending on the time you must devote to a side hustle, you can take on multiple clients at once, exponentially increasing your earning potential. You can get started as a freelance virtual assistant today on sites like Upwork and Fiverr.
Editing Videos
This side hustle is a no-brainer for all tech-savvy students and film connoisseurs. Freelance video editors have high earning potential, and it doesn’t take a lot of skill to start. You can watch tutorials on YouTube to learn the basics of video editing or jump straight to selling if you already have experience. Consider starting with low rates to gain real-world experience, increasing prices as your skillset and the number of clients you take on increases. You can start as a freelance video editor today on sites like Upwork and Fiverr.
Renting out your car
If you are a student who has a car, this might be a good business for you. Chances are, if you live on campus, you may not be using your car very much. But don’t let it just sit there! You could be making money renting your car out to other people when you aren’t using it. People renting their cars out with Turo earn an average of $620 monthly.
Freelance Writing
Freelance writing has become a popular side hustle in the past few years. All businesses need writers in some capacity. Many people find so much success in freelance writing that they quit their day job and pursue the side hustle full-time. It’s safe to say this is a surefire way to make money with the right strategy. Every business needs capable writers, and with a computer and a little creativity, you can provide that to them. You start as a freelance writer today on sites like Upwork and Fiverr.
Ridesharing
If you aren’t comfortable renting your car out to people but are still interested in using your vehicle to earn money, ridesharing may be the gig for you. If you have a car and spare time, ridesharing can be a very entertaining and rewarding side hustle for university students. With this side hustle, you will pick people up in your car and take them wherever they need to go. You can start ridesharing today with Lyft or Uber. Many drivers on these platforms make a full-time income driving people around!
Working as a Transcriptionist
You may be a great candidate for global transcription if you speak more than one language.
Yet another side hustle for writers, working as a transcriptionist is easy to start and can be very rewarding. With this side hustle, you will be turning audio into written words. It doesn’t take much prior experience, and depending on how fast you are at typing, you may be able to earn a lot of money! There is a wide variety of transcription services available today. The most popular are general transcription, legal transcription, and medical transcription. You may be a great candidate for global transcription if you speak more than one language. If you have a laptop with a good internet connection, we think you should try this one. What do you have to lose? You can quickly get started today with Rev, Crowdsurf, or SpeakWrite.
Tutoring
If you’re a straight-A student, you have probably considered giving this side hustle a shot. However, if you’re not a straight-A student, don’t tune us out yet! You don’t have to tutor subjects at your current or recent grade levels. You could start as quickly as helping grade students learn simple addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication problems! Your services will be valued if you’re confident in whatever subject you decide to tutor. Students of every grade level often need extra one-on-one teaching and aren’t afraid to pay handsomely to get that help. While many websites connect students and tutors, the easiest way to start this side hustle is by reaching out to friends and making a social media post about your services.
Cleaning
If you're a neurotic cleaner, we have the best side hustle for you! Nowadays, people are looking to optimize every minute of their time, including minimizing household chores. As a university student, if you can sweep, clean some windows, make a few beds, and take out the trash, you can earn a lot of money by helping people keep their homes sparkly clean! You could easily start by reaching out to a local cleaning service to get some experience with their business, or you could watch a few YouTube videos and research the best strategies for getting clients. We recommend taking this side hustle to social media to tell all your friends and family. Best of luck cleaning!
Flipping Furniture
If you haven’t checked out Facebook Marketplace recently, you’re missing out! Many people list items on the Facebook Marketplace that they no longer need but quickly want to get rid of. However, many great items are often available in the free section! So hop onto the Marketplace, check out what items are available, and see if there are any you could get for free or at a low cost and upsell. Some popular resell items are chairs, couches, side tables, and dressers. This is a great side hustle for creative people who like working with their hands.
Selling Clothes
On the flip side of selling furniture (see what we did there?), there’s a huge market for reselling clothes! While you can also find clothes on the Facebook Marketplace, we recommend checking out your local thrift store. If you find trendy or name-brand clothes and accessories, you could quickly sell them for profit by buying them at a low market cost. Some good sites for second-hand trade clothing are Poshmark, Depop, and ThredUp.
Starting a YouTube Channel
You’ve probably heard of the wild success that YouTubers like David Dobrik and Mr. Beast are having. As it turns out, you don’t have to be a millionaire to be successful on YouTube. People of all different niches and subject matters have become wildly successful, generating high profits through ad revenue, partnerships, sponsorships, affiliate programs, and advertising their products or services. So if there’s a particular subject you know a lot about, you should consider starting a YouTube Channel. The earnings are limitless, so what are you waiting for?
Not Convinced?
Seriously, you’ve read all these ideas and are still not convinced you should start a side hustle? That’s okay. Even the most brilliant businessmen and businesswomen need social proof to ensure their next venture is profitable. You might not plan on turning your side hustle into a long-lasting, large business, but it is good to know it is possible. You may have already heard that Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage, Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in a garage, or Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his dorm. Here are a couple more examples of side hustles that turned into big businesses.
Slack – Slack is a messaging platform commonly used by business owners to organize communications with their teams. In 2013, this platform launched as a side hustle created by a few engineers focused on a much larger project, a gaming platform called Glitch. Though Glitch ultimately failed, Slack has far surpassed the team’s expectations and has helped millions of people across the globe stay connected. Today, the company has a $5 billion valuation.
Craigslist – Founded by Craig Newmark, this advertisements website started as an email list in 1995 to connect buyers and sellers of various items and services. A year later, Newmark created a website for the email list. Since then, Craigslist has been made available in over 70 countries and currently has a company valuation between $2 billion and $3 billion.
These are just two examples among many! With a quick google search, you can find an extensive list of companies that started as side hustles.
Wait a Second
It’s not always easy to be a student and have a job, but with these side hustle ideas, it’s feasible. You don’t have to be broke as a university student, and you don’t have to come out of university with loads of debt. These fifteen side hustles are scalable, meaning you can turn them into big businesses if you succeed.
Of course, it doesn’t matter how much money you make if you don’t know how to stick to a budget. But unfortunately, one of the biggest reasons people fall into debt is not having a good understanding of personal finance. At Creditpicks, we’re here to help. Whether you’ve never checked your credit score or you’re closely monitoring a high-risk stock portfolio, we provide financial guidance that applies to all experience levels and walks of life.
Sign up for our newsletter today to receive monthly financial guidance!
