8 Side Hustles that Mean Business

Avoid the pitfalls and time-wasting part-time opportunities with our exclusive guide to sustainable and lucrative side hustles

Updated 22 November 2020

Side hustles have become popular throughout New Zealand as more people look to make incremental income. While the gig economy has diminished in size after COVID-19, there are still many opportunities available that are in desperate need of people. This guide has been put together to help you decide what side hustle is best for you, making sure you evaluate all the options and considerations. 

Our guide covers:

• Our Top 8 Side Hustles for New Zealanders
• ​How to market and promote your side hustle?
• How do I decide which side hustle is right for me?

Know This First: The Side Hustles (Probably) Best Avoided

• Important: There’s a lot of snake oil out there, with people promising flows of money without having to do much at all. The catch is always the same – you need to pay an upfront fee. These ‘gurus’ promote themselves heavily on YouTube, selling everything from foreign exchange trading platforms to ‘education investments’ where you become a management consultant.
  
• Unless you are comfortable with losing the money upfront, side hustles that seem too complicated and heavy in upfront fees are probably best avoided.
  
• This guide only contains genuine side hustles that have a proven track record of providing a regular income to those who provide their time and skills.

Our Top 8 Side Hustles for New Zealanders

Our list includes everything from passive side hustles (renting a spare room and saving money) to on-demand side hustles like rideshare driving, creative work and dog walking. As this is the first edition of our side hustle guide, if you have any suggestions or tips, please contact our research team.

Rent a spare room – it’s tax-free

If you rent or own a home, and there’s a spare room, you can earn up to $40,000 tax-free. Yes, you will have people in your house, sitting on your sofa, using your kitchen etc., but the extra money can be considerable. $200 a week tax-free rental income is the same as 12-15 hours working at a supermarket.
 
Estimated earnings: $100 to $250 a week, tax-free, depending on the property offered

Drive for a rideshare company (like Uber) during peak hours and surge events

There’s no point logging on to drive for Uber at 8am on a Saturday when there’s no demand - you’ll earn peanuts. However, with a few simple tactics, it’s much more lucrative. Sporting events and concerts can often be big honeypots of Uber bookings; people leaving stadiums and theatres all at once increases what you can earn.
 
Additionally, not everyone goes home – they can bar hop and then need a ride home when the bars close (another time for surging demand). So, a rugby match that finishes at 9:30pm can provide 3-4 hours of high-demand Uber bookings and reward drivers with some extra money. If there’s bad weather, more demand equals more money. The problem, however, is car insurance – most standard policies don’t cover it, so you’ll need to invest in appropriate insurance.
 
As an alternative, Uber Eats and other food delivery apps let you take advantage of surge times (i.e. 5pm to 9pm), and if you use your bike, you won’t need to worry about insurance.
 
Estimated earnings: $25-$35 per hour is standard for an Uber or Ola drive, but you need to deduct petrol and car costs from that. This is why only logging it during surge periods is far more lucrative.  

Find a part-time job that has regular hours

There are plenty of part-time jobs available, and dedicated part-timers get more opportunities for better shifts. Part-time jobs provide money, new friendships and a variation from the routine.
 
The hours may be inflexible - you may start on Friday night and Saturday night hours, which aren’t sociable, but those loyal (and reliable) are often rewarded with better shifts. Part-time positions tend to pay weekly, so you won’t wait long for money, and can lead to full-time jobs. Our guide to part time jobs extensively lists options available.
 
Estimated earnings: Around $18 - $20/hour (minimum wage, or slightly above minimum wage)

List services on Fiverr

Fiverr is a huge marketplace for business owners looking to engage professional services, such as logo design, content writing, PowerPoint preparation, web design and even app building and video marketing. What you earn depends on the value of the services you offer, known on Fiverr as ‘gigs’. For example, a web design gig is more valuable than a data entry gig, but it also can be more competitive as many sellers offer their services.
 
Our guide to working on Fiverr explains the opportunities, pros and cons. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a Virtual Assistant, Fiverr lets you ‘try before you commit’ by taking on ad-hoc work for specific one-off projects.
 
Alternative: If you’re skilled on crafts and not so much design services, ETSY is a popular platform to sell homemade craft items. The website attracts millions of buyers every day, and customers can order from all over the world. Like Fiverr, ensuring a long and happy existence on the platform revolves around keeping buyers happy, informed and consistently delivering quality.
 
Estimated earnings: Fiverr charges a 20% fee. For example, if you charge $100 for a service, you’ll receive $80, and Fiverr keeps $20. How much you earn depends on what you offer and how many clients order your services.

Buy and Sell on Trade Me

Using Trade Me to flog imported goods is possible, but it takes a lot of skill, and there is some risk. The most popular items are phone chargers and cases, as well as battery packs and adaptors. However, there is no golden ticket to Trade Me riches – it’s hard work fielding questions, and if you don’t deliver or ship on time, you risk reputation damage.
 
Estimated earnings: It’s impossible to put a number as every Trade Me business is different, but there is money to be made from regular small-value item sales. Our Trade Me selling tips has helpful information to boost sales.

On-demand services for neighbours and those in your area

Dog walking is big business. People love their dogs, and many are comfortable spending whatever it costs to ensure their dogs are happy. If you’re available from 9am to 5pm, setting up a dog walking service can be lucrative. Better still, the more dogs you manage, the higher your hourly earnings.
 
If dogs aren’t your thing, becoming a local babysitter is another option. While the hours will almost certainly be in the evening, babysitting and child-minding are in-demand services. While apps and websites exist to list your services, the old-fashioned approach of word-of-mouth often works best. 
 
And, if dogs or children aren’t your thing, many households are happy to pay for cleaning services. If you find cleaning stress-relieving or deeply satisfying, this could be the side hustle for you.
 
Estimated earnings: It ranges; a one-hour dog walk could command as much as $20, but if you have five dogs on the go, that’s $80 to $100 per hour. Babysitting earns minimum wage; a three-hour booking will earn around $60. Cleaning can pay low, so you’ll need to market yourself as a premium service to avoid getting minimum wage rates. If you do so, a house clean that takes an afternoon (four hours) could earn as much as $150. 

Sign up for Online Surveys

Online surveys are never going to be as lucrative as a part-time job or starting a business. Still, they do provide reliable, incremental income to those prepared to help market researchers know more about your spending habits. Best of all, they can be completed whenever – this NZHerald podcast explains how they work, and why they can be a good idea.
 
Estimated earnings: Someone who regularly submits surveys can realistically make around $100 - $200 per month. Our guide to online surveys highlights the best companies operating in New Zealand. For example, Nielsen Digital Voice pays $10/month in vouchers just to have its software installed on your computer - no effort is needed.

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• Our research highlighted three leading survey websites that reliably and consistently reward New Zealanders.
• We suggest registering with i-Say, Valued Opinions and Opinion World (in that order) to start receiving paid survey offers. Our top three survey websites are all part of massive global companies and pay rewards as promised, with no trickery.
• Registering takes only a few seconds for each site and you can opt-out at any time should you no longer be interested in the surveys offered.

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Want to be part of something bigger, and potentially earn more long-term? 

• Register with market leader Nielsen - both their Homescan and Digital Voice platforms reward you for going about your everyday activities such as buying groceries and browsing the internet.
• Be aware, for Digital Voice, software is installed on your device which tracks what websites you visit. Your information is 100% secure and used only to help Nielsen understand online consumer behaviour. 
• Know this: Signups take around two to five minutes, and the rewards offered are long-term, which can make them more attractive than one-off survey opportunities.

Register with Digital Voice

Register with Homescan

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Cut down on expenses

The easiest way to have more money is to spend less. Expenses big and small add up – it’s far easier to cut back on unnecessary purchases than it is to spend 10 hours a week on a side hustle.
 
Estimated earnings: Cost-cutting, if done with discipline, can easily ‘earn’ an average household around $50 to $100 a week. Our 20 Easy Ways to Save LOTS on Household Bills guide covers how you can cut down on costs you won’t miss, or don’t see the benefit of. 

​How to market and promote your side hustle

• Marketing can be expensive, but it doesn’t need to be if you do it right.
• What side hustle you do will influence what marketing you undertake. Platforms like Fiverr, Trade Me and Etsy all have millions of visitors every week, so landing a sale comes down to how you promote yourself using sales copy.
• The best way to succeed is to look at the sales description from top-rated sellers and adapt it for your product or services. This way, you’re using a proven formula. To build trust, you’ll need to gain customer reviews and make sure they are 5-star or similar.

 
If you’re setting up a side hustle that is based on offline services, then promoting it offline and online both work. For example, if you’re offering dog walking, pet minding, babysitting/childminding, gardening/watering or lawn mowing services, the best way to establish yourself is as followed:

1. Put together a flyer and distribute them around the neighbourhood. If you come up with the words and details, you can pay around $30 on Fiverr.com for a professional to design it. This makes you stand out, and, being local, trusted. The more local you look, the higher the chance of success.
2. Set up a Facebook Business page (it’s free), invite your Facebook friends to like it, and this will give you traction. Ask customers to leave reviews.
3. Promote your services on relevant local-area and special interest Facebook groups, websites like Neighbourly and any other website that has a strong local following.
4. Consider a Google Business listing (it’s free). This puts your business on Google Maps, meaning people searching for your services can find you. Best of all, you don’t need a website – Google lets you link a Facebook Business page to your listing.
5. Regular letterbox flyer distribution gets you remembered – printing the ads is cheap, so a monthly mailout around your local area can help boost your customer numbers. 

How do I decide which side hustle is right for me?

Deciding on the right side hustle takes some consideration - we've listed what's most important to help you maximise the value of your time.

It has to be worthwhile financially; otherwise, there’s a risk you’ll give up

Challenge what your time is worth and price your services accordingly. For example, don’t undersell your time and skill. If you’re launching a business, never offer to do anything for free – you won’t be taken seriously, and it will be hard to win clients. Additionally, your expertise has value – don’t agree to do online surveys if it takes one hour to earn $2. There are great market research survey platforms desperate for more New Zealanders; sign up for the right one.

Convenience is essential to sustaining the side hustle

Side hustles need to be nurtured and developed; for this to happen, they need to fit in with your lifestyle and routine. People like online surveys, because they can load them up on their phone while they wait for an appointment or relax at home. If you live near a supermarket, working there part-time is more accessible than having to cross town using a bus (which may not be running after your shift finishes). In summary, the easier it is to do the side hustle, the longer it will last.

A side-hustle that you dread doing won’t last long

Life is too short for toxic side hustles – they have to be fun. If you don’t like dealing with helicopter pet owners, dog walking may not be for you. If you don’t like deadlines, working online using Fiverr or Etsy probably isn’t suitable. And if you are in the habit of being a TV remote hog, sharing your home with a flatmate may cause issues. The success of a side hustle comes down to how much you enjoy it. If you find something that you like, you’re giving yourself the highest chance of success.

Related Guides

• Part-Time Jobs
• Working on Fiverr
• Trade Me Selling Tips
• Make Money Online
• Best Online Paid Surveys
• Ways to Save