15+ High-Paying Side Jobs That Pay Cash (For 2021)

You want to make some cash on the side?

Alright, fair enough.

I actually have found 15+ legitimate side jobs that pay cash! Most of them don’t take much to get started, and you could make a decent chunk of money from them.

There are some things I’d like to go over first, though:

Side Job? Side Hustle? Under the Table Job?

The types of jobs on this list can sometimes be referred to as side hustles or even “under the table jobs”.

But it doesn’t matter what you want to call these jobs, they pretty much all work the same way: you do the work, then you get some cash.

You Gotta Pay Your Taxes

Getting paid in cash can sometimes mean that the income isn’t reported by the people paying you.

Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that the money is tax-free. You will be responsible for paying taxes on the income you earn. 

I’m not a tax professional so I can’t really go in-depth on this topic, but TurboTax does have a great post about paying taxes on this type of income.

So if you decide to try one of these side jobs that pay cash, don’t forget to put some money aside for taxes.

15+ Side Jobs That Pay Cash

Now let’s get into the side jobs. I’ve include some basic information about what the job is, the earning potential, and how you can get started.

Babysitting

This isn’t just for teenagers looking for some extra money! There are lots of parents out there who are looking for adults to babysit or to be a nanny to their children.

If you’re good with kids, this could be a great side hustle for you!

Earning Potential: Babysitting rates can vary depending on your location and how many children you’ll be babysitting – but you’ll definitely make more than minimum wage.

According to UrbanSitter, the average hourly rate is $16.75 for one child, and $19.26 for two children.

How to Get Started: Care.com is a great place to start looking for a babysitting or nanny job. You could also browse local facebook groups or check out the NextDoor page for your neighborhood.

Cleaning

Being a housecleaner could be a great side job if you’re willing to put in the work.

It’s fairly easy to pickup clients (just check out Craigslist or local Facebook groups), you don’t need to have any certifications or much experience, and you don’t need to have any supplies (but you could probably charge more if you did!).

Earning Potential: According to PayScale, the average pay for housecleaners is $14.89 an hour.

How to Get Started: If you want to charge more, gather some cleaning supplies (mop, bucket, rags, cleaning fluid, etc), once you have your supplies ready, you could create posts on Craigslist, local Facebook group, and your local NextDoor site advertising your services.

Make sure you check out what other people are charging so you know how to price your services.

Dog Walking

If you love dogs and want a side job that could include recurring income, this is a great option!

Getting your first dog walking clients might be a little tough, but once you get your foot in the door, there’s a huge possibility that those pet owners will keep requesting you again and again!

Earning Potential: You could earn $15.50+ an hour for dog walking (according to Indeed).

How to Get Started: You could advertise on Craigslist and Facebook. If you don’t want to find your own clients, you could use websites like Wag! and Rover.

Food Delivery (Ubereats, DoorDash)

If you want a side hustle that’s flexible and you have a form of transportation, doing food delivery is a great option!

And here’s how it works:

1. Sign-up (you may need to pass a background check)
2. Use the app to select a delivery
3. Drive to the restaurant
4. Pick-up the food
5. Drive to the customer and drop it off.

Boom. That’s all.

Earning Potential: Your earning potential can vary a lot when it comes to food delivery (there are bonuses for doing deliveries during peak hours, and tips can vary!).

But according to Indeed, the average hourly pay for a DoorDash driver is $14.33.

How to Get Started: If you’re interested in this side hustle, you can sign up with Ubereats and/or DoorDash.

Gardening

When I say “gardening”, I mean things like yard work and landscaping. You could do landscaping work like edge trimming, weed pulling, and pruning, and other types of yardwork like lawn mowing.

If you have the equipment needed, you can easily get started. You could even start by asking your neighbors.

Earning Potential: According to PayScale, the average hourly pay for a gardener is $15.19.

How to Get Started: You can advertise on Craigslist, local Facebook groups, or your local NextDoor hub.

Graphic Design

If you have a good eye for design and you have the ability to bring other people’s vision to life, you could make some money doing graphic design.

Graphics design could include things like logo design and branding, website design, UX design, and even some animation.

Earning Potential: The average graphic designer salary is $45,000+ per year, according to GlassDoor.

How to Get Started: You could find your own clients by creating your own website and showcasing your work or networking online through Facebook, LinkedIn, or even Reddit. You can also use freelance websites like Upwork, or you could create your own gig on Fiverr.

Handyman

This is another great option if you don’t have a ton of experience!

You could do more simple tasks like painting or putting together furniture, or more complicated tasks like full-on renovations.

Earning Potential: The average hourly pay for a handyman is $23.36 an hour (according to PayScale).

How to Get Started: You could advertise on local Facebook groups, Craigslist, or even approach local businesses who might be interested in your services.

Manual Labor

If you don’t have much experience, and you don’t mind doing a lot of physical work, you could easily pick up some manual labor work.

Manual labor includes warehouse-type work and construction work, basically, entry-level jobs that involve physical work.

Earning Potential: You could make a few hundred to a few thousand each month, it just depends on the type of labor and how many hours you work.

How to Get Started: If you’d like a manual labor job, check out this Indeed search, it will give you thousands of manual labor jobs that don’t require any experience. You can then sort the jobs by location.

Petsitting

Petsitting can include staying at someone’s house and taking care of their pets, keeping someone’s pets at your own house while the owners are away, or looking in on someone’s pet every once in a while (drop-in visits).

If you’re good with dogs and cats, this could be a lucrative side hustle!

Earning Potential: Depending on your location and how much care is involved, you could make $15-$25+ an hour.

How to Get Started: You could advertise your services on Craiglist or on local Facebook groups.

You could also use Rover to offer services! With Rover you will complete a background check and fill out a detailed profile, your profile must also be approved by the Rover team.

Photography

This side job will require a bit more experience (people will most likely want to see a portfolio of your previous work), but it also pays very well!

The first thing you should do is decide on a niche, will you do family and portrait photography? Event photography? Fashion photography? Maybe a different niche?

Next, you should try and build a portfolio. You could offer discounted or free sessions for people to help build up testimonials and your portfolio.

Earning Potential: According to Salary.com, the median salary for photographers is $66,000 per year.

How to Get Started: Pick your preferred niche, then build a portfolio of your work. You could advertise on local Facebook groups, Craigslist, and/or build your own website showcasing your work.

Reselling

Reselling comes in tons of different forms (here’s just a few):

• You can dumpster dive and resell the items
• You could buy things at retail stores and then sell them for a higher price (retail arbitrage)
• And you could buy things wholesale and then resell the items at a retail price.

Also, you could specialize in different types of reselling, there are people who just sell electronics, or clothes, or just toys.

There are also different platforms you could use for reselling: Poshmark, Mercari, Amazon, and eBay (these are the more popular ones).

Earning Potential: You can make anywhere from a few hundred a year to six figures a year!

Rob and Melissa from Flea Market Flipper made $16k in November from reselling!

How to Get Started: If you want to dip your toe into reselling, start by gathering items around your house that you no longer need, and try to list them online for sale.

Then you could use the knowledge you’ve gained (and the money!) to find some other profitable items that you could resell.

Rinse and repeat!

Tutoring

Tutoring includes general tutoring like helping kids with their homework, but also this type of job includes helping children learn English as a second language.

Both of these types of tutoring pay about the same, and both can be done virtually, but if you’re interested in specifically teaching English as a second language, most companies will require you to have a Bachelor’s degree of some kind.

Earning Potential: Depending on what kind of tutoring you do, and how many hours you put in, you could make anywhere from $15-$20 an hour.

How to Get Started: If you’re looking for general tutoring jobs, you could use sites like Tutors.com, Indeed, and Care.com to find jobs.

If you’re interested in teaching English online, QKids is a great place to get started.

Virtual Assistant

If you’re looking for a side job that you can do from home, this is a great option!

Virtual assistants can help online business owners with a variety of tasks – it just depends on what your skills are! You could be doing things like email management, customer support, content creation, data entry, even editing!

Gina Horkey has a great post that includes 50+ different services you can offer as a VA.

Earning Potential: Depending on your skills and how many clients you can snag, you could make some serious money!

According to PayScale, the average virtual assistant hourly salary is $15.93.

How to Get Started: If you want to get started as a Virtual Assistant, you could ask people in your network if they’re interested in your services (you could offer a discounted rate to get some testimonials / experience), you could also network in Facebook groups, or you can just use freelance sites like UpWork.

Web Designer

If you have a good eye for design and you’re willing to find your own clients, maybe being a freelance web designer could be the side job for you?

What’s great about this particular job, is that you don’t need any special education and you could charge on a per-project basis – which could really help your hourly rate (depending on how fast things get done).

Earning Potential: According to PayScale, the average salary of a web designer is $50,767.

How to Get Started: If you’re looking for some freelance web design work, you could advertise your services on Facebook and Craigslist, or you could search on FlexJobs and Indeed.

Writing

If you enjoy writing or editing, you could turn that into a nice side job that pays cash.

First, you should decide on what type of writing you’d like to do. Would you like to write blog posts, press releases, social media captions? Maybe you’d be better with technical writing?

Once you know what type of writing you’d like to do, you should gather some writing samples, then you should start pitching.

Earning Potential: Depending on your experience, and what kind of writing you’re doing, you could easily make $50,000+ a year or more with freelance writing.

According to PayScale, the average hourly rate for freelance writers is $24.12.

How to Get Started: You can start searching for writing jobs on freelance sites, and you can check out our article on 67+ Writing Jobs.

Where to Find Other Side Jobs That Pay Cash

If you’re looking for other side jobs that pay cash, you can check out these websites:

• Craigslist – Post about your services or check out the “gigs” section to find people who are hiring.
• Facebook Groups – Make sure to check out your local Facebook groups to advertise your services or see what kinds of services people are looking for.
• NextDoor – NextDoor is a site that has hubs for different neighborhoods in the US. If your neighborhood has one, you can advertise your services or see what other people are looking for.

Final Thoughts

If you want to start making some extra money, trying out one of these side jobs that pay cash can be a great option! Most of them don’t require any experience, and you could get started on most of these today if you wanted to!

FAQs About Side Jobs That Pay Cash