8 Ways to Make an Extra $500 a Month Realistically

Earning $500 a month extra by doing a simple side gig almost sounds impossible. I mean, how can you really do this? Even though I used to work side hustles daily, I didn't always make $500 a month. Sometimes, it was $300 or $400, but passing the $500 threshold was pretty challenging.

I dug deeper to find out how others have realistically made an extra $500 a month and how I could help you achieve this goal. Turns out, there are quite a few options that work.

Teach Locally or Online ($20-$40 per Hour)

Whether you teach locally or online, the average payout is $20 to $40 per hour. Remember, this is a side gig, so most of your teaching will be tutoring. You will need to commit at least 1-2 hours per day to teaching, depending on the child's needs. 

If you want to start making $500 an hour by teaching locally or online, strategically, you could secure around 10 students, each paying you $25 an hour, providing them two two-hour sessions. It could take a while to find this many students, however, so buckle up for a bit of a grind. 

A few platforms I would recommend you get started with are: 

If you are teaching online, I recommend that you have a fair knowledge of tools such as Zoom or Google Meets. 

Video Editing ($20-$60 per Hour)

Thousands of businesses are racing to create quality online video content and are in dire need of editors. Whether you are new to this or a seasoned veteran, you can easily make $500 to $1000 a month from this side gig. If you are highly skilled, it could be even more. 

If you set your rates at about $25 an hour, you could easily work five hours a week and make $500 a month. That's just one hour a day, or two hours every three days, or you get what I'm saying. If you are rather new and don’t want to set your prices too high, I get it. Maybe you should go for $20 and work on more than one project per month. 

Just don't overwhelm yourself too much. This can get rather stressful in the beginning, and too many projects could lead you to spend way too much time on it. But if you dream of being a video editor, I highly suggest you take your chance now while it's in such high demand.

Freelance Copywriting ($10-$50 per Hour)

Depending on your experience, you can easily make $500 a month as a copywriter. Keep in mind, though, that copywriting is far different from content writing. You need to know how to sell, and that could mean a huge learning curve. 

Dedicating about 2 to 3 hours a day to practicing your writing skills is a great way to sharpen your copywriting skills. I recommend watching Tyson 4D and learning more about how you can improve your copy and actually land high-paying clients. 

Realistically, you may not start off making $3,000 a month right off the bat, but $500 is a great goal to achieve. I would recommend trying to practice by doing small gigs through Upwork, Fiverr, ProBlogger, or even Freelancer. 

Sell Digital Products ($10-$50 per Unit)

Depending on the product and the depth of your expertise, you could easily make $500 a month by selling ebooks, printables, design templates, etc. On average, each product can be sold for $10 to $50, which, with a handful of sellers, can easily reach your goals. 

Spending time to create your digital product could result in five or ten hours of creation time, which could be heavy to handle at first. However, once you get all of the heavy grind out of the way, you will only need to spend about an hour daily to promote your product or maintain daily platform management. 

Let's say you had a digital good priced around $10, you’ll need to sell around 50 units to make $500 (around 12-15 units a week). With consistent marketing, I would say you could expect to reach $500 within 2-3 months. 

If you do not want to dedicate this much time to a side hustle, Freecash takes literally two minutes to sign up. I love Freecash because you can easily make over $100 a month, and sometimes even $500 a month, by playing games, completing surveys, or testing products.

Build Websites ($7-$30 an hour)

This is where you may want to pay attention. I really found this side hustle interesting and completely doable for anyone who is tech-savvy. Beginners who build a website could easily earn $300 to $500 a month (around $7 an hour). However, I have found many experienced designers charge up to $1,000 a website or more.

As a beginner, you may find yourself spending about three to four hours a day on the websites, hence the lowballer $7 an hour. But as your skills improve, the time you spend on each project will decrease, giving you more freedom during the day while still earning equal to or more than $500 a month. 

To get started building websites, I recommend learning how to use tools like WordPress, Wix, Elementor, and Webflow and using learning platforms like YouTube tutorials and Skillshare. 

You can find clients using platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer. Alternatively, you could learn to cold-call small businesses about revamping their outdated websites. I really enjoyed watching Pavlo’s YouTube videos on how to cold call for projects.

Virtual Assistant Work ($10-$50 per Hour)

Being a virtual assistant is so easy. I did this while working as a barista, and I could have easily made $500 a month. Ideally, working 5 hours a week or so is nice for this gig. However, if you want to earn more than a couple hundred dollars, finding higher-valued gigs is always the way to go. 

You can set your own rates, as of now the average is about $15 to $25 an hour. If you spend about 10 hours a week, you can easily make great money on the side as a virtual assistant. 

You can easily find these types of jobs on freelance platforms like Upwork or even Fiverr. Just create a convincing profile highlighting your skills that could be beneficial for being a virtual assistant. Some popular tools you could use on a daily basis are typically Trello, Asana, Slack and Google Workspace.

These are some basics, depending on the contractor, they could request you to use other platforms like Notion, Miro, Discord, etc. 

Affiliate Marketing ($10-$100+ per sale)

While your earnings are commission-based, you can make from $10 to $100 per sale, depending on either the product or the percentage of royalties you receive. Being an affiliate marketer is a popular way to be basically a moving advertisement for small or medium sized brands. 

Freecash offers one of my favorite affiliate programs. You could earn thousands a month if you simply share your referral code. The more people you bring, the more you earn. You can also level up and start earning higher percentage of commission based on your ranking. 

For affiliate marketing, you will need to dedicate around one to two hours to researching products, writing content, and promoting links. This type of side gig takes time to grow a trusting audience, but affiliate marketing is a great passive income opportunity in the long term. 

Sell Stock Photos ($1-$5 per photo per month)

If you are a photographer, or love to take pictures as a hobby, you can easily make money taking pictures and selling your stock photos online. Typically, you need to upload hundreds of stock images to really start getting income rolling in. However this is a great passive income strategy that literally pays you while you sleep. 

To upload enough images, you will need to spend at least an hour or two a day either taking images or uploading images to a stock image platform. It can take a few weeks to start building a steady income from this, however the end reward of $500 a month is well worth it. 

There are a few platforms that I recommend you post on to get a decent portfolio going:

Once you start building a pretty solid portfolio, you can expect to start earning $500 a month within 3 to 6 months. Just remember to be consistent, and provide quality in all you do.