You don’t have to work a seasonal job to have a ‘slow season’. Every industry has different demands which can create both a busy and slow season.
While your slow season can seem like a great time to relax and regroup, it can also be quite boring or even stressful if you depend on business and sales for your income.
If you work a 9-5 job and earn a steady income regardless of how busy business is, you still might have more time and energy to earn extra money during the slow season.
The extra money you earn can make a big difference in regards to your wallet especially if you know you’ll need extra money to pay for annual expenses, save up for a big purchase, max out your retirement accounts, or even to put your kids in a summer camp.
Most important, earnings extra money during a slow time can really help keep you afloat so you won’t have to rely on your emergency fund or worse, credit cards to meet your basic living expenses.
If you’re looking to optimize your slow work season by using your extra time and energy to make extra money, here are a few ideas you might want to consider.
Perform Micro-Tasks Your Lunch Break with Microtasks
If you don’t want to spend a ton of time earning extra money outside of your regular work hours, try to maximize your lunch break by doing micro tasks. Micro-tasks or micro jobs are basically short and quick jobs you can do online for extra money.
The pay may not be amazing but it adds up over time as long as you’re consistent. Some examples of micro tasks include taking surveys online, selling services on Fiverr, and using sites like InboxDollars and Swagbucks.
InboxDollars rewards you with cash for doing small online activities like taking surveys, watching videos, shopping online and more. You can earn $5 just for signing up and you need to reach a $30 minimum balance threshold in order to request payment via check, gift card, or Visa card.
Swagbucks is a similar site only you earn points that can be redeemed for gift cards. I’ve found that one of the easiest ways to earn points with Swagbucks was to install their search bar on my web browser so I could earn points for searching online along with taking their surveys daily.
Focus Groups
If anyone ever told you that your opinion didn’t matter, they were wrong. In fact, there are plenty of companies that would pay top dollar for your opinion if you choose to participate in their focus groups.
I love focus groups because they are easy and pay well. You don’t need any special skills or expertise to earn money from doing a focus group because it basically just involves you sitting down with a group and sharing your thoughts and opinions about certain brands, advertising, specific products, etc.
There are even some focus groups that can be conducted online from the comfort of your own home as long as you have a computer, webcam, and an internet connection. Focus groups pay anywhere from $50-$150+ per an hour of your time on average.
In order to be accepted to participate in a focus group, you often need to answer a few questions and pre-qualify so the company knows that you are within their target demographic that they wish to receive feedback from.
Since everyone is different and has their own unique experiences, you probably won’t qualify for every focus group opportunity to come across but there is an overwhelming amount of opportunities out there. To find focus group opportunities, you can sign up with market research companies that will connect you with groups that are relevant to you. Some of the best companies include:
- 20/20 Panel
- FocusGroup.com
- MindSwarms (Allows you to participate in focus groups online)
Start a Blog
If you have some downtime at work and starting a blog has always been in the back of your mind, you could use the extra time to create a blog and start drafting up some posts.
Starting a professional blog does require some manageable start-up costs and some work and effort upfront, but you can start earning money quicker if you offer a service on your blog, start selling ad space, and allow companies and brand to sponsor some content via a sponsored blog post or sponsored social media post.
You can also explore additional income streams like affiliate marketing which will allow you to earn money from referring people to try products and services you really like.
Overall, blogging requires a long-term effort but there are so many different income streams you can explore. Plus, you can work on and grow your blog on your own terms.
The One Reason Why Blogging is the Ultimate Side Hustle
Get a Seasonal Job
If your current line of work has lengthy slow seasons, you may want to consider getting a seasonal job so you can make extra money on the side for a few months, then focus more on your main job after the slow season has ended.
Juggling two demanding jobs is hard but with a seasonal job, you won’t have to feel like as much pressure long-term since you won’t be sticking around for a long time.
You can try work-from-home customer service jobs, retail stores around the holidays like Target, Walmart, flower shops in the spring, or even local Halloween stores.
Basically, any seasonal position that allows you to work outside the hours of your main job could be a solid option.
Become a Part-Time Tutor
If you’d rather get a second job that is super flexible so you can pick up hours during your slow season and reduce hours during your busy season, you might want to consider tutoring on the side.
Students will always need tutors, and if you are good at a particular subject or even speak another language, you can earn money on the side either from working with students in person or online.
Chegg, a popular textbook rental and sales website, also hire tutors for college and high school subjects.
According to their website, tutors work part time, give live one-on-one help, and get paid $20 per hour as a starting rate.
Brand Ambassador Gigs
Brand ambassador gigs are fun, flexible, and easy. In other words, they’re a perfect way to earn money during your slow season. Most brand ambassadors are independent contractors since they work gigs at different locations so they are responsible for paying their own taxes on their earnings.
As a brand ambassador, you’ll often be asked to go to certain locations like a grocery or retail store, or an event and promote a company’s product. Sometimes this may include providing a live demonstration, preparing food samples for people to try, or even handing out freebies like granola bars or t-shirts.
The tasks can really vary but it’s usually pretty easy. Your main goal is to provide or give away something for free and promote brand awareness to get people excited about the company and their products. For this, you can earn anywhere from $10 – $25 per hour plus bonuses if you earn sales commission.
The best thing about brand ambassador gigs aside from the pay is that they are flexible. Most gigs only last a few hours and are in the evenings or on weekends. That means, if you usually work during the week, you can pick up some gigs on the weekends.
To find brand ambassador gigs, your best bet is to search for opportunities on job boards like Indeed and CareerBuilder. There are independent companies that hire people, but most of them are not nationwide and only hire people who live in certain areas of the country.
You could also perform a search on Google that includes your city’s name to find local opportunities you could apply for as well.
Making the Most of Your Slow Season
Instead of suffering from extreme boredom or worrying about how you’re going to get by during your slow season, take that time to establish an additional stream of income so you can make more money.
Decide whether you’re looking for something traditional or flexible and weigh all your options.
9 Reasons You Need to Start a Side Hustle
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5 Side Hustles that Make at Least $500 a Month
Does your line of work have a slow season? If so, when is it? Have you ever tried doing any of these things to earn extra money?
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All great tips to make some extra money Chonce. I don’t really have a slow season now with our business, but when I worked in a 9-5 I’d regularly find ways to make some extra income during slow times. I prepared taxes for a number of years during my slow time. It was a great way to make some extra money, plus I got to learn a number of new things so it was a win-win.
Recently I was contacted by an old co-worker to see if I wanted to start consulting for his team. I was instantly interested and was ready to go.
There are so many hours in a week, if you can carve out 5-10 hours, you can build a business on the side, or help others. By becoming more valuable, you can make a lot of money!!
Thanks for sharing Chonce.
A really diverse set of recommendations. I used part of my recent slow season to improve my portfolio, pitch to new clients (client turnover was one reason for the additional slowness), and also took up a local seasonal job for a few weeks by using my local networking connections.
Brand ambassador sounds like a cool thing to do.
In my line of work, there may be a slow day or two, but not a slow season. There is always plenty of work to do and shortage of people in the IT / cloud computing industry :)
Great suggestions here Chonce, what is your favourite way to hustle away the slower times?
There isn’t generally slower times however it’s something I will be looking into
Those are some excellent tips. Starting a blog has helped me out a lot. Who knows where I’d be if I never started it. I’d probably still be struggling with money.