A few years back, I ran home really excited to tell my wife, “Babe! I found a way we can make some extra cash together! You know those electric scooter things around our neighborhood? I just signed us up to be night chargers!”

My wife was skeptical at first. But after a few nights of walking around our neighborhood, riding scooters together, laughing and getting paid, she was loving it! It’s the perfect side hustle for couples.

This was right when Bird first launched its scooter service in Santa Monica. Back then the company was paying people $5 to $20 per scooter to take them home each night, charge them, and put them back the next day.

Since there were hundreds of scooters within a half-mile radius of our house, it was easy money for 1-2 hours of work each night. We made about $4k – 5k in extra money over a 3-month period. Not bad!

Our garage looked like this:

Unfortunately, after only a few months, the Bird app got really popular and more people signed up to be chargers. The effort vs. reward stopped making sense for us, so we called it quits on that side hustle. 

The money was good, though it’s the fun and memories that my wife and I remember most. We got to hang out with each other each night, be outdoors, get some exercise, and work as a team. We’ve been trying to find another side hustle we can do *as a couple* ever since. 

Side Hustles for Couples

Some of you might be thinking, “why the heck would I want to do a side hustle with my partner!? The reason I work is to get away from them!” 🤣 .  In some ways I can relate! My wife and I have completely different problem-solving methods, and she drives me nuts sometimes the way she does things (probably not as crazy as I drive her).

But I gotta say, there’s a bunch of cool things that can come from teaming up to earn extra money with your partner. 

For one, it strengthens you both as a money team! Encouraging each other, celebrating wins, talking about money regularly… These are all really healthy things that many life partners struggle with. Sharing a side hustle or co-owning a small business forces you to work on these things while speeding up your path to financial freedom.

Also, as a couple, sometimes you can conquer bigger challenges together rather than jobs you could only do solo. Working with your partner gives you double the brain power (and physical power). You each get to apply your individual skills, divide up tasks, and cover more ground.

Lastly, you get to spend more activity time together. Many people don’t want to take on a second job (especially outside the house) because they’d miss being home with their partner in the afternoons. Well, if you find a good hustle idea together, you can still earn extra cash without being separated.

So, here’s a list of the best side hustles for couples, and I’d love to hear if you and your partner have found a unique way of making money together. 😀

7 Best Side Hustle Ideas for Couples

Some of these are featured in our master side hustle series with 80+ other money-making stories. So if you’re interested in any of the jobs, you can drill down and hear people’s real-life experiences, pros/cons, expected earnings, etc.

1. Gardening and Landscaping Duo ($20-$100 per yard)

If you have a love for plants and flowers and don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty, creating a small landscaping business is a great hustle idea for a couple.

One of my neighbors currently employs a husband & wife duo to do weekly yard maintenance. I gotta say, it looks SO FUN! They are the nicest couple and love what they do. Both of them hold a regular full-time job during the day, then do a few gardens after-hours for extra cash.

If you start a business with just 4 clients (2 lawns per night, 2 nights a week) and make $50 per lawn, that’s $10k extra income for the year. Talking to neighbors and friends as word of mouth is usually the best way to strike deals. Once clients are locked into a schedule, you’ll have recurring income.

Keep in mind that the more unique value you provide, the more you can charge. Upscale neighborhoods and fancier suburbs have clients who are willing to pay a higher rate for more custom gardening. :)

2. Start a Blog Together ($0 – $5k+ per month)

Fair warning… If you are new to blogging, it takes a loooooong time before you realize any income. But, if you stick with it and have a unique angle that gives good information to the people of the world, you’ll be successful.

Couples blogs are popular because they have double the personality, provide different perspectives, and are very *real.* Readers love to hear everyday stories and experiences that they can identify with and learn from.

Some cool niches for couple blogs:

• Travel blogs
• Marriage, relationships or dating
• Blogs about parenting and dealing with kids
• Food blogging
• Lifestyle and general fun
• Home improvement and how to fix stuff
• Personal finance or FIRE!***

Whatever it is, make sure you enjoy it and like writing about it. Blogging can be a grind, so doing it with your partner can help with motivation, holding each other accountable, as well as splitting up the technical tasks and managing social media.

Starting a blog is pretty easy, cheap, and most things can be self-taught. You don’t need to be one of those drop-dead gorgeous influencer couples… Many popular couples blogs are just regular people, writing about their passions in life and making an extra buck doing so.

My buddy Pete at Do You Even Blog has an awesome free beginners online course to help you choose a topic and get a basic site set up. You can always take it further and pay for an advanced online course when you’re past the beginner phase and ready to go pro.

***You might be wondering, “Does the world really need another FIRE blog out there?” My answer is YES. The majority of humans in this world are horrible with finances, and every different perspective and situation helps others. If you’re good at personal finance, find a way to help others.***

3. Start a Podcast or YouTube Channel Together

This side hustle is similar to blogging but is more for couples who are cool with their voices being recorded or being on camera. Again, you don’t need to be good-looking influencer models (it certainly doesn’t hurt) … Audiences respond more to authenticity and entertainment value.

This side hustle is another one that probably won’t provide any income right away and will actually cost a little extra money to start up. To have quality video or sound recordings, your equipment should be of decent grade, and there’s a bunch of technical details that need to be learned. Needless to say, it’s handy if one of the partners has a little knowledge or enjoys the technical aspect behind the scenes.

As far as earning potential, it all depends on your listener base. Podcasts make money from sponsors and affiliate marketing, which require a decent size audience to attract. I’ve read that on average, for every 10,000 downloads, you can probably expect $500-$900 in affiliate sales. This is an amazing amount of money, but you’ll need a popular niche that you’re passionate about and a commitment to stay consistent with producing content. :)

If you’re interested in getting started, a recommended first step would be to reach out to someone in your network who has already started a podcast or YouTube channel. Get to know the common beginner mistakes you can avoid and the highest-value tasks to prioritize for quicker success.

4. Pet Sitting, Dog Walking or Child Care ($25/hr or $75+ night!)

For couples who work from home and have a large backyard, consider hosting dogs for day-sitting or boarding on a long-term basis. Apps like Rover and Wag make it really easy to manage your own schedule, negotiate your rates, and work on your terms.

Looking after 1 dog isn’t too hard, but to make really good money pet-sitting, you need to start hosting 3-4+ animals at a time. This is why couples make great pet sitters. You can divide and conquer the tasks while also paying more attention to the pets.

Take it from me — Cooper is my “fur child” — and I pay a premium to board him with sitters who have multiple dogs (more play time for Cooper) and full-time attention from the sitters (peace of mind for me). If you provide more value, you can charge more for your service.

Couples make great child & babysitters too, especially for big families with multiple kids to look after! One of my friends has 3 crazy kids, which is a handful for any single babysitter… So they love finding couples who want to babysit for a night! Care.com is a site where you can offer all types of home services as a couple.

5. Open an Online Store, Like an Etsy Shop ($250+ per month)

A friend of mine recently bought a jewelry-making kit and some cool-looking crystal stones. Every night while watching TV with her husband, she pulls out this kit and handmakes little necklaces, bracelets and earrings. It started as a fun hobby making gifts for her friends, but one day her husband started taking photos of the finished jewelry, and created an Etsy store to sell them online.

I love hearing about people turning their art hobbies into side hustles! Even if the income isn’t huge, it’s getting paid for things you like to do anyway. Win/win! 

Apart from Etsy, there’s also boutique places like ArtFire, Amazon Handmade, and ArtPal (more for paintings) where you can set up an online business to sell your stuff.

Depending on your skills and craft, digital downloads are an awesome product to sell because it creates residual income. You only need to make a digital art piece 1 time, then it can be sold thousands of times over. We’ve featured this type of great idea before: Selling printables for passive income!

6. Invest in Real Estate — Together 

I’m kinda hesitant calling this a “side hustle” because it requires a fair bit of capital, and it’s not something you can just pick up one day and call quits the next day. It’s a big commitment.

But that’s why it’s such a great couples activity! Most real estate investors build a “team” to handle investment projects, and who better to have on your team than your own partner? You can learn together, support each other, and each bring a different set of skills to the table.

Since there are so many strategies for investing in real estate, I recommend matching your skill sets to the type of activities that are required.

• Fix & flip real estate: Great if you have skills in building, renovating, designing, finding and buying discount materials, negotiating, managing contractors, etc.
• Buy & hold rental property investing: Requires analytical skills, heavy research, spreadsheet modeling, number crunching, managing tenants, etc.
• Wholesaling or contract selling: If you’re good at sales, marketing, negotiating, relationship building, managing lists, multi-tasking, advertising etc.
• Vacation rentals: Requires a bunch of social media and marketing skills, interior design and lifestyle vision, managing tenants (LOTS of them!), managing contractors and cleaners, etc.

Real estate investing is exciting, romantic, and addictive. Just be careful how emotionally attached you get when taking on a project, as emotions can lead to making bad decisions. This is another reason why working with a partner — your partner — can help keep you focussed on the financial goal! 🏡🏡🏡 = 💰💰💰

7. House Sitting: Locally or While Traveling (You Set Your Rates)

For couples who like to travel, explore new places, or just having a change of scene once in a while, consider advertising yourselves as a house-sitting duo.

You can get paid a few different ways for looking after someone’s house. Sometimes it’s a flat per-day payment, and sometimes people house-sit in exchange for free lodging when traveling.

House Carers (previously housesitters.com) is great for local house-sitting opportunities. Now that the pandemic has transitioned many people to working from home, this is a great way to stay local, continue working your day job, and make money literally while you sleep! I believe this site has an annual membership fee of $50.

House Sitters America has both free and paid house-sitting opportunities. (This site also has a $50 membership fee each year.) Probably best to check the listings in your area and see what the going rate is for a sitter before you commit to anything.

Trusted House Sitters is another cool site. It’s more for global travellers and payment is usually in the form of free accommodation. There’s a higher fee to join this site, like $120 a year, but it opens the door to worldwide connections and international house-swaps.

Also it’s good to note that house-sitting goes hand in hand with pet sitting. Most people who need house sitters also want you to watch over their pets!

*****

Any of you got a side hustle you do with your partner? Curious to hear how it’s working out or if you’re ready to kill each other! 🤣

Have a good one,

– Joel