Ways To Earn A Living Wage In the Gig Economy

…but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career…”

The Goal: Gigs over $50 Per Hour

We worked with a team of writers to build this site, recruiting people with experience in each of the gigs or side businesses we profiled. To qualify, we asked for credible proof that the author had managed to guide their earnings from the gig to over $50 per hour.

And then we asked them how they did it.

To be fair, most of these opportunities are going to require some effort on your part to reach their full potential. At a minimum, you’ll need to “level up” your reputation on the appropriate platforms and invest time in setting up your marketing. In other cases, you might need to wait a while to receive your money.

For example, a new writer may only make $10 per hour (at a content mill) but can “level up” to $50 per hour (right process, clients, and topics). This also positions them to start publishing their own websites, which can be very lucrative if you know what you’re doing….

But either way, these are a big step up in compensation, flexibility, and dignity relative to other options.

Using This Site

We’ve split our materials into five broad tracks, each addressing a different need.

  • First up, we found some legitimate gigs that offer fast cash. While these are not the highest paying opportunities, they can help plug a financial gap. We found reasonable opportunities in freelance writing, junk removal, and freelance sales. There are ways to level up in these gigs with a little effort.
  • Most of our readers have professional skills which can be used for consulting; we assembled some resources on how to find clients including hunting on sites like LinkedIn, Upwork, and Fiver. This is a direct path to work for finance & IT people.
  • Tired of competing with low-priced service providers? Consider jumping over to the buy side, using your sales skills to land clients in the real world and using the gig economy to build a virtual agency via a strategy known as drop-servicing. Recommended for experts in marketing, sales, and vendor management.
  • Are you comfortable with sacrificing short term income to build long term wealth? We profile opportunities in publishing, affiliate marketing, drop-shipping, and selling print-on-demand products. These are intended to spark your creativity.
  • Finally, since many of these opportunities are helped by good marketing, we’ve included some guides on how to stand up a low cost marketing program. This includes setting up a website, building Facebook groups, Instagram marketing, copywriting, and webinar strategies.

Stuck on where to start? Maybe read our take on what works – and doesn’t work – for a small business