A Guide to Side Hustles
Written by: Avi Pfeffer
For many people, a single job does not provide enough income to meet their needs, especially in the current economy. More than one third of American workers currently maintain a side hustle [1][2]. For those who are struggling to enter the regular workforce, a side hustle can really be a main hustle.
As financial counselors, we know that one way to improve a client’s cash flow is to help them earn more, and that a good way to achieve that is through a side hustle. But how can we help our clients find a side hustle that suits them well? There are many websites that provide relevant information, but it’s scattered within and across sites, many of them ad-supported, making them hard to use with clients. Working collaboratively with AI, I put together a comprehensive and digestible document that can serve as a common resource for counselors.
Why this matters for AFCPE counselors
- Pull from a consolidated set of side-hustle categories (including offline/local options) when you build resource lists or session handouts.
- Point clients to clear “Where to Find Work” leads that shorten the path from idea to first step.
- Cover both “extra income” situations and cases where a hustle functions as a primary income source.
- Scan quickly in-session, then adapt easily to your own tools, community partners, and local context.
Note: Listings are illustrative and not endorsements. Details (pay, requirements, availability) change frequently; check for current information as needed.
I began with a “side-hustle landscape” graphic [3] and used Claude to turn it into a counselor-friendly guide: a table of categories, example gigs, brief descriptions, and places to find work, supplemented with information from the web. I then expanded the draft to include options that were underrepresented in the original—such as elder care, childcare, adult education, and paid research/focus group participation—and added more offline, local ways to find opportunities alongside online platforms. I also used AI to create a visual summary of the side hustles on the front page. In the interest of transparency, the guide notes that it was created in collaboration with AI.
In total, the document has 52 different kinds of jobs in 13 categories. Below is one sample category to illustrate the format.
| Side Hustle | What You Do | Where to Find Work |
|---|---|---|
| Online Surveys | Answer surveys for market research companies. Low pay per task but easy to do during downtime. | Swagbucks, Survey Junkie, Prolific Also: InboxDollars, Branded Surveys |
| Micro-tasks | Complete small digital tasks like data labeling, image tagging, or content moderation. Note: Clickworker acquired by LXT in 2025. | Amazon Mechanical Turk, Clickworker, Appen Also: DataAnnotation.tech, Remotasks, Outlier AI |
| Mystery Shopping | Visit stores or restaurants and report on the experience. Scam warning: never deposit a check and wire money back. | BestMark, Market Force, IntelliShop |
| Research Studies & Focus Groups | Participate in research, clinical trials, or focus groups. Pay varies—interviews can pay $50–$300+ per session. | Respondent, Prolific, User Interviews Also: ClinicalTrials.gov, ResearchMatch, local university research departments, e.g. Schlesinger, Fieldwork, Focus Pointe Global, Craigslist |
Sources: [1] 22 Surprising Side Hustle Statistics (2026): Income, Gigs, Goals. [2] Your Best-Paid Employees Have a Side Hustle. [3] Graphic depiction of side hustles: source unknown.
I hope you find this useful in your work with clients. If you use this guide with clients, I’d welcome your additions and corrections, such as new categories, leads, or outdated sites, so it stays practical and current for AFCPE members. Send suggestions to me via the AFCPE member forum. The guide is available on my website at https://artistsmoney.studio/links-and-resources.
Dr. Avi Pfeffer is a financial and career counseling practitioner whose work is grounded in the belief that clients thrive when their full financial lives are supported — earning, spending, saving, and managing debt. He is an AFC candidate and is also pursuing certification as a career services provider.
Dr. Pfeffer specializes in helping people in the arts build sustainable and fulfilling creative careers through his practice, The Artist’s Money Studio (https://artistsmoney.studio). His approach integrates financial guidance with career development to help artists align their artistic goals with financial stability.
Before entering the counseling field, Dr. Pfeffer was a computer science researcher leading teams focused on reasoning under uncertainty. He brings that expertise to his work with clients, helping them navigate the inherent uncertainty of financial decision-making. He also develops resources for financial professionals using AI in the creation process and makes them freely available on his website.
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