Side Hustles for Daycare Providers
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Most daycare providers I know have to find ways to make extra money to make ends meet. I write, my daycare bestie bakes pies. Since we don’t make a lot of bank, side hustles for daycare providers can be a must. It’s part of running a home daycare.
We all know that daycare is a labor of love. Sometimes your family needs more than love to live on and you have to think about getting a side gig to make ends meet. We’ve all been there and some of us have been doing second jobs for the whole 20 plus years we’ve been in childcare.
The first thing is to make sure that you are charging enough. Are you at fair market value? Are you charging extra for extra things you provide? We don’t need to be paying to keep people’s kids. So make sure your rates are appropriate and cover your expenses. But there are always times when you might want to take a big vacation, do a debt reduction plan, or have a big expense come up and you’ll need more income. So how can you produce more when you need it.
Start first by seeing if you can reduce expenses in your home daycare in any area. There is always a way to cut back and do something less expensive. You could try these dirt cheap daycare meals too. We all know food is one of the biggest expenses.
I know I’ve had to do fundraisers to upkeep the daycare equipment and fix up my house. But some of the time my husband or I have had to have a second job so we could pay all of our bills and afford to raise our daughter. Now that she’s grown, it’s easier, but we still do side hustles to keep up. The area in which I live is lower-income, so we can’t always charge quite what we’re worth because people here can only afford what they can afford. Some areas can charge a lot more.
Side Hustles for Women
Tutoring is a great idea for women who are passionate about children’s learning. You can offer it in the evenings after daycare. Decide what you’re an expert in, and advertise on Facebook to find people looking for a tutor. You are already teaching children every day.
If you have a skill that a lot of people want, you can sell an online course for extra money. It’s a long game, but check out teachable or another online class format to find out how you can set up a course for what you’re good at to teach to others. Think knitting, cooking, art, crafts, and these kinds of things that others want to learn.
Reselling online is a great side gig. You can sell used books, electronics, toys, clothing, and more. I have a friend that spends hours a week thrifting and then reselling name-brand clothing on Poshmark. She makes a good income at it. You have to take good photos and make good descriptions, but you can do it if you pick the right products to resell.
Do you have a great craft or art? You can sell on Etsy and make money from your hobby. I sell daycare printables and printables for home use as well as seeds the kids save from the garden. This helps us buy garden plants for the preschool garden each year.
There are lots of great services people need at home. What are you good at? You can capitalize on that.
- Dog walking
- Pet sitting
- House cleaning service
- Cleaning businesses
- Laundry service
- Car detail
- Makeup
- Personal cooking
- Baking
Check out the laws and regulations in your area, but these side hustles may be just the thing for you to add extra income for your family. You don’t always have to work at Mcdonald’s or Kroger for a part-time job, you can keep being your own boss for your second job too! Just think about what you enjoy doing or what you are gifted at and you can come up with a plan.
Don’t forget delivery services like Instacart and DoorDash. There are great side hustles all around if you just look for them. If you like shopping or running errands, do that a few evenings a week. If you like to drive, what about Uber?
You can also do multi-level marketing such as skincare lines, or Scentsy that help you get out with “grown-ups” and think of something no kid like, or something like USborn books or Discovery Toys that would go along with your daycare business.
Top Side Hustles from Home
We all know it would be great to be able to earn extra cash from home. These home side hustles can help!
Freelancing is an idea you can do. You can manage social media accounts or do video editing for businesses. You can freelance write. If you are skilled in design, you can do graphic design. If you are tech-savvy, you can be a web developer or coder. There is a big demand for that. Check out Fivver or another freelance marketplace for more info.
You can be a bookkeeper for extra money. You just need good internet and to find local businesses to keep the books for. You can also do this in the office if you aren’t looking for a nap time or evening at home gig. You’ll have to learn QuickBooks or some other software to be marketable in this field, but it’s not hard and you’re already an expert at running the finances of a business!
A transcriptionist listens to audio files and converts what they hear into a written document. You have to have attention to detail and spelling and grammar savvy like above. Many corporate clients need this service. You’ll need software, good internet, and a good headset to listen.
Don’t forget about other data entry positions. You can google how to find work-from-home data entry jobs and use your free time to create income with a side hustle.
Unique Side Hustles
Proofreading. You can get a side hustle by doing a final check of documents and articles for businesses. You have to be a grammar and spelling nazi, but I know there are tons of you out there. If you have an eye for detail and enjoy reading, you can do it! Check out LinkedIn for a place to start looking.
If you want to teach kids who want to learn to speak English, that can be another great side hustle. Google teaching English and find a place that can match you up with children who want to learn.
Photography is a great side hustle if you have the gift for it. Wedding photography, senior pictures, family pictures, and more. Think about what you have to offer and come up with a plan to do it. If you are great at taking pictures, people are in need!
Don’t forget about babysitting. You could offer parents’ night out or nanny services on the weekends and evenings to make more money caring for children.
Do you love to work outside? What about a lawn service or even weeding or landscaping. If you love doing that and you’re good at it, you could make a lot of money doing it.
Newspaper routes can be a good way to make money early in the morning before daycare. If you enjoy that, do it!
What about flipping? You can resell other things besides clothes and books. If you are a great decorator or you can build things, try flipping property. Or even furniture. You can find discarded furniture and fix them up and resell them online marketplaces. Lots of people make money doing that.
There are also different kinds of consulting you can do such as getting paid to help people with some kind of problem. You’re an expert in daycare, how about offering to consult with newbies to grow their businesses.
Real estate sales is a great part-time hustle. You could get licensed in that.
Or have you thought about a travel agent gig?
Blogging as a Side Hustle
When I first started blogging, I did it just to help people. I didn’t know you could make money writing, I thought that was only for books. I thought I could put together articles about the things that my fellow providers asked me over and over again and be able to help more people.
But the problem came that you have to really structure your blog well to get google to let people see it. It’s pretty expensive to put up a blog, but I’ve been doing it for 8 years and last year I finally turned a little bit of a profit, so now I’m not paying out to share the information.
The stinky part is that I had to put ads on my blog for that to work, but the blessing is, that it’s reaching more people now and paying for itself. It took a lot of training to learn the nuts and bolts of blogging. I’m still no expert, but let me tell you, being creative and writing is the easy part of blogging. You have to learn a ton of tech stuff and delve into how social media and google work. And that is time-consuming.
I work 25ish hours a week on my blog and have put in more than 10 hours a week every week for 8 years to bring it to a place where it supports itself, but now it’s finally a side hustle.
Writing books is the same, you put so much time and money into producing one and the profits are small. I found out that even best-selling authors have to promote their own work and aren’t getting rich. Lame. I still want to help people so badly, so I still want to do it and will continue on, but it’s not a super get rich quick type of side hustle. It’s a slow burn and a real labor of love!
You can also do other things that are far less technical and time-consuming that blogging such as being a social media influencer on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and more. Get yourself out there and brands will come to you once you get a great following.
For more ways to keep more of your profits, check out these ideas:
