Do you have a life skill that you’re currently only using in your free time? Though you may assume it’s only suitable as a hobby, there’s a chance you can monetize it and turn your talent into a money-making business venture. That’s if you know what you’re doing, of course.

But first let us figure out what a hobby is. If you have any at the moment, you will learn how to Monetize it fully.

• What is a Hobby
• Hobbies Turned Into Successful Businesses
• How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Career
• How to make money from a hobby
• How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Side Hustle
• Money-making Hobbies From Home
• What Hobbies Are Trending
• What is The Difference Between Hobby And Career
• How to Choose a Hobby
• 50 Fun Hobbies For a Girl
• Do You Need a Business License For a Hobby?

What is a Hobby

A hobby is a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one’s leisure time. Hobbies can include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing other amusements.

Hobbies Turned Into Successful Businesses

1. Cooking

Food has become an art form worthy of taking elaborate pictures and spending the time to perfect the craft. It’s not only amateur chefs who are involved, but people with adventurous palettes looking to explore new tastes.

Cooking is one of the hobbies that make money that you also can share with the world in a variety of ways, from starting a blog, YouTube channel, or Instagram account dedicated to recipes to diving head first into a business by creating your own food or cooking products. Some even hit the road with a food truck business.

According to Google, 59% of 25-to-34-year-olds take their mobile devices into the kitchen, using resources on the internet to find and practice new recipes. There’s definitely a market of DIY chefs looking for content (as well as products) you can create to serve them.

2. Gardening

Gardening has seen a spike in popularity as people spend more time at home. It’s a hobby that can make you happier, healthier, and perhaps even richer. Millennials spent $13 billion on plants in a single year.

Leaf & Clay sells succulents, either for a one-time purchase or on a subscription basis.

You can also sell products to help your customers indulge in their own gardening hobbies. Technology seller ēdn introduced an indoor garden to their product line.

3. Music

Next up for profitable hobbies that make money? Sell music. You can take this hobby business in a few different directions.

For starters, there’s the traditional approach to making and selling music—recording your own songs or albums and selling them on your website or hosting them on a platform like SoundCloud.

You can also create different types of sounds that aren’t full-fledged songs or albums, things like beats or samples. Beats are short hooks composed from different sounds and meant to be a background for a musician, while samples are a portion of a sound recording to reuse elsewhere.

You can list beats on third-party sites that work similarly to stock photo sites. Essentially, people purchase your music to use in their own content. These are typically shorter in length and rely more on instrumentals and less on lyrics. There are a variety of sites where you can list your beats, like Airbit and BeatStars. Airbit paid out $32 million in 2019 to its artists, while BeatStars sellers made an estimated $40 million—double what they earned in 2018.

Samples by Vanity sells samples that artists can remix and splice together to create their own music.

You can make your audio exclusive or non-exclusive. There’s more money to be made when you sell exclusive rights, but you need to produce high-quality work, like SoundOracle. His excellent work has earned him quite the reputation—and his sounds have been featured in more than 20 Grammy Award–winning songs. He sells his beats with both exclusive and non-exclusive rights.

4. Writing

Writing and publishing online has the potential to offer you a lot of practical value outside of being a mere hobby. You can use it to further your career and establish yourself as an expert on a topic. You can build a platform for sharing your ideas. Or you can rent out your skills.

The most obvious way to make money writing is to sell it as a service—freelancing on sites like Upwork or Fiverr or reaching out directly to blogs for paid gigs. Good content writers with niche expertise are usually in demand.

However, if you have the discipline and know how to write a good blog post, you can create your own blog-based business by picking a niche and building an audience over time.

Whether you care about tech or travel or cooking, our guide to starting a blog that you can turn into a business will walk you through what you need to know.

5. Photography

If you own a nice camera and know how to use it, you’ve got a few ways to turn photography into one of your hobbies that make money on the side.

While you can become a freelance photographer, this can restrict you to shooting local events and gigs. And when there are no events, there are fewer photography gigs.

For a more scalable side hustle, sell your shots as stock photos or prints. You can also use your photography skills to grow a massive Instagram following and monetize it. You need to pick a niche to serve or a “lifestyle” you want to capture in your photos.

Fun fact: Professional photography accounts are the second-most lucrative on Instagram in terms of how much brands are willing to pay for a sponsored post. And you don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers either.

Check out our guide on how to sell photos online for a more detailed look at how to monetize your photography.

6. Comedy

Are you good at making people laugh? Do you know what the hottest memes are right now? Why not take that sense of humor and use it to build an audience on the internet? Comedy is one of the more creative ways to make money on this list.

You can probably think of several Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter accounts that amassed large audiences simply by curating memes and viral videos or tapping into a niche of humor that no one else was serving. Who knew all those hours scrolling your social feeds would be one of the hobbies that make money?

Once you have an audience, you can partner with brands to do sponsored posts or turn your best running jokes into t-shirts and other products.

7. Illustration And Design

Like writing, illustration and design are creative money-making hobbies you can do at home on a freelance contract basis. Fiverr, in particular, features many newer artists with a variety of illustration styles. Clients post projects for which they need to hire these skills, whether it’s marketing projects or custom portraits or anything in between.

If you want more control, you can put your art on items—from t-shirts to posters to canvases—and sell those instead. It’s important to understand that to turn your art into a product, you’ll need to cater to a specific market or build a unique brand. The former is usually easier.

Hatecopy is an excellent example of a business that was started by an artist putting their work onto things people can buy.

And you don’t need to front the money for inventory either. Print-on-demand services offer a low-risk way to take advantage of your creative hobbies. You’ll just need to create mockups of your products to list online. Once you make sales and know what designs and creative have the most demand, you can consider investing in your own inventory.

9. Coffee

Selling coffee online is a great way to turn a common hobby into a business idea. Globally, people drink more than 400 billion cups of coffee every year, fueling an industry worth $60 billion annually.

And as coffee drinkers have become accustomed to brewing their caffeine fix at home, it’s a prime time to capitalize on this opportunity. If coffee is one of your own passions, it could be next on your list of lucrative hobbies.

Whether you enjoy the hunt for the perfect bean, creating a perfectly frothed cappuccino, or just sitting down to your morning cup with a book, coffee drinkers can take this business idea in a number of directions.

Globe-trotting creatives Jeff Campagna and Tania LaCaria found that coffee mixed well with one of their other passions: motorcycle travel. They opened up their own bike garage, Steeltown Garage Co., complete with coffee shop and merch for sale, and they’re cultivating a whole community through their hobby-based business.

How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Career

1. Start Small

There are plenty of reasons to begin earning money with your hobby before you try to make it into a career, but let’s start with the most obvious: money. In order to get started, you’ll need at least a few months of expenses saved up, independent of the startup costs associated with your business, to make sure that you’ll have something to live on while you’re getting things rolling.

Beginning your business while you’re still working at your old job will also give you a better idea of whether there’s an actual need for your product or service, and how much work goes into producing it, which will give you the information you need to work out the particulars of your finances down the road.

Although working two jobs can be exhausting and a juggling act, it’s a good way to make sure that you’ll still love your new career when you’re doing your hobby for money, not love alone.

2. Make Connections

Social media has made it easier than ever to make connections with like-minded people, which is an incredible boon to a small businessperson. LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc., can help you virtually meet other people in your industry.

Just remember to proceed with caution: some people will be less than willing to offer business advice to a potential competitor. The best approach is to forge connections before you start asking specific questions. Now is not the time for a blanker form letter, asking strangers if you can pick their brains. The goal is to become part of a community, not mine the competition for ideas and run.

3. Do Market Research

Via your newfound online communities and real-life connections, get a rough idea of how much other businesses charge for the product or services you offer. Sometimes, this is as easy as looking at online marketplaces and seeing what people charge.

Get a sense of what the landscape is like, and how your business will fit into it. What do your competitors offer? What needs does your business fulfill that theirs doesn’t? How do you differentiate yourself from your competition?

4. Make a Plan

A business plan is the least glamorous part of starting a new venture, but it can be essential, especially if you’re thinking about looking for funding from outside sources. Even if you plan to run your business on your own savings, a business plan can help organize your thinking about your new adventure and expose any unforeseen problems.

5. Plan Your Finances

As part of your business plan, calculate your monthly expenses, projected income, and total startup costs, including any new equipment you might need, and costs like membership fees for professional associations, online marketplaces, or accountants or tax preparers.

You’ll also need to plan on paying quarterly estimated taxes, including self-employment tax.

Eventually, you’ll have to decide whether to remain a sole proprietor or to choose some other form of business organization, including limited liability company, S-corporation, and so on.

6. Get the Word Out

The internet makes it easier than ever to let people know that you’re hanging out your shingle. In the olden days, you might have had to allocate a significant part of your budget to advertising and lead generation, but now you can get started simply by posting on your favorite networks and letting people know you’re open for business.

Make sure your company doesn’t have a policy against freelancing or working part-time, and that your business doesn’t rely on any trade secrets you’ve picked up from your job. If all those conditions are satisfied, think of a one-line description for what your business does, and share it with the world.

7. Reassess Your Goals

Even with careful planning, you won’t know what it will be like to run your own business until you do it for a while. So, it makes sense to reassess your goals at intervals to make sure that you’re on track.

Most likely, you’ll discover that your goals will change over time. You might find out that you love one aspect of your work more than others, for example, and decide to place more focus on that area. Or, you might learn that the market for your product is weaker than you expected, and change direction slightly to capture more business.

The best thing about working for yourself is that your job will evolve. Understand that, and you’ll be prepared to change tracks when necessary and succeed.

How to make money from a hobby

To start a business based off your hobby, you’ll need to take the following steps:

1. Validate your business idea: Do some market research to make sure there’s demand for your offering.
2. Find a business name: Give your business a unique identity.
3. Make a plan: A business plan will keep you on track to meet your goals.
4. Understand business finances: Set up business accounts, payment processing, and other money matters.
5. Develop your product or service: This is where you turn your hobby-inspired offering into something customers are willing to pay for.
6. Pick a business structure: Legitimize your business and protect your personal assets.
7. Research licenses and regulations: Ensure you’re conducting business lawfully.
8. Select your software systems: Build your website, set up accounting software, and get the rest of your tech stack up and running.
9. Find a business location: Determine where you can operate your business, whether it be from home or somewhere else.
10. Plan workload and team size: Bootstrap or hire help, depending on your plans.
11. Launch your business: Let the world know!

How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Side Hustle

1. Decide if the market exists

The first step is determining if people will buy your product or service. There is no need to invest time and money into a business that people aren’t interested in.

“Passion is a huge part of a successful side hustle, but at the same time, you must know that there is a need for your product [or] service,” said Rachel Rusnak, founder of UnCubicle.

“Just because you have a passion for something doesn’t mean it’s something that you[r] audience will want,” said Amber Dee, business coach and consultant. “To have a successful side gig, I recommend talking to those that fall in your target market and asking about their needs and if your service or product would be something they would need.”

Anna Sabino, creative coach and author of “Your Creative Career,” recommends testing your products or services with the public. “Attend a fair, get a table space at an event, open an Etsy store,” she said.

If you offer a service, put it online and see if it generates interest. Once it’s clear there is interest in your product or service, ask how much people would be willing to pay for it, Sabino said.

2. Start slow, but be consistent

Because it’s a side hustle, you don’t have to rely on it as your sole source of income and can put as much or little time into as you want.  

However, once you decide to turn a profit, you should consistently dedicate time to your craft. Rusnak said it’s important to take the time needed to grow your side hustle. It can be baby steps – it just has to be consistent. She suggests setting goals and milestones to ensure traction.

“Even if you hate your 9-to-5, use it for saving money so that you are prepared if you want to turn the side hustle into a full-time job,” she said.

3. Develop good time management skills

Working a full-time job, managing a side hustle and balancing your other responsibilities is no easy feat. Time management skills are essential for anyone who wants to successfully turn a profit on their passion.

Both Lara Galloway, business coach and GoDaddy partner, and Rusnak suggest using technology such as Trello or Basecamp to keep everything organized and on track.

“[Time management] is essential for parents or anyone with a side hustle, but [it] is hard to do without reminders,” Galloway said. “Learn how to use technology to map out and keep up with your to-do list.”

4. Create a website

It’s important for any business to have a working website. A website can do a whole lot of work for you, said Galloway. It can market your business, help people find you online, and educate potential clients about your products or services and how they can hire you.

“Your website can actually be a marketing team, a sales team and a customer service team for you – and that really saves you a lot of time as a business owner,” Galloway told Business News Daily.

“A website gives your project credibility as well as a way for people to find your business and learn more about you,” she said. “Find a website builder that allows you to make changes on the go and has marketing and payment tools built in.”

5. Utilize social media

Social media is a cheap and effective way to market your company or side gig. Growing an online presence allows you to engage with potential clients and receive feedback on your product and services.

“When you are ready to start your side hustle, it’s important to create a separate social media account and immediately start building your audience,” Dee told Business News Daily. “You can do this without having anything to offer, because it’s important to have a market that’s ready to purchase your offer. Afterwards, decide on ways you want to monetize your passion and create content that is useful to your audience.”

Money-making Hobbies From Home

1. Gardening

Gardening is soothing and it gets you in touch with the planet. Plus, finding people to buy fresh, local food shouldn’t be too difficult.

2. Professional Gaming

Getting paid to play video games sounds too good to be true, but it’s possible. Look into starting a streaming channel on Twitch.

3. The Stock Market

The stock market can be surprisingly fascinating, and the profit potential is limitless. Don’t invest any money until you’re confident in your knowledge. Start by “investing” a certain amount, and then follow it. If you’re going to do this hobby, do your homework and do it right.

4. Flip Garage Sale Finds

Going to garage and yard sales is a blast. Why not make some money off it? Pro tip: Bring a smartphone along so you can look up prices for similar items on eBay.

5. Drive Others Around

These days, Lyft and Uber have made it possible for anyone with a license to become a professional driver. Meet some new people and explore your local surroundings

6. Painting

Painting is one of the most rewarding hobbies that make money — in more ways than one. You may not be the next Picasso, but painting is a great way to unwind and express yourself, and you may even be able to sell your work.

7. Writing/Editing

These are two of the best hobbies because you can turn either of them into a full-time career relatively easily. Few other creative outlets have such high potential to be a source of income. Start with some creative writing, and then look into freelance writing and editing opportunities as you gain experience.

8. Coding

Coding can lead to high-paying job opportunities in many industries. You can also develop your own apps and websites.

9. Starting a Youtube Chanel

This is a great supplementary addition to another hobby. Once you start a different hobby, start filming it. You never know when a niche might take off, and that ad money can be quite substantial.

10. Catering

Do you love to cook? Plenty of people love to eat. Perfect your culinary creations, and start getting paid to hang out at fun events.

What Hobbies Are Trending

1) Art/Bullet Journaling

Keeping a journal may sound like a daunting task for many, as you might think that there’s barely enough time for yourself as it is! However, art/bullet journaling is journaling made easy – you don’t have to write lengthy paragraphs if you don’t want to. Art journaling combines art, imagery, words, patterns, colours, and other materials to create a visual journal.

On the other hand, bullet journaling is a flexible framework that allows you to use it as a diary, calendar, to-do list; anything you want it to be. Both as considered forms as creative self-care, and its proven efficiency in organisation is reeling in more and more people to start!

2) Meditation/Yoga

The practice of meditation/yoga has been around for centuries, but more and more people are developing an interest in it nowadays. As spirituality is also an area of attention, meditation is getting increasingly popular as a basic method to discover one’s spirituality.

Besides health benefits, yoga is also another aspect tied to spirituality, and is said to bring peace and calm. Perhaps a little innovation to (solo) yoga is acro yoga, a combo of yoga, acrobatics and Thai massage. Simply put, it is actually yoga with a partner

3) Scuba Diving

Okay, so maybe diving isn’t exactly a recent, trending hobby. However, as I watch my peers obtain their diving licenses one by one, I can’t help but feel that diving is a hobby enjoyed by more and more youngsters nowadays. The allure of the ocean and what lies beneath must be attractive enough to steer the younger generation right into the seas.

With all that’s been said, diving is enjoyed by the older generation as well, so it’s a hobby well-suited for all ages as long as you love the ocean and can afford diving equipment

4) Calligraphy

Also known as hand-lettering, calligraphy has taken the world by storm. Now, many people are taking up classes and courses to learn this beautiful art form, and some even turn it into a little side business to generate more income.

From invitation cards to table placements, more and more people are looking to calligraphy instead of printing. There are even multiple forms of calligraphy to choose from, so you can take your pick and allow your creative juices to flow with the various brushes and colours!

5) Body Painting

The makeup and beauty industry is rapidly growing, as everyone now places emphasis on looking good and taking care of oneself. Now, the beauty industry isn’t just restricted to skincare and makeup, but body painting as well.

A temporary alternative to tattoos which are permanent, body paint can last several hours up to several weeks. Plus, wouldn’t it be interesting to paint on your own body compared to canvas or paper? You can literally transform your body into a work of art!

6) Side Hustling

According to Wonolo, a side hustle is any type of employment undertaken in addition to one’s full-time job. It’s generally freelance or piecework in nature, and provides a supplemental income.

Basically, it’s a way to make some extra income without compromising your day job and allows flexibility to do what you want. It is also not the same as a part-time job, as you’d still have an employer at a part-time job. The side hustle is all about you and your passion, so you entirely call the shots. With a skill, lots of people are creating their own side hustle, and you could be one of them as well!

7) Growing Your Own Fruits/Vegetables

Did you know that searches for “how to grow an avocado tree” went up by 101%? Perhaps Malaysian weather isn’t exactly conducive for planting avocado trees, but we can plant other produce instead. Not only will it help you save some grocery spendings, but it also makes for healthier living, as you know exactly what goes into your body! All you need is a little patch of garden, some seeds, and you’re good to go!

8) Ceramics

In need of new cups or perhaps a vase? Making your own ceramics are predicted to be a hit this year, so why not sign yourself up for classes? It may not be easy, but it will definitely train your patience and determination.

Furthermore, as a less-practiced art form, you’ll be one of few who can proudly say that you know pottery! Plus, when your friends visit, you can proudly tell them you made the cups they’re drinking from!

What is The Difference Between Hobby And Career

The difference between your career and your hobby depends on the goal for each, whether it be ambition or enjoyment. A career is a profession or occupation that is specialized, focused and followed as your lifework. This requires a commitment to making progress and to excelling over time, which takes effort, practice and training.

Hobbies, on the other hand, are defined as those activities you pursue for relaxation and pleasure. As such these are not considered a primary vocation. Those who have found the most fulfilling enjoyment in what they pursue for ambition have an enviable job.

How to Choose a Hobby

Here are a few strategies you can use to find a hobby you truly love.

1. Transform What You Already Enjoy Into a Hobby

Even if you don’t have something that you consider a hobby, there’s definitely some activity that you enjoy—and chances are, there’s a way to transform it into a full-fledged hobby. “I always ask people what it is they like to do for fun,” says Weiler. “It’s a good thing to explore—because things like ‘eating’ and ‘watching sports’ could easily be turned into hobbies such as ‘taking cooking classes’ or ‘joining a softball team.’”

Look at the ways you already enjoy spending your time and figure out how they can become hobbies. Have you watched every stand-up special on Netflix…twice? Try taking an improv class. Is your favorite part of the day playing with your dog? Try volunteering with a rescue organization. Love reading about random pop culture facts on the internet? Try joining a trivia team.

The point is, you’re already doing things you love. The easiest way to find hobbies that you truly enjoy—and that will make you a better, more well-rounded person and employee—is to figure out how to build off those things.

2. Reclaim Your Childhood Interests

Think about the hobbies you used to enjoy before work, life, and #adulting got in the way.

When you were a kid, what did you like to do? Did you spend hours finger-painting masterpieces to hang on the fridge? If so, you might want to explore taking an art class. Were you constantly getting dressed in costume and putting on shows for your friends?

Then maybe you can check out a local acting troupe. Or maybe you spent the entire year looking forward to Field Day at school—in which case, you could explore joining an adult kickball or flag football league.

When you were a kid, you probably had hobbies you loved—so revisiting them as an adult can be a great way to get back into the groove.

3. Take an Assessment

The most fun hobby in the world for one person can be downright torturous for another—and vice versa. People tend to enjoy hobbies that appeal to their own unique strengths, interests, and personality characteristics.

According to Weiler, there are a number of personality assessments that can help you figure out which hobbies might be the right fit. Two of the most effective? The Strong Interest Inventory, which can help you identify key interests, and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, which can give you deeper insight into your personality type. These assessments can help you figure out which hobbies are most aligned with who you are and offer insight into what you might enjoy.

So, for example, you might take the Myers-Briggs assessment and find out you’re an ENFJ. ENFJ’s tend to be social, passionate, and altruistic—so doing volunteer work for a charitable organization might feel like a meaningful hobby to pursue.

Or maybe you’re an INTP, in which case you value logic above all else—so learning how to program and spending your free time writing computer software or games could be a great fit.

4. Start Trying Things (and See What Sticks)

The truth is, no matter how you approach finding a new hobby, it can be hit or miss. For example, you might think crafting is the perfect creative outlet—only to find it feels boring and monotonous. That’s OK! If you really want to find a hobby you love, you need to be willing to put yourself out there—and be just as willing to accept that not everything you try is going to be a slam dunk.

Think of anything you might find interesting—whether that’s kite surfing, macramé, or karate—and take a class. If you like it, great! Keep pursuing it. If not, cross it off the list and move on to the next potentially interesting thing.

“Join organizations, clubs, or groups where you can try things out. Websites such as Meetup.com are a great way to explore different interests which can then lead to hobbies and also allows people to test the waters at no or a low cost,” says Weiler. “Connecting with similarly minded people can also be important as it can teach us more about ourselves and what we like/dislike or want to make a commitment to.”

It might take a few attempts to find a hobby that you love, but the key is to not give up. Keep putting yourself out there, connecting with people, and exploring new things that feel exciting to you. Eventually, you’ll find a hobby that feels like the right fit—and you’ll learn a bunch of new things and meet cool people in the process!

50 Fun Hobbies For a Girl

1. Start a blog.
2. Start a vlog (video blog)!
3. Learn about coding. (We need more girl coders!)
4. Get into app development.
5. Create a Pinterest board.
6. Get on Instagram.
7. Check out Snapchat.
8. Learn how to apply acrylic nails.
9. Learn how to put it hair curlers. (Doing your hair for school will be so much faster!)
10. Learn how to French braid.
11. Make your own makeup.
12. Sunbathe at the beach.
13. Perfect the smokey eye.
14. Watch makeup tutorials. (This is amazing!)
15. Get into yoga.
16. Join a Zumba class.
17. Join a Krav Maga class. (You’ll be a total badass!)
18. Get into running. (You’ll either love it or hate it!)
19. Learn to do your favorite style of dance.
20. Tighten your core with Pilates.
21. Get into gymnastics.
22. Join a cheerleading squad.
23. Make cake pops.
24. Bake gourmet cupcakes.
25. Invent your own ice cream flavors.
26. Learn how to made candy.
27. Learn how to make pizza from scratch.
28. Make homemade jams and jellies.
29. Make BBQ and hot sauces.
30. Decorate cookies and cakes like a pro.
31. Invent your own smoothie recipes.
32. Take a cooking class.
33. Play laser tag. (Who said boys get to have all the fun?)
34. Start a band.
35. Join a softball league.
36. Play extreme frisbee or KanJam.
37. Go salsa dancing.
38. Play Call of Duty. (Kick some boy butt!)
39. Play fantasy sports.
40. Host a painting party.
41. Start a baby sitting business.
42. Join a club at school.
43. Learn how to draw caricatures. (Would be a great party trick!)
44. Learn how to crochet. (Perfect hobby to do while binge-watching your favorite Netflix show!)
45. Learn how to knit.
46. Make your own clothing line.
47. Paint with watercolors.
48. Make handmade cards to give to friends or family.
49. Make your own jewelry.
50. Sculpt adorable mini food out of polymer clay. (Awesome for jewelry making!)

Do You Need a Business License For a Hobby?

No…you do not need a business license or tax registration to do what you are doing.  So long as you are doing business under your own name (not a “trade” name or “doing business as” name DBA) then you can use your social security number for business purposes and file your taxes using a Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ at the end of the year under your social security number. 

If you are using a name other than your own you can file a trade name registration with your state’s secretary of state office.  Either way you can use your social security number to file taxes.  Most people do not like having their social security number floating around these days so applying for a EIN (tax id) number is recommended, even for sole proprietors.  

In order to file a Schedule C-EZ you will need to have less than $5000 in sales and have a net profit.  Some micro business with limited sales and few expenses to deduct simply book the full sale as miscellaneous income on their 1040 but that avoids Self Employment Tax which can come back to bite you in a tax audit.

All of that being said…most businesses your size fly “Under the Radar” when they first start. The magic number seems to be around $5000 in sales.  If you reach that point everything should be above the table so to speak (understand that this is not legal and/or tax advice

Conclusion

In many cases, when it comes to our side hustles, it’s the things we tend to do for free and for fun that hint at the kinds of businesses we can pursue using our own passion and interest as fuel.

So if you have the urge to start something but don’t know where to start, ask yourself what you’re good at or already know about.

What do you already do in your spare time that could turn into something more?