As a CNA, you know that your schedule is not always predictable. The hours can be long and unpredictable. You might get stuck with an extra shift or need to make some money on the side. There are many ways to make some extra cash after nursing shift even if it’s just for one day. Read this post to learn seven great ideas!
1. Babysit
Get paid to take care of other people’s children. Good fit if you love kids! I babysat throughout high school and college for a total of about five years, so this has always been something that I’ve enjoyed doing.
It took me a bit over two months to find my first client on the Sittercity website. Their parent screening process is pretty thorough, but it weeds out all the creepers which is good. It only took three emails before I had my first job offer with an hour notice for $20 an hour—most sitters are making well under minimum wage once you factor in driving time since clients usually have very specific requirements on location and transportation if it isn’t your own vehicle.
You can make up to $25 an hour with some companies, but it generally depends on your region (the more expensive the city, the less likely you are to start at $25 per hour) and experience. It also helps if you have special certifications like CPR or First Aid. This is typically where most of the expenses come in. I had to pay for my own CPR certification which set me back around $40-50 total. You can always use that if you become a babysitter again in the future!
Some families also require security checks so they will charge you another fee for this service beforehand. But it’s usually only around $20-30 dollars, so not too bad for peace of mind since they run your name and social security number through an FBI background check.
For your reference, here’s a breakdown of the different types of sitters you might encounter:
- Live-in babysitter – This is where most people start off as it allows them to keep their flexible schedule, stay in one location for longer periods of time which builds trust with the families, and charge more per hour since they “put themselves out there” by living in the home with the children rather than driving back and forth from their own place each day that they work.
- Casual Babysitter – This is just as it sounds—someone who babysits during parties or other events which don’t happen on a regular basis. It’s a part-time gig that you can pick up here and there to earn a little extra money, or if you want to make a career out of it–it’s not a bad place to start.
- Nanny – This is by far the most difficult position because clients expect much more from nannies than they do from say a babysitter who only works one night per week, for example. If you aren’t able to spend the majority of your day caring for their children (which could be upwards of 10 hours), then this isn’t an ideal position for you since childcare is what pays the bills at the end of the day. You should also be aware that families typically pay top dollar for quality nannies so if you do land yourself a full-time spot with the right family, you can expect to make around $50,000 – $60,000 (or more) per year.
- Personal Assistant – I wish I had been brave enough to do this from the very beginning as not only were my clients amazing people, they also let me bring my child along with me on some of these jobs so he would be entertained while daddy worked. In addition to babysitting services offered as part of this position—which is typically what most parents are going for here—I was able to gain four new nanny referrals within just a few months since they already trusted that I could keep their children safe and took it a step further by expanding the idea of childcare beyond just the children.
- Pet Sitter – This will be quite a bit different than caring for children, so you’ll want to do your research if this is something that interests you since there are different types of pets out there with specific needs. You also have to be aware that it’s not always easy for pet owners to trust someone else with their beloved family members so you’ll need references and experience before they consider hiring you!
2. Get a side job or freelance
People often ask me how I found my internship during nursing shift. To be honest, most people don’t have connections to find work like this easily. The only answer I have is that I just kept applying until someone would pick me to help them out!
I’m not saying that it’s impossible to get hired, but there are easier ways to do it if you want it bad enough.
In today’s world, many companies are going from having an office full of employees to hiring contractors online. This means that there are a lot more opportunities available for you as a freelancer or contractor to get work with these companies!
This is the route I took after graduation and have been doing lots of different types of freelance writing since then. Most of my work has been on Upwork , which is a platform where you can do anything from photography, web design, social media marketing, and just about anything else that requires a set skill set.
You should start by making a profile on sites like Guru or even your own website if you have one! Then start reaching out to businesses who could use help with their online marketing and get your foot in the door with them. Once you build up a reputation, you’ll find more work coming to you!
The great thing about these types of jobs is that it’s often very flexible and can be done on your own time. So if you work best at night after everyone else has gone to sleep then go for it! You don’t have to work set hours or anything like that. Freelancing can be a bit harder than other options on this list because there’s no one holding your hand getting you started. But I think its worth trying because of how flexible it can be.
3. Rent Out a Room on Airbnb
This is a concept that I just discovered recently and wish that I had started doing this from day one. You can basically rent out any unused area of your home for money on Airbnb – this could be a spare bedroom, the basement, even a couch in your living room, for example.
If you don’t have anything suitable to offer as rental space, then the only thing you’ll want to do here is invest in some cheap furniture (which you can also sell later too if needed) or other décor which will help make the space feel more like an apartment by bringing in new items like wall hangings or throw pillows.
You should also clean your place top-to-bottom before putting it up online; otherwise potential guests may not feel comfortable renting from you. This is an easy way to make an extra $100 – $200 per month, and since it’s such a small investment (and you can do this at any time), there’s no reason not to give it a shot!
4. Start a blog for your passions
If there are areas that you’re passionate about, then start a blog.
It’s very easy to get started with these days. All you need is a domain name (website) and hosting (where it resides). You can buy your website domain through GoDaddy or Google Domains, which will cost around $12/year. Hosting varies in price depending on the company, but I use Bluehost and pay around $4-5/month. So all together it would be less than $100 to get your site up and running within the first year of business!
I would recommend getting some kind of digital product or coaching program if you want to make money. If not, then just work at it every day and get traffic to your site in various ways (Facebook ads, Quora, Reddit, etc).
Again I would recommend Bluehost because I use them myself for pretty much all my sites. But their are lots of options out there. One thing to note is that the faster your site loads up for people visiting it, the better chance you have of getting repeat visitors or even more search engine rankings.
You can start to monetize your blog by putting ads on it with Google Adsense. You’ll also find that if you have a well-trafficked website, companies will approach you about paid sponsorships or guest post opportunities.
There’s a very good chance that you can make a few hundred dollars each month from blogging. This money will vary depending on the size of your website and how much time you can invest in it to build traffic, but I’ve seen people make as much as $5-10k/mo with their websites.
5. Build Niche Websites
If you’re good at something, don’t do it for free.
To explain this idea, I’ll use the analogy of a carpenter. If you are a carpenter and need some help building your house, would you rather hire someone that has built one house before or fifteen houses?
The answer is obvious. You want to get yourself into that 15 house situation because then you can rest assured that they know what they are doing. It saves time, money, and headaches in the end.
This same philosophy applies to website building as well!
Now there is no one-size fits all site… every niche requires a different caliber of skillset and tools depending on what type of traffic or conversions you are trying to generate.
I’m going to go through my process and how I think about building sites in order for you guys to determine whether it applies to your situation, so maybe take a few notes down or bookmark this idea.
The first thing you need is an idea. You can either come up with one yourself and spend a ton of time on the education piece (figuring out what kind of traffic converts, what monetization methods they use, etc.)… or you can just copy someone else that has already done that work for you!
By copying them, I mean taking their site and improving upon it in some way. If their site happens to be making $500/mo profit after expenses… we might make it $1,000/mo instead. Not only are you making more money, but you are also making their life better by adding value!
Everyone wins.
If someone is making bank, it’s because they have some type of traffic source working for them… so find out what that is and how they are doing it. If you can improve upon the method or provide a new angle, then do it without reinventing the wheel. Your time is valuable which means this should not be your first priority when starting off.
Start small while learning all of the skills necessary to build profitable websites. This frees up your time so that you can focus on marketing rather than trying to figure everything out on own at once !
If you want to avoid the headache and actually do it right, then check out this course on Udemy that helps teach people how to build profitable niche sites.
6. Find a Product to Sell an Amazon
I think that Amazon is one of the easiest ways to start something online because they already have a built-in audience. Over 300 million people visit amazon each month which means you have a huge potential customer base at your fingertips! Obviously this isn’t going to be as profitable as some other methods (like doing freelance work), but it’s an excellent way to make additional income with very little risk.
The first step is to find the right product. Basically you want to look for something that people are buying on Amazon, but not very much of it (so that you can sell more). There are tools out there like Jungle Scout which will help you do all this research in less than 10 minutes!
Once you’ve found your product, then simply sign up with Seller Central. It’s completely free and they walk you through each step of getting started. You’ll need to make an individual account for each business name (or LLC) that you plan on using to sell your products. This means if you plan on splitting off a separate company later down the line – don’t try and save money now by only creating one account.
Once you’re set up with an account, then simply buy some products to check them out and see if they’re any good! You can also send some samples to friends and family and ask for their feedback on the items. This is a very important step since you don’t want to purchase inventory until you know what it is.
I would recommend buying around $2-4k worth of products over a few weeks just to see how they sell through. If the sales are decent, then go ahead and place your first order with your supplier! If not – move onto something else or try something different from that company. Don’t give up after one bad product…there’s most likely another one out there somewhere that will be a winner.
Once your products ship to Amazon’s fulfillment centers, you should begin seeing sales fairly quickly (depending on how much competition and traffic there is to that product). You’ll get daily reports sent straight to your email which show the total amount of money you’ve made and what you sold that day. If it’s not selling much then just keep trying! I have had many products do well in the beginning only to eventually start selling 10x more a few months down the line.
7. Open a Shopify Store
If you’re tired of playing around with small online businesses, why not take your talents to the next level? I’ve noticed over the past few years that there are lots of people who are opening large ecommerce stores using platforms like Shopify. They use these stores as side hustles or even full-time jobs by having them generate revenue while they sleep.
I know one person who recently opened her own shopify store making custom dresses. She has actually hired seamstresses in China to produce the clothing for her and she spends most of her time marketing the store so that she can have more sales! But I think it’s a great idea because its something she’s very passionate about.
If you have an idea for a product that people would buy, then go check out this course on Udemy called ” Shopify Dropshipping.” It will teach you how to find products people are already buying online through platforms like Amazon, Ali Express, etc. Then you just need to create your own website around the product which is what they teach in this course. Once you’ve got everything set up, drop ship it! No inventory or anything like that! Just make the sale and send it to your customer.
If you don’t want to deal with inventory or anything like that, then I would just recommend finding a product on Shopify itself and setting up your own online store. However, there are lots of other similar ecommerce platforms out there as well so just take this course and start looking around.
So those are seven options I wanted to share with you for making some extra money after nursing school. Let me know if these ideas worked for you or if you have any questions about how to do them in the comments below. And if you liked this post, please share it with some friends or anyone else who might need some help finding extra ways to make money!
See you next time. – Christine Ritchie
