INCOME BOOST I’ve tried eight side hustles – the best pays up to $9,600 per month and one only takes an hour

SIDE hustles have been in hot demand in 2022 – and money expert Melanin King claims to be raking in an extra $11,000 per month. 

The 21-year-old real estate agent has been doing side hustles since he was a young kid.

Melanin didn’t move to America until he turned nine.

It started in his African-living days by just selling candy through vendors and making money by recycling.

This included walking around his neighborhood and collecting metal pieces in a bag and then taking them to a junkyard for some extra cash. 

He told The Sun that he has always seen “money in everything”.

He added: “Any place I go to or any new side hustle that I see, I think of things like, how much is the owner profiting from this?

“What [is] the cost to start my own? What is stopping me from starting my own?”

The Chicago, Illinois resident has also been able to take that a step further with his YouTube channel.

He started making credit card-related videos when he was 15 and still enrolled in high school.

While Melanin found some early success and even earned a $300 check, he had trouble finding a balance with school.

“My biggest problem was I was doing that with school, I was never really consistent,” Melanin said.

While YouTube was a great start for Melanin, his social media emergence didn’t happen until he started his TikTok channel.

He was influenced in combination by his business partner, friends and some social media followers to start up TikTok.  

What really got everything going was when his business partner put pressure on him one day when he visited his house to make a video – and it’s safe to say that it worked.

His first one was a clip about getting a real estate license that got 400 views within the first day.

Melanin added that “within less than 24 hours from that, it had gained like 10,000 views and I was like whoa, what’s going on?”

To this day, Melanin has continued making personal finance content, which also includes advice on investing as well.

His TikTok channel, where he goes by therealmelaninking, has grown past 200,000 followers.

On YouTube, he has more than 8,000 subscribers.

Current side hustles

Social media is just one side hustle for Melanin.

Additionally, he is making money off couch flipping and another passive income source.

While he hasn’t posted a video on the couch side hustle, he said you could get “a lot of money” from it.

“Basically, you just search on websites, like OfferUp, Facebook [marketplace],” Melanin said.

“Look for any beat-up couch; people [are giving them] away for free when they move and stuff like that.

“You pick them up, and you flip them.”

Melanin has previously said that you can “easily” sell couches in the range of $200 to $600.

Selling eight couches per week for $300 will earn you $2,400.

Over a month, this equals $9,600.

Melanin also earns passive income from investments.

But of course, keep in mind, that you’re never guaranteed to make a profit from that. 

In fact, the value of your assets could fall if you’re not careful or are invested in the wrong securities.

Melanin recommends investing in index funds because of the diversity they offer.

This is because these types of securities track the performance of various companies – rather than just an individual one.

For example, Melanin has said, “if one stock goes down, you still have 499 more to go”.

Other side hustles

Melanin has experimented with a ton of other side hustles in the past.  

One includes cases for air pods, which he originally bought off AliExpress, a Chinese-based e-commerce platform.

For example, Melanin was once able to swoop up 30 of them for about $150 total.

After they arrived in the mail, he advertised them on his Snapchat story for $15-$20 each.

Within the first day, Melanin made a little more than his money back.

If you can sell air pod cases for $20 each that would mean you would make $450 in profit.

But keep in mind, that the items could take two weeks to arrive due to shipping.

Melanin has done something similar with rose bears.

When he was in high school, Melanin would order more than 100 of them and then sell them for profit.

Melanin also recommends going through thrift stores and using a barcode scanning app to what they sell for online.

“I’ll go on websites like Mercari Poshmark Offerup, Letgo, Facebook marketing and a couple of other ones,” Melanin said.

“I would just download that [barcode] app and just post it on [all] platforms.”

Another side hustle that Melanin touted was print on demand which allows merchants to upload their designs for items such as t-shirts and sweatshirts and sell them to customers.

This can be done on Shopify and Etsy – but Melanin prefers the latter of the two platforms.

“Etsy already has the traffic,” Melanin said.

Melanin said you can earn $200 an hour doing this.

“I was able to make money relatively fast,” Melanin said.

“You just create [and] put some designs on a store.”

Affiliate marketing is another one that could pay off.

By doing this, you earn commission by promoting another person or brand’s products. 

On average, affiliate marketers make $154,983 per year, or $12,915 per month, according to ZipRecruiter. 

However, Melanin said that it does take some time to build up.

In Melanin’s case, he has a “referral link” in his bio.

“When people click that I’ll get a referral fee,” Melanin said.

“You just need a special link [and] have to kind of have an audience.”

Balancing side hustles with full-time jobs     

Avoiding burnout is a big challenge when it comes to balancing side hustles with full-time jobs.

Ideally, you’ll want to maximize your earnings while putting in as little time as possible.

That said, every side hustle is different, with some needing to put in a little more work into side hustles than others.  

Melanin’s advice is to cut out the time spent on watching movies and playing video games, in particular.

“If you spent two hours a day playing video games, or two hours a day watching movies, just eliminate that,” Melanin said.

He added: “Use that time to make money.”

Of course, you may not have to cut it all out – but at least until you get to the point of having enough financial flexibility.

How to manage money during uncertainties

We currently live in a world of high inflation and a possible recession approaching in the coming months.

Melanin recommends writing down a list of all monthly expenses and how much money you have on a piece of paper.

“Save at least 30% of that money,” Melanin said.

Also, Melanin uses an app called Digit, which has helped him manage his finances.

This tracks all expenses, available assets and helps you save and plan for the future.

Moreover, the app even invests money for users.

It takes “money from you on autopilot,” Melanin said.

Another thing is making sure that you pay off as much credit card debt as interest rates continue to rise.

And lastly, given the uncertainties, Melanin advised laying off big luxury expenses such as vacations.

He said: “Hold off on those up [until] you know everything’s secured.”

By that, he means wait until the economy and markets are steady and on the upswing again.