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11 Realistic Ways How to Make 5k a Month In 2023

Written by Cody

Updated: Oct 7, 2022

Working a regular 9-5 isn’t overly appealing to a lot of people. If you’re not cut out for cubicle life, there’s no need to worry.

In this day and age, there are plenty of ways that you can start making a lot of money while being your own boss. That’s not to say it’s easy to start making a consistent 5k per month but it is certainly achievable and simpler than ever before. You just need to put the time and effort in.

That being said, you might have no idea where to start. That’s exactly what I want to cover in this article by giving you 11 ways you can start making 5k a month.

So without further ado, if you want to awaken your entrepreneurial spirit, here are the best ways you can start making at least $5,000 a month.

Is 5k a Month a Livable Wage?

According to a news release from the United States Department of Labor, the median earnings of full-time workers in the second quarter of 2022 was $1,041 per week. This equates to around $54,000 per year. In other words, the average US full-time worker earns around $4,500 each month.

If your ambitions are to start earning 5k a month while avoiding the 9 to 5 grind, you won’t have to worry about going hungry or not being able to pay your bills.

With this type of income, you’ll be earning more than the average full-time worker in the United States. With that being said, $5,000 is more than a livable wage.

How to Make $5k a Month (11 Ways)

There are multiple ways that you can start earning 5k a month.

Some will require existing capital and minimal effort. Others won’t involve investing a dime but will require you to put in a lot of your time and effort.

Finding the best way to make $5,000 a month should be based on your skills, wishes, and capabilities. There’s something for everybody in the list below.

1. Dropshipping

I’ve had my fair share of success using the Shopify dropshipping business model (read my full story on how I went from 0 – $1 million in under a year).

Dropshipping refers to an online business model that allows you to sell products without actually having a physical inventory. Instead, you act as a middleman and purchase inventory only when needed. It’s easy to start your own dropshipping business because you won’t need a lot of money to get started. You won’t need to rent a warehouse or rent storage space.

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If you have your own dropshipping business, you essentially sell products to customers and then pass the sales order to a manufacturer, private agent, or dropshipping platform. The supplier then ships the order on your behalf and you make money by adding a profit margin to the products you sell.

With drop shipping you typically want to shoot for the rule of thirds when it comes to pricing your products. If your product costs $10 you’ll want to sell it for $30 so that you can calculate profit as the following:

  • 1/3 (or $10) for the cost of the product
  • 1/3 (or $10) for the cost of marketing
  • 1/3 (or $10) for profit

It’s important that you do research on dropshipping businesses before starting your own. Learn more about the types of products that do well, which platform you want to use for advertising (whether that be Facebook or a Tiktok Shopify combo), and how to create scroll-stopping ads.

You can also focus on creating blog posts and video content to promote your products organically and start driving visitors to your online store for free.

I recommend using Shopify to get started with dropshipping since it’s the easiest platform to manage every under one roof. Also, you can start learning how to dropship on Shopify for following channels on YouTube like the EcomKing.

2. Sell Online Courses

Is there a topic you’re exceptionally knowledgeable about? If so, you can share your knowledge with the world and get paid for it. Let’s say that you know how to make vector art better than most people. You can gather up all the knowledge you have about this topic and structure it in a way that’s easy to digest for course members.

If you like the idea of selling a course but aren’t sure what type of course you should sell, here are 26 high-converting online course ideas.

You don’t have to follow any formal or traditional course structures. Instead, create your course in a way that you think will be a fun and engaging experience for anyone who wants to learn more about creating vector art.

When it comes to selling the course, you will have a few different options. For instance, you can create your own website on the topic and first write some articles that will attract visitors and show them that you know what you’re talking about.

After a while, you can let them know about an upcoming course that you plan on releasing. Get them excited by offering a discount to the first 200 buyers and maybe even offer additional price reductions if they share information about your course on social media.

If you’re not particularly fond of the idea of creating a website, you can try to make a YouTube channel where you’ll talk about vector art and showcase some of your designs. Apply the same aforementioned strategy by informing viewers about an upcoming course and providing benefits to the first 200 buyers.

In case you only want to create a course and sell it, there are some great online platforms for that. The most notable example is Udemy, where you can upload an entire course and sell it to students across the globe.

3. Blogging

If you have a knack for writing, one of the easiest ways you can start making $5,000 a month or even more is by starting your own blog.

According to a survey by Convertkit, the top reason why bloggers get started is to become self-employed.

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As a new blogger, you can choose any topic you want but make sure it’s something you’re passionate about so that you don’t lose inspiration along the way. You can even start a personal brand, like this website, and blog about anything that interests you.

To maximize your profits, you should research competition in specific niches before starting the blog. It’s always easier to make money if there aren’t a lot of competitors providing content similar to yours.

Now let’s get to the fun part – monetization. Let’s say you live in Los Angeles and have incredible knowledge about the city. You know so many cool places where tourists can spend their time and you can share views of the city from a local’s perspective.

Although you could put some Google Adsense ads on your blog, a better strategy would be to get in touch with local businesses in Los Angeles and offer them ad placements on your blog. To make these types of deals and get a good amount of money per advertisement, you should first build your blog and reach a good number of monthly visitors.

Businesses (nightclubs, bakeries, escape rooms, etc.) can pay you on a per-month basis for ads on your website.

There are also many additional ways to monetize a blog. A few examples include:

  • Adsense (or going through a third-party PPC platform like Ezoic or Mediavine
  • Affiliate networks
  • Sponsored posts (reviews, best of posts, etc)
  • Course sales
  • etc

One thing to keep in mind is that if you’re going to start a blog you’ll need to learn SEO. Just aimlessly writing article with no focus keyword likely won’t lead to great results. Use an SEO audit tool to find new keyword opportunities, identify which parts of your site could be improved, and track your rankings over time.

4. Doing Odd Jobs

Sometimes, the best way to start earning at least $5,000 a month is to do odd jobs that not many people are offering services for.

These types of jobs aren’t difficult and don’t require a ton of startup capital. Here are some of the best examples of odd jobs you can do to earn 5k per month.

House Pressure Washing

Nothing cleans better than a pressure washer. A lot of people don’t have the time to deeply clean their homes, driveways, decks, and porches often enough to buy their own pressure washer. Instead, they’d rather hire someone to occasionally come and do it for them.

As long as you can purchase a pressure washer and have a vehicle, you can start making a lot of money from this type of cleaning. The startup costs are low, there isn’t a lot of competition, and the profit margins are high.

Hanging Christmas Lights

This isn’t something you’ll be able to do every month of the year. However, it’s a great side gig that can earn you at least $5,000 per month when it’s the season. If you start and grow a Christmas lights installation business and you’re based in a good location, you can start earning six figures a month.

Most people have no idea that you can make a lot of money by hanging Christmas lights, which is a good thing because it means there isn’t a lot of competition in this field.

Although the season is short (likely from October to December) you can make a lot of money. Many people have a fear of heights or aren’t able to climb a ladder to hang Christmas lights themselves.

That’s where you can come in and offer the service by charging them either an hourly rate or by the length of lights you install.

Couch Flipping

When you’re thinking about ways to earn 5k a month, flipping couches probably isn’t the first thing that pops into your head. Nevertheless, it’s a great way to make quick cash. To start, you’ll first need to research what type of couches are people buying and selling online and at which prices.

Facebook Marketplace is a great resource to find couches that are underpriced and just need a little tender love and care before you can flip them for a profit.

When you buy a couch, make sure to clean it yourself and fix up any scratches if possible. Take professional photographs in a good setting and you’ll immediately be able to set a higher price.

Lastly, write a good description to have a better chance of selling the couch. You can even use an AI writing tool to help write a fancy description for you.

5. Freelancing Your Skills

There are many different skills that you can get paid for online. Some of the most popular freelancing jobs that you can find include content writing, graphic design, music production, translation, transcription, programming, voice acting, web development, and many more.

You don’t have to possess a certain skill at the moment. You can find something you think you’d like, develop your skills, and then start finding online gigs.

For example, if you’re interested in the metaverse, you can start learning skills that are in demand and freelancing on platforms like Upwork. Some people are charging up to $200/hr to work on metaverse-related projects!

Your best bet is always to perfect your craft up to a point where you can start making big bucks on a monthly basis. This is easier said than done and will require a lot of effort on your part. But as soon as you become one of the better freelancers in your field, you’ll be able to earn more than $5,000 per month.

One of the best platforms for finding freelance jobs is Upwork. There are thousands of job listings on this website every day. All you have to do is set up your profile, select the categories you’re interested in, and start applying for jobs.

When you have a profile on Upwork, you’ll have to find clients. On the other hand, there’s a platform called Fiverr where people can find you. Fiverr is a platform where people will often request basic and straightforward jobs, but you can also offer premium services.

6. Drop Servicing

I’ve just gone over how you can start making money by freelancing your skills. But what if you actually didn’t have to do the work yourself? Instead, you passed it on to someone else while pocketing a good chunk of the profit. That’s exactly what drop servicing is.

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Let’s say you’re in web development and have connections with different companies. Maybe you even have your own web development business that offers services at different price points. When a company gets in touch with you and requests your services, you bill them $5,000 for the work you did. Only, it was someone else who did the work.

You hire a freelancer to complete the job that you were hired to do and you pay them $3,000. You pocket the remaining $2,000. This doesn’t mean that the client won’t get quality services. You still make sure to hire only qualified freelancers who can provide outstanding services. The only thing is that you get a big cut out of the whole deal.

Drop servicing is an amazing way to start making money. However, it will only work if you are able to attract high-quality clients as well as hire high-quality freelancers.

You don’t want to hire someone to do web development for your clients only to find out that the work contains a lot of issues that you aren’t able to fix. If you’re not careful, your clients may not be satisfied with the services your company provides. This can harm your reputation and make it harder for you to find new clients in the future.

7. Amazon FBA

Amazon FBA, otherwise referred to as Fulfillment by Amazon is a popular business model that allows you to easily sell products and distribute them to buyers. You rely on Amazon to ensure that your products are safely stored in their warehouses, as well as packed and shipped to consumers.

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Let’s say that you start a clothing company. You create a website and decide to sell your products there. However, you still need to organize logistics for a warehouse, couriers, packaging materials, and more. With Fulfillment by Amazon, you don’t need to worry about anything mentioned above.

Instead, you just focus on building your brand and designing products. Amazon takes care of the rest.

Many people would like to create their own brand but don’t want to deal with the hassle of running a company. Amazon FBA makes everything ten times easier for entrepreneurs. There is, of course, a certain level of risk with Amazon FBA as you’ll need to purchase inventory in bulk to one of Amazon’s warehouses.

Once your inventory has been received by Amazon they can start packaging and shipping your products however there’s no guarantee that people will actually buy them.

That’s why you need to use a good Amazon product research tool, employ Amazon PPC software to help promote your products, and even consider taking an Amazon FBA course to help set you off on the right foot.

8. Start a YouTube Channel

Starting a YouTube channel may not get you paid instantly but as long as you put out good content and have a regular schedule you follow, you could eventually start making a lot of money.

There is almost no limit to how much you can make from a YouTube channel. Just look at Mr Beast who makes an estimated $30 million per year (and likely a lot more) all from his YouTube channel.

Apart from monetizing your videos, you can also have a Patreon page where people donate money or pay for exclusive content.

You’ll also be able to work out deals with different sponsors to earn money on the side if you’re popular enough.

It’s up to you to decide what type of content you want to create for your YouTube channel. It can be entertaining, educational, informative, or funny. Do some research and find what people would be interested in watching or lean into one of your strengths to create good content.

For instance, if you’re a history buff you could probably make some great educational and entertaining videos about notable events from the past.

Video content has become increasingly popular ever since smartphones became a common device to have. It’s easier for people to listen and watch instead of reading content on their phones. There’s also no doubt that people generally spend a lot of time on YouTube. In fact, the average user spends 29 minutes and 37 seconds on the site per visit.

You can even create a website to accompany the YouTube channel and provide some additional content there for your loyal fans.

Furthermore, to help spread the word about your channel, you can get in touch with other content creators on the platform and see if they’d be interested in collabing with you.

9. Teaching English Online

English is taught all across the world. It’s a language that many people wish to speak and write at a high level. A lot of countries have English in the school curriculum but the teachers at some schools aren’t native speakers themselves.

Students prefer to learn and sharpen their skills with native speakers. That’s where you come into play.

As a native English speaker, many people will gladly seek your help. These can be elementary or high school students, business owners who plan to expand their companies to English-speaking countries, expats who want to improve their language skills, etc.

You won’t have to leave your home to organize classes as they can all be done through apps like Zoom and Skype. There are a variety of platforms you can join, like Skooli, that connect you (the teacher) with students from all around the world.

The demand for global language learning is increasing each year with an expected value of 28,5 billion by 2028. Students also got used to learning online in the last few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders that were enforced in many countries. In case you have a passion for teaching people new skills, this can be a great way to share your knowledge.

Most of your students will want to learn the basics of the English language, so it won’t be too difficult for you to come up with good lessons.

10. Rental Properties

This is a great way to earn passive income if you have money to invest. Renting out properties can yield a lot of income. How much money you’ll be able to make from rental properties depends on how many of them you own and how much capital you have to buy more.

Buying real estate or rental properties is one of my suggestions for how to invest 100k in 2022. Read the full article here.

Keep in mind that you should take a lot of time researching before buying any property that you’d like to rent out in the future. There are many things you’ll need to consider if you want to maximize your profits. This includes things like:

  • Location
  • Median income
  • Population
  • The state of the house you’re purchasing
  • Property taxes

Sometimes, you may stumble upon an undiscovered gem. An apartment or house that is currently in bad shape and priced low but its location is perfect and with a bit of additional cash, you could renovate it and make a great profit margin. You should always look for these undiscovered gems.

In case you already have a property that you want to rent out, you should consider redecorating to boost the price. Making it look better and more modern will allow you to raise the price even if you don’t spend a ton of money on redecorating it.

11. Invest In High-Dividend Stocks

This is another great way to earn passive income if you have money that you can invest. Although each investment comes with a fair share of risk attached to it, dividend stocks are generally safer than other investment options like growth stocks or crypto.

Dividends essentially represent payments made to shareholders of certain companies. After a company makes a profit and it gets distributed among the workforce and spent on the expansion of operations, shareholders also get a portion of the money.

Apart from the fact that you’ll earn passive income from dividend payments, the stocks will also (hopefully) grow in price as long as the company is making good business moves. In other words, when you’re ready to sell the stocks you bought you’ll likely make a profit from that as well.

Whether you’re reinvesting your dividend payment or using them to pay for your daily expenses, buying high-yield dividend stocks is typically a great way to earn passive income.

The only thing to consider is that you’ll need a lot of money to make 5k per month with this type of investing. In fact, you’ll need $1.2 million invested at an annualized dividend rate of 5% to make 60k per year which equates to 5k per month.

Here is a list of some of the highest-yielding dividend stocks according to Tipranks.

Final Thoughts

Sticking with one of any of the ways mentioned above can help you start earning more than the average wage in the United States. If you want the answer to how to make 5k a month the fastest way, I’d recommend putting in the time and effort to grow an independent online business.

Otherwise, if you already have some money set aside, consider investing it into rental properties and/or high-dividend stocks. Diversification is the name of the game once you start accumulating more and more funds.

I hope this has helped you think of a few ways to start making money every month without having to rely on getting a second job or taking on more hours at your current job.

If you stay consistent with any of the methods above, in time I’m confident you’ll even surpass the 5k per month mark.

About Cody
I teach others how to start and run online businesses. From scaling a 7-figure e-commerce brand to ranking #1 on Google for various keywords, I can help you do the same.

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