KEY POINTS

The best side hustles in New Zealand are:

1. Matched betting
2. Flipping
3. Surveys and focus groups
4. Driving Uber
5. Freelancing
6. Niche site building
7. Decluttering

All have proven potential to earn over $1,000/mth and many can earn over $10,000 per month with some dedication. All involve tasks that anyone can do! Some may require some learning/studying, but they are all things you can learn easily online with free resources.

Almost all of these side hustles I have done myself, and made thousands of dollars from each. 

Below each side hustle is broken down, with some guidance on how to get started.

1. Matched Betting

Matched betting is hands down the best side hustle I've tried in New Zealand, and it's not even close.

When I first started I was making around $2-$4k per month. Even after three years, I was still consistently making $500-$1k per month, and only spending around 2-3 hour per week.

What is matched betting?

It's using all the free bonuses and bets that get given out by betting sites, and turning them into cash. For example, when you sign up to a betting site, they might give you $200 in free bets as a welcome bonus. You can turn that $200 free bet into guaranteed cash, through something known as a matched bet.

Here's an example.

World Cup Final - All Blacks vs England. 

All Blacks is paying 1.50 to win. England is paying 2.50 to win.

I take my $200 free bet and place it on the All Blacks. Then I take $200 of my own money and place it on England.

If England wins, I will win back $450 (200 x 2.50). If All Blacks win, I will win back $300 ($200 x 1.50). 

But here's the catch: Since one of the bets was free, I only spent $200. 

And I'm guaranteed to get back either $300 or $450.

$100 - $250 in guaranteed profit.

Since starting matched betting in 2020, I've made over $45,000 NZD in profit, which all been documented here on the blog and on Instagram.

If you'd like to learn more, use my free guide to get started here!

2. Flipping on Trademe

Flipping is one of the oldest side hustles in the book and goes back to almost the beginning of modern civilisation.

Salt traders riding between towns on horseback, old Roman markets, trade ships sailing between continents - all these traders were simply flipping goods for profit.

Thankfully it is now 2023, and we can make our money flipping from the comfort of our laptops. 

Sites like Trademe and Facebook Marketplace give you instant access to an entire market of hundreds of thousands of people.

All you need to do is find something to flip!

I did a flipping experiment back in 2020 to raise some capital for the @moneybren portfolio, and I managed to clear around $3,000 in profit in just a few months.

The best thing about flipping is you can flip almost anything! As long as the maths checks out, you can flip anything from sports gear to antiques to trading cards to cars and bikes to video games.

If you'd like to get started fliipping, check out my guide on making your first $100 flip here!

3. Surveys

You won't become a millionaire from doing surveys, but they are one of the lowest maintenance side hustles which still has the potential to net you a few extra hundred bucks every month.

The best survey network in New Zealand that I know of is Prime Research, who has regular opportunities paying anywhere between $75 and $200 for an hour or two of your time. Tasks can include online boards, one-on-one Zoom surveys, or focus groups.

Simply sign up to their mailing list at Prime Research and you'll get emails every time they have a client needing market research done. That's where you come in! Simply spend an hour answering a bunch of questions like "How often do you drink coffee?", "Why do you choose Starbucks over Esquires?" and you'll get a hundred bucks deposited into your bank account. Pretty sweet.

4. Driving For Uber

I've personally never driven for Uber, even though I've tried to and found they had so much red tape to sign up as a driver that after 2 or 3 phone calls to them I just gave up.

However, every Uber driver I've talked to says they make a "reasonable" amount of money from the gig.

The best thing about Uber though - you can just drive when you want! If you're only free on Saturday and Sunday morning, then just hustle during those hours and make your extra cash.

It's also a side hustle almost anyone can do. As long as you have a car and a driver's license, you're ready to go.

Again, you won't make millions from it, but it's still way better than sitting at home scrolling!

5. Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the first side hustles I ever took seriously, and it turned out pretty well.

The great thing about freelancing is the earning potential is very high.

If you're good at what you do, there's no reason you can't replace your 9-5 salary with it, and even get up to $10k+ per month.

I personally know several people who have make thousands of dollars consistently every month as a freelancer, and not doing anything crazy either.

Most people are in things like social media management, freelance writing, video editing, web design, and clerical work like data entry and research.

Probably the best place to start is Upwork. 

That's where I started and there are literally millions of jobs you can apply for. Use my free guide for some tips on how to land your first jobs, and from there, it's just about upskilling yourself and scaling up your jobs and clients.

It can take you a while to get off the ground, but once you do, it's an awesome feeling to have your own freelance income and start making a name for yourself. You'll learn many skills along the way too, such as dealing with clients, negotiation, pitching, not to mention the skills you need to do your work. It's very quasi-entrepreneurial, which means it builds a good foundation for you to branch out into other ventures too.

If you're looking to start building a serious online income and don't know where to start - I'd say freelancing is the best way to spend your weekends and evenings. Not only will you build an income stream with high earning potential, you'll develop so many great skills as well.

And the best part - it costs you zero dollars to get started.

My free guide will teach you everything you need to make your first $100.

6. Niche Sites

Niche site is just a fancy name for "a website on a specific subject".

Even this site you're on right now could be considered a niche site in the "personal finance" niche.

The goal is to build a site that attracts traffic, and then monetise that traffic (think of it like an online magazine).

This entails building a website (obviously), and then writing articles on that site that will bring in traffic (most likely from Google, social media and other referrals).

Then you can monetise that traffic by placing ads on the site, selling a product, or promoting other products for a commission.

Building a niche site is a skill that takes time and likely some money as well. However, the earning potential is high - it's not uncommon for sites to be earning $20k+ per month if you put in the work and you build a site that's valuable.

It's not the first side hustle I'd recommend on here if you're trying to generate cashflow quickly (for that, matched betting is the way to go), but if you've done a few side hustles and made some good extra cash, and now are looking to step things up and get to that $10k+ per month level, this is a good option.

I've made close to $50k off niche sites over the past few years. You can learn more about getting started with niche sites with my free guide here.

7. Decluttering

Decluttering is a fancy way of saying "selling all the old shit in your house that you don't need".

Did you know most people own over 100,000 things? 

And to make things worse, most people only use 100-200 of those things regularly.

Think about that. You probably have 200 pieces of clothing, but wear the same 5-10 pieces every week.

You probably have 200 plates, cups, bowls in your kitchen, but use the same ones every day.

Decluttering is the practise of selling all of this crap you never use and turning it into cash.

Most people can easily raise over $10,000 just by selling old stuff lying around their house that they don't need. Chances are, most of it you even forgot you had it.

Then you take that $10,000 and, to make sure you don't just spend it on more stupid things you don't need, you invest it in stocks or index funds and let it grow.

When you retire, it's reasonable that it will have grown to well over $100,000, or even more. Just use my compound interest calculator and see for yourself.