How To Make $3,000 A Month

So, you want to make $3,000 a month and need a few ideas for how to get started.

Well, the great news is that thanks to the Internet and the gig economy, there are so many different ways you can boost your monthly income by this amount.

I've actually done this with numerous online hustles and business ideas before, and if you're willing to work, earning this amount of income is possible.

The following list of ideas to make $3k a month includes both online money-making ideas and in-person side hustles.

So, decide which style of work you prefer and what suits your skills. From there, you're ready to get your hustle on to reach this monthly income goal.

1. Become An Online Freelancer

My favorite strategy to make $3,000 a month is to start freelancing online. This is actually how I first hit this income milestone back when I was moonlighting as a freelance writer while working my day job at a marketing agency.

Selling your skills online as a freelance is great because it's flexible and the pay can be very high. And with a few clients and steady work, earning 3k a month isn't unrealistic at all.

In fact, after I started moonlighting for a few months, I eventually matched my day-job income. I then quit my job, went all-in on writing and blogging, and moved to Colombia for a few months.

Freelance writing is just one example, but other industries where freelance work is popular include:

Accounting and bookkeeping
Digital marketing
Editing and proofreading
Email marketing specialist
Graphic design
Social media management
SEO expert
Web design
Video editing
Voice over artist

In my experience, earning $25 to $50 per hour or even more isn't uncommon for freelancing. Some of my writing gigs even paid well over $100 per hour, so you can reach $3,000 in a month pretty quickly.

To get started, I suggest turning to your network and LinkedIn to find opportunities. You can also use various remote job sites or find beginner Upwork jobs to kickstart your portfolio.

2. Try Delivery Gigs

Another reliable option to make $3,000 dollars a month is to use various gig apps that pay you to deliver packages. These gigs are flexible, often pay more than minimum wage, and provide the opportunity for steady income.

Some of the most popular delivery side hustles you can try out include:

DoorDash: The leading food delivery app in North America that lets you deliver via bike, car, and scooter.
Amazon Flex: Another popular delivery gig that pays $18 to $25 per hour.
Uber Eats: Like DoorDash, Uber Eats is an incredibly popular food delivery app you can make money with.
Roadie: Pays you for delivering long-haul and nearby packages for people and businesses.
Instacart: The most popular grocery delivery company that pays you to shop for people's groceries.
Shipt: Another grocery delivery gig like Instacart that pays $16 per hour.
Walmart Spark: Get paid to deliver packages and groceries to Walmart customers.

This video from gig economy driver Sabbi Lyon shares how he made $8,000 in a single month of just driving with Uber Eats.

Granted, earning 3k a month is going to take a lot of driving time, but it's possible. And even hustling a bit before and after your work day can add up to a lot of extra income per month.

Most drivers start with Uber Eats and DoorDash since you can easily use both apps at the same time to maximize orders. But any combo of delivery apps is an excellent way to boost your monthly income.

Sign up with Uber Eats!

3. Start A Blog

If you want to build an asset for yourself that makes $3,000 a month or much, much more, blogging could be the perfect choice.

I also want to share a personal example here to highlight just how much potentially starting a blog has.

For example, I started WebMonkey in 2018. In my first year, the blog only made $1,700. But fast forward to 2021, and WebMonkey made $92,000. And it then made $272,000 in 2022.

My YouTube video above shares exactly how I make money blogging and how I scaled this income.

Most of my blogging income comes from Mediavine ads and affiliate deals. Nowadays, the blog makes well over $3,000 per month, and there have even been a few $1,000 days which have been crazy to see.

The thing I like the most about blogging is that there are so many ways to monetize besides ads and affiliate marketing. You can get into coaching, selling courses, selling digital products, and even brand sponsorships.

The downside to blogging is that it's not quick money. But if you want a long-term business model for making $3,000 a month that also has immense potential, I definitely suggest blogging.

4. Start An Ecommerce Store

Like blogging, starting your own ecommerce store is another realistic way for making $3,000 per month. And you have so many options for actually launching your store, even as a complete beginner.

When I was in college, this was actually something I tried several times.

I started out by launching a Shopify dropshipping store in my third year of college. It never made any money and just got one sale, but it was an awesome learning experience and I bet it could have become profitable if I had just stuck with it.

I also tried selling POD products on Etsy, and this is another excellent business model you can try and scale to $3k a month or more.

Etsy-items-in-shop — These were the meme mugs I sold!

Etsy POD is particularly great because you don't have to worry about manufacturing and shipping. And if you can catch a trend at the right time like selling memes or pop cultural references, you can make a lot of money in a short amount of time.

Of course, you can always launch your own ecommerce store on a platform like Shopify and sell your own goods or digital downloads. Ultimately, you need to decide on your niche, what you're selling, and how to start marketing your store.

This isn't a fast solution to make $3,000 a month, but it's one of the ideas with the highest income potential.

5. Use Other Gig Apps

Once again, the gig economy has plenty of opportunities to help you make $3k a month, and I'm not just talking about food and package delivery gigs.

There are actually so many other gig apps you can use to make extra money on the side. Some of our favorites include:

Steady: Find high-paying, local gigs and part-time jobs with Steady's free app.
Neighbor: Rent out your spare storage space to people in your neighborhood to earn passive income.
Oppizi: A new gig app that pays you to walk and deliver flyers.
Rover: Get paid to walk dogs and pet sit for people in your city.
Handy: Find handyman and cleaning gigs in your city by becoming a Handy Pro.
Wonolo: Another gig app that connects you with same-day jobs for companies that need staffing help.
Instawork: Another gig like Wonolo that helps you find a variety of cash jobs.

It's going to be tough to make $3,000 dollars a month with just one of these apps. But between the delivery gigs I mentioned above and some of these other apps, you can certainly work towards this income goal.

Of course, options like driving for Uber or Lyft are always on the table as well if you have a vehicle, so you have plenty of choices.

Extra Reading – The Best Apps That Pay You To Drive.

6. Consulting

If you're an expert in a particular field or subject, you could use consulting as a way to get $3,000 a month or much more.

I've actually done this in the past for two different fields: SEO consulting and paid advertising work. One of my contracts was even for $3,000 a month, and I had to help run Facebook ads for a startup and assist with strategy and campaign optimization.

Consulting-on-Upwork — Some of my consulting income from Upwork.

Plenty of fields and organizations need consultants as well, ranging from HR specialists to legal advice. I even know people who offer niche consulting services, like Instagram and TikTok growth coaching, or some other forms of social media marketing help.

The downside to making money with consulting is that it's hard to find clients. But I've found that once you land one or two, it's much easier to get additional ones through word of mouth and testimonials.

7. Start A YouTube Channel

Another option to make $3k a month is to start a YouTube channel. And if you're the creative type and also like semi-passive income, this could be the perfect project to tackle.

Now, making money with YouTube takes a long time.

For starters, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time to enable ads on your video. When I started my YouTube channel back in 2020, it took me about 6 months to reach this requirement.

However, since then, my channel has grown to over 15,000 subscribers and now earns around $1,500 per month in semi-passive income.

The channel makes $50 a day or so right now, so I'm only halfway to the goal of $3,000 a month.

But this just goes to show what posting videos somewhat consistently can do, and again, this is largely passive now since I have a video editor who actually edits the content.

8. Become A Virtual Assistant

If you're still wondering how to make $3k a month, you could always consider offering virtual assistant services to a roster of clients as a freelance VA.

Virtual assistants typically help their clients with tasks like:

Booking appointments
Email correspondence
Scheduling travel plans
Social media posting
Bookkeeping

This video from virtual assistant Mia Juan shares how to get started and tips for landing your first clients.

It's not uncommon for experienced VAs to earn $20 to $30 per hour, and if you work for a senior manager or business owner, you might be able to work out a very lucrative contract.

Brand-new VAs won't earn as much since you need experience to command a higher rate in most cases. But this is one freelance role that's a growing industry and more businesses operate online.

9. Flip Stuff For Profit

One more idea to earn $3,000 a month is to buy and flip stuff for profit. This is retail arbitrage in a nutshell, and the idea is to purchase popular goods on discount and to then resell them online for a profit.

Typically, retail arbitrage sellers buy popular brands from categories like apparel, home goods, electronics, shoes, and toys.

From there, they turn around and sell those products on marketplaces like Amazon FBA, eBay, or various other selling apps.

It takes a long time to learn the ropes and build up your inventory. But the income potential is immense, and I actually interviewed a couple making $40,000 a month or more from their Amazon FBA retail arbitrage business.

You can also keep things simpler and buy popular products and then resell them on the Facebook Marketplace or with selling apps like Mercari. But Amazon FBA is certainly one of the most popular options for this business model.

Extra Reading – The Best Ways To Flip $1,000.

10. Online Tutoring

If you're an expert in a particular subject, you can potentially get $3,000 a month by working as an online tutor.

Plenty of online tutoring platforms pay $15 to $25 per hour or even more for qualified tutors. And you usually get to work on your own schedule so things are flexible.

BookNook is the perfect example, and it pays U.S. tutors to teach English and Math online.

There are also plenty of other legit online jobs in the online tutoring space. And you can also find tutoring jobs for college students or even in high school if you're younger and are looking to make some extra cash.

11. Join Focus Groups

Focus groups are another high-paying side hustle that can pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars. So, if you get lucky, this could be your ticket to $3k a month or more.

My personal favorite way to find paid focus group opportunities is to use websites like Respondent.io.

With Respondent, you can get paid up to $700 per hour if you match for an ongoing research study.

The studies are quite niche, so actually getting accepted into a study is difficult. But again, if you get lucky, this could be a few hundred dollars extra in your pocket just for sharing your opinion.

12. Invest For $3,000 In Passive Income

One final method for making $3,000 dollars a month is to invest your money for income-generation. And if you're a fan of passive income, this is definitely one of the best ideas to try.

Earning $3,000 per month equals $36,000 a year in income. This might sound impossible to accomplish, but if you invest $720,000 into dividend stocks and ETFs that have a 5% average yield, that's $3k a month in dividend income right there.

Pretty much any online stock broker these days lets you trade stocks and ETFs commission-free, so it's very easy to get started.

And this is just one example of how you can earn money on autopilot. There are also plenty of other ideas to make your money work for you like:

Investing in income-generating real estate with companies like Fundrise
Buying assets to rent out for profit
Investing in mutual funds and index funds
Investing in an online business or brick and mortar business that you hire help for
Using passive income apps like Acorns to consistently invest in ETFs and bonds

Note: This is an endorsement in partnership with Fundrise. We receive compensation if you sign up with the provided links.

Tips For Making $3,000 Dollars A Month

Now that you know some ideas for how to make $3k a month, here are a few final tips you can keep in mind when making your game plan:

Track Your Progress: It can take a while to work up to earning $3,000 every month, especially if you've never had a side hustle. So, set smaller goals that you chip away at, but make sure you track your progress so the work actually gets done.
Test Several Ideas: Trying several side hustles or investing ideas is a good way to find out what you enjoy and which options pay well. Don't be afraid to try driving with Uber Eats, starting a blog, flipping stuff, and investing.
Pace Yourself: $3,000 is a lot of money, so don't feel discouraged if you don't earn this amount in your first month of hustling. Pace yourself, set long-term goals, and work on reaching them over time.

Final Thoughts

I hope our guide on how to make 3,000 dollars a month provides some inspiration and direction for how you can reach this income goal.

Personally, blogging, YouTube, and investing are what I'm sticking with most these days. But there are so many options to increase your income out there that you can turn to if you're willing to put in the work.

We also have a great article on how to make $3,000 fast if you just need this amount of money for a one-time period to cover bills.

Best of luck with your hustles.

Looking for even more money-making ideas? Checkout:

How To Make $3,000 A Month – 12 Best Ideas To Try