Many people have regular jobs that they love, and which enable them to use their creative skills to make money. This could be anything from coding video games to being an expert in SEO or designing websites.

For a lot of people, however, earning some extra cash in their downtime can be essential for many reasons. It could be needed to save for early retirement, to go on a dream holiday or put money aside for a new house. If this applies to you, it’s a good idea to find some creative ways to make this extra money during the hours and days when you are not at work.

illustration by Veronika Vieyra

If you want to get creative and use some more of your own skills to make extra cash, here are some great ways to go about it.

Sell your photographs

If you love photography and have an eye for a great shot, you could use this in your spare time to make some money. Many people love to take awesome photos when out and about in their downtime – whether this is rolling landscapes, beautiful wildlife or bustling city vistas. Rather than these photos sitting around doing nothing, why not monetize them? There are many sites around now such as Shutterstock which allow you to upload your photos and they pay you each time someone downloads them to use. The great thing about this is that you do not need masses of equipment to get going – good quality cameras are no longer particularly expensive and even the camera on your smartphone has all you need to take top snaps.

Make craft items to sell

While you may be a UX wizard or IT manager by day, you might love to craft items like artisan soap or wooden noticeboards by night. While these items make great presents for friends, they are also a great way to use your creative skills to make extra cash. The explosion of online marketplaces like Etsy and eBay means that you can easily sell items over the internet. Selling online is simple and gives you easy access to a massive global audience who might like what you make in your spare time. The net result is that you make money from doing something you love that you would be getting involved with anyway.

Why not get paid to write?

If you already work in digital marketing or web design, you will know how important website content is to businesses. Good quality content is essential for online companies, and it is also in great demand. That makes freelance writing an excellent way to make a few extra dollars. If you love to write in your spare time, then you could get paid for it by writing for copywriting agencies. The agencies will send you details of articles they need creating and will pay you when you have completed and delivered them. Not only is this easy to fit into your evenings or weekends, but it can also pay well.

Social media management

If, like most people nowadays, you love using top social media platforms like Instagram when not working, why not monetize that? Like freelance writing, this can be done during the evenings or weekends to fit around your normal 9 to 5. Platforms like Hootsuite even let you schedule posts in advance so you can spread out updates across the week without having to be around to do them manually at the time. This is great for flexing your creative muscles as you will need to think of cool things to write about and also upload some awesome photos and videos. This is another side gig that can pay well so it is worth thinking about.

Use your creative skill to make extra cash

Many people have developed creative skills in their jobs or outside of work which they could use to make extra money. As we have already mentioned, this can be very handy when you need some emergency savings to fall back on or simply want to treat yourself. If you are looking for some cool ways to go about this and use some of the skills you have, the above suggests some interesting options that will enjoy pursuing.