Top 10 Part-Time Business Ideas

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit and you find yourself with some extra free time on your hands, you can find some great ideas for developing your own part-time business. Most of these business ideas are relatively easy to do without worrying about a lot of start-up costs or necessary equipment since those you’re helping could have their own tools for their use and/or your own as you help them on a part-time basis. With a little ingenuity, you could easily find something that you’re passionate about and would like to turn into a part-time business for yourself. However, if you need a little bit of inspiration to get started, you’ll find the top ten part-time business ideas below.

Yoga Teacher
If you have experience with yoga, knowing most of the positions, and own your own mat, then you could become a yoga teacher within your community. The great advantage to this type of business is that you can dictate the times of day and days of the week based on your schedule. You can also determine the best location for you and your participants so they’ll get the most from their experience with you. You can set up some easy advertisements by hanging flyers around your area like your local supermarket, donut or coffee shop, and even your local library. You can set the days and times you’ll meet on the flyer as well as the location you’ve chosen, such as a beautiful park or even your own home. Depending on the size of your group and the number of meetings you hold each week, you could soon be turning a nice profit for only a few hours’ worth of work.

Disc Jockey
Do you own hours upon hours of music from almost every genre out there? Then, you could find yourself offering services as a part-time disc jockey, playing your music or that of your client’s. You’ll find the market is always in need for another DJ to play music at important events in people’s lives like weddings, sweet 16s, bar/bat mitzvahs, and other occasions. You would work with your client in deciding the playlist they want for their special occasion and you would make it happen for them. Since most of these events are on the weekends, you could find yourself with a few jobs on both Saturday and Sunday. As you make sure the music equipment is working correctly, you are also ensuring your clients are happy as they dance the time away to the songs that have been selected for the event. For this type of business, you wouldn’t need much to get started because you’d just need a laptop, your music, and the right player for the songs chosen for the playlist of that event. You would also need a sound system of some kind to make sure the music reaches every corner of the space being used, which can be quite costly, but there are ways to lessen this expense if you know where to look. Since you can charge a flat rate or by the hour, you can set yourself up for a neat profit with just a few jobs each weekend.

Caricaturist
If you have a knack for drawing people in cute or funny ways, you could find yourself becoming a well-known and sought-after caricaturist. As you make the decision to start this part-time business, you’ll find that you’ll want to build up your personal caricature collection, so you can showcase them when you offer your services at local events within your community. Flea markets, county fairs, local craft fairs, and other venues would be the perfect opportunities for you to build yourself a nice clientele as you quickly draw each person’s portrait in a caricature style, giving them an unique gift from the time spent at one of these local events. Most caricaturists have found that charging by the portrait yields a greater profit than being paid by the hour or a flat rate. As you find some free time during your weekends, you can also offer your services for other events as well, including birthday parties, school fun nights, and even weddings. For this type of business, you would need plenty of drawing implements and paper for your creations along with something to prop the paper as you sketch your caricature of your customer.

Bookkeeper
Having an affinity with numbers and keeping track of expenditures and other numerical data is a talent that can lead you to creating your own bookkeeping business. Since many businesses find the cost too high to have a full-time bookkeeper, they usually find someone to outsource this aspect of their business, hiring this individual on a part-time and/or seasonal basis. Depending on the number of clients you have, you could probably spend as few as ten to fifteen hours a week working on organizing and imputing data from receipts and customer payments along with handling tax returns when the time comes. You don’t necessarily need formal training for this business though you can make a bigger splash in this market if you take a few bookkeeping courses to refine your skills in this area. Knowledge of recordkeeping software is also useful with the most common being QuickBooks. Having a laptop and maybe a notepad and pen with you should be enough to get the job done for your client. If you’d like to pursue certification to make more for your time, you can find your way to certification through bookkeeping organizations.

Snack stall owner
This is one business you can start if you find yourself lacking inspiration from your available skill set or if nothing else appeals to you. Owning your own snack stall can lead to some nice profits after you’ve paid for the cost of the stall or cart. You can find great deals on snacks from warehouse stores like Sam’s or Costco, buying in bulk items like chips, candy, soda, and bottles of water. You’ll find that the best times for this type of business is during sport events at local parks and/or playing fields where you can set up your stall or cart and sell to the parents and other guests, watching the games being played. Since these sporting events happen in the evening or on the weekend, you’ll find that you’ll have plenty of time after you’ve closed up for the day. You could even offer hot foods and maybe alcohol as long as you obtained the proper licenses and required training and permits. If you can keep your overhead costs down when purchasing snacks for your stall, you can make a nice profit for only a few hours throughout the week.

Seamstress
Sewing skills are becoming a rare skill today as we just toss away torn clothing or clothing that no longer fits rather than seek someone with sewing experience to make the necessary repairs or measurements so our clothes are wearable once again. If you possess these skills, you can find yourself with plenty of work as you build yourself a seamstress business or even just a sewing business in general. While you repair and alter clothing, you can also create pretty sewn stuffed animals, placemats, and other home accents you can sell on the side. You’ll need to own basic sewing supplies like needles and threads, scissors, and pins as well as a sewing machine for the larger jobs. You can charge by the piece or by the hour as you work to repair tears or holes and/or alter tops, bottoms, and everything in-between. If you want to also sell your own items, you can find fabrics fairly inexpensive in large box retailers or in the clearance sections at your local fabric/craft stores. The prices for these items you make to sell can depend on the fabric you used, the difficulty of the pattern, and the time it took you to make it; though, you’ll want to also keep your prices competitive. You can do most of this work within your home, fixing clothes for customers on a drop-off and pick-up schedule as well as an online store for your saleable goods.

Make saleable gift baskets
There’s just something sweet about homemade gift baskets as they hold a variety of items within a basket that’s covered in cellophane and tied with a large bow. If you have an eye for detail and like to create beautiful baskets of goodies, then you’ll find yourself a great business and market for your gift baskets. While you can build yourself a clientele for everyday occasions, the greatest majority of your sales will most likely come from holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, and Mother’s Day. You can make a theme within each basket to match the holiday or occasion your customer has requested. To keep your supplies from overwhelming you, you can build them as made-to-order where customers can ask for specialized baskets. To find your materials at lower prices, you’ll want to shop sales at your local craft store and use coupons when you get them. As for pricing on the baskets you make, you’ll probably find the best system is based on the size and complexity of the basket compared to flat rates since the items inside the basket will vary quite often. Your best profits will probably be from the holiday baskets, but you can create repeat customers by wowing them with your basket presentation and the gift items you’ve included in their basket.

Personal Chef
Busy professionals and those that are unable to cook for themselves need someone who has the right skills to create meals for these individuals. This is where having intermediate to expert levels in the kitchen can come in handy. You’ll spend your time prepping and cooking meals that can include all three or just dinner for your clients either in your home or theirs depending on the situation. If you enjoy cooking and all aspects of being in a kitchen, this could be the right part-time business for you. You can meet potential clients through flyers you’ve posted or through word-of-mouth. You’ll have the freedom of preparing home-cooked meals for your clients and their families to enjoy. You’ll need a kitchen with all the necessary equipment in order for this business to work whether it’s your own kitchen or that of your client plus the ingredients needed to make that particular meal. You’ll also want to look into any permits regarding this type of business especially if you’re transporting the food from your home to the client’s. Depending on your efficiency in the kitchen, you made find charging by the hour can be easier than calculating a flat rate or per dish price.

Picture Framer
If you have access to woodworking tools and hanging tools, you can create your very own picture framing business. As you build frames for the pictures in your home, you can collect some samples to showcase your work as you begin marketing your new business through local craft events or even just in the neighborhood. With so many choices in wood and even using beaten up wood fragments from crates and pallets, you can keep your costs down in that regard, but you’ll want to own a table saw or hand saw, measuring tapes, hanging wire or hooks, and wood glue or nails to keep the seams together in the frame. You may even want to invest in some paints for the frame to give them new depth and variety to appeal to a broader audience. As you build your business, you’ll find you can make multiple frames in a relatively short amount of time. With this business, you’ll find that charging by frame size would be the best pricing practice since you’ll be making a variety of sizes with a number of materials.

Home/Office Organizer
Some of us have a knack for organization and giving everything a place of its own within our homes and/or our offices. With this talent, you can find yourself building up a clientele that could use some organization in their lives from their homes to their offices and maybe even their storage buildings. Since you’re there to organize existing items in someone’s home, you’ll need a vehicle to get you back and forth as well as organizing materials though these are typically purchased after clutter has been cleaned into neat piles and like items are placed in separate piles. The reason being you won’t know what you need as far as bins, bowls, and baskets until you know what you have. This is also a great business for those that also like designing because you can help create an attractive space through the use of organizational materials. With this business, you’ll most likely spend a few hours at a time with your client, decluttering the home or office while preparing the space for those organizing bins and baskets. Flat rate fees or by the hour charges with the inclusion of materials bought for the project is a good starting place for charging your clients an appropriate fee for your time and effort in getting their homes looking nicer and less cluttered.

Conclusion

With each of the part-time businesses, you’ll find that the startup costs aren’t overly high in most cases since you’ll only need a few items to get you started, adding more gear and equipment later when you can afford it. You’ll also find that the timeframe for most of these businesses shouldn’t exceed 15 to 20 hours a week while still producing some suitable profits for the owner. When you find yourself needing something to do for a few hours a week, you might consider creating your own part-time business so you can make some extra spending money or some savings for a vacation or other event taking place in your life. Choose the one you like best or the one that best suits your personality and skills, make the necessary purchases from supplies to permits, and get out there, selling your products and services to those in your neighborhood or community.