Strapped for cash? There’s no shame in it. Interest rates are sky high. Inflation’s getting better, but it’s still not great. And wages aren’t keeping pace. But lucky for all of us, we live in the age of the internet, which gives us side hustle opportunities galore — like things you can rent out for extra money (yes, seriously!). I’m going to show you how to make money off of the things already lying around your house because renting household items online is a quick way to turn a buck. In fact, sometimes renting items can even be quite lucrative.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to give you any “hot tips” that everyone already knows about like Airbnb. We’ll be diving into 25 much more niche and less commonly known ways to start a site hustle renting your items online.
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1. Things you can rent out for extra money? That extra space in your bedroom closet.
Using a service like Neighbor, you can rent out literally almost any space on your property. It could be your driveway. It could be your shed out back. It could even be half of the closet in your spare bedroom! If you’ve got an unused space, you can turn it into money by renting it out.
2. Rent out your vehicle for extra cash.
Check out peer-to-peer car rental services as you look for additional revenue streams. When Shalese Heard of The Autistic Travel Goddess was starting her business, she used the income she pulled in from renting out her car on Turo to fund her European travels. Because it was a full-time rental, the income was enough to sustain her while she lived the dream.
To give you an idea of how much you can earn we ran some numbers. Here’s our caluclations for a 2023 Honda Accord (one of the most popular cars in the U.S.). We broke our $27,295 cost of the vehicle into a monthly car payment of $562.29 which includes $33.33 per month maintenance (average maintenance fees according to MotorBiscuit.com). If we rented this mid-size car for $59 a day for an average 21 days on Turo we’d make $1,239. However, we need to subtrack our car expenses of $562.29 and give Turo their cut, which can be anywhere from 15% – 40% for fees that includes a protection plan. So, in the end, we cover our car payment and profit $405.93 – $575.10.
Note, profit from hosting a car on Turo varies widely. Factors such as vehicle type, region you host in, car payment, days rented, etc. all play a role in what you will make on Turo, Our figures are for example only and don’t reflect what you may calculate.
3. Truck rentals can pull in even more money.
If you’re only renting your vehicle out for a day at a time, a truck is likely to help you make more money. When people need to move furniture, haul free mulch from their county’s recycling program to their home, or simply have something that won’t fit in the trunk of their sedan, they need to rent a truck. They might as well rent from you over UHaul.
Fluid Truck and Fetch are truck-specific rental sites can help you start pulling in extra income ASAP.
4. Make bank by renting out your designer clothing.
Have fancy clothes? They can be dresses, but they don’t necessarily have to be. There are tons of sites that allow you to rent out your designer clothing to other people for a profit. Any of the services listed in our piece on wedding dress rentals is a good candidate for side hustlers. Check out some of our favorite sites:
5. Turn your coveted parking spot into dough.
Know who hates parking? People who live in the city.
Know who hates parking even more? People who live in the burbs but work in the city. Or have monthly doctor appointments in the city. Or who have to do anything that would bring them to an anxiety-inducing parallel park.
If you’re a city dweller, you can rent out your parking space for some serious moolah. Whether it’s going to one of your neighbors who doesn’t have enough parking themselves or someone working in a glass skyscraper who doesn’t want to shell out the fee for the company parking garage, these sites can help you get connected:
6. Rent out your RV or camper for the other 11 months of the year.
Maybe you get a good month out of your RV or camper every year. Heck, maybe you’re ambitious and put it to use all summer!
But odds are, for a large portion of the year, it’s sitting in your driveway unused. You can change that by turning your RV into income via a platform like Outdoorsy or RVShare.
7. Turn your backyard into a private pool party event space.
Got a pool in the backyard?
You can totally rent it out! Plenty of people would love to rent a private pool in the summer months, whether they’re a family with young kids or adults looking to host a social gathering. You can use a platform like Swimply to start getting paid for renting out your pool.
8. Make those textbooks pay for themselves.
Textbooks are expensive! That’s why more and more students are renting them than ever before. If you did buy yours, though, you can turn them into a revenue stream by listing them as rentals on a site like Valore.
Bear in mind that the more recent your textbook purchase, the more money it’s likely to bring in as a rental. Professors are known to change editions from semester to semester, so your English book from 20 years ago sure as heck isn’t going to be in demand.
Related: Best College Student Discounts
9. Dust off those musical instruments. They’re hidden income!
You know that time your son wanted to learn to play guitar, so you bought him a guitar.
And he watched YouTube videos for two months before giving up and leaving it in the corner to collect dust?
Well, in the 21st century, you can turn that sunk cost into an income opportunity. Sites like FriendWithA allow you to rent the instrument out to other parents who don’t want to make the same mistake – all while turning a profit.
10. Your photography equipment is potential income, too.
Same deal for any abandoned photography habits. Or maybe you’re a working photographer, but you only do wedding season, so winter’s a bit slower for you.
In either case, you can rent out your photography gear on sites like Borrow Lenses and Kit Split to turn your equipment into cash while still maintaining ownership.
11. Be ethical when renting out baby gear.
Babyquip is a website geared towards traveling parents with itsy bitsy babies. The idea is, they can rent everything they need like a crib or toys or a car seat when they get to their destination.
You can provide those rentals. While Babyquip does provide $1 million in liability insurance, be sure you’re extra careful about this side hustle. The two things doctors tell new parents to never buy used are cribs and car seats. They do this for safety reasons. And while you might be legally covered, no one wants to be responsible for a baby getting hurt.
Make sure any car seat you rent has never been in any type of accident. And if you’re delivering and building a crib, you better be Bob the Builder and know what you’re doing. For any baby items you rent out, ensure that you’re keeping on top of the latest recalls so you’re not accidentally lending out a bad product.
12. Turn your bike into a side hustle.
You can rent out your bike and all kinds of other outdoor gear on sites like List N Ride or Splinster.
13. Rent out the boat life.
First of all, congratulations on making it to a stage in life where you own a boat! Know that when you’re not using it, you can rent out your boat to help make up for those monthly loan payments — or to simply stash in savings. You can use sites like Get My Boat and Boatsetter to get started.
14. Juice up your budget by renting out your power tools.
If you have power tools that you’re not using on a daily basis, you can turn them into revenue generators in their off time. Using sites like Sparetoolz, you can connect with people who need to borrow your power tools for a short time period, charging them a premium for it.
15. Turn your yard into somebody else’s garden.
Even super simple things can be turned into a rental opportunity. Your yard, for instance. If you’re not using the space, you can rent it out to gardeners on sites like YardYum. Who knows? You might even get some thank-you, fresh-grown veggies on top of the pay day!
16. Or turn it into a cash-generating dog park.
Another great way to repurpose unused yard space is by renting it out as a safe place for dogs in the neighborhood to play. You can use a site like Sniffspot to connect with potential renters (and their cute puppies!)
17. Rent out your afternoon walk to a doggo.
If you love dogs, another way you can bring in some extra cash is by renting out your daily walk to a furry friend. Services like Rover connect dog owners with dog walkers (that’s you.)
18. Cook up some extra income with your kitchen.
Renting out kitchens — even ones in your home for private events — can be quite the lucrative side hustle. If you have a kitchen that’s up to professional chef standards and ADA accessible? Even better. Connect with potential renters on sites like Peerspace.
19. Stitch up your savings rate with sewing machine rentals.
You can rent out almost anything if you haven’t picked up on that by now. Sites like Fat Llama host a number of common household goods and other random items, including sewing machines. If you only use yours a couple times a year, turning it into a rental could bring in some extra money.
20. Give your drone a side hustle.
Know what else you can find on Fat Llama? Drone rentals. That’s right — even our side hustles are being outsourced to the robots.
21. You take your car to work. Someone else will take your board.
And when you’re out of fuel, they’re still afloat.
Just kidding. Rivers Cuomo is wrong. You’ll have plenty of cash to pay for gas with the income you make by renting out your surfboard. We mentioned Splinster before, and another good place to list your surfboard rental is The Quiver.
22. Turn last year’s Halloween costume into passive income.
No joke! Halloween costumes are so expensive, but you only really get to wear them once or twice, and then it’s time to invest in a new one for the next year. You can rent out your ghost garments of Halloweens past using a site like Rentah, which also provides rental listings for a bunch of other random items you might have lying around.
23. Your friendship is fully monetizable.
It’s true. There are rent-a-friend services out there, and one of them goes by the name of RentAFriend.com.
24. Your house can get paid to star in a movie.
Okay, I promised not to give you any lame examples that everyone knows about like Airbnb, but I promise this version of house rental is different.
LocationsHub is a marketplace for film locations. So people looking to film their movies or TV shows are browsing this site for locations to shoot, and your home could be one of them. The pay can be good, and the experience is pretty cool to boot.
25. You can even rent out your money!
Stay with me here! You know how banks lend out money and then charge people or small businesses interest?
You can do the same thing on any number of peer-to-peer lending platforms like LendingClub and Mainvest.
Bear in mind that when you issue a loan or invest in a small business, there’s no guarantee you’ll get the money back. Hopefully the other party follows through and repays on time. Because if they do, you’re essentially renting out your money for profit.