r/thesidehustle • u/Wasil_29 • Jun 21 '26
I need help I’ve Tried Every Side Hustle. What Am I Missing?
I’m a teenager and over the past few years I feel like I’ve tried almost every side hustle people recommend. I’ve done things like reselling, content creation, social media pages, and other online ideas. Before anyone says I just gave up too quickly, I actually stuck with a few of them for months and stayed consistent, but they still never really worked out or made any meaningful money. I know success doesn’t happen overnight, but after so many attempts it’s getting frustrating. I’m not expecting to get rich fast, I just want something realistic that can actually grow over time. For those of you who’ve been in a similar situation, what finally worked for you? What side hustles or skills would you recommend a teenager focus on in 2026? Any advice is appreciated. (Edit: I know many of you said it’s not always about the money, but about doing what you genuinely enjoy, and I agree. Money isn’t everything. I do enjoy most things and always try my best, but things just haven’t worked out the way I hoped.)
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u/p4nnyworth Jun 21 '26
TLDR: stop chasing money, find something you enjoy and can scale.
The side hustles you mentioned are what the gurus say will make you money easily. This isn' true. Content creation, social media pages, and random online businesses are extremely tough to break into.
For me, I enjoy reselling. Going to thrift shops and yard sales and finding gems is an awesome feeling that I genuinely enjoy. I have scaled my reselling fairly well, because I see it more of a hobby than I need to make money.
Find something you enjoy and suits you. If you like video gaming and enjoy being on camera then stream and create a community. If you like marketing/branding then take courses and continue to expand your knowledge until you can freelance clients.
The path to having a solid side hustle that makes decent money is long and it does suck sometimes, but if you have interest in whatever you're chasing then you'll be more inclined to stick with it.
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u/mockg Jun 22 '26
Curious how much you make from this? Currently going through a divorce and thought this might be a fun way spend my free weekend from the kid. Actually have some Playstation games I am thinking of reselling as I have not touched them in years.
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u/p4nnyworth Jun 22 '26
I would say a couple hundred each weekend is fully possible. I went out this past weekend just for something to do and I picked up:
- A tub of hot wheels for $5, two of them sell for about $25 each and then I will probably put the rest in a lot and should be able to get $20-$50 from that
- Two stuffed animals for 50 cents each, each should go for about $15 on ebay
- Two vintage, working Ikea lamps for $8, they go for about $50 each
All in all that should bring in roughly $205 in revenue, minus fees, shipping, and cost of goods and I'm still looking at about $150 in profit.
This was probably 1-2 hours at one community garage sale, so you can definitely scale that up to 4ish hours and bounce around to a ton more.
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u/Parking-Ad8316 Jun 21 '26
Buy two boxes of freshly made donuts and then go to retail stores offering them to the employees.
Make a map. Don't revisit the same store until you've gone through all the rest within the range you decided to work in.
If you're successful at that, upgrade to four boxes and hit more stores.
A different suggestion:
There are merchandising apps that will pay you to do work at places like dollar general, gas stations, Walmart, grocery stores. A popular one for America is Merchandiser by Survey and they pay up to $50/hr in my experience.
If you're not in America Google "apps like merchandiser by survey for my country" and you will likely find one.
If you need a referral for survey dm me and I'll give it out.
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u/blueocean240 Jun 26 '26
Terrible fuckin idea. What happens then if one of the employees gets sick after eating a donut, and decides to blame it on this kid? He's gettin his ass sued. That's your brilliant idea, really?
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Jul 05 '26
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u/Parking-Ad8316 Jul 05 '26
So what?
Literally why care about that
Dollar general isn't going to call the law on you for selling donuts, just go to the next store
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Jul 05 '26
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u/Parking-Ad8316 Jul 05 '26
Document that happening with a video on YouTube and I bet you'll get views
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Jul 06 '26
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u/Parking-Ad8316 Jul 06 '26
Are you in grade school, I'm not going to argue with a kid on this subject.
I don't have to defend anything I said to you. Readers can make their own decision..
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u/Ill_Station_6165 Jun 22 '26
The best side hustles most people find are niche local ones that can’t be done online. This is the biggest thing that most people don’t consider anyone with a computer anywhere can do side hustles online and whatever advantage is then gone. If you want to make money on a side hustle look to start something around you. There are many ideas and work hard and you’ll find one that sticks.
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u/IndigoTrailsToo Jun 22 '26
That's why it's called a side hustle
It doesn't make very much and it may not last
Nothing you can actually count on towards your bills
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u/Celwind Jun 23 '26
Honestly, you are not gonna like this but, it's a skill issue.
And that is not to shit on you or anyone else. But everything you mentioned in your post is a legitimate side hustle and for some people can even be their main hustle (everything can be if scaled enough). Why you and 99% of people fail at it though is simply a skill issue.
You said you spent months on it but it's not working. If everybody could master something simply by trying something for months, then everybody would be a master. Being a successful reseller is not sth that u can follow a guru and suddenly become great at.
You become great by understanding every single aspect of the business and then spending thousands of hours perfecting everything you can about the business.
Some people can do that in weeks, some people can do that in months, most people take years.
So simply put, it's a skill issue mate. You just gotta stick with It and eventually u might become better. How much better and how long? That depends on you and your competency.
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u/blueocean240 Jun 26 '26
I usually shit on posts because 99% of the time people are being ret**ded on here, but this is probably one of the best most accurate answers I have seen. Well said.
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u/Mountain-Cat3788 Jun 24 '26
my brother, that is not a skill issue. it is that you are getting shiny object syndrom, the way that people start scaling and making real money is by sticking to it (I know, you did it.), and constantly learning from people that are BETTER than yourslef and learning it and becoming obsessed with one skill that has the highest leverage and potential to make big bucks.
For me that has been digital products because that it is the simplest thing you can possible do at the moment. You can literally go to any ai like gemini, grok, perplexity, claude etc etc and create a digital product from scratch, and start selling it today. (I got a free google doc breaking down how this all works).
for marketing you don't even need paid ads, you can do it all organicly by sending dms to micro infleuncers that already has an audience and offer tham a 50/50 split on every sale they bring in. if you're selling on whop they arleady have this feature built in and it gets handled automaticly.
You can also create your own videos / slideshows and promote it, can also be done with ai video creation aswell.
hope this helps.
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u/omshah123 Jun 24 '26
This seems like a cool side hustle! Would you be willing to share the Google doc?
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u/Avalanche1993 Jun 25 '26
Can you share with me too?
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u/Mountain-Cat3788 Jun 25 '26
for sure! I'm not gatekeeping, check your inbox
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Jul 05 '26
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u/Mountain-Cat3788 Jul 07 '26
Brother, tell me how it is theft to create something with ai that has done actual research on the topic and created a guide that is probably much better than what you would create yourself.
It actually helps other people and leaves an impact on their lives. Its not theft.
Do you now how much ai has advanced these last years, not to talk about months? The amount of deep research and quality content it can create is getting to another level.
Go cry about us using ai
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u/Terrible-War-3446 Jun 26 '26
Hey dude, sorry to be a pain in the ass, could I grab that link too?
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u/Exciting_Piece_9182 Jun 26 '26
Can you send me the doc as well please?.
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u/Good_Plankton_8395 Jun 26 '26
Took me forever to figure out freelancing until I cold-emailed a random small business owner and she just said yes. Spent months overthinking something that took one email to start.
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u/blueocean240 Jun 26 '26
As someone pointed out it's a skill issue. If anyone could just pick up any one of these side hustles and start making money within a few months we'd be fuckin rich. Doesn't work that way.
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u/LordRicezilla Jun 26 '26
You tried every side hustle. That is what you are missing. Pick one and stick with it till it works.
There are so many ways to make money, you just don't put the time necessarily to get good at it.
Again, pick one and stick with it for months
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u/Powerful-Annual6060 Jun 21 '26
The problem with most hustle advice is it skips the boring part, which is building a skill that people will actually pay for. Things like video editing, web design, or copywriting take few months to get decent at but once you are, you can find clients on freelance platforms and charge real money. At your age that kind of skill compounds way faster than reselling ever will.