After 6 Months Of Trying Popular Side Hustles, She Says Most 'Passive Income' Claims Are Overhyped. Still, One Easy Gig Actually Worked

Benzinga02-24 22:15

For many Americans trying to dig out of debt, the promise of easy “passive income” is hard to ignore. Social media is packed with claims of $5,000 a month for just a few hours of work, but for people ...

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Social media is packed with claims of $5,000 a month for just a few hours of work, but for people ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.benzinga.com/news/topics/26/02/50814380/after-6-months-of-trying-popular-side-hustles-she-says-most-passive-income-claims-are-overhyped-still-one-easy-gig-actually-worked\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"benzinga_hot_news","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>After 6 Months Of Trying Popular Side Hustles, She Says Most 'Passive Income' Claims Are Overhyped. 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Still, One Easy Gig Actually Worked\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-02-24 22:15 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.benzinga.com/news/topics/26/02/50814380/after-6-months-of-trying-popular-side-hustles-she-says-most-passive-income-claims-are-overhyped-still-one-easy-gig-actually-worked><strong>Benzinga</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>For many Americans trying to dig out of debt, the promise of easy “passive income” is hard to ignore. Social media is packed with claims of $5,000 a month for just a few hours of work, but for people ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.benzinga.com/news/topics/26/02/50814380/after-6-months-of-trying-popular-side-hustles-she-says-most-passive-income-claims-are-overhyped-still-one-easy-gig-actually-worked\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"LU0106831901.USD","symbol_name":"贝莱德世界金融基金A2","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.benzinga.com/news/topics/26/02/50814380/after-6-months-of-trying-popular-side-hustles-she-says-most-passive-income-claims-are-overhyped-still-one-easy-gig-actually-worked","article_id":"2613710406","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://cdn.benzinga.com/files/images/story/2026/02/24/Representative-Image-Of-Money-Earned-Thr.jpeg?optimize=medium&dpr=2&auto=webp&width=260"],"rights":{"source":"benzinga_hot_news","url":"https://www.benzinga.com/news/topics/26/02/50814380/after-6-months-of-trying-popular-side-hustles-she-says-most-passive-income-claims-are-overhyped-still-one-easy-gig-actually-worked","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2613710406","pubTimestamp":1771942500,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"benzinga_hot_news","name":"Benzinga"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"For many Americans trying to dig out of debt, the promise of easy “passive income” is hard to ignore. Social media is packed with claims of $5,000 a month for just a few hours of work, but for people juggling bills, gas and groceries, the real question is simple: Do any of these side hustles actually work?One woman decided to find out. She tracked every dollar for six months while trying to chip away at $40,000 in debt, testing nearly every side hustle the internet recommends.Freelance writing through Upwork wasn't much better. After applying to around 50 gigs, she received two responses and earned $150 total. “Competition is insane and rates are terrible,” she said.Over six months, she earned $1,400 walking dogs before and after work. “It’s exercise, the dogs are cute, money is reliable,” she said.Other commenters echoed her experience, saying location matters. In dense neighborhoods with busy families, recurring services like dog walking","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"benzinga.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"LU0106831901.USD":"贝莱德世界金融基金A2","BPOP":"大众银行","LU1668664300.SGD":"Blackrock World Financials A2 SGD-H","BK4211":"区域性银行","LU1791807156.HKD":"BGF WORLD FINANCIALS \"A2\" (HKDHDG) ACC"},"translate_title":"在尝试了6个月流行的副业后，她表示大多数“被动收入”的说法都被夸大了。尽管如此，一项简单的工作确实奏效了","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"BPOP":1.5},"content_text":"For many Americans trying to dig out of debt, the promise of easy “passive income” is hard to ignore. Social media is packed with claims of $5,000 a month for just a few hours of work, but for people juggling bills, gas and groceries, the real question is simple: Do any of these side hustles actually work?\nOne woman decided to find out. She tracked every dollar for six months while trying to chip away at $40,000 in debt, testing nearly every side hustle the internet recommends.\nWhat she found was far from the glossy TikTok promises.\n“I got tired of wasting time on things that don’t work,” she wrote on Reddit’s r/sidehustle recently. After half a year of experiments, she reached a straightforward conclusion: “Most ‘passive income’ is BS or requires way more work than admitted.”\nDon't Miss:\nOnline surveys were one of the first tests. She said she made just $47 over two months before quitting. The issue wasn't effort. It was constant disqualifications and low pay. She estimated the earnings worked out to about $3 an hour.\nFreelance writing through Upwork wasn't much better. After applying to around 50 gigs, she received two responses and earned $150 total. “Competition is insane and rates are terrible,” she said.\nDropshipping cost her $200. Her takeaway: “Total scam unless you have serious capital.” Other commenters agreed, saying that if margins were truly strong in broad markets, larger retailers would already dominate them.\nFood delivery looked promising at first, bringing in $890 over three months. But expenses ate into that quickly. Gas cost $200. Increased car maintenance added another $300. Net profit was about $390 for roughly 60 hours of work. She described it as “exhausting and barely worth it.”\nTrending: Disney Was Built on Character IP — This Pre-IPO Company Is Using the Same Playbook\nReselling items on Facebook Marketplace and eBay brought in $340 profit over four months. It worked, but required upfront cash and patience with flaky buyers. Experienced resellers in the comments said sourcing is “99% of it” and location makes a big difference.\nCredit card rewards turned out to be more reliable. By opening cards strategically and paying balances in full, she earned about $600 in sign-up bonuses over six months. She called it “legit if you’re disciplined and pay everything off.”\nShe also filed settlement claims tied to data breaches and product recalls, earning $780 over six months. Some payouts were as small as $8, others as high as $200. “Takes maybe 20 min per claim then you wait,” she wrote, adding that patience is key.\nBut her clear winner was dog walking.\nOver six months, she earned $1,400 walking dogs before and after work. “It’s exercise, the dogs are cute, money is reliable,” she said.\nSee Also: Invest Like Hollywood's Elite: Own a Stake in Valley Wellness' Luxury Behavioral Health Retreat\nOther commenters echoed her experience, saying location matters. In dense neighborhoods with busy families, recurring services like dog walking or even backyard pet waste removal can build a steady monthly income.\nIn total, she earned $3,707 over six months. After expenses, she cleared $3,307. “Not amazing but better than nothing when trying to pay down $40k debt,” she wrote.\nHer final warning was aimed at the online hustle culture itself. “Don’t believe the $5k/month working 2 hours a week hype, it’s not real,” she said.\nStill, her six-month experiment shows that when it comes to side income, boring and consistent often beats flashy and viral.\nRead Next: Explore the Fire-Safe Energy Storage Company With $185M in Contracted Revenue\nImage: Shutterstock\nTo add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.","kind":"news","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.2","shortVersion":"4.36.2","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2613710406","isCrawlerRequest":true}