5 Best Side Hustles for 50+ in 2026 - No Skills Needed

All right. So, I'm going to be showing you a bunch of examples of side hustles that are specifically good for older people. Basically, people 40 and above or 50 and above that don't really require any specialized skills. And specifically, you're going to have an advantage if you are 40 plus or 50 plus. So, this was a requested video from the audience. Thought I'd show you a bunch of really good ones. Hopefully, you're inspired, motivated. This can give you some ideas for something that you could potentially do. Some of these are going to be online. Some of these are going to be in person. And if you enjoy this type of video, let me know by gently tapping that like button and let's jump in right now. All right, so the first one is a weird one, but this one is kind of locationsp specific, but kind of not location specific at the same time, but that would be setting up some sort of Instagrammable moment or some sort of moment that creates really good picture opportunities. And one example of that is luxury picnic planning. Now, this particular picture right here, you can see this is taken at the Golden Gate Bridge. So, if you're living in a city that has some kind of iconic structures or iconic buildings or places, this could be especially good for you. And of course, you don't have to do luxury picnics. There's many different things you can do. But you can see in this particular case, this side hustle brings them about $12,000 a month. And they literally do it on the side of their full-time job, and it's literally just a luxury picnic setup service. So, there's a little bit of catering involved because obviously you have to get the food ready cuz it's a picnic, but usually picnic food is relatively simple. But more of it is the actual aesthetics of the picnic itself. You want it to look really good. You want it to have great presentation. And this particular service charges about $185 for a base picnic. And they have a lot of upsells that they offer as well. So, for instance, they have painting activities, doughut walls, fondue sets, record players, selfie stands, and themed decor. basically a bunch of stuff that just makes the experience more unique, cooler, or more Instagrammable as they say. So yeah, if you are already somebody who's lived in your community for a while, you're well connected, it's going to be a lot easier to set stuff up like this because you can basically just let people know that this is something you're offering and you probably already have built a lot of goodwill and connections over the years and this could be a good way for you to make money. Now, with this particular business, one of the main ways that they advertise is, of course, through social media. That's one of the reasons why you even are hearing about the business in the first place is because I discovered them through social media. And there's lots of different types of businesses that work out there, but the real key is getting distribution. And the best way to get distribution in my opinion is through social media. And specifically, the best social media platform is YouTube. And if you want to learn how to get distribution through YouTube, I do have a completely free live workshop this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. All right, guys. is in the editing process right now. And I just wanted to mention that if you're struggling to grow on YouTube, you're having trouble getting views, subscribers, making money, or even picking a niche. I'm going to be hosting a free one-time live workshop that goes over exactly how to help with that. How to finally make money from YouTube.com in 2026. So, make sure to mark that down. And also make sure to click the link in the description and the pin comment below so you don't miss out. And if you attend live, you'll also have a chance to be the one person I pick for a realtime channel audit once we move into the interactive portion of the workshop. And if you feel unsure about what niche to choose or you're worried that your niche might be too broad or it's not profitable enough, then this workshop is for you because I'll be giving away the 60-second niche validator 2.4 completely free. This is the latest and most optimized version of my GPT powered niche validation tool. And it helps you instantly test and uncover profitable YouTube niches before you waste time creating content that doesn't bring in leads, sales, or money. It's smarter, faster, and trained on even more data from real profitable channels. And I'll be giving it away completely free, but only at this live workshop. And just a heads up, this might be one of the last times I give this tool away for free because I'm planning on making it into a actual software. So, if you've been on the fence, this is definitely a good time to pick it up. Now, during the workshop, there's a full presentation on how to grow on YouTube, followed by Q&A where you can ask me questions directly on Zoom. And people do ask a lot of questions the majority of the time about niche. And many people walk away with niche clarity during the session itself. And the same strategies I teach are the ones that help clients like Nicole, who went from 85 subscribers to $85,000 in a single month. Seth, who went from years without a viral video to immediately getting 300,000 views right after starting working with us. or Davis who scaled from a h 100k a month and was able to remove himself from recording. And even people who aren't clients like Isaiah were able to make $20,000 only using the free content and live workshop strategies. So, make sure you show up, click the link in the description or the pin comment to register and add it to your calendar so you don't miss the chance to grab the 60-second niche validator AI. And if you miss the date, that's okay. Check the link still to see when the next workshop is happening or to sign up to a list that will tell you when the next one does. So, see you Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Now, back to the video. Now, the second side hustle you can do, this is another one that you can do locally, is basically just doing something that's extremely useful for a super niche set of people. And one example of that would be automatic bicycle washing. So, here's some examples of this thing in action. It's basically an automatic bicycle washing machine, and it honestly does a better job than a human being would do in a fraction of the time. And typically you could charge anywhere from $5 to $12 per wash depending on the city. And this particular station handles about 20 to 40 bikes a day and that's roughly $3 to $10,000 a month. And of course, Velerush the machine could be transported to hightra events like triathlons, cycling races, or bike festivals where hundreds of riders need quick cleanups after muddy courses. Or you could just go where there's a ton of people on their bikes in whatever city you live in, and you'd likely get a lot of sales as well. And the coolest thing is is it can all be automated. You don't even necessarily have to be there in order to make money from this. And again, the way they're advertising is through social media. That's how I discovered them. And the best social media to advertise on, in my opinion, is YouTube. You can even tag the area you're in on YouTube. So yeah, again, check it out. Link in the description, the pin comment below. Completely free workshop where you'll get to ask me questions on how to grow your YouTube channel and sell your products and services on it. All right. Next would be affiliate marketing. And there's so many different examples of people making money with affiliate marketing. For instance, this lady right here was a stay-at-home mom and now she's a fashion influencer in her 50s with brand deals and a podcast. So this lady's name is Caroline Bodino. She was a stay-at-home mom in her mid-50s and she started recommending products that she loved and turned that into income. And of course, she used social media to do that. And now she's making a very, very healthy full-time income. In fact, she's really making a killing from social media, specifically with her affiliate marketing. And it's not just her. My brother, for instance, last year came to me because he's been in the trades for about 30 years. And he told me, "Hey, Shane, I'm 50 now. I really want to try to transition out of the trades because it's really tough on my body. How do I do that?" And I recommended that he start on YouTube, of course. And he was very confused by that at first. He thought, you know, I'm not tech-savvy. I've never made a YouTube video in my life. I barely even watch YouTube that much. I'm more of a TV person, etc., etc. All the excuses popped into his head for why he couldn't do it. But he trusted me. He actually did it. very first video we posted blew up. Has over $800,000 views now. One month after posting his first video, he had a $214 day. Less than 6 months after posting his first video, he had a $520 day. And that's just from AdSense alone. And on top of that, he is making affiliate sales from his channel, too. So, he's going to make a ton of money from the channel even in the very first year. And if you want to learn how we blew his channel up so fast, go ahead, click that link in the description and the pin comment below. He might even actually show up live in the workshop, but at the very least, we'll give you an update on how he's doing. So, definitely do not miss out on it, and I'll see you there. Now, one other thing you can do is sell digital products, or you can even sell a subscription to a community. So, kind of the same thing, but digital products are usually oneoff, whereas subscriptions are recurring. So, digital products could be as simple as selling Etsy printables or digital books or a course or even a PDF or something along those lines. And there are tons of people making money doing this. But I also really like the group business because on top of, you know, providing them with digital products, a course, that kind of thing, for instance, on a website like school. And there are tons of examples of people making money on a website like school. But on top of all that, you have the community aspect, which is even more powerful, right? So you could be a community host, so you could make your own community or you could even get hired into a community and make money doing that if there's something you're really passionate about, for instance. And by the way, there's like a ton of people making a lot of money on teaching stuff like pickle ball, for instance, on school. You know, pickle ball, right? There's like a bunch of pickle ball communities that are making money on there. So, if you don't believe me that you can make money by starting a group, like you absolutely can. For instance, this channel, Kyle Kasuta, or that pickle ball guy is making well over $50,000 a month with his pickle ball community on school. And of course, he's promoting it with YouTube, which is why you should definitely show up to my live training Time. This is a onetime training. do not miss out on it. So, yeah, another great side hustle for people. It could be all kinds of random stuff like almost any random passion or hobby or anything that you have like that. You could potentially start a group or you could participate in a group and get hired by them and that could be a great side hustle for you. All right, next one is freelancing in general, but specifically I'm going to go ahead and pick freelance writing. And I've got a great example for you here. This 54year-old's juicy side hustle, which she calls a literal ATM, pulls up to $50,000 a month and was profitable within one week. And this is Shannon Huchin, and she was basically featured in Entrepreneur magazine. And her side hustle was writing niche content for businesses. And she pulled in $50,000 a month before scaling even further. Now, the reason I say that this is so good is because you really need to understand how the economy works specifically right now in 2026. The 40 and 50 and above demographic owns about 80% of the wealth in the United States and most western countries and advertisers want to get to that demographic. And so because of the fact that you're a part of that demographic, it's much easier for you to understand and relate to them and make content that they enjoy and like and that is one of the reasons why Shannon Hooen was able to have so much success writing content for businesses. And in general, freelance writers, according to Glass Door, make about 63 to $108,000 a year. Of course, Shannon Hooin is an outlier, but it just goes to show that if you find the right niche, you can definitely make content and you can be a freelance writer, just as an example. Many other things that you can do when it comes to freelancing, and you can make really good money doing it. And it's especially effective because you're going to be targeting a demographic that all advertisers want to reach. And to be honest with you, you might have noticed that on YouTube left and right, there's been channels that are 40 plus and 50 plus blowing up with very simple content. Just a few examples. My brother Zach, he blew up very easily. One of my clients, R.J. the Unretired, has already had a video get over a million views, and it was a very simple video. And there's tons of other channels out there that are doing the exact same thing. And they're doing it without being particularly skilled at YouTube, but they're using this one specific method that we are going to be going over this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Click the link in the description in the pin comment below because it would take way too long for me to explain in a short video like this. You can also go to our homepage and watch this video right here where we talk about how we helped Shawn scale from $30,000 a month all the way to over $500,000 a month.