Inflation is a major problem worldwide, with gas prices and other necessities continually on the rise while salaries often remain stagnant. In order to combat this financial struggle, it is important for people to have their own sources of income through side hustles.

However, starting a side hustle can be difficult when you don’t have the money to invest upfront. That’s why I’ve compiled a list of the best side hustles that have high earning potential and require no money to start.

Publish image-based books. Did you know that it is completely free to list an ebook on Amazon’s KDP platform and earn money from it? Not only is it free, but it’s also a passive way to make money because once you upload it to Amazon’s KDP, that’s it — Amazon takes care of the rest and you just collect your earnings. While writing ebooks is a great option for those who are skilled writers, not everyone can write a novel. But don’t worry, because you can create image-based books instead. To get started, register for a free account on the beginner-friendly graphic app, Canva.The free account comes with a variety of pictures, shapes, and text that you can drag and drop onto an ebook-sized page to create your own image-based book, such as a workbook, journal, or even a children’s book. One creator shares how she went from $0 to making over $400 in a single week selling her own image-based books on Kindle as a beginner.

Create and sell digital downloads. Another option using Canva is to create and sell digital downloads on the huge online marketplace, Etsy. Customers on Etsy spend billions of dollars each year on a variety of products, including printable crafts like posters. When a customer buys a printable poster, they don’t receive a physical copy — instead, they get an automatic email with a link to a digital download of the image file for the poster so they can print it out and create their own DIY version. Not only do these types of digital downloads sell well, but according to the Etsy research app Alura, one digital download store has made over $200,000.

Create and sell boutique custom digital products. To put a unique twist on the digital download side hustle and increase profits, consider creating and selling boutique custom digital products. This hustle requires more effort than the others, but has two major benefits: it allows you to stand out more in the market and it allows you to charge higher prices for your products. To get started, choose a niche market and create custom digital products specifically for that market. For example, you could create custom wedding invitations or personalized social media graphics for small businesses.

Sell physical products through print on demand. If you’re interested in selling physical products, print on demand is a great option that requires no upfront investment. With print on demand, you don’t have to worry about inventory or shipping — the company you use to print and fulfill orders handles all of that for you. To get started, choose a product you want to sell and design it using a graphic design tool like Canva. Then, upload the design to a print on demand website like Printful or Redbubble and set up your product listing. When an order comes in, the print on demand company will print and ship the product for you.

Monetize a YouTube channel. If you have a passion for creating videos, consider starting a YouTube channel and monetizing it. While it does take time and effort to grow a channel and gain subscribers, once you have a sizable audience, you can monetize your channel through ads, sponsorships, and merchandise sales. YouTube provides resources and guidelines.

And that’s it…

I hope those ideas will inspire you to try something new.

To learn about my favorite side hustle, get my free ebook here.