Joshua Mayo
A YouTuber reveals four lucrative side hustles that require minimal effort and investment. These include trash can cleaning, selling artwork on Etsy, reselling AliExpress products, and creating Amazon product reviews. Instagram / Joshua Mayo

Looking for ways to make extra cash that don't require a lot of experience or investment? Joshua Mayo, a well-known YouTuber in the personal finance space, has just revealed four unique side hustles that most people haven't considered yet. In his latest video, Mayo claims these opportunities can bring in up to $900 or more each day, and the best part? You don't need special skills to get started.

"I've got four side hustles that no one is talking about that can earn you as much as 900 dollars or more per day," Mayo says in his latest YouTube video. Let's explore these underrated options and see how you can boost your income.

1. Trash Can Cleaning

Americans generate a staggering five pounds of waste per person daily, and these discarded items often accumulate in trash cans, eventually collected by garbage trucks. However, even after the waste is removed, a sticky residue remains.

This smelly garbage juice attracts pests like cockroaches, ants, rats, possums, and rodents, which can invade your home. Mayo suggests capitalising on this problem by offering trash can pressure washing services. Many people pay a premium for monthly or even weekly cleanings to keep their outdoor spaces pest-free.

Mayo mentioned that he recently received a door-hanging flyer advertising trash can pressure washing services. What surprised him most was the high prices quoted. Considering the minimal effort required to clean a single trash can, there was evident significant demand for this service, and people were willing to pay a premium for it.

Mayo mentions seeing a Nextdoor post where someone discovered a mobile trash can cleaning service. The individual was unaware of such a service but regretted not knowing it sooner.

The comments beneath the post were filled with enthusiastic responses from people eager to learn more about this service. The most appealing aspect is the low cost and ease of starting this business.

How do you start a trash can cleaning business?

You'll need a pressure washer to start a trash can cleaning business. While a commercial-grade model can be expensive, a simple battery-powered pressure washer costing around $70 to $100 will suffice.

Ensure your chosen pressure washer has a soap attachment so that a cleaning solution can be applied to the trash cans before pressure washing. For the cleaning solution, you can purchase a budget-friendly option from a hardware store or online platform like Amazon.

Alternatively, a diluted mixture of Dawn dish soap and water works well. Additionally, you can invest in a separate, inexpensive sprayer to apply the soap. These items are readily available at retailers like Walmart.

With the necessary equipment in place, you're ready to start your business. Consider posting in local Facebook groups, Craigslist, or platforms like Nextdoor to spread the word. These are free promotional methods that Mayo highly recommends.

For example, door hangers can be purchased in bulk, with 1,000 units available for as little as 11 cents each. This means you could start with 1,000 flyers for just $100 or even less with smaller quantities at approximately 80 cents per flyer. Larger orders typically result in better deals.

For the flyer design, consider a simple template. In total, including the pressure washer and flyers, you should only need to spend between $100 and $300 to get started. This is a relatively small investment, considering the potential earnings. I've seen people charge around $65 for a one-time cleaning.

Trash can cleanings generate approximately $35 per service, with an additional $10 fee for each extra trash can. Imagine cleaning four trash cans per hour for eight hours daily. This equates to 32 cans, totalling $1,120 or more per day. Working a few hours could easily result in $100 or more in earnings.

Mayo highlights the ease and affordability of starting this side hustle, emphasising its requirement for zero skills and the high demand for such services. He encourages viewers who successfully launch this business and generate substantial income to contact him via email for potential inclusion in a YouTube video sharing their success story.

2. Selling Paintings On Etsy

A few years ago, when Mayo began his YouTube channel, he purchased two pieces of artwork from Etsy: a stock market bowl and a stock market bear painting. These canvas artworks cost approximately $200 each. Mayo later discovered an interesting fact: while these were original pieces, the seller was not the creator or shipper of these large canvas paintings.

Instead, the seller likely used a print-on-demand service like Printful to handle the backend operations. The seller's only responsibility was to create the artwork. Once the artwork was complete, they could upload it to Printful, link their account to Etsy, and automate the process.

When someone purchases one of these canvas paintings, Printful handles the entire process, from manufacturing to printing and shipping. "Now, I already know what some of you are thinking. Yeah, but Joshua, I'm not an artist. I can't create original artwork, so I guess I can't do this," Mayo said.

The YouTuber expressed relief at hearing this concern, as he had recently seen numerous Instagram ads promoting motivational canvases. These elementary artworks often feature inspirational quotes or powerful words with their definitions.

You could even get creative and incorporate pop culture elements, like Monopoly motivational posters that range from $600 to $3,300, depending on the size of the posters. Mayo emphasises that this side hustle doesn't involve creating original artwork.

Proven sellers include motivational quotes, remixed pop culture icons or celebrities, and even public-domain artwork. Alternatively, he noted that you can explore websites like unsplash.com, which offer a vast library of free-to-use images.

Mayo suggests downloading a stylish image like this city photo and visiting a website like Envato Elements. A free seven-day trial allows you to download Photoshop actions, such as this impressionist action, which can transform your images into Impressionist artwork.

You can then upload your transformed image to Printful to sell as canvas artwork on your Etsy store. Alternatively, consider using the Art Scribbles Photoshop action to create scribble art, or explore the hundreds of unique Photoshop actions that give your canvas artwork a distinctive and personalised feel.

For design inspiration, Mayo recommends using designspiration.com. With some dedicated effort, he believes this side hustle has the potential to evolve into a full-time income stream, generating over six figures annually.

3. Amazon Product Review Videos

In his next segment, Mayo unveils a unique side hustle, claiming it's the easiest way to make money online with minimal effort. He asks viewers to consider their online shopping habits on Amazon.

We often browse for boredom or for specific items. Once we find a product, we see the image and price and might read the description or reviews. For bigger purchases, Mayo himself admits to watching video reviews.

This fascinating aspect is often overlooked: many video creators on Amazon are paid for their reviews. This lesser-known fact involves a commission for creators when viewers watch at least 30 seconds of a review and subsequently purchase the product or a similar one. It's a concept worth considering.

To illustrate, Mayo points to Bose headphones with nearly 10,000 reviews. He emphasises that only a small percentage of buyers leave reviews, suggesting that these headphones have likely sold hundreds of thousands of times.

Among those hundreds of thousands of purchases, Mayo suggests that many people watch video reviews before buying. The most surprising aspect is that this opportunity is virtually unknown, creating minimal competition.

Mayo then highlights Apple Airpod Max headphones, which have zero video reviews. Despite the thousands of star reviews indicating high sales, he suggests that this is the first time anyone has created a video review for these headphones. He points out that many products, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands, have minimal or no video reviews.

Imagine creating a video review for this product. Mayo reveals that Amazon pays a commission rate of 2 percent on electronics. While this might seem small, it can accumulate quickly.

If 5,000 people out of 100,000 watched your review and bought the product, you could earn around $55,000 from just this one product. Imagine having video reviews for 100 different products.

Imagine the compounding effect and potential earnings over time. These reviews don't need to be elaborate. Many creators use their phones for recording. Regarding the cost of buying products for reviews, Mayo suggests purchasing, reviewing, and then returning them. It's a simple process with significant earning potential.

4. Turning AliExpress Deals into Profits

Mayo recently spoke with someone who built a successful six-figure Etsy shop by discovering a product on Ali Express, purchasing it at a low price, and reselling it with a significant markup on Etsy. Impressively, she achieved this in just six months. Before this venture, she worked a traditional nine-to-five job as a dental assistant, dissatisfied and underpaid. Her life transformed completely.

This journey begins on Oli Express, a Chinese online retail store where you can buy heavily discounted products. Reselling these products at a much higher markup on platforms like Amazon and Etsy can be highly profitable. For example, a Sunset Projection lamp costing $2.96 could easily be sold for ten times that amount on these platforms.

"This is the exact same product as the one on Oli Express for only $2.96. I know this because the Amazon seller is even using the same images from AliExpress," Mayo said. "This person is buying the lamp for $2.96 on AliExpress and then reselling it for between $20 and $30 on Amazon."

Mayo says these products are selling extremely well, not only because of the nearly 2,000 reviews but also due to the trusted Amazon Choice label. According to the YouTuber, the seller is likely earning over six figures annually from this single product. "Now that all sounds great right, but the question becomes, how exactly do you find these winning products on Ali Express?" he states.

"Well, you actually have to kind of work backwards and so the first thing you do is decide what platform you're going to sell on Easy or Amazon or both. Depending on the platform, you'll just have to do some research to figure out what products people are buying on a site like Amazon. You could certainly search through the top-selling products in each category," the YouTuber explained.

There are countless side hustles that can generate substantial income. For example, Lisa Fink, a former middle school teacher, transformed her life with a $10 Printables side hustle that has evolved into a six-figure monthly income. Similarly, you can leverage the rising popularity of Temu by opening a store and receiving direct sales earnings into your linked bank account.