Breed bugs.
Just like this dad who makes $30,000 a year
If you don’t get squirmy around creepy-crawlies, try breeding insects! Crickets, Dubia roaches, and mealworms are all easy to cultivate, and lizard-owners never stop needing to feed their reptiles.
Jeff Neal learned this in 2016, when he bought his daughter a bearded dragon. He was shocked by how expensive crickets were, so he researched how to breed them himself. “It was really easy, because crickets are rampant breeders,” he says. So rampant, in fact, that he had a surplus to sell. Neal created a site on Shopify and promoted it on reptile-owner forums.
There were challenges—keeping crickets alive during shipping is tricky. But when the pandemic arrived, “It seemed everyone bought a bearded dragon,” Neal says. “All the local pet shops were closed, so everyone went online looking for live insects.” These days, he earns about $30,000 a year from his crickets. “It’s profitable and gives me something to do with the kids.”
Flip some furniture!
Just like this former manager making $19,000 a month
Some furniture-lovers scour Facebook Marketplace for those rare perfect finds. But what if you pounced on imperfect pieces instead? There’s money to be made refurbishing and selling old stuff.
discovered this in 2022, when she got hit with a $10,000 dentist bill—almost a quarter of her annual income as a program manager in public health. She needed cash, and fast. She started spending weekends and after-work hours searching for and refinishing furniture. Her first item was a $50-ish nightstand, which
