This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at [email protected].
Becky Powell spends 10 hours per week, on average, making digital worksheets for her fellow educators to purchase.
The 41-year-old kindergarten teacher in Beaverton, Oregon, brought in $125,500 doing that last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She posts her worksheet booklets — designed to help teach literacy to young students — to her online store on Teachers Pay Teachers, an Etsy-style marketplace.
Powell’s store, Sight Word Activities, currently features 427 different listings, ranging from free downloads to a $30 bundle of 20 booklets. When she first launched the side hustle in 2015, she earned enough to pay her monthly car insurance bill — roughly $60 — in a matter of weeks, she says. After three months, the extra income covered her and her husband’s monthly student loan payments.
Her classroom was her research lab, and her knack for teaching children to sight-read helped her fill a niche on the website, she says. She ramps up work on her side hustle each summer, so she can keep a more flexible schedule during the school year.
You don’t have to spend any money to get started, Powell notes: Teachers Pay Teachers has both free and paid tiers for sellers. “Basic sellers” keep 55% of their sales, while “premium sellers” pay $59.95 per year to keep 80% of their sales.
Powell pays that subscription fee, as does her husband Jerome — a full-time computer engineer who manages another Teachers Pay Teachers store, called Editable Activities. His store brought in an additional $51,800 last year, and his search engine optimization expertise helped Powell get her store off the ground, she says.
Here, Powell discusses what you need to start a worksheet side hustle, why her side…
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