This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tayler Ktestakis, a 28-year-old stay-at-home mom based in Utah County, Utah. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
When I started posting about my side hustle journey on social media in 2025, I set a goal to pay off all of my debt, $141,000, by the time I turned thirty. I panicked the moment I set it.
My husband and I hadn’t been prepared for the financial hit we took when I left my career as a utility billing specialist in 2024 to become a stay-at-home mom. We ended up racking up a ton of debt. When I ended up pregnant again, there was no way I’d be going back to work anytime soon, so I started looking for flexible ways to make money.
My goal to pay off our debt with side hustles was hugely ambitious, considering I’d only have two and a half years to do it, but over a year later, I’m down to $82,000 in debt, and on track to pay it off.
I review products I already bought from Amazon for money
I’d heard of the Amazon Influencer Program from some people I was following on Instagram, so I applied and got accepted. It was a great side hustle to start with because I put a lot of time and energy into it upfront. Now the income is mostly passive.
In this program, influencers post review videos about products on their storefront. When someone watches the video and either buys that product or buys a similar product, the influencer gets a commission. It’s a numbers game. The more videos you make, the more money you’re likely to make.
I burned myself out at the start from posting so many videos, but since getting up to 500 videos on my storefront, I’ve been able to be pretty hands-off. Now, I consistently make between $200 and $300 a month.
Some people go really hard in the paint with the Amazon Influencer Program and reach out to sellers to send them products, but I just review products I’ve already bought for my family. These days, I do batch reviews, so I take all the products I bought in the past month or so and knock out videos in an hour.
Even though I was making some money, it wasn’t enough to make up for the income we lost when I quit my full-time job. That’s when I found mystery shopping and focus groups.
I take my kids mystery shopping with me
Mystery shopping is when a company wants feedback about a product, experience, or customer service, so they hire you to test it out. I like doing apartment tours because I can take my kids with me. Some mystery shops will specifically say you can’t take anyone with you; I don’t pick those ones.
I’ve tried out restaurants and even a hotel with my husband, where they reimbursed me for the experience and paid me on top of it. Some companies have you record your experience or take pictures, but I avoid those because they make me a bit anxious.
Afterward, I fill out a report about my experience. Some of the surveys can be pretty lengthy, and it can get annoying to write out a play-by-play of everything that happened, but I’ve gotten a lot quicker at it.
The apartment tours plus a survey take me maybe an hour total nowadays. I typically pick up shops that pay around $60 via PayPal, so it’s absolutely worth my time.
Focus groups aren’t always easy to get chosen for
To get accepted into a focus group, I fill out screeners to see if I qualify for the study. I don’t get accepted to most I apply for, but the ones I do get chosen for pay out pretty well.
I just finished a focus group that paid me $350 to record several videos of myself using computer software. It took me three hours within the span of two weeks to do it. Some pay directly through PayPal, but I’ve also been paid by a Visa gift card.
If I had to drop a side hustle, it would be focus groups. I have to put in a lot of time to not even get chosen for any studies.
I got paid for being a surrogate this past year
I was a surrogate over the past nine months, and I delivered that baby in March, which brought in some extra money for my family.
I had decided to be a surrogate long before I decided I wanted to do side hustles. I applied to be one in June of 2024. I was matched with a couple by February 2025, and we did the embryo transfer in July 2025.
I’d definitely consider doing it again in a few years. I can’t share how much I earned under my contract, but I made more than my previous salary of $42,000.
I’ve had pretty smooth pregnancies, so being pregnant wasn’t a big deal to me.
Affiliate marketing is easy
I have multiple affiliate links in my social media bio that I earn commission from, the biggest being for the side hustle courses I took in mystery shopping and focus groups.
When people ask me how I started my side hustle journey, I’m able to point them to the courses I took and get a commission from them. Helping people figure out their own side hustle journey and benefit from it has been great.
My income from affiliate marketing varies so much. It’s hard to breathe even thinking about it, but there was a month I made over $15,000 from my links. On average, I bring in around $5,000 a month.
I started selling a Google spreadsheet template as a digital product
My husband and I use a debt tracker and a budget tracker that I created on Google spreadsheets. I made it a while ago to stay organized, but when people expressed interest in it on social media, I decided to sell it as a digital product.
I also sell a PDF guide on how I got started in affiliate marketing, which walks through the different affiliate programs. It’s basically everything I wish I had known when I was starting fresh.
I sell my digital products through an online store that hosts all my links. It’s really easy and takes care of the payments for me. I pay for its pro version for $99 a month, because it comes with extra perks like allowing people to be an affiliate for my digital product.
I wouldn’t drop any of these side hustles because all of them work together really nicely for me. It’s crazy to believe I’m on track to pay off my debt.
Do you have a story to share about your own lucrative side hustle? If so, please reach out to the reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.
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