Best Paying Weekend Jobs

Working on weekends is just to make extra money part-time. These jobs are usually for various types of services such as chores, delivery, food service, selling, teaching, among others.

We can’t blame you if you rethink your plan of doing these gigs unless they are among the best-paying weekend jobs. About 80% of those that are listed as such pay around $20 an hour. 

If you are wondering about work that pays from $40 to $500 an hour or above, they are full-time jobs that require work to be done on weekdays. For those best paying weekend jobs that require no diplomas require leveling up of your skill tiers, such as a metal worker, instrument technician, land surveyor, and tool & die maker; you should attain a Level III of certification in that skill to qualify for that pay rate.

Other high-paying weekend jobs require high levels of specialization and challenge you to be detail-oriented. These are the STEM (Scientists, Tech, Engineering, Math) jobs like aerospace engineers, computer and information research, mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers. 

Some jobs that pay top dollar are managerial in nature, e.g. janitorial manager or shop service manager, while others revolve around your expertise about the law, e.g. a hearing officer.

It is a good thing weekend jobs at that rate are still available. Because they offer significant rates to earn which can have a major positive impact on your lifestyle, you must invest in educational, vocational, and financial preparations in order to get the job. We will survey two sets of these best-paying weekend jobs.

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Weekend Jobs that Start at $10/hr and Go to $250/hr With Experience

It is challenging to get a weekend job that pays the highest rates without substantial experience. You may need to start a job at a lower rate and work your way to $40-50 an hour and higher. Your weekend job may start out as a second job that evolves into a high-earning weekend job. More high-earning weekenders start here.

There are several types of weekend jobs that start out at a fair rate and grow quickly.

Creative

Starting from ideas that we can imagine or think of, and then communicate to the audience who can find value in and then pay for those ideas; these are jobs that simply start with the mind, then take form through different media, content, and promotion.

Freelance Writer/Editor

Beginning with pen and paper, then graduating to word processors on computers or smartphones, this job has the simplest starting point. But the worth of your work is how its value outlasts its initial publication. Writing can be a side hustle at over $30 an hour while doing weekday jobs. The sooner you find your writing niche, e.g. travel, food, finances, and win more clients, the sooner you can get to command a rate that reaches $80 an hour. Consider yourself an integral part of helping your clients succeed.

Wedding Photographer / Videographer

With 70% of weddings happening on Saturdays, working as a photographer or videographer for these events easily makes this a weekend job. You may start out simply as a photographer at $17.44 an hour. Then as you acquire more skills and experience, and advanced equipment to include videography, that rate could hike up to $2,000 per event (or for the entire shoot). 

This job requires the development of your visual eye and the constant upgrading of your equipment. Some photographers do not just shoot well---they study what makes a photo look good on social media. The value you create is the set of memories you preserve for each client served. And the more stunning your presentation of photographs, the better the recommendations and reviews from past clients, the higher the rate you can command.

Event Coordinator

Being the go-to person for businesses that need help in planning their marketing events means you have built your concepts and contacts of suppliers. Your platform goes beyond written documents or photos or videos. Instead, your work is alive, moving parts involving teams of people functioning for a common campaign, which may not just be a single event, but a series. You create an experience or a series of them. All this supports the logic of charging a high rate. The starting rate begins at a little less than $25 an hour, and tenured experience hikes that up toward and beyond the $40-50 plus rate. 

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Business / Entrepreneurial 

Moving your products and getting your customers to buy them are among the best-paying weekend jobs that also need time and preparation.

Selling

Children can start as young as age 12 and do this close to home (if not at home). Selling old or used things, or in-demand consumables of your community like food and drinks could prepare you for the niche that gets you at the $40-50 an hour rate. For instance, a glass of lemonade sold in your own lemonade stand sells $0.50 to 1.25 per cup, depending on whether you use a powdered mix or real lemons; it can average you $90.00 an hour. However, more marketing and strategizing is needed if it were to be done on weekends only, as the volume of goods sold would compensate for the weekdays that you are not selling.

Selling is a fundamental skill for almost any professional whether as a programmer, doctor, or law enforcement. Every job has an element of communication and selling through the art of persuasion.

Another source of income is selling scrap paper which entails volume and persistent sourcing. Pricing is per ton and paper type; it’s $69 for corrugated containers, and $210 for white copy, envelope, or letterhead. 

Reseller (Flipper)

The next level of weekend selling as you gain experience, particularly if you acquire the instincts to find items worth more than they’re sold for, is item flipping. Thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets would be among the places you’d “treasure hunt.” After finding the items, you would either resell them for a profit or even improve them and increase their value. Products could be something like old sweaters turned into purses, mittens or bags; or t-shirts turned into wreaths, or old jeans made into headbands. 

On a larger scale, item flipping could entail restoring aged windows to display art; repurposing telephone handsets as bookends; using light bulbs as candle holders, or even turning a vintage iMac into an aquarium.

You would start out earning usually a few hundred dollars a month but could reach six-figure salaries as you work hard enough. Item dipping remains among the best weekend-paying jobs. 

Online Store Owner (Dropshipping)

Another route you may explore is establishing contacts with not just sellers, but manufacturers and suppliers, and then creating your own online store. That’s the new way to make a lot of money on the weekend: dropshipping. It develops confidence in you as simply a broker who deals with a manufacturer to sell to your customers. Instead of keeping your own inventory stock, you directly deliver your customers’ orders from the manufacturers. Not only are you moving goods, but you are creating an experience that invites repeat orders that potentially keep expanding. Dropshipping as another weekend high earner gets you to practice around $120 an hour. 

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Detail-Oriented Services

Tedious, mundane, and clerical, but these jobs are foundational for much of our businesses. Issues of inaccuracy can result in costly problems. Quality is key to succeeding in these jobs. 

Bookkeeper

With businesses never not in need of proper accounting and tax preparation services, quality bookkeeping is among the most in-demand freelance jobs. Beginners without certification start out between $10-20 per hour. Then as they gain experience and specialization, they are able to command $60 or more per hour. 

Proofreader

Another in-demand quality freelance job is proofreading. As a stickler for thoroughly correct grammar on written content, you could start at a little over $20 an hour. Increasing your rate to the $31 to 45 range would depend on the kind of material you proofread. Fiction works are charged around the $31 rate, then the rates graduate from non-fiction to business and medical works that hit the $45 rate. 

Helping

Assisting people is another way to earn well on weekends. It is multifaceted. It begins with yourself, then expands to how well you utilize your resources and leverage your immediate environment for the benefit of others. 

Golf Caddy

Like weddings, another high-traffic destination is the golf course. You can start as young as 14 years old and earn $11.64 an hour. As you grow more tenured and skilled, particularly in greater first hand knowledge about golf equipment and the strategy of hitting different holes, you’d be looking at a rate between $30 to 40 an hour, not including tips. Tips can be 50%-100% in addition to your regular wage.

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Traditional

Finally for this category, here are some of the jobs that have been around prior to the 21st century, but have the potential to take you to high earnings on weekends. 

Phlebotomist

Counted among medical laboratory technicians and technologists, you draw out blood samples from patients for required laboratory procedures requested by their doctors. Although practitioners have said it’s actually a simple job, being accepted to do this work requires passing a licensing board exam. Phlebotomists also have weekend only schedules. Their rates start at $17.46 an hour and build their way to the $50 an hour rate. 

Bartender

Bars are another high-traffic venue on weekends. Weekend sports and event venues provide bars with weekend opportunities. You can start with growing your knowledge of mixing drinks, and earn around $12 an hour. Then after developing good listening abilities, customer service skills, and possibly having a lively personality, you get to where you earn $500-600 a night including tips. 

Notary Public (Travelling)

Doing notary jobs on the side can be done with a day job for starters, earning you almost $17 an hour. What gets you to the high rate is catering to banks that need travelling notaries who are available during off hours or weekends. This hikes your rate up to up to $250.

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Qualifying for The Highest Rates

The other way to get a weekend job that pays really well is to get exposure, practice, or training for work or tasks that are already pre-set to earn at the $40-50 and above rate. Fewer jobs are in this set. 

Creative Weekend Jobs

Wedding Musician or DJ

A wedding band charges $4,500 per event. The musician or DJ rates should be around that ballpark figure. Hours of practice and acquiring a broad range of musical exposure to satisfy diverse generational tastes usually justify this high rate; you could even earn extra from customers who really like your repertoire and keep requesting for songs and then tipping you afterward. Social versatility, in-depth knowledge of music, a sensitivity to what the crowd wants, spontaneity in speaking, and a gift of gab before a live audience would be your best investments preparing you for this weekend gig. 

Entrepreneurial  Weekend Jobs

eBay / Amazon Seller

Selling either your own or others’ items over eBay or Amazon frees you, not only from stock inventory and delivery, but also to focus on marketing and promoting your products on a weekend. Nevertheless, your responsibilities to sustain conveniences they can afford starts with you having the aptitude to operate online. As a result, your average earnings when computed would come down to $263 an hour. A little less than 35% of eBay sellers make under $10,000 a year, and over 15% of Amazon sellers make over $1M a year. 

Helping 

Handy Man / Woman, Gutter Cleaner

Aside from weddings and golf clubs, homes of working families are another go-to on weekends. In these apartments, condominiums, bungalows, and posh village houses, there is a high demand for home repairs that need the expertise of handymen or handywomen. So if you’ve “done your homework” in minor carpentry, light fixture installation, painting, repairs, or light plumbing, and you happen to be their neighbor, easily you’d be “the man” or “girl” for the job that pays an average of $60-65 an hour. 

And if in addition to all that, you got gloves, a ladder, the knowledge and training to do efficient gutter work, and the right business insurance, gutter-cleaning could be a welcome addition to your arsenal of skills as a high weekend earner. 

Converter of DVD Videos

Another weekend “helper” is technical assistance, particularly converting DVDs to digital format videos for less than $100 an hour. If there are enough hours of DVDs to convert, this could make your weekends worth your while. Some initial investments would include software that converts from these formats like Elgato and Pinnacle, your set of hardware, and a lot of patience. 

Personal Expertise or Consultancy

Whether it’s technical, relational, or experiential, doing consultancy means advising people on your field of expertise at flexible hours. The more experience, skills, clients, and a body of work you can point to, the higher you can charge, with management consultants starting at $42 an hour. Your investments include constant study, getting the necessary license, work experience, and contacts who believe in you. So if you have a field of expertise, consider consultancy as among the best paying weekend jobs. 

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Getting The Best Paying Weekend Jobs

Rarely will you find your favorite weekend job available and at the maximum paying level? With a possible exception of selling, most of the time these jobs don’t come early in life. And there are more jobs that are not the traditional high earners.

Most of the time, getting the highest rates is built up by entry-level experience with those jobs within its industry. Getting the maximum rates requires growth and time. It’s the same with the instances where those rare jobs are available; you still need to take time and the necessary experience to qualify to earn high rates from many opportunities. 

For the above reasons, working toward the job with that high pay rate can be likened to building your own small business, where the most important place of investment is yourself, and the most important capital consists of your different capabilities. They make working on the weekend worth it.