The unfortunate reality is that most families need two incomes. And in Canada, sometimes that doesn’t even feel like enough. So when you’re pregnant or postpartum and on mat leave, things feel even tighter.
Whether your dream is staying home with your babies, bringing some extra income into your household to cover everyday expenses or taking the entire family on an all expenses paid holiday, starting a side hustle could be your answer.
There are probably hundreds of different ways you can earn an additional income, especially online, that work really well for busy moms.
The reason I’m writing about this is because I’ve experienced first hand how helpful a side income can be, even as someone who owns a business.
Selling old items on marketplace, becoming a dog walker, doing mystery shopping, affiliate marketing, starting a virtual assistant business, selling handmade items – these are just a few ideas! But there are others that will allow you to earn more without trading much of your time.
I’ve tried a few options myself as well as considered many others. It wasn’t until June 2025 when I found one that stuck and helps me earn passive, residual income month after month. I’m sharing about that one at the bottom of this post.
Print on Demand
Some of the ideas I considered included print on demand. I thought this one was great because I didn’t have to handle any inventory or shipping. I could simply come up with designs (super easy with platforms like Canva and VistaPrint) and use a third party company that would look after the actual printing and shipping of the item.
It would mean passive income because sales could some in anytime of day and I wouldn’t have to trade my time for money. The downside was marketing. I couldn’t magically have money pouring in through mugs and t-shirt sales if I wasn’t all over my socials promoting the products.
Yes, I could invest in ads to do the marketing for me but I was looking for something that wasn’t going to cost a lot of money to operate and was going to be a fairly simple and straightforward set up.
Virtual Assistant
Another side hustle/extra income making idea I considered was being a virtual assistant.
Being a virtual assistant is a fantastic option for a lot of people. If you have some basic marketing and email skills, just about anyone can do VA work in some capacity. There’s even entire businesses built around training people to become VA’s as moms!
For me, it didn’t quite resonate. Again, I was looking for a low start up fee and if you don’t set up a website you could probably become a VA for a fairly low investment. But I also wanted to earn passively. Being a VA meant taking time away from my clients and kids as I was already a busy mom of 2 at the time and a business owner. Our household needed more income though so I kept looking.
Network & Affiliate Marketing
In March of 2025 a friend introduced me to direct selling. Essentially, network marketing where you’re doing the marketing on behalf of the company. It met the criteria of a low start up cost — which isn’t typical in network marketing so I appreciated that. It also met my personal standards of a very high quality product that I could feel good about taking. Also, I had done affiliate marketing for a supplement company several years prior so thought I could be good at it. And even though I said yes, there was still something missing.
I wanted to earn extra money passively. I didn’t want to hustle and work extremely hard to get sales and have an amazing month only to start the next month over at zero again. My primary focus was my business and clients and I didn’t want to take time away from either.
And while this specific company had a subscription plan in place, it ends for the customer after 4 months unless they chose to renew. So because it still wasn’t a perfect fit, I continued looking.
Subscription Based Systems – Memberships
Just a few months later in June, I was invited to learn more about a subscription model business where passive income was not only a possibility, it was almost a guarantee. “Sign me up!” is what I thought so I took a closer look. What I found next blew my mind in the best way possible.
A company built on the subscription model of business. The best examples are Netflix, Costco, Spotify — companies with millions of members making billions in revenue every year because of the recurring payments they receive. But this company was different. This company was paying people to be members! And even profit sharing. They were paying their members 7 different ways and all you needed to do was buy the $9.95/month subscription.
Every month I receive more and more passive income and I’m not trading my time for money.
Sounds too good to be true, right?! Well this company now has well over 2.3 million members and they’ve been growing faster than Netflix did in their early years. They’re in their fourth year of business and are globally ranked when it comes to work from home. Every month I receive more and more passive income and I’m not trading my time for money. I honestly only spend about 30 mins a day working on it. Which means I can still focus on my current clients and growing my business.
I love that I don’t have quotas to meet or that I don’t have to start every month back at zero. I love that the initial set up was only $49.95 and then I just pay my monthly membership. I love that all the training I needed to work the subscription as a business was included in my set up fee. And I love knowing that for years to come, this company will continue to pay me and my family will benefit.
If you’re looking for an extra income while you’re on maternity leave or you need a future escape plan from your 9-5, this is worth having a look at. Working smarter and spending more time with my kids while they’re little is important to me as a mom and entrepreneur and this side hustle makes that a reality.
If I didn’t fully believe in it, I would not have published a blog post about it on my own site. I’m not being paid for this post in anyway. I’m sharing it because I think it can help. I’ve seen many women turn down my services because of pricing and because our current healthcare model doesn’t always cover my services, it breaks my heart to see a woman go without optimal care because of finances.
If you’re curious to learn more and how it could work for you, click on the button below. You’ll be invited into our private group where you can take your time and discover more about this opportunity as well as connect with me personally.
You’ll need my name Alex Wachelka to pop into the space where it asks who invited you but once you do that, you’re halfway to learning more!