If you own a truck, van, or large SUV, you may not have realized it, but there are several ways to make money with them. You can make money hauling stuff, making deliveries, and more!
Instead of your truck sitting in your driveway, you can use it for side hustles to make some extra cash. And while this list is geared towards those with a truck, you can make money with your car with most of these strategies – you’ll just be a bit more limited on the size and amount of what you can transport.
And, if you have a loan on your truck, you could easily make enough each month to cover the payment, insurance, and maintenance costs. And if you don’t have a loan, even better – more money in your pocket!
This list is going to be far from complete. There are several more ways to make money hauling stuff. You just have to use your imagination and be creative if one of the ideas below doesn’t work for you. And a pickup truck is also a useful tool to have for many under the table jobs.
Having a truck opens up many opportunities for making money that you wouldn’t have without one. And because so many people don’t have trucks, there are many potential customers for your services.
According to a compilation of vehicle registration data by Hedges Company, only about 18% of US vehicle sales are pickup trucks. So most households don’t have a pickup truck.
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13 Ways to Make Money with a Truck
When you have a truck, the primary way to make extra cash is to make money hauling stuff, but there are several other ways to make money with your truck when you’re not hauling stuff too. Here is a list of the top ways to make money with a truck to get your mind thinking about ideas for making money.
1. Haul Away Trash
If you have a truck, hauling trash can make for an excellent side hustle.
Whenever people have larger items, do an extensive cleanout, or prepare for moving, they routinely have larger items or a large amount of trash to dispose of that won’t fit in the regular trash. With your pickup truck, you can provide your services to take those things for disposal for them.
Also, smaller construction sites or home remodeling projects result in piles of trash that need to be removed.
Additionally, people often have items building up in their garages and other storage areas. While they could have a garage sale and make money off of those items, a lot of the time, they’d be more than happy just to get it off of their hands.
That is actually the key to most side hustles – provide a service others don’t want to do.
Best of all, you can combine removing people’s trash with other side hustles, like reselling and scrap metal collecting to make additional money.
Having a truck is an excellent vehicle to have if you like to dumpster dive for profit too.
2. Make Deliveries
When you think of most package and large item deliveries, you probably think of services like UPS or FedEx. However, if you have a truck and the time, you could provide these services for local businesses and others for local deliveries.
You can connect with local companies in person, or you can use a service like GoShare or Dolly to find jobs.
The platforms work pretty much the same:
- Apply and get approved – requirements include (vary slightly between services):
- Be at least 18 for GoShare and 21 for Dolly (18 if you won’t be driving)
- Pass a background check
- Have a valid driver’s license and insurance
- Have a vehicle that meets the service requirements
- A phone that the app works on
- Have a checking account (GoShare) or PayPal account (Dolly)
- Get alerted to jobs and review job details
- Select jobs that you’re interested in
- Complete the job
- Get Paid
The amount you get paid depends on your vehicle’s size, the size of the job, and any tip you may receive. Dolly’s website states Helpers (people with a truck) can make $30 per hour or more. And GoShare’s website says those with a standard pickup make on average between $46 and $52 per hour ($56 to $60 per hour for a large pickup).
3. Move Stuff
When people make small moves, they don’t typically don’t want to hire a full-size mover. Instead, finding someone with a pickup truck is sometimes enough for smaller moves.
Whether it is moving your kid to college or moving into your first apartment, a pickup truck is likely the perfect size for your move.
Most apartment complexes have a community board where people post things for sale or work opportunities like cleaning or babysitting. If the management is okay with it, you could advertise your moving services on the board to find additional opportunities.
And similar to on-demand deliveries using GoShare or Dolly, you can use those apps to find small move jobs as well.
Another opportunity for small moving jobs is garage and yard sales. Most people come prepared for their purchases, but often people find great deals on items that are too large for them to get home.
This is where you come in. Hit the sale early and identify people selling large items. Let them know that if they have a buyer interested in a large item but don’t have a way to move it to their house, they can contact you, and for a small fee, you’ll help them out.
Additionally, hitting the sales early can help you with items 4 and 5 below to potentially make even more money!
4. Collect Scrap Metal
Collecting scrap metal and cashing in at the scrap yard can be a side hustle all by itself. And having a truck is ideal for collecting scrap because it often comes in random, large sizes that won’t fit in a car.
But it is also a perfect “add-on” side hustle to hauling away trash and checking out garage sales for items to resell.
Often, people look to throw out items or sell them for cheap without understanding the value they may hold. If you haul trash for people, visit remodeling and construction sites, or frequent garage sales, you will likely find items that are valuable as metal scrap by themselves (e.g., wiring, copper tubing) or that have parts with scrapable metal (e.g., appliances, electronics).
It’s the perfect win-win situation. And you win twice! You get paid to remove the items that someone no longer wants and desires to be gone, and then you cash in on the materials at the scrap yard.
5. Resell Large Items
While reselling is a common practice, most people don’t want to deal with the hassle and cost of arranging for transport when it comes to larger items.
That is where you come in. Since you have a method to move larger things, you can tap into a market that isn’t as saturated as the resale of smaller items. Filling this gap is an excellent way to make money hauling stuff.
This is another strategy that works well as an “add-on” side hustle to hauling away trash and frequenting garage sales.
In addition to perusing garage sales for larger items for a deal, to increase your profit margins even more, drive around after neighborhood yard sales end. Often people don’t want to drag larger items that didn’t sell back into their house after the sale, so they put it out by the street for free.
Drive your pickup around after these sales and pick these items up to sell using Craigslist or an app like OfferUp (LetGo is now part of OfferUp).
6. Tow Boats, Cars, etc.
When you’re looking to make money hauling stuff with your truck, you’re most likely thinking of just using the truck bed. However, if you have a trailer, you can expand the amount of stuff you can haul to make even more money.
And having that trailer hitch opens up several other opportunities to make some extra cash.
You could offer your services at the local marina to transport boats from the water to storage locations for people without their own truck.
If you have a trailer, you can also offer to transport larger items like lawnmowers, snowblowers, motorcycles, and more.
7. Landscaping
With a pickup truck, you can offer services to deliver landscaping materials to people. This may include shrubs, trees, sod, mulch, soil, rocks, etc.
Or you could take it even further and start your own landscaping business. Having a pickup and a trailer is perfect for transporting lawnmowers, weedeaters, and other landscaping materials and tools.
Landscaping can be a very lucrative side hustle or full-blown business. Grass, shrubs, and trees never stop growing and need regular maintenance. While they enjoy having a nice lawn and beautiful landscaping, most people prefer having someone else do the work for them.
So instead of making money hauling stuff for others, you’d be hauling your own stuff to make money regularly.
8. Snow Removal
Plowing snow in the winter is the perfect complimentary job to landscaping in the summer. If you live where there is a lot of snowfall, investing in a snowblade for the front of your truck could pay off quickly.
Instead of a way to make money hauling stuff, you’d be making money pushing stuff.
While a snowplow will typically run between $1,500 and $3,000, having one can pay for itself in a short amount of time if you live in an area where people have long driveways.
Another potential customer base is local businesses with parking lots. And you could package your snow removal services with your landscaping services.
9. Deliver People
Instead of hauling stuff to make money, how about hauling people? Uber and Lyft can be used to make money getting people to where they want to go.
If you’re an outgoing person who likes to meet new people and don’t mind strangers in your car, it is an excellent way to make extra cash.
Because trucks don’t typically have the best gas mileage, I wouldn’t recommend this routinely. However, there is a feature in the Uber Driver app that lets you set a destination and arrival time. After that, the app will help find riders on your route that need to go in the direction you need to go.
So if you commute to your job every day in your truck, you could be making extra money along the way. And if you live in a major city with high-occupancy toll lanes, you could save on those tolls as well if you have passengers in your truck.
The Driver app allows you to set a destination two times a day, so you could do it going to work as well as coming home.
You can also see when people are looking for a ride in the app when you are going to other places too. So you could make some extra cash hauling humans while out running errands.
10. Deliver Food
If you’d rather not deal with people in your vehicle, delivering food might be a better option for you.
Like delivering people, delivering food shouldn’t be the reason for buying a pickup truck, and there certainly isn’t a need for one to deliver food. However, it is another way to make money with your vehicle.
When you’re not making money hauling stuff, you can make some extra cash hauling groceries, dinner, and more.
Becoming an Instacart Shopper is an excellent side hustle for people who enjoy shopping and want the flexibility to work whenever they want.
Here’s how to get started as an Instacart Shopper:
- Download the app and pass a background check
- Pick an order in the app you want to shop
- Go to the store and shop for the items in the order (you’ll have a payment card from Instacart)
- Deliver the groceries
- Get paid!
Whatever you earn is instantly available to cash out. Any tips, which are 100% yours, are available after 24 hours. As an Instacart Shopper, you’ll get paid by the batch, and the amount will depend on the number of items, type of items, driving distance, and other factors.
DoorDash is similar to Instacart, except you’ll just be delivering food from restaurants.
You sign up, pass a background check, and, once approved, start delivering. Once you become a Dasher, you can work when and where you want.
You just open the app and accept the orders you want to fulfill. You’ll be able to see the distance and guaranteed pay amount before accepting the order. DoorDash will deposit your earnings into your bank account each week.
Postmates is another option for delivering food to people, but Postmates provides delivery of items from grocery stores and some retail stores as well. Like the other food delivery apps, you are an independent contractor. So you set your own hours. Signup is similar to the other two food delivery apps.
You can choose to cash out immediately for a small fee or get free weekly deposits to your bank account.
Since you can work anytime you want with the three different delivery services, you could try all three out and see which one you like best and which one makes you the most money for your time.
11. Rent Your Truck
Do you have a truck that doesn’t get much use? Or maybe it sits idle for certain days every week?
Have you considered renting out your truck to make some extra money while your truck would otherwise be sitting idle? Instead of making money hauling stuff, you can make money while someone else drives your truck.
Turo helps you to do just that.
If you have a truck that you don’t use very often, you could make a lot of extra money by renting your truck out. You could even cover the cost of your truck payment.
Whether you work from home, travel a lot, or are a student at school, sharing your truck is an excellent side hustle.
Here is how it works:
- You list your truck for free
- You set any ground rules and availability
- Set your own price or let Turo determine it for you
- Determine how to transfer your vehicle to the renter
- Get your truck back
- And get paid
You’ll receive 65 to 85% of the rental cost. The amount is determined by the vehicle protection plan you choose.
The percentage kept by Turo covers your protection plans and Turo’s operating and marketing costs.
You’re covered by liability insurance provided by Turo. And you can choose from five different protection plans with varying protection and deductibles. Turo also provides roadside assistance for your guests.
So if you have an extra vehicle or find your truck sitting in your driveway a lot, consider renting it out on Turo and making some extra cash.
12. Advertise with Your Truck
If you have a typical commute or are a rideshare driver, why not make some extra cash by having advertisements on your vehicle.
Using a service like Wrapify, you could make a couple hundred dollars to almost half a grand each month, depending on your driving activities.
Here’s how it works:
- Download the app and sign up
- Drive your normal routine with the app
- Receive offers based on your driving activity and location
- Once you receive an offer you’d like to promote, you sign up for that offer and get your car wrapped
- Drive like you usually do
- Get paid!
After the initial signup and getting your car wrapped, it is about as passive of an income stream as it gets. And again, you don’t need a truck for Wrapify. Most personal passenger vehicles are eligible.
13. Blog About Trucks
No matter what you use your truck for or if you just like to pimp it out, you can create a blog or niche site focused on that.
Starting a blog is actually pretty simple, and you can get started for as little as $3.95 per month with Bluehost. And if you are really into talking about trucks, it is a perfect way to make money with ads and affiliate marketing.
While being passionate about your site’s topic isn’t a requirement, it can really help show that you know what you’re talking about and help create a following. And there are so many products you could promote around trucks.
Just be aware that starting a website isn’t a quick way to make money. It takes time to build traffic, but once you start getting consistent traffic, you can potentially earn more with your site than anything you actually do with your truck.
Frequently Asked Questions About Making Money with Your Truck
Here are some frequently asked questions about how to make money hauling stuff.
Where do I find jobs to make money hauling stuff?
For most jobs where you make money hauling stuff (and several of the other ways to make money with your truck), the best way to find opportunities is word of mouth. Let your neighbors know what services you can provide. Talk to local businesses to see if they have any needs for your services. Check sites like Nextdoor for people looking for help removing trash or moving stuff.
Additionally, try to find places with message boards where your services would come in handy. People living in places like apartment complexes and dorm rooms often need help with moving things.
The gig economy jobs on the list (moving/delivery services, food delivery, rideshare, truck rental, advertising) are simple to get started. Download the app and follow the directions, and you’ll be earning money with your truck in no time.
How much money can I make hauling stuff?
For jobs where you are working for a site (like GoShare and Dolly), the rates you can earn are more predictable – typically between $30 and $60 per hour depending on your vehicle’s size. However, most hauling jobs have several factors that make it difficult to estimate how much you could make.
Your starting rate could be based on the numbers those sites use, but you can adjust (or charge flat rates per job) depending on the size and difficulty of the work. Like most side jobs, determining the pay for the job will be a negotiation with the person buying your services. Just be sure not to undercut your potential earnings. Start higher than you’d expect to receive.
Overall, if you have a pickup truck and are willing to put in the work to find jobs hauling stuff, you should easily be able to make a few hundred extra dollars each month. And that is if it is just a side hustle. You could make much more than that, depending on the effort you put into it.
Do I really need a truck to make money hauling stuff?
A truck is not required to make money hauling stuff, but it will limit your earning potential if you don’t have one. Most of the better-paying options (for the amount of time necessary) involve larger or oddly shaped items that are difficult to move without a truck. But don’t let that discourage you from making money using these strategies – you can still make money even with a tiny car.
Summary of Ways to Make Money with Your Truck
As you can see, if you have a pickup truck, there are several ways to make money hauling stuff, providing other services, or even just writing about it. And if you don’t have a truck, you can make some of them work for you too – most likely just on a smaller scale.
I hope this list has provided you with helpful ideas for making money with a truck and inspired you to think of different ways as well.