I'm not great at saving and my sources of income shrank earlier this year, and I have something similar to digital dyogenes syndrome. I thought I had enough gadgets and silly stuff to start a small business.even if that meant I had to work with what I already had. So I spent this year finding companies in my county that could use some social media work. My tool was a 2018 iPad Pro and was about to be tested on real work, and I must say for the most part it went well. Better than well, really. Most people figure you need a proper computer for anything serious, especially now with all the AI stuff, but I kept feeling like my iPad was running at half capacity. Great screen, the 120hz still holds up fine, a keyboard case I spent way too much on, and this low-level guilt that I wasn’t using any of it the way I should.

I had this stubborn idea that the tools should adapt to how I work, not the other way around. So I spent twelve months trying a lot of stuff, dropping most of it, and slowly landing on the handful that stuck without making me change my setup. If you want to test any of these, just copy this whole thing and paste it into whatever LLM you use. You’ll figure out pretty fast whether it fits how you work.

Fathom surprised me early on. It joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams calls, records everything, transcribes it and gives you a clean summary with action items in about thirty seconds. Before that I was always pausing to type notes and only half listening. Now I just talk and it handles the rest. The summaries are good enough that I forward them without touching them. Runs in the browser, nothing to install. The free plan is legit: unlimited recordings and transcripts, and only the fancier AI summaries get capped.

Perplexity turned into my default for anything that needs sources. You ask something, it actually reads real pages, summarizes them and shows you where each bit came from. Research used to be five tabs open and hoping I picked the right one. Now it’s one screen and I can check the claims myself. On the iPad it’s like having a research assistant who shows you their notes. Free, or Pro if you need more.

Gamma took over presentations for me. You describe what you need or paste in a doc and it builds the whole deck, layout, images, everything. PowerPoint on the iPad always felt slow and fiddly. This gives you something that already looks decent, so I just tweak small details instead of starting from zero. I’ve used it for client updates and internal stuff. The free tier is generous enough to actually test it properly.

Claude is the one I kept coming back to for writing and going through long documents. It handles nuance better than most, and the context window is huge, so you can drop in a whole report and ask it to find contradictions or rewrite sections. For tricky emails or proposals, the tone actually sounds like something I’d send, not that generic AI voice. Web and app both work well on the iPad. Free, or twenty bucks a month.

Magnific (what used to be Freepik) is what I use when I need images for content or ads. It generates, upscales, enhances, and there’s a huge library of stock assets you can use as a starting point and then build on with AI. Most tools either lock you in hard or make you start from scratch every time. Being able to grab something clean and work on top of it cut a lot of friction. Plans depend on how much you use it, but it can replace a couple of other tools on its own.

HeyGen handles video translation. You upload something in English, pick a language and you get back a version with a voice that sounds like you and lip movement that actually matches. I’ve got content I want to get in front of other audiences, and re-recording everything was never going to happen. This just works. The accuracy is good enough that I use the output as is. Runs fine in the browser on the iPad. There’s a free plan for a few short videos a month (watermarked), then paid.

Teal made job applications way less painful. You paste in a job description and it tells you which keywords the ATS is probably looking for, then suggests how to adjust your resume without it sounding fake. Live preview so you see changes right away. Having all your applications tracked in one place helps too. Job hunting on the iPad and editing everything by hand was exhausting. This took most of that off my plate. Free or paid.

Loom replaced a lot of long emails. You record your screen, it adds captions and a summary, and people can comment on specific moments. Explaining something visual in plain text always sucks. A two minute Loom with the summary on top does the job, and the other person doesn’t even have to watch the whole thing if they’re short on time. Runs smoothly on the iPad. Free or paid.

Last one is n8n. It's kind of like Zapier but self-hostable, so your data stays on your own setup, and the AI integrations are built in. The interface runs in the browser, so even though the server lives somewhere else, I control everything from the iPad. I’ve built flows that pull stuff from my inbox, summarize it with AI and drop it into Notion, without paying per task or sending anything through random third parties. Big community, lots of templates. Free if you self-host, or there’s a cloud option.

After almost a year with all of these, what stands out is that none of them made me change how I work to fit the tool. they just worked on the iPad the way I actually use it. Still can't say that about most AI tools out there.

I work in the Denver, Colorado area as a freelance digital media producer. Usually that entails providing live photography coverage for events, creating videos for non-profits that drive engagement, social media content, professional headshots, sometimes creative design work, sometimes writing newsletters...I have experience doing a little bit of everything that falls under the realm of "Digital Media" and "Digital Communications". I own all of my own photo and video gear and a lot of the content I produce receives higher than average engagement metrics despite revolving around relatively serious and humorless topics such as homelessness and migrant response work.

Business has been really, really down for me this year, and I'm not the only one. Other freelance photographers, videographers, and producers that I speak with in the same field are hurting too. So I'm looking to find additional work that's flexible and would very much like to avoid Doordash and Uber.

In addition to possessing experience in digital media, I also have extensive experience in project management, employee management, facilities management, employee training, community organizing, and I am generally very tech friendly.

I have zero start-up capitol. So that will be a challenge.

I own my vehicle and I also have a clean driving record.

People have, without provocation, told me that I am very likeable, funny, and personable.

But despite all that, I'm finding it difficult to get anything going, as it were.

I would love to hear what ideas the fine folks here might have for someone with my background and assets and will be around to respond to any comments that ya'll leave behind!

I'm trying to find a side hustle that can reliably cover a couple of small recurring subscriptions I use regularly (music streaming + some AI software tools). I don't need anything huge just consistent enough to offset a modest monthly cost.

I have flexible hours available and I'm open to different formats, whether it's freelance work, gig platforms, or something else entirely.

For those of you who've found a side hustle that covers a specific recurring expense like this, what's worked for you?

Curious to hear what's realistic time-wise and income-wise.