The San Diego side hustle you can do from home
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Some San Diegans are turning laundry into a side hustle to help bring in extra cash.
Why it matters: Unlike food delivery or other gig jobs, laundry service Poplin can be done largely from home, making it an option for parents and others in need of flexible work.
The big picture: The nearly decade-old app-based service — essentially an Uber for laundry — operates in more than 500 cities nationwide, per the company.
- More than 2,200 Poplin "laundry pros" are in San Diego, company spokesperson Pete Bahrenburg tells Axios.
Zoom in: Spring Valley resident Monalisa Escobedo was doing gig work on Uber and Instacart before she switched to Poplin in April 2025.
- She picks up bags from customers' porches, washes, dries and folds the laundry, then drops it off.
- When she started, she charged Poplin's base rate of $1 a pound, and got $0.75 of that. Now she can set her own rates for repeat customers, so she charges $1.53 a pound and keeps $1.16.
By the numbers: She makes $5,000 to $8,000 a month after supplies and increased utilities, she tells Axios.
- She's done nearly 1,200 orders and earned more than $54,000 in 2026.
Surprisingly, she's not sick of doing laundry yet.
- "I think it's soothing," she says. "I can watch my shows in my laundry room, and then I have a table in there to fold, so I just sit there, watch whatever."
- She's gotten a few gross surprises in people's laundry, but she can return the very dirty items to the customer without washing them and charge an unsanitary fee.
Between the lines: The work comes with costs traditional employees don't shoulder.
- Poplin workers, like most gig workers, are independent contractors responsible for their utilities and transportation, plus the wear and tear on their appliances.
- Escobedo pays an extra $100 a month in utilities, and now has a second washer and dryer.
Zoom out: More than half of Gen Zers surveyed last year said they worked a side gig, according to The Harris Poll, which dubbed them "America's first true 'side hustle' generation."
- And a separate report from the Federal Reserve found that 31% of all gig workers said they'd have trouble making ends meet without their side hustle.
The bottom line: The only problem, Escobedo says, is she can't find time to do her own laundry.