Mechanic quit Ford job to pursue side hustle, now makes six figures [Video]

Chris Pyle spends the entirety of his workdays wearing a white tank top and boxer shorts, sitting in a recliner.

It’s an unusual setting for a mechanic, but a profitable one. Pyle started answering strangers’ questions about their gas and diesel engines on JustAnswer as a side hustle in October 2006.

It was quickly lucrative: He made $500 in his first month, then doubled it in November, then doubled it again. He quit his full-time $75,000-per-year job at Ford Motors when JustAnswer outpaced his salary in 2012, Pyle says.

Pyle made $170,500 in 2023, an average of $14,200 per month, on JustAnswer, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. His monthly income is more than three times as much as the national median monthly side hustle earnings and mechanic’s salary combined.

The job has also shaped his life: He and his wife bought a 34-acre plot of land for $130,000 in Dickson County, Tennessee, where he …