If you have been following my financial journey for a while now, you will know that transparency is key for me. In line with this, I share my full additional earnings each month from all my side hustles to show you that it is possible, how it can be done and exactly how much can be made. So without further ado, this is how I did in December.

The Bank Engine: £721.69

The last month of 2024 was another incredibly successful month for The Bank Engine which was heightened by the free share schemes coming into their own thanks to strong Search Engine Optimisation from the website. The Vanguard fee increase has also helped me out as the number of searches for Trading 212 promo codes increased, and given that their general referral scheme is not on at the moment but my Trading 212 promo code works all year round this resulted in additional income.

As always, this would not be possible without the continued support of all of you, so thank you so much for continuing to do so. Hopefully, a strong 2025 is incoming as well.

Mystery Shopping: £97.60

I did a little bit of mystery shopping during December, but this has dropped off from usual levels due to being busy with life. Here are the mystery shopping tasks I did in December:

Roamler - I do have some referral links (referrer-only benefit) if you would like to help me out!

• 1 x Peroni Check: £25.00 + Free Pint (visit pub, buy a pint, take photos & answer questions)

• 3 x Hair Care Checks: £20.00 (visit stores, take photos & answer questions)

SmartSpotter - I do have some referral links (referrer-only benefit) if you would like to help me out!

• 2 x Sweets Checks: £21.00 (visits stores, take photos & answer questions)

• 1 x Paper Check: £8.00 (visit store, take photos & answer questions)

• 1 x Shampoo Check: £5.00 (visit store, take photos & answer questions)

Shepper

• 1 x M&S Shopping List: £16.00 (visit store, locate 50 items, record stock levels & take photos)

• 1 x HotHands Unit Check: £9.00 (visit store, locate promo unit, take photos & answer questions)

IShopForIpsos

• 1 x Whitbread Mystery Visit: £4.00 + £33 of food & drink (visit pub for a table for 2, order food and drinks, take photos and answer questions)

I incurred costs of parking and mileage of £10.40 which are to be deducted from this.

Lifetime ISA Bonus: £83.33

I am currently saving for the deposit on my first home, along with my partner, and we both do this in our own Lifetime ISAs - a Government backed scheme that allows you to save £4,000 per tax year and receive a 25% bonus on however much you save into the account.

I pay in £333.33 per month into my Lifetime ISA to reach this maximum £4,000 per year and as such receive a bonus of £83.33 per month from the Government. I currently use Nutmeg for my Lifetime ISA which is a Stocks & Shares Lifetime ISA.

Bank Interest: £65.27

I LOVE passive income, and bank interest is the best form of passive income as its your money working for you. Alongside my current Stocks & Shares Lifetime ISA, I have a Cash Lifetime ISA with Moneybox which I paid into for a good number of years and this is where the bulk of my bank interest comes from each month.

In the last few weeks, I have transferred this Cash LISA to Tembo to ensure it is always earning the highest interest rates.

Cashback: £39.93

December was an expensive month for me, as it is for most people with Christmas, however I mitigated the cost of this by getting cashback where possible and stacking multiple cashback apps for purchases.

The way that I managed to do this for online purchases was:

1. Find the retailer on TopCashback and click through their link to trigger their cashback, they tended to have the highest rates in comparison to other sites like Quidco or Rakuten.

2. Find the retailer on EverUp and purchase a gift card for the amount of the purchase, earning additional cashback at this stage. I only did this step where I was certain the purchases wouldn't need to be returned as you end up stuck with a gift card.

3. Used my Chase debit card on Google Pay to purchase the gift card on EverUp giving me an additional 1% cashback on top.

I also made a few purchases in ASDA in December which gave me a 2 x 50p wins through the ASDA Rewards app.

Dividends: £8.08

Dividends are largely like bank interest, but you receive them for investing in the stock market. They reflect a share of the profits of companies that you have invested in and are paid semi-regularly depending on how you invest.

If you are new to investing, or just want to learn more, you can check out my free investing guide here.

Google Rewards: £5.01

Another app you should definitely have on your phone! I don’t know if this works better on Android (which I use) but effectively, I earn between 10p-30p regularly through this app for:

• Answering whether I spent inside a store I visited (uses Google Maps data to track you)

• Uploading receipts if I did

It is paid as Google Play credit but I just use this to pay for Disney+ which would be paid for anyway. You can get the app on iOS and you get paid via PayPal but I’m unsure quite how frequently you can earn compared to Android!