How I made an extra £1,148.88 in April
For the last few years, I have been sharing a detailed account of how much I earn on top of my 9-5 income each month. This is not to brag or show off, but is purely to showcase that it is possible.
Without further ado, here’s how I got on in April 2024:
Cashback Sign-up offers: £300
Up until the rules changed recently, you could only have a Stocks & Shares ISA with one provider per tax year which meant that you had to "lock in" with a provider and stick with them once you had opened an account.
Now that this is no longer the case, it is possible to take advantage of cashback offers with providers who you may not have wanted to "lock in" with before to make some serious cash! Here’s a link to my coverage of this from a recent email.
This is what I did following the start of the new tax year in April;
(Shepherds Friendly: £145)
You can actually get between £150 and £400 cashback via TopCashback when you open a Stocks & Shares ISA with Shepherds Friendly right now, which is slightly higher when I was looking and you may wonder why I didn't opt for a higher amount of cashback!
Well, I ran the numbers and tried to find the sweet spot for the highest cashback % as I didn't want to "lock in" too much of my money with obscure providers, so I opted for the £145 cashback on monthly investments of £30.
This has tracked already and is due to be paid out 12 weeks after I opened the account.
(Scottish Friendly: £140)
This is an almost identical offer where I went through TopCashback and managed to get £140 cashback for investing £25 per month with them. This one is tracked already too and is due to paid out 52 weeks after I invested initially.
Again, this was the option that secured the best % cashback rate which is why I didn't go for one of the higher options!
(Gousto: £15)
Earlier in April, Quidco were offering £15 cashback for new Gousto customers alongside 65% off your first box. I took advantage of this and ordered a week's worth of food for £17.60 which will leave me with a cost of just £2.60 after cashback has been paid.
I then promptly cancelled the subscription for the following week.
Lifetime ISA Bonus: £250
I have been contributing to my Lifetime ISA for a number of years in order to rack up a significant deposit for my first home. If you don’t know how a Lifetime ISA works, I have detailed some info on it here but effectively you can save up to £4,000 per tax year into an account and the Government will give you a 25% bonus on top of this. As April 5th marked the end of the tax year, this was my final bonus for that tax year as I paid in the £1,000 required to max out my account.
Market Research: £218.70
(TakePartInResearch: £140)
During April, I was invited to complete some market research via TakePartInResearch which involved a number of different sessions that totalled 3.5 hours:
1 x 15 minute pre-call homework task
1 x 1 hour video call session
1 x 15 minute post-call homework task
1 x 2 hour in-person session
It's very hit and miss when you will get a study with TakePartInResearch, but it's well worth having an account as the rate of pay tends to be pretty good as you can see here!
(Secret: £50)
I signed a hefty non-disclosure agreement hence the name being taken out of this one, but I was booking a short break away during April and was offered to fill in my details for a market research call following the booking.
I submitted my information and was invited to a 1 hour video call for which I was rewarded with a £50 gift voucher available to redeem at a number of retailers - a very nice added bonus!
(Ongoing study: £30)
I have been taking part in an online study about beverages for a number of months now where I just answer short surveys on various subjects and get paid regularly to do so, but realised that I hadn’t accounted for a number of payments for a while! So this amount comes from a number of months!
(Parking costs: -£1.30 for in-person study)
The Bank Engine: £214.66
April was a great month for The Bank Engine as it continues to grow from strength-to-strength and I am now starting to reach some seriously high numbers of people, with over 250,000 people reached by our Instagram account in the last month I am beyond grateful to be able to share financial education with as many people as possible.
Those of you who are reading this are the ones that make this possible, and your continued support makes me incredibly grateful.
Mystery Shopping: £147.25
Below is a list of the tasks I completed in April with some more info; you can check out my mini-guide on mystery shopping here.
Roamler I do have some invite links (referrer-only benefit) if you would like to help me out!
9 x Ice Cream checks (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £31.50
7 x Hair Care checks (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £31.00
9 x R&Rs (visit store, capture images, buy product and review online): £9.00 + free products
1 x Milkshake Check & Fix (visit store, check price labels & ask staff to correct): £8.00
1 x Closed store (I knew a store shut down ages ago so told them for the lower fee): £1.50
3 x Boots Checks (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £21.00
1 x M&S Mystery Shop (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £15.00
1 x M&S Shopping List (visit store, find and check 50 items on shelves): £13.00
1 x Tesco Audit (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £7.50
1 x Skincare Check (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £7.50
1 x Three Store Mystery Shop (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £7.00
1 x M&S Check (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £6.00
1 x Morrisons Check (visit store, capture images & answer questions): £4.00
2 x Failed Tasks: £0.00 - will go into more detail on this in next month's report
BeMyEye (use code v1znkgq for £1 bonus on completion of first task)
1 x Currys Mystery Shop (visit store, answer questions on interaction & take photos): £15.10
1 x Whitbread Mystery Visit (visit pub, capture images of food and drinks, answer questions): £4.00 + free meal for 2 (worth £35)
Less costs of £33.85 for fuel and parking whilst doing these tasks.
Bank Interest: £58.65
This mostly comes from my Cash Lifetime ISA as there is a growing balance in this account.
Dividends: £16.94
This is how much I have been paid as shares of profits from companies in my investment portfolio; all of which is re-invested back into my portfolio by me.
If you are new to investing or keen to learn more about it, you can check out my free guide on this here.
Cashback & Points: £9.93
This is money I made back for spending on things I would have purchased anyway, but instead used either cashback apps or my American Express card.
Surveys: £2.59
This is from super-quick surveys that Google Opinions notifies me of on my phone, and literally just asks questions about recent shops I have visited and questions on payments, etc. If you aren’t using this app yet, I’d highly recommend it!
Matched Betting: -£69.84
I'm sure you are wondering why this amount is negative, and I'm here to explain that!
Matched betting has historically made me over £3,000 in tax-free cash and if you’re interested in what it is, you can check out my free guide here!
After years of pottering on with matched betting (e.g not putting much effort in) by doing the sign-up offers and reload offers when available, I thought I would take the punt to see if the new "Outplayed Pro" was worthwhile!
I only started my subscription to Outplayed Pro part way through April and after now testing it for around a month would not recommend it as it appears to take a lot of cash in order to potentially make cash in the future (which I understand is premise of “expected values” but the uncertainty is not for me especially considering that the cost of Outplayed Pro is £150 per month is not a sustainable thing to try longer term for me).
Please also note that I am in a dispute with Outplayed at the moment on whether the £150 subscription is refundable so as a second warning, I would steer clear of it. The main subscription from them is great though, but this just was not worth it for me and won’t be for 99.9% of you guys.