How I made an extra £1,018.10 in October

For those who have been following my personal finance journey for a number of months (or years!) you will know that I am keen to share my full journey which includes a breakdown of my extra earnings.

So with October 2023 coming to a close recently, I wanted to share a more detailed account of my extra earnings for last month.

During October, I was exceptionally focused on trying to increase the income of The Bank Engine as I aim to start building the business exponentially over the coming months. This was easier than expected due to the phenomenal offer brought in from Webull which enabled many of you to earn a considerably chunk of extra cash whilst helping me boost the revenue.

The Bank Engine: £726.50

As mentioned above, I am beyond amazed at the increase in income and profits that I saw for The Bank Engine in October which largely came in the form of free shares from Webull and Trading212 (a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who signs up using my links).

However, I also saw a new income stream from referrals to Roamler which is the main mystery shopping app I use regularly. This will help The Bank Engine diversify its income streams as it is built-in with a recurring 2% commission of earnings which will help boost my income on a more regular basis. Again, thank you to everyone who has signed up via my Roamler link; I greatly appreciate it.

Receipt Scanning: £3.53

Following some confusion over how this side hustle has worked for a number of months, I finally signed up to the NeilsenIQ Consumer Panel in June, which allows you to earn rewards for scanning your receipts from grocery shopping and then scanning the barcodes.

This isn’t going to make you a millionaire by any means, but by my calculations you can make an extra ~£40 per year just from scanning your weekly groceries that you would have bought anyway.

During October, I scanned our shopping every week and managed to get bonuses for using the app for 4 weeks straight - I don’t have a referral link, but this is the website (I know, it looks ancient but it does the job!)

Points can be exchanged for vouchers once you reach thresholds in £25 multiples depending on the type of voucher you would like! I would recommend this as a slow burner side hustle that adds up over the long-term.

Mystery Shopping: £181.87

A more recent side hustle of mine, that I started late in 2022 is mystery shopping whereby you go into stores and answer questions alongside capturing images to feedback to those who are gathering information.

There are dozens of websites and apps that are available but the two I tend to get the most success from are Roamler and Shepper and some examples of the work I did in October included quick National Lottery Checks, Boots Promotional Material checks and various smaller tasks!

I also managed to make some income from FieldAgent which is an app I hadn’t had much luck with before but made £7 from this one during October!

I did try to test out a new app called BeMyEye but really didn’t get on with how the app worked and spent 30 minutes doing a job for it to get rejected - let me know if you’ve had much experience with this one and any tips you might be able to offer!

Cashback £16:48

After ignoring my own advice out of pure laziness for a short while, I jumped back on the cashback bandwagon for all of our groceries; flip-flopping between M&S and ASDA in order to maximise cashback where possible.

For both, I used JamDoughnut to get cashback on all purchases. If you haven’t used JamDoughnut before, I’d highly recommend it - here’s an explanation of how it works.

I also then managed to take advantage of the Spin to Win wheel at ASDA and the “challenge” which meant I could get £10 for spending 5 times during October, 3 of these purchases were eligible for Spin to Win resulting in a 50p reward each time on top of this.

Market Research £6.30

Throughout October I took part in an online research community for Pepsi which I found out about via Angelfish Opinions - it didn’t involve much time at all and I received a £5 voucher for taking part.

I also downloaded an app called StreetBees which seemed to do surveys on market research type things; I spent 5 minutes doing two tasks and received £1.30 into my PayPal within 3 days - well worth a look if you fancy! (My referral code is 7938XPB)

Dividends: £16.17

This one is obviously a bit different, as it is the income earned by my investment portfolio during the month. I am not invested in dividend stocks and am mostly invested in accumulation funds where the purpose is to growth my investment pot over time rather than to provide me an income.

I am, however, paid dividends from a number of investments that I hold in platforms like Nutmeg and Trading212. I re-invest these dividends to ensure that my money is working hard for me.

If you are keen to learn more about investing, you can check out my free investing guide here, and I am always happy to answer questions that you may have.

Bank Interest: £67.25

Similar to the one above, this is “passive income” that I earn without lifting a finger and has been earned on my savings (being my emergency fund and my Cash Lifetime ISA).

Whilst this is a large amount of bank interest to be earning every month, the cash I have sat in these accounts is actually losing value as a result of inflation, which is frustrating but is part of the deal when you are looking to keep cash in the short-term.

Overall thoughts

I’m exceptionally pleased that the business continues to perform well and that I’m able to make consistent additional income from my various side hustle income streams that I have been testing out over recent years.

I understand that I am in a very fortunate position to be able to make extra income and I do not take that for granted, so I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has made this a reality, and I hope that I can continue to help you increase your income and wealth over the future!