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 June 2023 coming to a close last week, I wanted to share a more detailed account of my extra earnings for last month.

I explored a number of new side hustles which I haven’t spent much time looking at previously, so be sure to read below and share this post with anyone you think may benefit!

The Bank Engine: -£8.65

Despite income of £135.10 during the month of June, the running costs of The Bank Engine had got out-of-hand with subscriptions which were well worthwhile whilst we were able to maintain the costs, but unfortunately the landscape for new referral and affiliate schemes has started to dry up in recent months.

As a result, I wanted to safeguard The Bank Engine by cutting non-essential costs and focusing on our core values. At the heart of it, The Bank Engine is a side hustle that I am pleased to be able to take a profit from to cover my time costs, but giving back to the community that I aim to help is key!

As such, from June 2023 I am re-instating the monthly giveaways on our mailing list (join the list to be in with a chance to win this month) and will be looking at new offers I can start paying cashback on, to give back to our loyal community!

On top of this, I have started a subscription plan with Ecologi to ensure that we are doing our part to help preserve the planet and help communities across the world. Whilst this is a new thing for us, it is something that I am exceptionally keen to build up significantly over time. You can check out The Bank Engine’s profile here.

This all goes hand-in-hand with some very exciting news that I have to share with you; for a second year running, I have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, this year in the “Purpose Entrepreneur of the Year” category. Your continued support is greatly appreciated in helping me to reach new heights of recognition at this level.

Receipt Scanning: £5.80

Following some confusion over how this side hustle has worked for a number of months, I finally signed up to the NeilsenIQ Consumer Panel, 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.

I earned more this month as there was an extra £5 of points when I signed up, which is likely available for you too - 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 £5 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.

Market Research: £20.00

I have started using Askable* more and more recently, and completed my first market research video call with them in June which surrounded betting sites and the live sports functionality. This paid me £20 for a 45 minute call (which ended up being shorter) and was a really great experience.

I am signed up to a number of market research sites that I am often applying for studies through, and will update you as-and-when I find new sites that are up to scratch, but this one is well worth a look!

The other one that I have used before and have recommended previously is called TakePartInResearch, but the studies seem to be few and far between on this one.

YouGov Finance: £35.00

This one won’t be for everyone, but it’s worth considering if you are of a similar mindset to me. YouGov is a massive company well-known for their surveys which are feature heavily in news articles, etc. across the world.

YouGov Finance is a new function where you give them read-only access to your bank accounts and they essentially compile your data with that of thousands of others and sell the data to companies who want to buy it. They pay £5 per bank connection per 90 days and as someone with many bank accounts, this is a steady earner for me.

You may be thinking; why would you sell your data and my reasoning is because a) there’s nothing dodgy in there, b) the bank likely already do sell some of my data to companies anyway, and c) most of the accounts connected have very few transactions going on

Matched Betting: £46.43

This is my original side hustle that I started back in early 2020 as my first dive into the idea of earning extra income outside of my 9-5 role as an accountant. To date, I have made over £2,500+ in tax-free cash from this side hustle and helped hundreds of others make money from it too.

If you haven’t heard of it, the idea is that you use betting sites’ promotional offers to make a profit by using online calculators to win regardless of the outcome of a sporting event. At first, this probably does sound quite complicated but that is why I have written a comprehensive free guide that has helped people make £1,000s from this side hustle.

I am happy to answer any questions on this side hustle, but I would highly recommend checking this free guide out here.

Mystery Shopping: £68.55

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 (despite some recent frustrations with Shepper) and some examples of the work I did in June are a 30 minutes M&S mystery shop, a few phone store mystery shops alongside a compliance check in a Superdrug store.

Now that I have refined the jobs that I accept and how I do these jobs, I manage to earn around £22-£24 per hour spent doing the work which is a pretty good rate in me eyes!

Dividends: £8.94

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: £51.62

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

Generally I am really happy with the results of last month, all things considering. It was great to test out some new side hustles and get back on-track with some of the old ones that have a proven track record.

The eagle-eyed of you may note that I didn’t make a Lifetime ISA contribution this month and the honest answer behind this is that I could not afford to as I have been replenishing my emergency fund as a result of having cash tied up in a house move, deposit timing differences, and unexpected and unplanned necessary large purchases. I anticipate that I won’t be contributing to this until later in the year, but still plan to maximise the contributions for the year.

For further info on ISAs and Lifetime ISAs, check out this page.