How I made an extra £559.20 in July
I have been fairly elusive recently so thank you for your patience if you have been wondering where my emails, Instagram posts or blog posts are! You can tell that I have been preoccupied by the drop-off in income across all areas reported below.
As always, I am keen to provide you with an update on my additional earnings from July 2026 regardless of how good they look. Here’s how I got on:
Market Research: £223.06
This continues to be one of the best side hustles going this year so far, with £700+ made in May, June & July alone! Here are the studies that contributed to this amount:
Dscout
Diary Study on AI platform feedback (various check-ins over 3 weeks): £108.11 (USD 150)
Usability Study on online streaming site: £28.96 (USD 40)
Video Survey on AI shopping assistants: £17.97 (USD 25)
Video Survey on customer loyalty: £10.83 (USD 15)
Usability Survey on savings accounts: £7.19 (USD 10)
Askable
Video Survey on accounting software: £30.00
Usability Survey on payments: £15.00
Quick Survey on everyday decisions: £5.00
Bank Interest: £183.04
This mostly comes from funds inside my Cash Lifetime ISA which will be used to purchase my first home in the coming weeks.
The Bank Engine: £85.11
As you are likely aware, I have been distant on here and on social media over the last few months and it is expected that income will drop alongside this.
July was still a profitable month and I remain grateful for the continued support even during the quiet periods. This was support by the cashback offers I ran on Klarna and Revolut; of which the Klarna one is still running if you are interested.
Mystery Shopping: £44.40
Even on quiet months, this side hustle pulls me back into its orbit whether there are many tasks or not I just cannot seem to keep myself away from checking the apps on a regular basis and picking up the easier tasks even where I should probably be focusing on bigger paying gigs. However, if you are near a large town it is always the side hustle I will recommend first if you fancy something away from a computer screen.
Here’s how I made £44.40 in July:
SmartSpotter
2 x Store Checks: £8.50 (visit stores, take photos and answer questions)
1 x Pet Food Check: £6.00 (visit pet store, take photos and answer questions)
1 x Stationery Check: £5.00 (visit store, take photos and answer questions)
Roamler
1 x Mystery Promo Check: £15.00 (visit store, take photos of various categories and answer questions)
1 x Air Care Unit Check: £8.00 (visit store, locate unit, tidy up and take photos)
1 x Compliance Check: £3.00 (visit store, take photos and check prices of 10-15 items)
Travel costs: £1.10 Costs
As these were all very local and combined with other trips, I only completed 2 extra miles of travel during the month which comes to £1.10 of costs at 55p per mile using HMRC’s approved rates.
Cashback: £11.41
I earned cashback from three separate places during June:
EverUp groceries cashback: £8.61
TopCashback bonus on £10 groceries gift card purchase: £2.00
TopCashback standard cashback on above: £0.26
Zopa direct debit cashback: £0.54
Dividends: £9.21
Dividends are a share of profits that companies can choose to share with investors and as a result of the shares I hold in my investment portfolio I received a small amount of income from this source during July. I primarily invest for capital growth rather than income returns so the amount of dividends I receive over the year is typically minimal.
Google Rewards: £2.97
Google Rewards is an app that pays you for answering short surveys on a regular basis. These typically are linked to your Google history and therefore I will receive surveys on shops I have been to and asked if I made a purchase, if the store was accessible, etc. or based on Google searches I have made recently.
From the surveys, I made £2.21 in July with an extra £0.76 from receipt photos.
You can also earn from taking photos of receipts, it will try to figure out if you visited a store based on location history and will ask you for a receipt, you will then get paid roughly 10-20p for each receipt.
If you use an Android this can only be redeemed as Google Play credit, but simply set up a subscription to be paid via this (Disney+, Netflix, etc.) or can be paid via PayPal if on iOS but you will obviously earn more if on Android.