How I made an extra £745.22 in February 2026
I have been sharing my additional earnings online for well over five years now and do so, not to brag but, to show that it is possible to build additional income streams and add more money into your pockets without having to take large risks. So here is exactly how I made an additional £745.22 in February 2026.
Mystery Shopping: £381.85 Profit + Freebies
Mystery shopping is a great side hustle if you have time and don’t mind travelling around a little bit to do it, I have written a free guide on mystery shopping that you can read here.
During January, I went a little bit crazy on mystery shopping as a result of a large number of “petrol station check” tasks becoming available on SmartSpotter. These tasks started out paying £4 a piece (+ a reimbursement up to £1 for a purchase in-store) and was available at pretty much every petrol station across the UK. In January I completed 68 separate petrol station checks including a number at £5 once they were increased in price.
February was no different as there was still a large number of petrol station checks available across the country, and the prices kept increasing. I completed a further 48 of the jobs, mostly at £6 a piece but rising as high as £10 each at the end of the month.
Here is a breakdown of the mystery shopping tasks I completed in February that made me a profit of £381.85.
SmartSpotter (message me for a referral link on Instagram)
48 x Petrol Station Checks: £315.50 + Freebies
5 x Cat Food Checks: £28.50
1 x Hair Dryer Check: £6.75
1 x Dairy Check: £6.00
1 x Health & Beauty Check: £4.00
1 x Sainsbury’s Survey: £2.50
Roamler (message me for a referral link on Instagram)
3 x Currys Category Checks: £17.00
6 x Oral Care Checks: £16.50
3 x Fairy Display Checks: £9.00
3 x Rice Checks: £9.00
2 x Fabric Care Checks: £6.00
2 x Razor Checks: £6.00
1 x Home Care Check: £4.00
1 x Red Bull Check: £3.00
1 x M&S Mystery Shop: £14.00
1 x Currys Mystery Shop: £7.00
Costs:
I incurred mileage costs of £72.90 travelling to and from these mystery shopping tasks during the month which gets deducted to take me to my profit
The Bank Engine: £146.71
February was a slow month for this website as I took a step back from posting on Instagram entirely and the number of new offers was slow. However, profitability remained good despite a drop-off in revenue which was heavily supported by the free share offers such as Trading 212.
As always, thank you for your continued support.
Bank Interest: £95.76
I continue to add funds to savings accounts for a number of large upcoming costs, and as such my bank interest keeps growing each and every month. I am now using Zopa for almost all of my savings (non-ISA) as they are paying pretty generous rates!
Dividend Income: £89.25
Dividends are a share of the profits that companies choose to share with their investors, and whilst I do not prioritise investing in companies that pay dividends, the majority of my investments are in index funds which hold these companies. As such, I regularly do receive dividends alongside capital growth from my investment portfolio.
If you are new to investing, you can check at my free guide here.
Market Research: £20.00
Throughout February I was able to pick up three separate market research studies through Askable which is one of my favourite market research apps (see my other favourites here). These are the studies I completed:
Business Banking Survey - £10 - 2 minutes
Market Research Call held by AI on pensions - £5 - 15 minutes
Market Research Call held by AI on loyalty - £5 - 20 minutes
Cashback: £8.35
I always try to earn cashback on my everyday spending as it takes very little effort and pays off quite well over the long-term, here’s where I earned cashback during February:
EverUp cashback on groceries by buying gift cards: £3.32
Zopa cashback on direct debits: £2.83
TopCashback cashback on groceries by buying a supermarket gift card (20p) + £2 bonus for making a purchase: £2.20
Google Rewards: £3.30
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 £2.56 in February with an extra £0.74 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.