How I made an extra £758.69 in August
I have been sharing my mission to making more money since late 2020 and don’t plan on stopping soon; it is completely possible to make extra income online and I want to show you exactly how this can be done with little or no experience.
I believe in full transparency and, therefore, you can see my full Profit & Loss report for The Bank Engine broken down in my upcoming Instagram post!
The Bank Engine: £518.82
This Summer has been particularly busy, and unfortunately posting regularly on Instagram has had to drop over the last few months. August continued to be the same, but I was pleased to be able to send out my weekly emails and I am in a fortunate position where the income for The Bank Engine (being this website and my social media pages) stayed high.
Bank Interest: £85.22
I LOVE passive income, and bank interest is the best form of passive income as its your money working for you. Alongside my current Stocks & Shares Lifetime ISA, I have a Cash Lifetime ISA which is earning me a large amount of bank interest each month. I am also using Zopa’s 7.5% regular savings account and Nationwide’s limited withdrawal account to save for other short-term goals.
Dividends Received: £67.79
August always tends to be a good month for dividend income as a result of the funds that I am invested in across my portfolio. Dividends are a share of the profits that businesses share with their shareholders where possible and whilst I mainly invest for capital growth, additional income along the way is a nice added bonus.
If you are new to investing, or just want to learn more, you can check out my free investing guide here.
Mystery Shopping: £58.40
Check out my FREE mystery shopping guide here, where I share exactly how I make £1,000s from this!
Since writing this guide I have discovered SmartSpotter (see below) which is fast becoming my favourite app and is perfect if you don't like the idea of having to interact with staff as most jobs don't require you to!
1 x Sauces Check: £20.00 (visit store, take photos, answer questions, tidy a few products)
1 x Mystery Check: £15.00 (visit store, take photos, answer questions)
3 x Stationery Checks: £16.00 (visit store, take photos, answer questions)
1 x Bread Check: £6.00 (visit store, take photos, answer questions)
1 x Oat Milk Check: £5.00 (visit store, take photos, answer questions)
I also incurred mileage costs of £3.60 during the month to complete these tasks.
Groceries Cashback: £18.83
Throughout August, I purchased all of our groceries through cashback apps to ensure I saved on spending I would be otherwise doing.
My favourite cashback app is EverUp which regularly offers 4-5% back at all of the UK’s leading supermarkets and it’s really straightforward to use. You simply buy a gift voucher for the amount you want to spend (I use scan as you shop and buy a voucher for the exact amount when in-store) with your card/ banking app/ Google Pay/ Apple Pay, etc. and then receive X% back into your account which you can use towards your next voucher.
In August, I earned £16.60 for doing this.
I also used JamDoughnut which is a similar, and older, app that is worth a look. However, the cashback rates are lower most of the time and they have started turning the app into a bit of a spin-to-win gambling site which defeats the purpose of earning cashback if you are going to give it straight back to them. I earned £2.23 during August as I needed to get to £10 to cash out the cashback within the app towards a gift card (for reference, you only need £1 in EverUp).
Market Research & Surveys: £8.86
I have had a pretty successful run with this income stream so far in 2025, earning me just over £500 so far. However, it is one of those things that you cannot consistently earn from as it is largely led by luck. If you want to learn a bit more about how to earn from market research, you can check out my free guide here.
Google Rewards - £5.25
They are generally about shops I have visited and whether I made a purchase, but recently have started getting questions about Google searches too!
In the last few months, they have also introduced receipt scanning where they will ask you to upload receipts for stores you have visited (completely random, and some I haven't been in) paying £0.01 if you don't have a receipt/ didn't visit or up to £0.30 if you upload one.
The earnings can only be redeemed for Google Play credit on Android but still worthwhile!
Dscout - £3.61
This is my favourite market research site, and the one that I have had the most luck with over the last 12 months. I only received 1 study in August and it was a very quick survey about car insurance that took all of 5 minutes (if that)