How I made an extra £764.27 in May 2024
For the last few years, I have been sharing a detailed account of how much I earn on top of my 9-5 income each month. This is not to brag or show off, but is purely to showcase that it is possible.
Without further ado, here’s how I got on in May 2024:
The Bank Engine: £393.31
I am beyond thrilled by how much The Bank Engine has grown in recent months, and looking back over the last month I have reached over 1 million people across all channels which is a mind-boggling statistic. Whilst I am extremely happy that this many people are thinking more about their finances, I know that these kind of stats aren’t going to last forever, but I would like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to everyone who finds usefulness in what I do, whether you’ve been here from the start or since 5 minutes ago.
Mystery Shopping: £136.18
Check out my mystery shopping guide here, where I share how I make £1,000s from this side hustle!
Roamler I do have some referral links (referrer-only benefit) if you would like to help me out!
16 x Home Care Checks (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £53.00
11 x Hair & Skin Care Checks (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £41.00
4 x Incontinence Checks (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £28.00
1 x Boots Unit Check (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £10.00
2 x Grooming Care Checks (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £8.00
7 x R&Rs (visit store, capture images, buy & review product): £7.00 + £21.24 of reimbursed products
1 x Coke Check (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £6.00
1 x Burger King check (visit location, capture images, order food & answer Qs): £5.00 + free food
1 x B&Q Plant check (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £2.50
1 x Category Check (visit store, capture images & answer Q's): £2.00
I also incurred mileage costs at a rate of 45p per mile totalling £26.33 which has been deducted from this income for tax purposes.
Lifetime ISA Bonus: £83.33
I have been contributing to my Lifetime ISA for a number of years in order to rack up a significant deposit for my first home. If you don’t know how a Lifetime ISA works, I have detailed some info on it here but effectively you can save up to £4,000 per tax year into an account and the Government will give you a 25% bonus on top of this. As we are now in a new tax year, I have set up my direct debit for my Nutmeg Lifetime ISA which works out at £333.33 per month which will automatically give me a £83.33 bonus each month!
Matched Betting: £58.40
Last month I took a risk by paying for Outplayed’s Pro subscription for a whopping £150 per month thinking that it may uncover some huge earnings for me, but after a month of some quite staggering losses and realised that upgrading to this subscription was not worthwhile so got in touch with them and was thankfully able to obtain a refund for the high cost.
Therefore, in May I am adding back £55 of the pro-rated subscription cost I had deducted from my earnings last month! I also earned £3.40 worth of free spins during the month.
Keen to learn more about this tax-free side hustle that has made me over £3,500 in recent years? Check out my free guide here.
Sign-up Offers & Data: £21.58
You will likely have been living under a rock if you haven't heard everyone going on about the Zing free cash offer recently as it was one of the best that's been around for a while. Naturally I took advantage of the referral offer - £20 cash for opening a Zing account and spending £5+ on a virtual card. This offer has now ended but they are working on a new referral scheme which I will keep you in the loop on!
I also signed up to Unbanx which works similarly to YouGov Finance where you can connect a bank account and earn points for doing so. It doesn't pay nearly as well as YouGov did, but you can withdraw your points as a voucher when you get to £3 worth and the app seems relatively okay!
For signing up, I got 150 bonus points which was worth around £0.91 when converting to a supermarket voucher.
You get 110 points per month which is worth approx. £0.67 of points for connecting a bank, but if you check into the app regularly it looks like you can also redeem 22 points every now and then for clicking a button.
Points & Cashback: £8.59
I took out an American Express Gold card earlier this year to take advantage of the referral bonus, but have also been using this for day-to-day spending where it makes sense (mostly fuel).
The figure used above is the "statement credit" value although I will obviously aim to exchange the points for a higher value when redeeming them.
This is a newer cashback app and it is well worth using over the others at the moment as the cashback rates have been considerably higher in recent weeks. Therefore, this was my main app used for groceries in May!
It is now mostly an app for cashback on gift cards (much like JamDoughnut and Cheddar) but also has a gamified part of it where you earn "points" on your gift card spending as well which you can use to spin a wheel or enter a prize draw to win points, cash or gift cards.
You can get some bonus points if you sign up through a referral link.
If you've been following me for long enough, you'll be aware of this app but it's well worth downloading if you haven't already (if you use my referral code you'll get a bonus)!
Instead of using your payment card at the till, you purchase a gift card and use that to pay instead. When you buy gift cards you earn cashback in the form of points which can be converted to cash or gift cards once you reach £10 worth.
Surveys: £2.10
This is from super-quick surveys that Google Opinions notifies me of on my phone, and literally just asks questions about recent shops I have visited and questions on payments, etc. If you aren’t using this app yet, I’d highly recommend it!
Dividends: £6.15
This is how much I have been paid as shares of profits from companies in my investment portfolio; all of which is re-invested back into my portfolio by me.
If you are new to investing or keen to learn more about it, you can check out my free guide on this here.
Bank Interest: £55.63
This mostly comes from my Cash Lifetime ISA as there is a growing balance in this account.