How I made an extra £8,000 in 2022
During 2022 I spent a lot of time trying to boost my income, and as the year has now come to an end I am exceptionally pleased to share my 2022 additional earnings with you.
Despite not having met my goal of earning an extra £9,000 last year, I did manage to earn an extra £8,000 (give or take £50) which I am very happy with considering the number of setbacks that occurred this year.
Without further ado, here is how I made an extra £7,591.66 in 2022:
The Bank Engine (£2,187.92)
This one doesn't happen without giving a large amount of gratitude to each and every one of you that has supported The Bank Engine over the last few years.
With some phenomenal amounts of money being made by you as a result of our website this year, we saw an astonishing profit figure of £2,187.92 (EBITDA) for the 2022 calendar year.
Work Bonuses, Overtime & Vouchers (£1,050.00)
During the year, I continued to further my career in accountancy working as a Senior Accountant. I sat my final two ACCA exams for which I am awaiting results in the coming weeks.
Alongside my pay rise which has not been included in any of these figures, I received additional compensation totalling £1,050 during the year which sits outside my basic salary and employer pension contributions.
Micro-Tasks & Mystery Shopping (£1,032.34)
I began this new side hustle in September on a whim and in 4 short months have made over £1,000 profit from this, earning an extraordinary £33 average hourly rate in December for my work on these tasks.
I typically use the Roamler and Shepper apps but will be releasing a detailed free guide on this side hustle in due course. If this is something you would be interested in, please keep your eyes peeled!
Matched Betting (£1,030.81)
A side hustle that I started in January 2021 that I am still doing today, which is still as lucrative as ever is matched betting. I put a lot less time into this in 2022 and have fewer betting sites I can utilise, but I have been able to have another £1,000+ year bringing my total earnings from matched betting to over £2,800.
I cannot recommend considering this side hustle enough, and have written a free guide to support you in learning about this further which you can find here.
If you have any questions on matched betting at any point please do not hesitate to contact us.
LISA Bonus (£974.97)
Lifetime ISAs are one of the best ways to boost your savings/ investments for your first home or retirement. You can pay in up to £4,000 per tax year and earn a 25% bonus from the Government.
In 2022, I changed my payment pattern slightly and received a bonus of £974.97. Personally, I use the Nutmeg Lifetime ISA (Stocks & Shares Lifetime ISA), but also have a large sum in a Moneybox Cash Lifetime ISA, either of which I would highly recommend.
For a little more information on ISAs be sure to have a read of our ISA page here.
Sign-Up Offers (£476.90)
Businesses are always looking for ways to gain new customers, and are willing to bribe you to sign up for their services. If you know the best offers going, there is a lot of money to be made from these, as I learned last year.
In total, I made £476.90 from sign-up offers, with the highest paying one being worth £50 in total for a few minutes of work! It isn't simple to discover these offers, but we are constantly on the lookout for the best ones and notify our followers on Instagram and have a dedicated mailing list as well.
Cashback (£398.03)
Cashback is something that should not be ignored. I am all too guilty for thinking it wasn't worth the time a few years back, but really nobody should be buying big items without checking for cashback.
Think of it as an all-year sale, that can even be stacked on top of discounts to leave you with a great price for the product/ service you were going to buy anyway.
This year, I really focused on increasing my cashback and managed to bag some great deals using TopCashback* on furniture and appliances as I moved house.
However, the biggest one was the £175 I received for moving our broadband to Vodafone via Snoop.* If you don't know what Snoop is, it's an app that helps you take control of your finances by connecting your bank account and looking for ways it can save you money.
They also have some great deals in their emails - I'd highly recommend checking them out! Also, this is an affiliate link so it greatly helps us, and it's an app that I use regularly!
Bank Switching (£325.00)
I have gone on and on about this method of earning extra cash throughout 2022, and I will continue to do so until I can no longer speak - it is the easiest money you will ever make!
Banks don't deserve your loyalty if they aren't giving you a product that you truly enjoy using, so when their competitor banks are offering £100s for you to move to them, alongside benefits such as cash rewards, cashback, and other perks it would be silly not to take the bribe.
Should you not wish to move your main bank account, you don't have to - you can have as many current accounts as you want and switch these so long as you meet the terms. I proved this last year, and this year as I have switched 4 bank accounts in the past 13 months and earned £100+ every time.
This year, I switched to Santander and Halifax paying me a total of £325. On top of this, I earn roughly £10 monthly from the Santander account which I now use for bills, and £5 from Halifax for a quick hack I found online (I will share this soon).
Keep an eye on the best bank switching offers here.
Bank Interest (£212.00)
With interest rates rising exponentially over the past 12 months, it has helped this amount rise to a rather large sum. The reason I have been able to earn this much bank interest is because of my Moneybox Lifetime ISA which is a comfortable amount.
Interest rates are constantly changing, and whilst it isn’t worth moving £1,000s for pennies extra, I would strongly suggest checking whether you could be getting more bang for your buck.
Currently, the best savings accounts are:
FirstDirect - 7.0% - Regular Saver AND £175 for new customers
These may change quickly though, so I'd highly advise keeping an eye on our Savings account section which we update regularly. This can be found here.
Dividends (£116.49)
Slowly, but surely, I have been growing my investment portfolio ever since I began my investment journey in early 2020.
Now two years into this, the number of dividends I have received have grown steadily and has reached triple digits which is something I would have never expected when I received that first-ever dividend for a few pence.
I know that we are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, but I would highly recommend reading about investing to see if this is something that you would be interested in exploring in the future.
We have a free investment guide which you can read here.
Alternatively, Hargreaves Lansdown has also compiled a free guide* that includes a bit of extra information (which you can never have too much of!)
Market Research, Surveys & Similar (£109.50)
This is something that I will be pursuing heavily in 2023, as I only really discovered the benefits of market research towards the end of 2022 when I received £70 for a one-hour market research call, which blew my mind!
I am currently in the process of learning how to get accepted for market research calls, but I will share more information with you as I continue along this journey over the coming months. However, I believe this is one of the best hourly rates if you are able to cherry-pick the types of calls you do.
Similarly, I signed up to YouGov at the end of December which is a survey site that tends to have a somewhat decent payout rate. The real cherry on the cake though is the YouGov.Finance site which you can connect to your bank accounts and credit cards.
Effectively, they are a well-trusted data collection company and this data is valuable to them. They will pay £5 for each account you connect, and will do this every 90 days. It is up to you how much trust you put in this but I would suggest that it's worth considering with how big a company this is.
Free Crypto (£32.71)
With the end of 2022 being a bit of a patchy year for cryptocurrency, I would maybe give a bit of caution to this one at the moment, but you can sell the free crypto for cash immediately.
I will be sharing my updated thoughts on the crypto markets soon, but you will note all crypto areas of our site have been temporarily taken offline due to current market climates.
The Coinbase offer is the best as it can be coupled with cashback. You effectively get given free crypto for watching some short videos and answering questions (for which all of the answers can be found very easily online)
Discover more about how this offer works here.
Conclusion
The ability to earn this kind of additional income isn't something that required any real skill other than patience and a willingness to try new things.
Many of these income sources are side hustles that I picked upon a whim and realised just how lucrative they are; make hay whilst the sun is shining as they say.
Please understand that I have put hundreds of hours into earning this amount of money and whilst some of it will have been passive, it doesn't necessarily happen overnight.
If you have any questions on any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact me via Instagram.