Side hustle total for 2022

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As with my recent look back at my mortgage overpayments, now that we're in 2023 (well into it, it's February!) I can look back at my spread sheets and see what the impact last years side hustling was.

This is the first year that I've properly tracked my side hustle money. Most of it tended to go into my Paypal and then just sit there until I bought something off eBay. But with more of a focus on FIRE in the past few years I realised I needed to be a bit more sensible about this as well.

And I'm very glad I did, as I can now see the impact of all those little sums from various sources, that just come drifting in throughout the year.

Breakdown and total

During the year I kept track of my sources by marking them with one of five categories. I've explained a bit more about each one below, but they should be quite easy to understand anyway.

Talks - £421.65

Cashback - £56.51

Surveys - £19.60

Receipts - £20.00

Other - £19.89

Total - £537.65

Talks

As you can see, talks were my biggest side hustle success in 2022! I've written about how I became a speaker, and it's definitely a side hustle I would recommend to anyone who has a talent, a unique hobby, or just an interesting story to tell.

The only problem with speaker income is that I'm having a baby in March so have had to severely restrict my availability. I'm only doing 5 talks this year, as I wanted to have plenty of time off since I don't know what kind of baby I'll be having. A good sleeper who can be left with my parents means I could do a bit more, but a more clingy and harder to put down baby would of course make it more difficult.

In 2024 I'll also be returning to full time work, as well as looking after the baby. The extra money would certainly be very useful but I can't keep up my current pace. My plan is to increase my price by £10 when the next Speakers Book is created, and also reduce the distance I'm willing to travel to no more than 40 minutes away from home. I will also only take a limited number of bookings per year, possibly capped at 10.

My husband will of course be lead parent for those nights, but with his commute we'll need to find a work around (either he finishes work early, or we ask family to come round until he gets home).

Cashback

Cashback sources are Quidco and TopCashback, plus apps such as Greenjinn and Shopmium.

I only joined TopCashback (TCB) last year after seeing it recommended on Instagram. I used to be solely on Quidco but I've found they haven't been as good in recent years. Nowadays I tend to check both sites for the best cashback offers before purchasing.

I also like TCB as they periodically do an offer where you get an extra £2 cashback on any spend. I normally use this to buy a giftcard for myself, so I get the bonus £2 plus whatever cashback rate is available for a giftcard purchase.

Greenjinn and Shopmium are both apps I have on my iPhone. If you buy something that is listed on one of these apps, then you can submit a photo of your receipt and a scan of the product barcode, and you'll get some money back. This can be anything from a few pennies to the whole cost of the product. They tend to be used to launch new items in shops, so finding things in your local supermarket can be a bit hit and miss.

If you join Shopmium and use my referral code (8UT3J) you'll get a free product. At the time of writing (February 2023) this is a free tube of Pringles, but I've also seen chocolate and biscuits in the past. I see a lot of vegan items on Shopmium, so if you want to try more plant-based alternatives then this could be a good one to sign up to.

Surveys

I've been quite lazy with these this year. I'm on Prolific, which is quite a good earner, but I just couldn't find much time for it last year.

I also joined Streetbees after it was recommended on Instagram but I quickly got discouraged as it pays out very little (but payments are very prompt) for what felt like much longer answers.

This year I'm aiming to try and do a bit more Prolific, especially when I'm on maternity leave and need something to keep my brain active!

Receipts

Receipts is just Shoppix as I find them the quickest and most reliable.

I was on a few others, including Receipt Hog and Snap My Eats. I forgot to swap over when Receipt Hog closed down and rebranded, and at one point Snap My Eats logged me out when I was close to cashing out and then wouldn't let me log back in, I had to re-register and start from scratch, so I gave up on them.

I cashout Shoppix with a £10 Amazon giftcard. I know you get more for your points if you hold out for the £20 one but I've seen enough apps suddenly close down with little to no warning, I prefer to go for something in the middle instead.

Other

And finally the “Other” heading covers random sources through the year that tend to be one-offs which don't fit into the other categories.

I sold a photo on Stockimo for the first time ever, despite signing up and uploading over 6 years ago. That got me just over £11, which was pretty good for something just taken on an iPhone! I've since added a few more photos but it'll never be a serious moneymaker for me.

There’s also a few ebook page reads from Amazon KDP, and a Redbubble payout from my shop there.

None of these will ever be consistant sources of income for me (unless the Redbubble shop takes off like a rocket) but they bring in dribs and drabs that can be handy to have. I don't spend huge amounts of time on them so the little I get is worth the minimal effort I put in.

What I used it for

One of the great things about side hustle money is that you can put it towards various sinking funds or other things, depending on what you have going on at the time.

At one point in 2022 I had to buy a new car, which meant I had to spend a chunk of my emergency fund to help pay for it. From February to May all my side hustle money, especially my talks, helped to rebuild it. I was making regular monthly transfers to it anyway, but the side hustle cash helped it go up quicker.

Since then I've used some of it to overpay the mortgage, and at other times I've sent the money to my Lifetime ISA. I'm not close to hitting the £4000 limit so any extra I can put there is a welcome bonus (and also earns more through the 25% bonus!). Same for overpaying the mortgage, we're not close to hitting the limit for that, so the occasional boost is quite welcome.

Any giftcards tend to be taken out as Amazon ones, which I just add to my account. Nowadays I try to buy books through my local bookshop, but DVDs and some household bits still come from there and it's good to have a giftcard balance that can sometimes cover the costs for me.

Aims for 2023

Much like my mortgage overpayments post, I don't really have an aim for 2023. As I said above I would like to do a bit more with Prolific, especially while I'm on maternity leave. I've restricted the number of WI talks I do this year, with 5 booked in from September to November, so that will be a big reduction in talks money.

I've already cashed out some money from my other print-on-demand place, Zazzle. And I have bought some baby bits through TopCashback and Quidco so we'll see how much gets paid out from them during the year. I've also listed some things on eBay, so any sales there will be a welcome bonus.

But overall I can accept I'll be making much less than £500 this year. But we'll see just what the impact is towards the end of the year!