2023 was the year I had a baby. 2024 was the year that I finished my maternity leave so all my routines around baby and side hustles went straight out the window and yet another new way of doing things had to be worked out.
In my 2023 side hustle totals post I said that I wanted to see how close I could get to £600 but I thought it might be a bit unrealistic. Well once you scroll down you'll see that actually I didn't have too much to worry about!
The totals
Talks - £331.65
Cashback - £109.08
Selling - £79.34
Surveys - £72.29
Other- £19.52
Total - £611.88
Sources
Talks
As you can see, this year my talks have brought in just over £100 more than last year! Partly because I managed to do 8 talks this year, compared to 6 in 2023. But also because in the last part of the year my fees increased from £25 to £35 per talk, and mileage costs have gone up a bit too.
No one likes putting up their fees but with the cost of everything else going up £25 really did feel silly cheap. I'm not making a living from it but that doesn't mean I need to undercut everyone in order to be booked. I have still been told that £35 is a bit on the low end but once mileage is taken into account I tend to come home with £50 or close to it anyway.
Cashback
I was a bit more determined to make more from cashback sources this year. I have found Greenjinn to have more offers that I like this year so they became a good little bonus, and I was better at remembering to check TCB for insurance quotes when I needed them.
Selling
I said I would take this out as a separate category this year, and it's been nice to track how much I've made just from getting things out of the house. Most of it is from eBay as I've been a bit more focused on listing things on there, but there were also one or two sales through a group mailing list at my workplace.
Surveys
This has dropped a bit compared to last year and that's primarily because I've returned to work. I was getting a good number of surveys on Prolific during daytime naps, when a lot of people weren't checking the website. Obviously this has now had to end because I can't check and do surveys in the office. I have tried to focus a bit more in the evenings and had some luck with some higher paying ones, but you really do lose opportunities if you're unavailable during the day.
Other
Taking "Selling" out of this category has led to a big drop in the totals, which is probably how it should be as a dominant source should have its own category. The bulk of this (£15 to be exact) came from the receipt scanning app Shoppix (the only receipt app I do nowadays) and the rest was a small payout from Redbubble. I didn't earn enough for a payout from Zazzle and this is the first year that no one has bought my ebooks, so no pennies (literally) from there this year.
Next year
At the moment I feel like £600 is a total that I'm happy to maintain. Given the cost of everything has gone up recently it's nice to have a bit extra to pop into various pots and accounts. This year my earnings have been used to overpay the mortgage, as well as top-up my S&S ISA, and my holiday fund.
