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Hello, hustlers.
Another month, another income report As always, I post these to hopefully educate and inspire others when it comes to the world of side hustling (and the lucrative nature thereof). After all, an extra couple of hundred bucks never hurt anyone.
Me: single lady, no kiddos or fur babies, work 40 hours a week, and own a home. I hustle (and drink) on the weekends.
(i.e. my best month yet and a whole $300 better than last month)
Here’s how I did it…
Bartending Income: $765.50
Oh, jeez. While it’s certainly great to have nearly $800 of extra cash for some chill weekend shifts at a brewpub, here’s the rub:
At the risk of airing too much dirty laundry, let me just point out that these income reports are tallies of what I’ve earned… not necessarily what’s actually been paid out to me.
Don’t work for your friends. Or, rather, don’t work for your friends when both of you, in turn, are working for a dysfunctional family business†.
Learn to say no.
That’s all I can muster to say about this for now. Moving on…
Face-painting Income: $330
Two gigs this month! One was a last minute request for a Fourth of July party, and the other was for the grand opening of a restaurant. Both were good gigs, I was able to raise my rates a wee bit, and I passed out a lot of my (new! Moo!) business cards. I would have loved to have done more gigs (because I got this dope rainbow split cakethat I wanted to play with more), but, as you may have guessed, bartending precluded it a bit.
Both the gigs I found on Thumbtack.com. Clickity click to get started with your own side hustle!
Dog Sitting Income via Rover.com: $121.60
It was getting to the end of the month, and I was sad and mopey over the fact that I hadn’t watched any dogs in July, and then bam! The universe heard my wistful sighs and sent me this German Short Haired Pointer to snuggle with:
If you couldn’t tell, me and pups from Rover spend a lot of time on the couch *not* moving.
He was such a good boy (I mean, just look at him), no complaints whatsoever. His eyes were set really far apart and he kind of looked like an alien, but that’s okay. Alien dogs are welcome in my house. He also had a nub for a tail and just wagged his entire butt instead (and wagged my heart along with it).
This was a super last minute booking request since the original dog-sitter dropped out literal hours before the owner was going to drop him off. I was available, willing, and it all worked out fine. The owner was super grateful and left me, no exaggeration, the nicest review anyone has ever left me. For anything.
August is looking… overwhelming. I’ve got, count them, five dogs lined up! Time to raise my rates again, I think.
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while because I honestly forgot about it. A few months ago (read: six), I made an online order at Sephora††. But, of course, I had to do it the complicated, penny-pinching way:
Logged in to Ebates portal, went to Raise.com to purchase a $25 Sephora gift card for $23.71.
Logged in to Ebates portal, placed my Sephora order using the gift card I’d just bought.
Got the $10 welcome bonus on Ebates for making a qualifying order.
Got $3.19 back on Ebates for the Raise.com order and the Sephora order.
Oh, and I was using a cash-back credit card for all of this nonsense. Heh.
Nearly $15 off at Sephora just for the hassle of ten minutes of extra clickage? I’ll take it.
Click below to sign up for free and get your $10 welcome bonus when you make a qualifying order, which, is not hard to do at all. You can get rebates from 2000+ online retailers, not just Raise.com and Sephora.
Mystery Shopping Income: $10
Just a quick, casual-dining shop. I’ve done this particular restaurant before, so the accompanying report was quick and easy. I took a friend out with me, our entire meal was reimbursed (approx. $32), plus a $10 payment on top of it.
I’m only a casual mystery shopper, and I’m sure I could make more of a hustle out of it if I put in the time (which, as you can see, is limited) and effort. But, still, I recommend mystery shopping as a side hustle whole-heartedly. If you’d like a referral for the company I work for, drop me a line.
Blog Income: $6.37
Finally, in my fifth income report, I’m actually able to call it ‘income’ rather than ‘blog pennies’. How exciting! A mid-month feature on Rock Star Finance for an old post of mine, Creative Side Hustles for the Extroverted Introvert, gave it a little boost, and I’m very grateful!
$1.12 was from Google AdSense and $5.25 was from an Amazon Affiliate link purchase.
If you’re unfamiliar, JobSpotter is an app where you submit pictures of ‘help wanted’ & ‘now hiring’ signs wherever you find them, and they pay you for them (payment is in the form of Amazon Gift Cards, FYI).
It is so incredibly quick and easy. Even if snapping a picture of the storefront nets me some weird looks and makes me look like a tourist in my own town, it’s worth it!
iBotta Income: $5.75
I cannot just call it ‘iBotta’. I always have to say, ‘I boughta lot of…’ Anyone else? Oh, well. Anyway, I buy my normal load of groceries at Kroger and Meijer over the course of the month. iBotta always seems to have a weekly $0.25 rebate for the entirety of a purchase at both stores. I redeemed $0.75 from those types of coupons, and then somehow snagged a $5 bonus. I don’t know if that’s a monthly bonus (because, I got it last month as well), but five bucks is five bucks, and I’ll take it!
Rather than make a billion separate headers, I think I’ll start conglomerating sources of income when they’re less than $5. This month, that included:
$3.00 Amazon Credit because I placed an order, and they gave me the option of a credit in exchange for ‘no rush shipping’. Since I am a chill, laid-back sort of gal, I said, “Sure. I’ll wait.” The funny thing is that one of my items shipped and was delivered in two days, regardless.
$0.15 profit from selling a note on Lending Club, a peer-to-peer lending site.
$0.12 from remembering to ‘check in’ to Kroger on ShopKick, an in-store item auditing/rebates app. Honestly, I used to make (relatively) a lot more money off this app (it pays out in gift cards), but I’ve turned to the dark side and have started doing online ordering & curb-side pick ups with my groceries, so I never physically walk into the grocery stores anymore.
$0.10 compensation for not qualifying for a survey with Surveys on the Go.
.+++.
Song of the Month: ‘Infinite’ by Skrux ft. Anna Yvette
If you couldn’t tell, I like slow/soulful/sexy/chill electronic music. I absolutely could not function without Spotify, and their A.I. when it comes to their ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist is scary good. Enjoy, I’ve been listening to this on repeat.
.+++.
*Deep breath*
Whew. Busy month, but somehow, I don’t feel burnt out. I think it’s because I know I get too bored sitting at home, doing nothing, knowing I could be out and about, side hustling and making $$$.
August looks even busier than July! As I mentioned above, I’ve got five Rover pups coming to stay, one face-painting gig already lined up, and bar shifts galore. I suppose it’s kind of useless to keep making goals like ‘freelance write more’ and ‘get my AirBnB listing good to go’ when I know in my heart of hearts that it’s not going to happen.
So, my goal is this: just keep doing what I’m doing.
†Now, did I mean ‘a dysfunctional-family business’ or ‘a dysfunctional family-business‘?
Hmm…
††If you’re curious, it was the Full Spectrum palette by Urban Decay because my favorite color is rainbow. Here’s a mini-review because I’m not actually a beauty blogger… I friggin’ love it!!
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