The great thing about doing side
hustles to generate extra income is that you can hustle on your own terms. The more hard work, time, and creative effort
you put in, the more extra money you can make.
You can hustle as little or as much as you want, whenever you want. It’s your extra money, and you can choose how
you want to spend it. Instead of focusing on what ideas don’t apply to you,
try focusing on different side hustle ideas that you can implement to work for
your situation.
Once a month (usually on the 1st), I like to post a
short summary of our personal and financial situation for the previous month. While I don’t often post articles, I am
committed to documenting all of my side hustle income. Here I’ll share some of what’s been going on
with our lives and our side hustles.
Welcome
to May! Did you have a good April? This last month has been our most
entertaining month of the year.
We
started the month off with a 4 day visit to San Diego. On the way to our Airbnb, we visited
Legoland. We have definitely gotten the
full value out of our Legoland passes. It’s
awesome to be able to visit the amusement park on Thursday since it is quite
empty, with no wait for any rides.
In
San Diego, we went to Sea World two days in a row. One of the days, our son wanted to spend most
of the day just playing with the toys in the gift shops. Since we have season passes to Sea World, we
did not feel any rush in getting through as many rides, shows and exhibits as
possible. We patiently waited as our son
spent much of his time just playing with sea creature toys.
I’m
glad we found a nice Airbnb for our stay.
It was nice having so much space, free parking, and it felt like a home
away from home. On our last day in San
Diego, we went to visit a beach for the first time. Our kids got a chance to run around on the
wet sand and splash in the water. We had
a blast!
We
recently purchased annual membership to the La
Habra Children’s Museum for $80 for our family. We’ve already gone 3 times this month! There are fun little kid activities spread
throughout the museum including: carousel rides every hour, full sized
dinosaurs, an area to dig up dinosaur bones, an interactive garden, a play
kitchen, a play supermarket, a costume dress up section, train village, and
taxidermy room with fish and insects.
The museum is a 15 minute drive from our home and has free parking.
The
rest of the month was filled with other fun activities like dinner at friends’
homes, Easter egg hunt for the kids, going for walks around our neighborhood
and playing in the playground. This
entire month has been an adventure for our kids. Since our children are growing so fast, we
want to spend as much quality time as we can with them.
Here’s
our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month
of April.
Award Travel
On 4.29, I redeemed 91,600 Chase Ultimate Rewards points with my Chase Sapphire Reserve
account towards free round trip flights for my family to Portland, Oregon worth
$1,374. We are going to visit the in-laws and have
them see their grandkids. I’m really
glad we have a large stash of credit card points that we can spend towards free
travel.
Cash Back
On 4.1, I received $10.23 deposit in my Discover Cashback Checking account. This is 1% cashback from paying our rental
property with my Discover debit card.
On 4.1, I received a $10 PayPal deposit from Mr. Rebates shopping portal.
On 4.4, I received a $4 statement credit on my Freedom Unlimited credit card from Chase
Offers. This was 5% off dog food
purchases.
On 4.5, I received a $50
statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card from AMEX Offers. This was 10% cash back for purchases made at
Staples.
On 4.11, I received a
$1.02 statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card from Chase
Offers. This was 10% off a pie at Coco’s
Restaurant.
On 4.15, my wife
received a $10 statement credit on her AMEX Gold card. This was the $10 AMEX Gold dining credit for
spending money at Shake Shack.
On 4.27, I received a
$10 Amazon gift card by redeeming some old points from my Lexus credit
card. It cost 1,350 points but I’m glad
I could drain the point balance from my account as this is not a credit card I
use much.
Rental Income
On 4.5, we received a net profit of $450 from our rental property.
Survey Income
On 4.8, I received a $15 check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.
On 4.8, I received a $10 check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.
On 4.8, I received a $15 check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.
On 4.8, I received a $10 check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical survey.
On 4.8, I received a $25 check from E-Rewards Medical for completing a medical
survey. Yup, 3 checks from E-Rewards
Medical on the same day!
On 4.17, I received a $40 direct deposit into my checking account from GLG Survey for
completing a medical survey.
On 4.30, my wife received a $35 Amazon gift card from Amazon
Preview, a company that pays for surveys.
Miscellaneous Income
On 4.18, I sold an old Apple watch strap on Macrumors for $27.
On 4.18, I sold an old Apple watch strap on Macrumors for $27.
On 4.19, I sold an unloved watch on Reddit
Watch Exchange subreddit for $450. This was a watch I purchased on a whim but
then decided I really didn’t need.
On 4.23, my wife sold an older unused clothing
steamer online for $30. We haven’t used this in over a year as we no
longer steam our clothing.
On 4.23, I sold another unloved watch on Reddit
Watch Exchange subreddit for $785. While I love watches, I don’t need a large
collection of them.
On 4.30, my wife sold an unused bluetooth speaker online for $10.It’s great to be able to reduce clutter around our home and increase side income at the same time. Selling all this stuff makes us hesitant to purchase random items in the future.
Monthly Totals:
We saved $1,374
on award travel
We earned $95.25
from cash back
We earned $450 from rental income
We earned $125 for completing online surveys
We earned $125 for completing online surveys
We earned $1,302 from selling unused items in our home.
All of this totals $3,346.25 from
our side hustles for the month of April! It’s been a great month of side hustle income for us. More importantly, it's been such a fun month with the family.
