Friday, May 1, 2020

Side hustles April 2020

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?  We have been adjusting well to our new stay at home routines.  My wife has been working from home for almost 2 months now.  Our kids are home and we are trying our best at home schooling.  We are trying to teach our kids with every opportunity that we have.  We are working on handwriting and reading comprehension with our son.  We are working on the alphabet with our daughter.   
Everyday the kids run around the house using their imagination as they play games with each other.  We try to get the kids outdoors at least 30 minutes to an hour each day for walks.  On our walks we look for different kinds of creatures like bees, slugs, snails, birds and lizards.  The kids are gaining a respect for nature and they know not to touch the creatures they encounter on our walks.  

We love reading books to our kids, and they are up to 6-10 books everyday!  One fun activity we have been doing is freezing some miniature sea creature toys in blocks of ice and having the kids rescue the creatures from the ice.    
Another fun activity we have been doing is have the kids create their own crafts with construction paper, glue, popsicle sticks and stickers.
Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of April.
Cash Back
We did not earn any cash back in April.

Rental Income
We did not receive any rental income profits this month due to our tenants being unemployed suddenly due to the covid19 outbreak and shutdown of non-essential businesses.  Our tenants have been great all these years and it is a difficult time for them right now.  We will be setting up a repayment plan with our tenants to catch up on missed rents.  We are not charging any late fees at this point.  Thankfully we have a big emergency fund for our rental property and the monthly mortgage on the property is low.

Side Job IncomeSince the local university is closed due to the coronavirus shut down, I have not had any opportunities to teach in April.

Survey Income
On 4.6, I received a $5 Amazon gift card from the Vision Council for completing a survey.
On 4.9, I received a $10 Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey.
On 4.14, I received a $5 Amazon gift card from the Vision Council for completing a survey.
On 4.14, I received a $10 Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey.
On 4.20, I received a $5 Amazon gift card from the Vision Council for completing a survey.
On 4.21, I received a $55 check from My Impact Network for completing a medical survey.
On 4.23, I received a $50 direct deposit into my bank from GLG for completing a medical survey.
On 4.24, I received a $35 check from M3 Global Research for completing a medical survey.
On 4.27, I received a $5 Amazon gift card from the Vision Council for completing a survey.
On 4.27, I received a $10 Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey.
On 4.27, I received a $10 Amazon gift card from MNOW for completing a medical survey.

Blog Income
On 4.29, I received a direct deposit of $11.85 from blog income as a member of Amazon Associates.


Miscellaneous Income
On 4.3, I received a check for $63 from our kids’ dental practice.  There was an insurance issue where a claim was not billed properly and we were charged the difference.  After I made a few calls to the insurance company, I was able to get the dental claim paid out properly, resulting in a refund. 
On 4.6, I received a $0.48 Amazon gift card from the Job Spotter app, by Indeed.  With this app, you basically take pictures of businesses that are hiring and upload photos.  A month ago, I had dinner with friends at a restaurant and when I saw the “now hiring” sign, I took a few pictures and earned 48 cents!
On 4.8, I received a check for $62.25 from the Takata Airbag settlement class action lawsuit.
On 4.8, my wife received a check for $62.25 from the Takata Airbag settlement class action lawsuit.
On 4.15, I redeemed 480 points for a $3 Amazon gift card from
On 4.23, I received a $204.30 refund to my credit card from Geico.  Since my wife has been working from home for the last 6 weeks and I’ve been going to the office only 2 days a week, we have not been driving very much at all during this lockdown.  I called Geico to ask nicely for a discount and the customer service rep was nice enough to offer one to me!  I wrote about it here.
On 4.30, we received a direct deposit of $3,223.90 from the IRS as our stimulus check.  I list this as a side hustle because our income qualifies for the stimulus check only after taking into account tax deductions on our gross income.  These deductions include two maxed out 401Ks ($19,500 each), a maxed out Dependent Care FSA ($5,000), a maxed out HSA ($7,000) and a Medical FSA deduction of $1,000. 

Monthly Totals:
I earned $200 for completing online surveys
We earned $11.85 from blog income
We earned $3,619.18 of miscellaneous income

All of this totals $3,831.03 from our side hustles for the month of April!  This lockdown has given us time to reflect on what is really important in life.  This has been an interesting month for us and we are really enjoying the time that we have at home.  My office is looking to reopen full time starting May 11th, and I may never get this chance to spend so much time with my kids again anytime soon.  Keep saving.  Keep investing.  And be safe.

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