Side hustles March 2021

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 1^st), 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 April!  Did you have a good March?  With our home remodel project still underway, things have been very hectic around the house.  The crew has been continuing to work 6 days a week, 6 to 8 hours a day.  We have needed to move most of our furniture and household items into the garage, which looks like a hoarder’s living space now.  For a week, our family needed to all sleep in the same bed.  The project is estimated to be complete in about 2 to 3 weeks.

Our kids have been pretty flexible with all the new changes going on at home, especially the need to be away from the home for hours at a time.  We’ve taken plenty of trips to local playgrounds.  We’ve taken plenty of walks around the neighborhood.

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has recently reopened the indoor exhibits with safety protocols such as mask mandates and limited capacity.  Visiting the aquarium has become a weekly or bi-weekly activity for our family.

We recently visited Mother’s Beach and found it a great place to take the kids.  The water is shallow here and the waves are very gentle.  The sand is clean.  There is a fun playground here as well as many accessible public bathrooms and beach showers.

Here’s our monthly summary of side income that we have generated in the previous month of March. 

Cash Back 

On 3.1, I received a $62.29 statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This was for getting gas, which qualifies as a Chase Travel credit eligible purchase.  This card is essentially providing us with $300 worth of free gas each year. 

On 3.1, my wife received a $30 statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout in February. 

On 3.4, I received $50 in statement credits ($25 x 2) on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card. This was for two separate purchases of greater than $500 for our kids’ school tuition. 

On 3.4, my wife received a $10 statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card.  This card offers a $10 dining credit every month on select restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory or Shake Shack.

On 3.5, my wife received a $30 statement credit on her AMEX Platinum card. This was for $30 off $30 on purchases made with PayPal checkout.

On 3.7, I received an $18.06 statement credit on my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card from the Chase Travel Credit benefit.  This was for a purchase made at a gas station. We have already used up the $300 Chase Travel Credit this year. It was nice to have $300 worth of gas covered by Chase. 

On 3.15, my wife received a $10 statement credit on her AMEX Gold credit card.  This was for the AMEX Gold dining credit - $10 off $10 spent at Cheesecake Factory.

On 3.21, I redeemed 4,786 Citibank ThankYou points towards an Amazon purchase of $38.29.  While this wasn’t the best value use of ThankYou points, we still got to save money.  We are currently not collecting ThankYou points so we did not have much use to hold onto these points long term.

On 3.22, I received a $29.11 statement credit on my AMEX SimplyCash Business card as automatic monthly cash back deposit. 

Rental Income

On 3.5, we received a net profit of $740 from our rental property.  

Survey Income

On 3.2, I received a $5 Amazon Gift card from the Vision Council for completing a survey.

On 3.9, I received a $30 Amazon Gift card from M-Panels for completing a survey.

On 3.9, I received a $40 direct deposit from GLG survey for completing a survey

On 3.14, I received a $3 Amazon gift card from MyPoints.

On 3.15, I received a $1 Amazon gift card from MyPoints. 

On 3.15, I received a $30 check from My Impact Network for completing a survey. 

On 3.30, I received a $10 Amazon gift card from Sermo for completing a survey. 

On 3.31, I received a $35 Amazon gift card from Sermo for completing a survey. 

Surveys continue to be a fun and easy way to earn extra income on the side.

Miscellaneous Income

On 3.16, we received a direct deposit of $5,261.20 from the IRS as our third stimulus check.  I list this as a side hustle, just like our last 2 stimulus checks, because our income qualifies only after taking into account the 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 partial Medical FSA deduction ($1,000).  We have been rewarded for saving more. 

Additional work income

On 3.31, I received a direct deposit of $144.28 for picking up extra hours with my employer.

Monthly Totals:

We earned $277.75 from cash back income
We earned $740 from rental income

We earned $154 for completing online surveys

We earned $5,261.20 of miscellaneous income

I earned $144.28 of extra income from my work

All of this totals $6,577.23 from our side hustles for the month of March!  We continue to slowly make progress towards our financial freedom every month.  Side hustles help us reach our goals a little bit faster.  Keep hustling my friends.