Welcome to one of my favorite posts each month, my side-hustle income report!
I actually had a bit of extra time to work on earning more with my side-hustles as I had some time off work that was going to expire at the end of September. It was two weeks, so the first week I took the family up to a cabin that I rented off of AirBnB. It was quite a nice place, and the price was right – just $45.50 a night plus fees.
Since it was a bit of a drive I used my strategy of making money on a road trip. I checked but found no loads I could haul on uShip. Instead, I did some gig app jobs while on the way up and while we drove around seeing the sites. That was good and all, but I wanted to find another way to make some money while I was out and about. Then it struck me, check out one of my secret shopping sites – Bestmark!
They have a travel locations section where they list jobs that haven’t been done in ages for an extra bounty. For example, a job that normally earns just $14 was marked up to $67! I found one I could do not far from the Painted Desert National Park. I will have to add in this trick to my Earn Money On A Roadtrip article.
Anyways, on to the meat and potatoes.
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How I Earned Side-Hustle Income in September
Secret Shopping – $73
I performed three jobs for Bestmark, two of which were just sending an online inquiry and copy-pasting the response along with how much time elapsed between submitting and their reply. Those only paid $3.
The real money came from a secret shop at a car dealership. 30 minutes pretending to be interested in purchasing a car, plus 30 minutes answering the survey questions got me a cool $67!
You DEFINITELY should be using bestmark if you own a Buick, GMC, or Chevrolet vehicle. I always see shops where you evaluate the oil and tire change service. You get reimbursed for the service AND get paid $25! Free oil change and money for filling out a survey after – yes, please!
If you are interested in signing up for Bestmark, sign up HERE.
eBay – $377.25
Towards the middle of the month, I really started to amp up the time I devoted towards my eBay side-hustle. It has paid off handsomely!
It broke down as such:
- $713.60 total sales
- – Selling cost (fees, shipping) of $215.00
- – Cost of goods $121.35
- = $377.25
In September I sold 28 items, which puts my average sale at just over $25.
Notable items include an Original big box copy of the PC game Age of Empires which was shipped off to a buyer in New Zealand. I also sold a handmade Tiger Beer can ball cap, it was a hat made out of the aluminum cans. A bunch of different inks, most of which were expired. I also sold a box of blank video cassettes to a rap video director in Brooklyn.
It’s interesting to think about how items move about the country and world. That box of cassettes was found in a thrift store near the cabin I stayed at. So it went from this small town in the middle of a forest in Arizona, to Brooklyn, NY to be used to film rap videos. The Age of Empires was part of a huge haul I found at the Goodwill pay by the pound outlet. Now it will reside in New Zealand as part of a collection.
(Protip: Printer ink is a quick seller on eBay, even if it is expired. If you can get it for cheap enough, buy it!)
Gig Apps – $304.75
$3.50 (1 gig) on Gigwalk
$55.50 (6 jobs) on Field Agent
$245.75 (43 shifts) on Easyshift
I really got out there and hustled on these gig apps. Again, Gigwalk failed to have much of anything but this time they royally pissed me off. I had an assignment to find SaraLee Artesano Golden Wheat bread in a display. The first store didn’t have a display, so that was easy. The second store did and here is where I ran into a problem, they rejected my submission!
At first, I thought maybe I didn’t take a pic of the correct flavor of bread, but upon checking the pic I sent I had!
The instructions said that if the bread was on a display with other products to take one ‘clear and well-framed image of the ENTIRE display and surrounding area.’
Here is the picture, judge for yourself if I followed the instructions.
Well, I emailed them telling them I had taken the correct photo. That maybe they missed the bread as it was just a small part of the display. This was their response:
“Hello Justin,
In all Gig description we ask for a clear and well framed pictures. Typically this is because of our clients demands. Even if the QA Team told you the rejections was because you took a picture of the wrong display it wouldn’t matter. The picture you sent me is unacceptable and is well outside the definition of a clear and well framed picture as the instructions requested.
Brian”
Wow, so Brian is a judge of the pictures now. Due to all this hassle, I cannot recommend anyone to use Gigwalk. Field Agent and Easyshift have way more jobs and are much nicer to deal with.
Screw Gigwalk.
Robinhood – $15.33
I had three people sign up using my link. I received two shares of SIRI and one of GRPN.
If you are interested in signing up to trade stocks for FREE using Robinhood, use my link and we both get a random share. It could even be a share of Apple or Facebook, both worth over $150!
If you want to read my recent review of Robinhood, click here.
SeekingAlpha – $135.76
I wrote two articles for SeekingAlpha in September. I had a goal of writing four but pivoted towards using my time to list items for eBay. This was because I found no stock I was passionate enough to write about after these first two.
You can check out my two September articles below.
Now Is The Time To Purchase Dave & Buster’s
Profit From Hurricane Harvey Reconstruction With This Company
Steemit – $114.05
I posted six articles on Steemit in September. My highest reward was an article on Meteor Crater which I visited while up at the cabin. Check it out here if you wanna see pics of this incredible place!
If you don’t know what Steemit is, it’s a site where you can blog and get paid in cryptocurrency. When cryptocurrencies shot up this past summer, I had over $25,000 in my account!
This is a Total Side-Hustle Income of $1,020.14!
I have topped $1,000 a month in side-hustle income! Like every extra dollar, it all gets invested.
For those curious, this money invested at an average rate of 8% for 40 years will return $24,758.
You know what though? This is just one month. Last month I earned an extra $694.28. That becomes almost $17K using the same calculations as above.
So for two months of part-time hustling, I have potentially increased my future wealth by over $40K.
But the hustle doesn’t stop here. Every month this extra money will pile in, compounding as time goes on.
You can be in this same path towards wealth, you just have to DO IT!
I hope this inspires anyone wanting to earn some extra money. Every single side-hustle I do is one YOU can be doing TODAY! There is hardly a barrier to entry, besides laziness.
If you want to make some extra cash, GO AND DO IT! Stop making excuses and hustle. Use your skills to earn money in your own way. The feeling of money earned that is not from your day-to-day job is so much better.
Start today because;
It Ain’t Gonna Hustle Itself!
Feeling motivated now? Pledge to take my $10/day side-hustle challenge and start building wealth faster!
How much did you earn from your side-hustles in September? Let me know in a comment below!
14 comments
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Mr. Robot
October 12, 2017 at 3:09 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Amazing side hustle results, you are killing it!
I’ve been reading about Steemit, seems like something worth investigating.
MrDD
October 12, 2017 at 12:23 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Steemit is great! I cross-post there, plus write little extras that don’t fit my blog profile. It is not a way to get rich quick, it takes time to build up a following. But persistence will pay off! Plus, you get exposure to cryptocurrency without having to spend your own money. So why not?
Mr Defined Sight
October 12, 2017 at 6:57 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Bravo friend, you keep crushing it. Question on your ebay items….What percentage (roughly) of items that you list eventually sell? Still a pretty hot market? We’ve had success selling things locally but I haven’t used ebay for selling yet. Steemit seems interesting, I’ve never looked into that. Thanks for bringing this stuff to our attention, it is really helpful!
Mr Defined Sight recently posted…Investment Reminder – Stay On Offense
MrDD
October 12, 2017 at 12:32 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think eBay is still a great way to sell stuff, especially smaller items. As for what percentage sells? I mean I have some stuff that I just keep relisting, but lots of things sell in that first month. Maybe 30-40% don’t sell in one month? It really depends on how much demand and competition there is, and that varies for each item.
Don’t worry about it, just give it a shot. Get started and see how it all goes. Life is just one big experiment after all!
Graham @ Reverse the Crush
October 12, 2017 at 9:11 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Congrats on the outstanding month of side-hustling man! This is seriously impressive and puts my side hustle game to shame! I also love that every dollar gets invested. You’ll reach FI in no time if you maintain this pace.
As for my side-hustling in September, I didn’t really earn much extra besides dividends. I had a few sponsored post deals in place to earn $70, but they fell through. I am actually planning on writing about it in more detail at some point. Otherwise, I earned a few dividends and a small amount from Google Adsense.
I need to step up my game! Keep it up man! It’s motivating to know what is possible.
Graham @ Reverse the Crush recently posted…Increase Income, Save Money, and Blog Better
MrDD
October 12, 2017 at 12:38 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks, Graham!
If you need more motivation, think about this; This $1,000 put into a 2.5% dividend stock will have you meet your goal of an additional $25 in yearly income each month!
Josh
October 13, 2017 at 1:59 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
That’s some awesome side hustle income . We had a garage sale today to sell some items we inherited. We also started selling some other clothing items on eBay and posh mark to make some extra cash.
Congrats on the Seeking Alpha articles, that’s one of my primary go-to investing sites.
MrDD
October 13, 2017 at 8:43 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks, Josh!
I really need to find something I want to write about for SeekingAlpha – I haven’t submitted a single article to them so far this month!
desidividend
October 15, 2017 at 3:11 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
wow man,its really nice to see 1k in side income.I got to your website from dividend diplomats.
keep it up man.
MrDD
October 15, 2017 at 6:09 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hey, thanks! It’s my way to accelerate towards financial independence. I often (not all) find my side-hustles fun to do, so it’s getting paid to do what I like.
Jax
October 19, 2017 at 5:27 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I love Bestmark! So far I have only done the web/phone shops. Do you think the new car shops are worth the time and effort? There are a ton in my town for $20 but I am nervous about selling myself as looking for a new car since I’ve only ever bought one car in my life.
Great job looking for gigs on the way to vacation. I love using mystery shopping to cut down on the expenses of trips!
MrDD
October 19, 2017 at 5:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Ahh, don’t sweat it – the salesman is probably too busy salivating over the sale that he won’t notice. Just come up with a scenario as why you need to upgrade. Think like a spendypants person, you can just say you are tired of your old one. The secret shops want you to state a need and let the salesman direct you to the proper car after she/he asks you probing questions to figure out a car that is suitable.
I’ve done the gigs for just $14, so $20 sounds much better! See if there are any jobs in the travel section, the bonuses really make a good payout.
RichestManInLondon (@RichestManInLDN)
October 26, 2017 at 3:28 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Wow you killed it with the gig apps! I will be checking out Easyshift – thanks!
RichestManInLondon (@RichestManInLDN) recently posted…Everything You Need to Know About Finance & Investing in Under an Hour
MrDD
October 26, 2017 at 3:36 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Oh, Easyshift isn’t in the UK (I believe). I don’t know if there is another app like it that does, might want to look around and see what options there are, if any.