Hello there! As you probably already know, out venture here at the money mountain is now 1 year old.
In that time, we’ve had some ups and downs, but overall it has been a pretty decent year. We’ve managed to make a decent chunk of money, help some people with charitable donations, and learn a few lessons along the way.
In this post we thought it was worth stopping to take in the view. We’ve been reflecting on what we’ve done, the lessons we’ve learned, and where we’re going in future.
As we keep saying, we consider our readers to be a vital part of this project. Please get in touch – either in the comments below or on twitter – with your thoughts and ideas on it all!
Right, here are the key lessons we’ve picked up.
1. There’s no such thing as money for nothing
First off, money virtually never just falls into your lap. We’ve made a huge amount of money over the year but we’ve had to work for all of it.
It might seem an obvious point, but one that it seems some people still don’t appreciate: money has to be earned.
Ridiculously simple and obvious, right? Well, if that were the case, why are there so many people out there who don’t seem to have learned this? It genuinely seems like there are people just waiting around for money to fall from the sky.
Waiting for that free money like…
Whenever you earn money, you’re trading something for it. Either your time, your brain power, physical effort, or actual goods. It’s always one of those, and sometimes a combination of them.
It’s never earned without some effort.
2. Some money is made more easily than others
The key to making money through side hustles is to pick the money-making methods that suit you best.
Between the three of us, we’ve noticed that we’ve been drawn to different methods of making money, depending on our personal circumstances and preferences.
As an example, I have enjoyed making money by mystery shopping with the app BeMyEye (check out our review here). It’s relatively convenient as I’m in towns most days and I find the missions a chance to have a good nose around in shops and places I wouldn’t otherwise go in. It suits me nicely and I’ve trousered about £300 through it. To me this is easy.
On the other hand I cannot stand online surveys. I manage about 10 minutes of doing them before I start to feel my blood pressure rising. 15 minutes and I’m throwing the laptop across the room and declaring a jihad on every survey company I can think of (read my less-than-glowing review of YouGov Surveys here). I’ve made only £50 this way. It’s incredibly frustrating work for me.
Ben, on the other hand, is a fan of the surveys. Ok, the word ‘fan’ might be stretching it a bit far, but he’s certainly got the patience they require. He’s made almost £200 this year through them. This work seems relatively easy for him.
If you’re going to climb the money mountain, take the easiest route…
The lesson: there are lots of ways of making money out there and some will suit you better than others. Try a few and work out which suits you best.
3. Matched betting is one of the best – if not the best – side hustles out there
The three of us debate the merits of various money-making methods, but we’re agreed on this. Matched betting is just about the easiest way you can make money from the comfort of your own home.
I’m starting to get a bit wary of raving about matched betting too much on this site for 2 reasons:
- We don’t want to exclusively focus on it and seem like that’s our only means of earning money
- We don’t want to come across as giving it the hard sell.
But, that said, it has been the way we’ve earned 80% of our money and that’s because it’s easy and flexible. Frankly, if you’re not doing this as a side income, you’re mad.
If you still aren’t on the Matched Betting bandwagon, check out our post on whether it’s legit, and how you can get started.
4. The more money you’ve got, the more opportunities you have to make money
We looked into starting an online business, back in March of this year. It all sounded good in practice until we worked out that it would realistically cost £8k to get the thing running and buy the stock. Wow.
The idea had to be put on the back burner as our wallets aren’t that fat, and we certainly didn’t fancy taking on a loan That’s too much money for us to risk at this point.
I’ve said it for a while, and this is just one more piece of evidence: it’s easier to make money if you’ve already got money.
The number of doors you can open seems to depend on the funds you’ve got available.
That’s simply because there are so many more options available which need an initial level of capital in order to invest.
Hopefully as this project continues to grow we’ll start to unlock a few more of these opportunities.
5. Finding a blog audience is hard!!
We do get internet traffic to this site. But nearly all of it comes from searches.
Precious little repeat business seems to come about from loyal followers. In fact, genuine followers have been a little hard to come by – so much so that when we tried to give out free money to them, we struggled even to find people who wanted to take it! I still can’t get my head round that.
Maybe the blogging space is too crowded with finance-type blogs (especially FIRE ones), but it really is difficult to get traction out there.
Blogging – sometimes lonelier and bleaker than the above….
Hopefully in year 2 we’ll be able to build an audience. And we’d love to hear from any of you reading this on how we can do better on that.
So please, let us know. Pull no punches. What would make you read us on a regular basis? How can we improve the site?
Thanks to those of you who do read and follow us. Here’s to another good year for us all!