We’ve been making some pretty good money here at TMM over the last few months. Could the run continue into April? Let’s find out in this month’s roundup.
What is the purpose of this report?
Most of you now know the drill here, so you can skip this section, but if you’re new then read on whilst we explain what’s going on here.
If you haven’t read our ‘About Us’ page then you probably should. It explains this whole crazy idea, but in essence, we’re just three fairly regular guys from England trying to make money on the side of our regular day jobs.
Income goes into our collective fund where it is earned over and above our usual monthly incomes. So that’s nothing from salaries or our existing personal investments. We’re looking for stuff over and above that. The sort of side-hustles that anyone can pull off if they’ve got the time and energy (and in some cases desperation).
The purpose of publishing these reports is so that you can see how well (or badly) the fund is doing. And we think that’s important for two big reasons:
- The whole purpose of this blog is for us to try money-making methods so that you can see what works and what doesn’t. The best way to prove what’s working and what isn’t is obviously to share our earnings (or lack of them) from these various sources.
- Secondly, we’ve done something that we think is a blogging first. We’re giving all of our readers a 10% stake in the fund – more details on that in this post. And naturally, we think you’ll want to receive regular reports on how that’s going for you.
Simple enough? Let’s crack on and talk about how this month went.
What were our goals for the month?
As you may remember, several months ago we decided to start a business. And frankly we’ve been getting nowhere with it so things needed to happen in April.
Meanwhile, we needed to continue to spin the plates that keep making us our dependable income.
Did we achieve that? Well, yes we did. We had a pretty good month of income, boosted by an eBay windfall – more on that below – and we also made some progress on our business idea.
We’re finding our way around the idea of starting a business and realising that it’s not actually that easy. In the internet era you can easily get suckered into thinking that it’s just a matter of setting up a website and shifting some merchandise. But the reality has been so much harder than that.
Chuck a bit of stock into an online website operation and then spend time growing a beard and looking smug in a swivel chair, that’s all there is to it, right?
Even to start a basic operation and fund it with some stock is going to cost well in excess of £2.5k, which is most of the balance we’ve got in our account – so we don’t want to go spending that sort of money without a pretty clear idea of what we’re getting into.
The good news is that discussions were had, and we think we’ve agreed on a strategy. The next task we’ve got is finding some stock. Sure, we could just get on Alibaba and order some samples, but we’re hoping to offer a slightly more premium product. Watch this space.
Results
| Project | Income | Expenses | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Be My Eye | £15.06 | £15.06 | |
| eBay | £179.60 | -£12.32 | £167.28 |
| Matched Betting | £451.57 | £451.57 | |
| Surveys | £35.00 | £35.00 | |
| Kantar / TNS (stamps) | £7.84 | £7.84 | |
| User Testing | £22.32 | £22.32 | |
| £711.39 | -£12.32 | £699.07 |
Matched Betting
This is the 5th month that we’ve been matched betting. In that time, the three of us have made a combined income of £2,604 (excluding expenses)!
It has been the rocket fuel in this project and long may it continue.
April was an interesting month which had our takings down a little on previous months. The highlight of it all was the grand national, which brought in a few extra pounds but we haven’t been cashing in as many of the weekly bonuses as we previously had.
Part of that is due to starting to get gubbed by some of the bookmakers. All three of us are now gubbed by Betway who obviously know a shifty punter when they see one. It’s a shame, as we’ve made quite a bit of money off those dirty West-Ham-sponsoring fellas.
One thing that has made the journey through matched betting a lot easier is OddsMonkey. We continue to use this and recommend it. If you want to see why, read our OddsMonkey review here.
BeMyEye
BeMyEye – it just keeps on giving! I don’t think we’ve had a month since discovering the app where we didn’t bring in at least £10. It’s good pocket money, for what are frankly not too difficult jobs.
Sadly, jobs have been a little harder to come by of late, but two missions were completed in the app and a nice little side income continued to be earned.
This month Chris had to count shavers in a well know pharmacy, as one mission on BeMyEye – glamorous, eh!
Thanks again to those who signed up and completed missions using our link in the review. It does give you an extra £1 as well as us when it happens, and we love it!
AIf you fancy trying your luck with this app, check out our BeMyEye app review.
eBay
We went big-time on eBay this month and it resulted in a massive windfall.
We’ll have to describe this in slightly sketchy terms for the purpose of this report. But basically, Dave came across hundreds of pounds worth of items that he needed to shift.
Before you ask, no they were not the proceeds of crime. Dave had merely been sitting on some surplus damaged – but still passable – merchandise for a while now. When he first mentioned the idea of donating them to the fund, I don’t think he realised exactly how much they could be worth.
Shifting the items was true teamwork. Dave photographed and identified the items, Ben listed them on eBay and then – due to unfortunate holiday scheduling – Chris ended up being the one dispatching them. You probably couldn’t have come up with a more complicated and inefficient system.
Think of all the great logistical shipping systems out there. Ours was the exact opposite, pish poor.
Remarkably though, all the items went for a decent price, and they all got posted to the right place, which was an administrative miracle and we’ve been heartily congratulating ourselves for it.
This month’s windfall definitely won’t be an ongoing thing but we’ve still got some of these items to shift and that probably means that we’ll be able to get another month or two like this – although probably we’ll give it a rest in May.
Kantar / TNS – stamps
Stamps. Again. We got some.
But for the first time since we began, we actually managed to use some. Sure, it was only a couple used to post some of our eBay items, but at least we made a slight dent in the stamp mountain that Dave is sitting on (not literally).
Surveys
Ben got back on the survey wagon and pulled in £35 doing them.
Chris is a Rizla paper away from getting paid £50 from what seems like an eternity of having done YouGov surveys. He absolutely hates it and, whilst a little of that annoyance probably comes across in his YouGov review that he posted a couple of weeks back, he’s waiting (like any good coward) until he gets paid in full to give them both barrels.
Overall total
Amount at the start of the month: £2,455.24
Income: £711.39
Expenses: -£12.32
Total value of the Fund at end of the month: £3,154.31
The project is now 10 months old! We’re fast approaching the year deadline, and it’s going to be tight to see if we can make £4k by the time our birthday comes around.
We’ve hit on 7 or 8 great, dependable ways of making regular money and it’s working out pretty nicely for us. Of course, Matched Betting continues to be the main source that’s fueling our progress, but we’re hoping to use the capital we’re building up to branch out into other ideas.
What next?
In May we’re going to:
- Go and visit a supplier of products for our new business idea. We really need to start getting it off the ground soon.
- Continue to keep the money flowing in from our usual side hustles.
- Start thinking about how to mark our 1 year anniversary, and also how we’re using what remains of the reader share of the fund (after our charitable donation of £50 last month).
Let us know your thoughts
As always, if you’ve got any comments, questions or ideas on how we can make money on this site then get in touch.
Are we going about this the wrong way? Are we missing easy opportunities? Have you got any money making suggestions you think we should try? Let us know in the comments below.