This was the month it started to come together! We’ve smashed it. Despite Christmas, despite weeks of work travel, despite other commitments, despite screaming kids and yes, even despite Brexit, we’ve waltzed towards a rather nice total in the fund.
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 the 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?
We wanted to start something new and although we technically started it in November, December was the month that Matched Betting came of age for us. eBay continued with (as you will have read in the other posts), some success, but nothing which will help us climb The Money Mountain. We needed something to start bringing in some serious money.
Results
| Project | Income | Expenses | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Be My Eye | £37.60 | -£1.00 | £36.60 |
| Surveys | £156.50 | £156.50 | |
| eBay | £23.84 | -£25.70 | -£1.86 |
| Kantar / TNS (stamps) | £9.37 | £9.37 | |
| Matched Betting | 758.58 | -£17.99 | 740.59 |
| £985.89 | -£44.69 | £941.20 |
BeMyEye
December was actually a quiet month for Chris on BeMyEye. The income that came through was mostly relating to work that had been performed in November (but hadn’t been paid in time for last month’s update).
But in addition to that, two further jobs were picked up, both of which saw him having to visit bookmakers for mystery shopping tasks.
Ebay
Chris started to get rid of some of his football boot stock that he’s now hoarding. Unfortunately as Christmas took hold, it didn’t seem a very good time to be selling so most of the sales were put on hold and will resume in January. Hopefully yielding a nice little earner and bringing to the end Chris’ project.
At that point hopefully he’ll be able to tell us if his eBay reselling venture is really worth carrying on further.
Ben maintained his 100% eBay record with a successful sale of a pair of trousers, and while the % profit was reasonable, it added a mere £3.39 to the coffers. No one is retiring to the Cote d’Azur anytime soon with that kind of return. Perseverance is the key, but it is bloody time consuming trying to buy the right products at the right price.
Kantar / TNS – stamps
Another month, another set of stamps! We’re up to £64.40 of first class stamps now. And still no idea what to do with them. If anyone is in the market for some stamps then get in touch.
Matched Betting
When we started this project back in the summer, all of us had heard of matched betting but knew precious little about it. Chris had placed a couple of bets as part of his bemyeye escapades, Ben has been to Vegas a couple of times and has an old Ladbrokes account and as for Dave; Dave keeps his cards close to his chest.
A little research into what it was all about showed us a world that seems to be quite lucrative if you get it right. We had a look at different platforms for it, Ben signed up to be a premium member with Oddsmonkey and also subsequently became an affiliate on behalf of The Money Mountain. We’ll be writing more about this in January, but in the meantime, it’d be great if you wanted to sign up using the link above to support us and the good causes we’ll be donating to in the summer.
Chris and Dave used a couple of different free platforms to see what the differences are. Again, we’ll be talking about these in January.
Overall total
Amount at the start of the month: £93.75
Income: £985.89
Expenses: -£44.69
Total value of the Fund at end of July: £1,034.95
What next?
As the Notorious B.I.G. once said, “Mo money, mo problems.” Now we’ve got a few quid behind us, the question is “what do we do with it?” We don’t want to leave it in the bank as inflation will erode its buying power, we can bank roll more matched betting with it, we can invest it in the stock market, we can bulk buy on eBay and resell, we can crowd fund…the world is our oyster. We’ve got a meeting planned for the three of us in January to decide what to do with it. An investment club has been mooted; we’ll keep you posted either way. One thing’s for sure, we’ll be telling you a little more about investment clubs later in the month regardless of whether or not we decide to start one up.
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.