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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matched Betting | £437.65 | -£17.99 | £419.66 |
| Surveys | £25.50 | £25.50 | |
| Kantar / TNS (stamps) | £12.08 | £12.08 | |
| £475.23 | -£17.99 | £457.24 |
Whilst £475 for the month is tidy – in fact it’s the kind of total we would have been in tears of joy at a matter of months ago. However, when you consider that this is around half of what we did in December, January has to be viewed as something of a quiet month, relatively.
While it’s a little disappointing to be significantly lower than last months earnings, it is important to put this into perspective:
- Last month was an extremely good month and perhaps something of an anomaly, especially with all kinds of Christmas bonuses and offers flying around the Matched Betting side of things
- £475 from one month of side-hustling at this point in a project like this is still very respectable.
- January proved a challenging month time-wise for each of us; with Chris moving back into a newly renovated house, Ben travelling the world with work and Dave selling a business. This meant all our more time intensive projects or ideas had to be curtailed for a while.
- January is the Piers Morgan of months and we all know it.
Matched Betting
The realisation we have all come to is that Matched Betting actually works, and seems fairly sustainable. It takes a small time commitment but only an hour or so at a computer every week. Whilst I for one was skeptical at first, I am converted to it now as a good way of making a side income without too much effort.
Even after a lot of the initial offers are used up and the December silly season bonuses are gone, we still each made a good amount in January even with limited time – OddsMonkey is a godsend for saving time on this and keeping it simple.
If you want to learn more about it, you can check out our how to get started on matched betting article and for those who do want to make some side money, our 12 essential matched betting tips.
Kantar / TNS – stamps
Total stamp stash as at end of Jan 19 is £76.48. While it’s building nicely, we still don’t really have any idea of how best to use it. Perhaps we’ll soon be able to open our own post office.
Overall total
Amount at the start of the month: £1,034.95
Income: £475.23
Expenses: -£17.99
Total value of the Fund at end of January: £1,492.19
What next?
Last month we told you we would be meeting in January to discuss what direction to take now we have a bit of financial clout to get behind something. Unfortunately we had to push it back due to our busy schedules. The good news is that we have rescheduled for today (as I write this on the 7th Feb). As such, we should have a better idea of what is next by tonight and we will of course let you know. Some of the ideas that have been mooted so far are an investment club, starting a new business, purchasing an existing business (it would have to be a small online one at this price range) and exploring dropshipping amongst a few other ideas.
One point for celebration in January was that we got a bit of a spike in traffic to the website. We’re not rivaling Facebook quite yet, but this blog has got a little bit more attention. We haven’t done any monetisation of the site yet as it hasn’t been too busy, but we may look to make the most of this as traffic picks up – making sure it’s nothing intrusive or annoying of course. The extra traffic also has the bonus of making us feel a little bit like rockstars…
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.