We’ve been storming it for a few months now, making income of thousands of pounds. Surely this couldn’t last forever, could it?
No, it couldn’t. In May we hit the brakes pretty abruptly. Here’s what happened.
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?
At the end of April we set the following goals for May:
- 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).
Now, I can only begin to imagine the tension in your living room, bedroom, throne room as you read this. Did we make it? What is the point of it all? When will these clowns give up the ghost?
Visiting a supplier
Well, as you and our other reader will no doubt have seen, Chris, Dave and Ben took a day trip to Melton Mowbray to visit a potential supplier for our new business idea, so there’s a MASSIVE TICK at the top of the list. What Chris omitted from his report was the disastrous start to the day when Ben got up at Sparrow’s Fart and went around 50miles in the wrong direction. As a chap who isn’t much of an early riser, this had the potential to scupper the whole day, but the promise of riches beyond his wildest dreams soon placated him – and at the end of the day, it was his own bloody fault.
A successful visit to the pie capital of the world if only because we got our hands on cut-price meat and pastry. The visit to the supplier opened our eyes to a few things and that we’re perhaps not quite financially ready to take on such an undertaking. Nothing has been ruled out yet, but we have to consider our options right now…and in a desperate attempt to keep you both on the hook, we hope to have an update on an alternative plan in the next couple of weeks.
The money flow
As the title suggests and the results table below shows, the flow has turned a little into a trickle and between the three of us we made what we would normally make as an individual, which is quite poor, but I guess like our beloved Tottenham Hotspur, we were bound to run out of steam eventually in the absence of any investment. The end of the football season has also meant opportunities are limited for matched betting as none of us has really got into horses, tennis, grey hounds etc. Perhaps the Nations League in June will provide an opportunity or two
The readers fund
As we promised way back when, 10% of the fund belongs to the readership for you to do with as you please (within reason). As we’re coming up to our first anniversary it is time to make good on that promise and distribute the money accordingly. We’ve started talking about what to do, (although we did make a charitable donation on behalf of The Money Mountain and our readership to The Cavendish Centre, sponsoring Rachel Harris)…we’re pretty sure you won’t mind, but with Chris and Dave having family in Sheffield and Ben having lived there for a number of years when he was young and pretty, it’s a part of the world close to all three of us.
For the rest of the fund, like the business, there will be an update in the next couple of weeks as the first anniversary comes and goes. An email has been drafted, the lucky subscribers have been drawn out of the hat and that is just part one of the plan for the money. I know, I know; it’s a bonanza!
Results
| Project | Income | Expenses | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Be My Eye | £19.00 | £19.00 | |
| eBay | £17.33 | -£5.05 | £12.28 |
| Matched Betting | £52.76 | £52.76 | |
| Surveys | £29.00 | £29.00 | |
| Kantar / TNS (stamps) | £12.08 | £12.08 | |
| £130.17 | -£5.05 | £125.12 |
Matched Betting
A bad month for all on this front. Perhaps a little apathy, perhaps the end of the football season, but ultimately a poor performance from the lads who all need to take a long hard look at themselves. At the risk of alerting the bookies to our shenanigans, we all feel it would look odd to now start betting on things we haven’t previously bet on and as all of us have been gubbed by Betway and Ben is also persona non grata at Coral, we don’t want to upset anymore of them before the lucrative football season starts again (not soon enough) in August. 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 – once again this app has come up trumps, and Chris made a healthy £19 from it.
Jobs this month involved checking roads in London for one-way access. It was a strange mission, but quite an easy one. The correct road was located, the road signs were photographed and £3 per mission was earned. The only thing Chris had to watch out for was taking missions that were far enough away from his work location. He didn’t want his work colleagues thinking he’s turned into some sort of road-traffic nerd on his lunchbreaks.
Aside from the missions Chris completed himself, readers of this site helped us earn £6 in referrals this month. You each earned £1 bonus through it, and so did we. Thank you so much to all of you who were kind enough to read our review and use our link.
All Chris had to do for this month’s missions was stand in the roads in London and take pictures of the road signs. It felt like a bit more danger money should have come with this task…
eBay
Following on from April’s massive success, we had a little stock left over which we managed to shift in May, so that’s a couple of quid in the bank. Ben is continuing to scour eBay for Stieff/Steiff bears, but they are few and far between.
Kantar / TNS – stamps
There were stamps this month. The usual. TNS postal surveys came up trumps. There’s little else to say about this one.
Surveys
The continued success of surveys on Life Points Panel is continuing to bring home some bacon which is nicely ticking over. A Focus Force provided a welcome boost to the survey revenue this month, but it must be said that it is damn hard work to be invited to a panel. I would estimate it is around 1 in 10 applications which results in an invite.
Overall total
Amount at the start of the month: £3,154.31
Income: £130.17
Expenses: -£5.05
Total value of the Fund at end of the month: £3,279.43
The project is now 11 months old! We’re fast approaching the year deadline, and it’s unlikely we’ll make a nice round £4k by the time our birthday comes around at the end of June.
But still, we’ve hit on some cracking 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?
It’s pretty simple in June:
- Drag ourselves over the 12 month line with as big a total as we possibly can!
- Work out what to do with the reader share. This post here is your very last chance to read and sign up to the email list if you want to be consulted on it.
- Possibly buy a business – sounds cryptic, we know. More on that one if we land this baby!
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.