Income report August 2017: Discover how I made over £1800 working from home (even with the summer holidays)
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My target for August 2017 was £1000 and I’m pleased to report I made over £1800 with various making money from home ventures. I wasn’t sure how August was going to go as we had the summer holidays, so I had a lot less time in the day to work on my blog. Bella is usually in school and Reuben had 14 hours in childcare. Over the summer holidays they went to holiday club for three mornings a week which gave me just under 15 hours to work. We also went away to Germany to visit family the first Monday to Friday, so this meant very little time on the laptop! I just had the chance to catch up for one hour or so each evening.
Luckily my earnings weren’t bad at all and I’m impressed they were nearly £2000. The annoying thing with being self-employed is always being owed money! I’m always owed upwards of £500. If some of my payments had come through I would have even made £2000+ in August. But the good thing is it’s a nice start to my September earnings!
I gave up my part time job in May. In my last job I worked from 5-8.30pm every evening Monday to Friday meaning I dashed out during dinner time, missing our family meals every evening, returning home after the children were in bed meaning I missed every bath time and bed time. I had already started making money from home for quite a while and decided to really go for it and aimed to make £1000 per month from home.
So far I’ve thrashed my target every month. £1000 is way more than I earned in any of my part time jobs around the children and fitting in a job around Ben’s job. It works for me and I much prefer working from home. Once I realised blogging could make me money I looked into other home money making ventures and I now do a few things from home. I’ve recently concentrated a lot more on blogging, but when I fully went for it with the mystery shopping apps I was able to make over £3000 from home! It proved to me it really is possible to make a full time wage from home if you put the effort in.
I now spend most of my day and evening working from home. Reuben has just started 18 hours of childcare this term, so I’m hoping it will make a big difference to how much I can get done in the day. I’m still working from home almost every evening after dinner. At least we get a dinner together without me rushing out to work 5 minutes in. Bed times are trickier as if I put the children to bed they won’t settle and want me to stay with them until they fall asleep! By this point I’m falling asleep myself and have not done any work. This means Ben is doing most of the bedtime routines for now, until the children go to bed a bit better with me, or until I can work more in the day and less in the evening, once both the children are in school this will make things easier. Even next year Reuben may get 24 hours a week at preschool (his doesn’t open for 30 hours), so I’m looking forward to getting a healthier work-family balance then.
Income Report: August 2017
In August I earned £1846.64 from home!
This is my total before any expenses, tax, NI or anything else! Here’s the breakdown:
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Blogging £1210
This is from sponsored blog posts, reviews and giveaways. I charge for my time and services for all types of blog posts if approached by a company. I get offered items every day to review, but I rarely accept them and only work for a fee. One review can take several hours of my time, so it would be impossible to accept them all and work for free, which many companies seem to just expect. I’d have no time left for any paid work and no income whatsoever if I did! That’s not to say you shouldn’t accept an item in exchange for a review. It’s ultimately your choice. For the first three years when my blog was more a hobby and I didn’t plan to monetise, I accepted items for a review without payment. I do think you should consider how much time it takes you and how long you have spent building your audience up, etc, and don’t automatically give it all to a brand for free. Most companies have advertising budgets and are willing to pay for your services.
Referrals £112.56
Ooh, I actually thought this was lower than last month, but just realised it’s higher! This is from people using my referral links for Profit Accumulator and Nutriseed – two companies I highly recommend and use myself. It’s so great to know other people are making money through PA from my recommendation and also that people are ordering super-duper healthy goodies for them self! Two fantastic things if you ask me!
Ads £100
This is the first money I’ve made from selling ad space this year on my blog. I do also have an ad page with 12 months ads for bloggers and businesses which I think I need to shout about a little more.
Tweets £40
This is only the second time I’ve been paid to tweet only for a campaign. Usually I only write blog posts for companies, but I was asked to write two tweets for a company and paid for doing so. If only it was all that easy!
Matched Betting £209.66
An amazingly successful matched betting month compared to last month, thanks to the football season starting up. I also had a go at a beginner’s offer I had been avoiding for ages as it was ‘spread betting’ – something I’d not heard of before and looked a little complicated. I read through and realised it wasn’t too hard at all as Profit Accumulator talked me through it so well, as always, and so made almost £50 from this one offer. I have, however, been gubbed from 8 bookies now and some really good ones, so it will be interesting to see how much I continue to make. You can place ‘mug bets’ to stop this happening, but I just can’t find any more time in the day! I plan to continue as long as possible until I’m gubbed from them all or until it’s illegal! Some people never get gubbed, even if they don’t do mug bets, so it’s really impossible to know whether they are always worth it or not.
I highly recommend using Profit Accumulator for matched betting as a beginner. They have so many guides and walk you through the whole process in the first few offers. If you are stuck you can ask a question in the forum and someone will get back to you. They also have a 30 day money back guarantee on their memberships, plus you can try the first couple of offers without even signing up to anything.
Click here to try Profit Accumulator today!
Catch up on some of my previous blog posts about matched betting here:
I’ve made £300 tax free cash from home in 2 weeks and you can too!
£753.62 Matched Betting Profit Month One (and silly mistakes)
Not sure about matched betting? Make £40ish now to see if it’s for you!
Matched Betting Profit 2 Months: £1341.81
Matched betting profit after 3 months: £1706.81
Mystery Tasks £6
My quietest month so far mystery shopping, but it would have been impossible with both the children in the summer holidays. Any spare time I’ve had has been spent blogging or eBaying. I’m hoping I can up my mystery shopping soon, once I’m on top of blog stuff. In May I made over £200 just from mystery shopping apps!
Apps I use are Streetbees, Roamler, Task360 and BeMyEye. You need an invite code for Roamler. Use hashtags like #UKRoamler #Roamler or #Roamlercode to find one.
Business sales £47.88
A few sales in my online fashion boutique this month which is great news! I’ve added a few new handbags this month, so do check them out.
Personal eBay £120.54
I’ve gone from 75 items last month to 120 on eBay now. I find with around 100 items for sale I get approx. one sale per day. I’ve fine combed our wardrobes and the playroom a couple of times, plus I still have a couple of boxes to get through in the attic. I’d love to only have exactly what we need. That’s my aim! I’m definitely a minimalist at heart. I hate clutter and I love the feeling of getting the things we don’t need or use out of the house!
September £1500 challenge
Now the summer holidays are over and I shall have up to 18 hours per week kid free, I’m going to give myself a £1500 target for September to make money from home.
Wish me luck!