Income report - how I made £1917.18 from home in August 2019

Posted on 9:00pm Monday 2nd Sep 2019

It’s the start of another month which means it’s time to reflect upon last month’s blog and online earnings. August is notorious for being a pretty quiet month for bloggers who rely on their blogs for a living.

Many people are taking time off work to go on holiday, make the most of the warm weather at home and to look after children in the school holidays.

I remember my blogging August in 2017 was quieter than usual, but weirdly in 2018 I was really busy. I still constantly saw other bloggers mentioning how quiet it was for them though.

This year August was a quiet month for me again. It was still quite steady and I *just* made enough money for the month.

It was also pretty stressful to be a quieter month as it was my husband’s first full month being self-employed. We were about £1000 down compared to what we’re used to, so it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment getting used to less money from him and especially when I have a quiet month too.

We will have to learn to budget more than usual and resist the urge to tap into our savings. We did hard-core save for six months before he quit his job and you can read all about how we saved £6500 in 6 months.

To me those savings are for absolute emergencies like injury or illness that prevents one or both of us from working. Then we have the cash savings to pay for our mortgage and bills that cannot be paid for on an emergency credit card. It makes me feel safe that the savings are there, but we also need to save more money to cover when either of us has a quiet month or two.

Let’s hope September is back to being a busy bustling month once everyone is back in the office and back to work!

August 2019 blogging and online income report

Welcome to my monthly income report where I share how much money I make from home. The income I share is from blogging, online side hustles, website testing, online selling, cash back and more!

Basically, I share all the income I’ve made, no matter where it’s from - self-employment and other places. Discover lots of links to resources so you can make money from home too!

I mostly make money from being a full-time blogger, but I love hustling to make money from lots of other places too. There are so many ways to make extra cash for free from home. I love to discover them, try them and share them on my UK money blog.

This blog post shares my total turnover for the month, before tax deductions and expenses. My expenses differ each month as some payments are not monthly; however my average monthly business expenses, tax savings, national insurance, pension and student loan payments are £830. Deduct this from the total for an idea of my take-home pay.

Taking that all off reduces my income quite drastically, but it’s still an amazing income to me for working from home and being the main child carer. We have two children and it’s me who does all the school drop offs, pickups and after school clubs, etc. Getting a job within the school hours would never pay me as much as I can currently earn by myself at home.

To read why I share my income reports start with the blog post why I publish income reports

Another great read is how I made £32000 from home in 2018/2019

If you want to learn more about this blog and how it came to be then read the story of Lylia Rose

Thanks for following my journey.

Enjoy :)

Let’s take a more in-depth look from the smallest to largest earnings this month:

Income report blogging how I made £1917.18 from home in August 2019

Top Cashback £0.87

We love Top Cashback and check it before buying or booking anything online to see if we can get cashback by using their link to go to the website instead. I also have a browser notifier that lets me know if a website I'm viewing offers cashback. I only had a small amount to cash-out this month, but I have over £100 in pending. That’ll be nice when it clears!

Green Jinn £1.55

GreenJinn is a smartphone app which has digital coupons for supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose. Simply find a coupon you want to use, take a photo of your receipt once you've bought the item and within a day or so you'll get your cashback. You can then cash it out to your PayPal account once you reach £1.50.

Quidco £2.07

I always check Top Cashback first, but if they don’t have the store I’m buying from then I’ll check Quidco which is another cashback website. I usually use Quidco when I’m buying things from H&M or Amazon.

Curve £5.00

Curve is a Mastercard that is linked to all your other cards. It basically saves you the hassle of carrying a bunch of cards around with you. You simply carry the Curve card and choose which of your cards you want to pay with using their app. It doesn't cost anything for the basic plan. You get cashback at your three chosen retailers for the first three months and then £5 cashback for you/your friend every time you refer anyone.

Get £5 free cash if you sign up to Curve with code FL2KH or click my referral link https://www.curve.com/join/#FL2KH (cashback is applied after you've used the Curve card at least once within 7 days)

Read more here: Get free cash with Curve

Whatusersdo / Intellizoom £5.00

I do website testing at Intellizoom for £5 per test. This was Whatusersdo, but they’ve just rebranded or merged with another company so my referral link no longer works. If I can get a new link from the new company then I’ll let you know or search for Intellizoom to see if you can sign up as a tester.

Shoppix £5.00

I snap all my receipts on a smart phone app called Shoppix to collect points which I can then exchange for cash. I make around £5 per month at the moment.

There’s also some short surveys and scratchcards which allow you to win even more points so you can hit the cash out threshold quicker.

Shoppix freebie! If you enter 52YFMN8U when you download the Shoppix app, we can both get 200 tokens when you snap a valid receipt and complete the profile survey!

SnapMyEats £5.00

This is a smart phone app that rewards you with Amazon vouchers for taking photos of your food receipts and answering a couple of quick questions.

You can get a maximum of £5 in vouchers for snapping 15 food receipts in one month. Sometimes they offer bonuses too.

Find out more here: SnapMyEats review – earn Amazon gift cards with your food receipts

Shopmium £5.36

Another supermarket cashback/coupon app! Sign up with my Shopmium referral link and you'll get a freebie like a jar of Nutella!

Top Cashback referrals £7.50

Top Cashback also have a great referral scheme. Once you are signed up you can get a refer-a-friend link. Once your friends have earned a certain amount of cashback then you will get rewarded. I’ve had anywhere from £5 to £15.

User Testing £15.98

User Testing is a great place to do website testing. There are loads of tests every day, but it depends on your availability and demographics to which you are able to complete.

Find out more: Make money online testing websites and apps with UserTesting

Prolific Academic £18.55

I complete lots of studies online to help academics with their research. It's really interesting and the studies are so varied. Some only take one or two minutes. It’s anything from a few random questions to concentration tests to views on food packaging!

Find out more: Make money at home with Prolific Academic

Competition winnings £20.00

I often find paid blogging work from a company called Get Blogged and I recommend them to others. Because of this they have karma awards and I won a cash prize!

They are great for new bloggers as you only need a DA5 to start applying for some of the opportunities: How to make money blogging with Get Blogged

Checkoutsmart £23.91

This is another cashback app and they had some great savings on cereal that usually costs around £4 for only £1 on the app. We could buy up to five of each variety so we purchased quite a few!

This is an app from the cashback site Quidco. You can receive up to 100% cashback on selected items from the major supermarkets and also Ocado. To avoid a cashout fee, just wait until you have over £20 to withdraw. Sign up here: www.checkoutsmart.com

Awin affiliate marketing £32.00

I’ve started getting regular payments from Awin now, so my affiliate linking strategy is working a bit more!

I cut down on the amount of companies I promote and most of them are those I use myself, with a few that I think sound like great companies too. It’s much easier to recommend the ones I have used or do currently use. I use banners from Awin on my website which I think helps increase my earnings too.

Awin is an affiliate marketing platform where online publishers/bloggers can have access to thousands of well-known brands affiliate programmes.

They also have a marketplace where you can list all your services such as blog posts, giveaways and social shares. I’ve secured a few sponsored blog posts from their marketplace.

Another bonus is you can join their own affiliate programme and you'll get £30 per person you refer to Awin .

It costs £5 to join Awin, but you'll get that back in your first payment. The payment threshold is only £20 and they pay this directly to your bank once you reach £20 of approved commissions.

Find out more: How to make money from your blog with Awin

Facebook Marketplace £33.00

I only have a couple of things on Facebook Marketplace at the moment. I made £30 from a ride-on kids tractor and £3 for some mailing boxes I don’t ever use.

Personal eBay £48.10

This was from selling our pre-loved items. In August I sold books, a tin of tea, puzzles, CDs and clothes. I have 100 items listed on eBay again now as I convinced Ben to let me list his CDs that have been in the attic for the entire time we’ve been together as everything is downloaded to iTunes now!

It’s only pocket money, but it’s great when we’ve spent our money for the week and then check our eBay PayPal to find we have £10 or £20 to treat ourselves or if we need some food shopping. The little sales all add up.

Profit Accumulator referrals £73.26

This is from referring people to Profit Accumulator who I highly recommend for matched betting. I used them for 26 months and made over £5600 in profit in my spare time. Some people make that in a couple of months!

You don’t need to understand how it all works as PA have step-by-step guides that show you exactly what to do, even without any betting or sports knowledge. Believe me, I have no knowledge of either of those things!

They have a great referral scheme too, so if you love matched betting then you can make even more money by referring your friends and family.

Find out more: How to easily make money matched betting

Blog writing £1,615.03

This is my main passion and most lucrative way of making money from home. I won’t go into how to do it here, but I do share this information regularly on my blog. You can find articles in the blogging sections in my top menu and I’ll paste links to lots of useful blog posts below if you want to monetise a blog.

I write four blogs which really helps to increase my blogging income each month. Since last year I have really niched down on this blog to make it a money blog and so my other favourite topics are now on their own blogs: travel, healthy living, home and garden.

Of course I still cover these topics here too, but with a money angle.

I love to blog so that’s one reason I set up more blogs, but also to try and increase my income. If one blog can make a full-time living, then what about four?

Of course there’s still only one of me and only so much time, but if I can build the other blogs up then there’s a good chance I can really make a great wage permanently. That’s the plan. I could employ my husband and we could be digital nomads once the kids turn 18! I think that’s my secret plan…

Anyway. Lylia Rose, this blog, is my main blog and makes the most money. Then my newer blogs top up this income.

I pretty much have two pricing structures. A new blog post or an edit to an existing blog post. A new blog post could include a sponsored blog post, brand collaboration, product review or hosting a giveaway. These are all one price and I charge for my time and resources.

Here’s what I made from each blog in August:

lyliarose.com £1,216.60
healthyvix.com £178.00
travelvixta.com £137.43
wood-create.com £83.00

Lylia Rose is DA36 and gets the most work, mostly because of its high DA. The other blogs have DA scores of 19, 20 and 25 and so they get a little work each month. My aim is to get them all into the 30s and if you want lots of paid blog work then that should be your aim.

Of course a lot of companies use other metrics such as DR, TF, CF, SEMrush traffic and all sorts to determine whether to work with a blog or not, so it’s important to try and build them all up. It takes time, years in my experience, but it’s definitely worth it if you have the determination and passion to blog for a living.

I’m by no means technical and a lot of the SEO and rankings that I mention above are complicated! There’s a lot of information online though and plenty of bloggers that write about their own experiences so you can always find tips easily online. It’s very overwhelming if you’re a beginner, but just take it one step at a time and expect it to take time. Everyone in the blogging and digital world is always learning new things every day.

Here are some of my helpful articles if you want to monetise your blog:

Make money from your blog with Awin affiliate marketing
Make money from your blog without Google ads
4 ways to find paid blog opportunities

How to improve your domain authority (DA)
Make money blogging with Get Blogged (even as a new blogger)
Make money blogging with Considerable Influence

Make money blogging with Press Loft
Make money blogging with Bloggers Required
6 secrets to make more money from your blog

6 handy tax tips for bloggers
All make money blogging blog posts

How I drive traffic to my blog
10 ways to make money blogging
Everything you need to stay organised and productive as a professional blogger

Is it really possible to make money blogging?
5 reasons to use Awin as a blogger
What is Awin?

Make money blogging with Encatena

More blogging advice:

Loads of blogging tips
5 tips to overcome writer’s block when blogging
Where to find free stock photos for blogs

Bloggers share the blogging advice you should ignore
Bloggers share their best photography tips
Bloggers share their favourite blogging quotes and mottos

GRAND TOTAL: £1,917.18

Freebies

Shoppix - If you enter 52YFMN8U when you download the Shoppix app, we can both get 200 tokens when you snap a valid receipt and complete the profile survey!

Curve - Get £5 free cash if you sign up to Curve with code FL2KH or use my referral link https://www.curve.com/join/#FL2KH

Shopmium - Sign up with my Shopmium referral link and you'll get a freebie like a jar of Nutella!

BeMyEye - Get a £1 BeMyEye bonus for your first mission in store! A really easy way to make money in your free time. Use code 0rg1zy when you sign up by clicking here