Instalment 3 of the side hustle. Small but meaningful extra income.
Unless you are lucky enough (or savy enough depending on your point of view) to have made a mint out of Bitcoin then making some extra cash requires quite a bit of research and lots of actual work.
I’ve been doing the side hustles for a few months now so I thought it’s time for a little update.
Beekeeping. This is my hobby, but as any beekeeper will tell you it’s not a cheap passtime. I am fortunate enough to have a few acres of land around our little Welsh cottage and a good friend who is a very experienced beekeeper.
He provided my first hive and caught a swarm for me. (Thank you Martin!) Without this a starter kit in the UK is about £575. Then you may need an introductory course, not sure what these cost. So this is not for the faint hearted. However if you get some spare honey you can sell it. I am just about to put this years crop up for sale. I am going low key and I’ll pop a sign outside the door which I hope will attract people from the village. I’ve ordered jars and once I get a full one to weigh I’ll make up some labels. Speaking with another beekeeper I’m looking at about £7 a jar. My jars are 12oz or somewhere around 300g. I have about 30 jars to sell after a poor harvest this year, not quite a get rich quick scheme but it helps offset the costs of something I enjoy doing.
My Dog walking has become a regular income. I get £10 a walk and only do local. I have to fit it in with my job so that limits my customers to those kind, understanding ones who really just want their pooch walked a few times a week and for whatever reason cann’t do it themselves.
I haven’t signed up to any dog walking agency — well I haven’t completed my sign up because one of them wanted cash up front and the other failed my online sign up for ‘proof of ID’ even though it was all legit and I just couldn’t be bothered to keep trying.
So bottom line is I currently have 2 customers at the moment. For one I do 3 walks a week and the other has lots of dogs so we do 3 multi walks a week at £15 a time. Our multi dog walking will come to a close soon as it was brought about by the owner being injured and they are getting better (on a personal note I really like the owner so I’m glad they are getting better.).
Upsides — This has been great as we walk anyway for health reasons so why not get paid to do it and we are committed so there’s no hiding on the couch when the weathers bad to get out of the exercise.
Downsides — Flipping it over from the positive; whatever the weather you need to wrap up and get out there.
Captioning on Rev.
This is providing a text to online videos of all sorts. Once I’d passed the entrance exams I started to take on small captioning jobs. I am still classed as a rooky.
Upside — a bit of extra income made during those periods of time when I have a spare hour. You know those times when you should be cleaning the bathroom or washing the car and might have just whiled away a bit of time browsing the internet.
Downside — pay is not great and it takes me much longer than I think it should, but I am improving. Recently though jobs have dried up, when I started there were loads to chose from. Not sure what is going on but I am sure it’s just peaks and troughs.
Micro investing
Wealthify is doing well; up 6.91% in the last 12 months. I put in £50 a month and have been tempted to put more in but as they say ‘your money is at risk’.
Wealthify uses your micro investment payments, such as my £%0 a month and pops lots them all into a big pot. Then uses this to invest in all manor of bonds, shares, currency and all sorts. I’d love to have a go at investing myself but I think they probably know a bit more about it than I do.
My second micro investment is Zopa who take small amounts from lots of investers and lumps it together to form loans that go direct to individuals. They call it peer to peer lending. A clever concept but it carries risk as well. If they default on the loan then you lose out. They have sold some of the defaulted loans to specialist companies but I certainly have been impacted by defaulters over the period of the pandemic.
Upside — Zopa has been a bit of a rocky ride but over a period of about 5 years has grown about 25%. The minimum investment with Zopa is £1000 and some years ago we were lucky enough to have some spare cash so we locked away the minimum amount with them.
Downside — I haven’t added any more cash into Zopa as it really is a long term investment, getting the money out can be a bit tricky if you want it in a hurry. Generally you can sell your loans to someone else but there is a fee and no guarantee someone will buy them. The best option to get the money out would be to drip feed it into some thing else as the borrowers make their monthly repayments.
In conclusion, I’m not Rockefeller, butI keep looking and trying.
