Bring it on..Month 2 of our Dividend Diplomats Side Hustle Report! In this article, we dive deeper into what side hustles, online sites or other various areas we focus on spending our time in order to bring in, you guessed it… more cash/income. What is that cash usually used for? Easy answer again… investing and/or paying off debt. It’s that simple. When others are enjoying a binge on Netflix (NFLX), drinking til the sun comes up, the Diplomats are out here trying to get one more dollar ahead, as Every Dollar Counts in this journey and we are going to make it happen. Come check out how hard we hustled in our July Dividend Diplomat Side Hustle report.
Just a quick note, this side hustle report will contain the occasional affiliate link to the service we use. It is important for us to mention that we are only including links for services that truly add value to our lives. We would not do that in any other way, we hope you guys all know that! These sites/apps have helped us tremendously, we hope that you do sign up to try them out and let us know what you think. Additionally, if you like them….then share the wealth with others around you. Now, let’s see how well we performed during the month!
Ebates – We’re pretty sure most people are familiar with Ebates, the website that offers cash back and coupon codes for nearly all major online retails, travel sites and the like, click that blue hyperlink, yes the first one (haha). You also can receive a free $10 gift card upon sign up (yes an affiliate plug) but always nice to try something out! We don’t ever purchase a good online without first stopping by Ebates to see if we can earn cash back by visiting the website through Ebates. It is easy money for a simple additional step in the online shopping experience, one that maybe adds 10 seconds to your transaction.
- Lanny – $1.08 – I love rental cars for work travels, but man, that doesn’t give me too much bang back for my buck! This was fine, as every dollar counts and it was a one day rental. However, similar to Bert below, I have a TON in pending (at the moment 6 items, that could be worth > $30 due to hotels). In total, I have received over $298, see below:
- Bert – $6.88 – Nearly $3 more than last month! I mentioned this last month as well, but I have been booking travel for work through Ebates when it doesn’t cost any more money to do so. I still can’t figure out why it takes 6+weeks for my Ebates account to be credited after the stay in a hotel. However, because of that, I have over $25+ cash back pending. Hopefully I’ll get the credits before 2018!
Swagbucks – Ah, Swagbucks. One of our longest tenured side hustles. For those of you that are not familiar with Swagbucks, it is a website the provides gift card or cash rewards for performing activities on the website, such as using their search engine, answering surveys, answering polls, watching videos, etc. Here is our referral link if you would like to give it a try as well!
- Lanny – > 3,188 swagbucks, $31.88 – Another cash out of $25.00 to Paypal baby!! In addition, I made another $6 or so more than last month’s report. The way I was able to monitor this was take my end of June lifetime amount and subtract out my lifetime amount at end of July (found in the activity section of your account) Proof of the cash out:
- Bert – >3,277 SB, Swagbucks, $32.77. Well, after reporting that I earned $0 in Swagbucks last month. I decided to get off my keester and start earning some Swagbucks again. This month I was watching videos, answering surveys, and searching like crazy. This month, I earned 3,277 Swachbucks, which is equivalent to $32.77. I was able to Cash out a $25 PayPal reward and earn some cold hard cash, which was HUGE! Man I loved transferring that money from Paypal directly into my checking account. Unlike Lanny though, I’m not putting an image of my cash out in the article. Trust me, I received it haha
Ibotta – Ibotta is one of our favorite apps because it is so easy to use, first you can get $5.00 to sign up! Before shopping, you scan the available rebates on Ibotta. Some example of rebates that may be available any given week are $0.25 for purchasing bananas, $0.25 for any milk brand, $1.00 for purchasing a certain type of coffee, or $2/$3 back for purchasing a delicious craf t beer or $2-$3 off of a new bottle of wine! The discounts don’t just apply to goods that are impossible to find or are very expensive, there are always a few name brands to choose from. Heck, you can even earn $1.00 back on your Uber trips…and who doesn’t use that every now and again? Then, after your trip to the store, you simply scan the receipt and receive the credit within 24 hours. If you would like to try the app, we included a referral link in the banner below our monthly summary and at the beginning of the paragraph.
- Lanny – $11.25 – almost 3x greater than last month and I’ve earned over $135.00 in cash back from the website. However, I highly URGE you to sign up. Yes, sadly we do get a referral kick back, but this is by far the EASIEST way to get cash back. Further, the beer, wine categories make it fairly simply to rack up (usually $1.00 – $3.00 for a 6-pack and/or bottle of wine, eh, I’m Italian and Irish). Additionally – supplements like vitamins are a bigger cash back piece as well. My best month (excluding sign up bonuses), though, still is April at $16.25.
- Bert – $37.05 – I actually cashed out twice and received over $40 in cash from Ibotta since I had a few extra dollars hanging over from last month. Heck yeah! How did I do it in July? First – Referrals. Man, do the referrals and bonuses add up. We already mentioned that you get $5 for each referral that signs up. I finally shared the app with my mom and my wife, and I had both sign up. Two referrals…$10 just like that. On top of that, there is a $10 bonus if you have two referrals within 30 days. So the two of them signing up and using the app within 30 days of each other earned me $20 in total when the bonus was factored in. Second, while traveling for work without a car, I have been taking advantage of the $1 per Uber ride. People – planning ahead and sharing with your friends and family can have a huge impact!
Selling Household Items
- Lanny – $28.80, net of fees and shipping (up from $19.66 last month, $48.46 total) – I have sold 5 more items on eBay, trying to get rid of “stuff”, we’ll come out with more on getting rid of stuff later, but I know I own too much crap in my life that is consuming space, time and resources. The five items I sold on eBay were 2 pairs of gently used Jeans, 1 pair of Corduroy pants, a wine bottle opener and a T-Shirt. Why did I sell these items? Simple – the clothes never did nor will ever fit and I have multiple ways to open a bottle of wine and this opener was brand new and not my favorite, as I’ve used it before from a family member that owns it. So long to taking up space in my drawers and cupboards and hopefully all of the items found their way into someone’s life that will add value, as that’s the purpose of owning something, to add value.
- Bert – $27.51– We’ve been packing up our apartment as we get ready to move into our new house. We’ve found a lot of cool items to donate, and a few that we are looking to sell prior to donating. I sold 3 items on Ebay and 1 item on OfferUp, and I was pretty happy with the results. The largest ticket item I sold was my old TI-83 graphing calculator from high school (which was over 10 years ago). I started the auction at $.99 and the bidding war that ensued on the last day of the auction below my mind. My phone was off the hook with notifications, letting me know that new bids were being placed. At the last second, I received the winning bid of $16.50….for a calculator I haven’t used in 10 years. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, my wife was slightly annoyed that more people wanted my calculator than her old coach purse we have listed 3 times unsuccessfully. The strangest sale I had this was $7 for an ironing board.
Total Side Hustle Income in July
Lanny: $73.01
Bert: $97.33
Donations – Okay, so donations do not produce cash flow immediately. But it serves two HUGE purposes. First, now that we are both homeowners and itemize our deductions come tax time (Damn you Uncle Sam), we will be able to receive the maximum benefit from donations on our tax returns. Second, heck, we received some a ton of motivation from attending The Minimalists show in Cleveland at the end of June. We are also receiving the benefit of purely getting rid of stuff that adds no value, but hopefully can add values to others in hopes that they may appreciate them more than we do. That being said, here is an inventory of the goods we donated this month.
- Lanny – Sadly, with the busy weekend months and traveling for multiple weeks in July (3 of them, at a minimum), this led to less time to donate goods; especially because on one of the weekends I was fully out-of-town. Here is to August!
- Bert – We have also done some work preparing items for donations – We have four boxes of clothes in our attic that are labelled “2018 Donations”. These are the boxes that are pretty valuable and we are waiting until 1/1/18 to donate so we can maximize the tax deduction. We’ve also made several trips to Goodwill and the library to donate miscellaneous goods and books that we stumble upon while packing.
What’s crazy….theses are just a few of the many, many different ways that anyone can side hustle and cleaning our hands of “stuff”. Side hustles can come in all shapes and sizes. The important thing is that you put in the hard work, keep fighting, keep scraping, and turn your words/thoughts into ACTION. If you want extra income, it is at your finger tips. Guess what, the two of us have a TON of room for improvement and will look to continue adding more to our side hustle reports. We are excited to begin sharing our side hustle stories with you and holding ourselves accountable. So now, let’s get back to work. It is time to JUST GO FOR IT!
*Note, you’ll notice one item missing from our side hustle report. That is our Dividend Diplomats blog-related income. We are working on a real screamer of an article to write for everyone, to provide the real insight to see if these two 20 something guys are even receiving any coinage, i.e. Abraham Lincoln, for our blogging efforts. More to come soon!
What do you think of our side hustles? What are your monthly side hustles? Are they producing the results that you want? If not, whats your plan of attack? Are you selling your items online or do you do other things, such as Facebook, Craigslist or OfferUp? Very curious here. What other side hustles would you recommend? Thanks everyone, get after it and pursue your passions!
-Lanny & Bert, The Dividend Diplomats