AD How I’ve paid for a whole 2 and a half weeks summer trip through side hustles in just 2 months

Inside Laura’s Head has always been a blog aimed at people who want to travel without spending a fortune and I’m very aware that during a cost of living crisis, travel moves down a lot of people’s priority list, for very valid reasons. If, like me, you’re feeling the pinch at the moment but still want to travel, I’ve been trying different types of side hustle to earn some extra money to help with that. I’m really pleased that, through April and May 2023, I earned enough via side hustles to pay for my summer trip, in full, with a bit left over for spending money too. In this post I’ll share how, so you can do it too. (Please note, this post contains some affiliate links, so if you sign up for something via my link I may earn some commission)

UPDATED 08/05/2024 to confirm I’m still doing the side hustles listed in this post, and to add new relevant offers for my readers. If you’re interested in this you may also like this post about how I made money when I was made redundant-I successfully managed to cover my bills from side hustles.

I’ve previously written about cheap trips I’ve taken-like a weekend in Dublin for two for under £350, or 48 hours in Hamburg for under £200-so even if you don’t spend as much time as I do on side hustles, you can definitely fund a trip or two. In fact, if you do all of the referral offers I’ve detailed below, that’s £487.20 towards your next trip. I really hope this helps you out.

Survey sites

My most successful side hustle, making me £75 in April (which paid for 5 nights in an air b n b in Tirana, Albania, last summer) and £100 in May is online survey sites. I have apps and websites and in my free time, usually lunch breaks and evenings when there’s nothing I’m bothered about on the telly, I sit and fill in surveys.

My favourite site is Prolific, a site where studies are added by academic researchers, and you’re told in advance how long the study will take, the amount you’ll get paid, and what that equates to as an hourly rate. For example, I did a 6 minutes, 75p study today that was the equivalent of £10 per hour (as in, if you were lucky enough to get a ton of studies back to back and spent an hour doing them you’d earn £10 an hour-the site doesn’t work like that though and they pop up on an ad hoc basis)

Prolific lets you cash out once you’ve reached £6, you can withdraw whenever you like, and cash is transferred straight to your Paypal. I made £63 on Prolific in April, whilst being away for 5 different days through the month and working full time too. I’ve made £100 in May, which pays for my flight out to Podgorica on my summer trip. Well worth it having open in the background.

I find Prolific really interesting on the whole-you choose topics you’re interested in so mine gives me studies on psychology, business and a couple of other bits-and it’s cool to know you’re helping students with their research for things.

I also use an app called Curious Cat, which I open whenever I’m killing time in the car, in a waiting room or when I have a spare 5 minutes. This one doesn’t earn as much as Prolific, surveys are usually between 10 and 30 pence, but you can cash out to Paypal every time you reach £1 and if you’re less picky about the surveys you do (I only ever do 0-2 or 2-4 minute ones, but there are longer for a bit higher pay) you could do £20 or so a month from Curious Cat easily.

*Throughout April and May 2023 I earned £200 extra money doing Prolific and Curious Cat. That paid for a third of our summer trip. I could have done a 3 or 4 nights in Poland or another cheaper country out of that money instead, totally from extra money*

Playing games

This is never going to make you a fortune, so beware. It’s not worth doing instead of something else, but if you find yourself playing games on your phone a lot anyway, then consider this one.

I use an app called Mistplay, where you’re rewarded with points for time spent playing games, and those points can be turned into shopping vouchers. I don’t make loads from this, but I play games on this instead of playing different games when I’m bored, so I may as well get some benefit, and I’ve had £15 this month so far. I find this handy for a bit of treat money on my food shop, rather than anything I can spend on travel.

Cashback sites

Cashback sites aren’t really a way to get free money without spending anything, like the survey sites are, but they’re a great way to get some money back on things you’re already buying. We buy our HelloFresh boxes, any applicable online shopping and even vouchers through Topcashback so the money mounts up quite quickly. I’ve had about £50 from Topcashback since signing up in March, J has had far more because he buys things like Protein Powder quite regularly.

If you’re interested in Topcashback, if you sign up via my referral link I get some cash and you get £10 as a new member bonus. You can also get some free cash for signing up to some things on there, like checking your credit score for free with Experian gives you £6 cashback, doing the same with MoneySupermarket gives you £3.20, Totally Money gives £2 too so that’s £21.20 FREE MONEY just for signing up and checking your credit score three times. It’ll pay for a couple of airport drinks or a meal in the next city I’m in which is fantastic.

Booking hotels, airport parking, flights and travel insurance through a cashback site means you’ll get a percentage of the cost back too, which is absolutely worth doing. We booked all our hotels for the summer trip through Topcashback and got 10% back, which will go towards a future trip.

I also use Quidco, and if you join via my referral link you get £1. It’s worth using both cashback sites because some retailers aren’t on Topcashback-I recently did a Superdrug order as I needed hair dye and some other bits and got £6.57 back in cashback on that order. I also did a HelloFresh order through them which, due to a bonus offer on that day, made me £55. This has paid for my share of our hotel in one of the cities on the summer trip, just from buying things I would’ve bought anyway.

*Throughout April and May I’ve earned £100 from Cashback sites, simply by buying things I was going to anyway*

Current account switching/new account opening-not quite side hustles, but sort of

**Use this moneysaving expert link to find out which banks are currently offering switching offers**

Natwest has an offer where they pay you £200 to switch your current account to them, as long as you’re not already a customer, you log into their app within 60 days and you pay in £1250. I did this and that £200 has paid for a good chunk of our summer trip.

HSBC had the same offer, so I’m in the process of switching my Natwest account over to them. Their criteria is you need to switch with at least 2 direct debits or standing orders-so I’ve made sure I’ve got those set up on the Natwest account prior to switching. I also did this via Topcashback, who are giving me £40 cashback for this switch, so I’m gaining £240. **If you’re doing this and have a Topcashback account make sure you click onto HSBC via Topcashback or you won’t get the extra £40**

If you don’t want to use your actual current account you can open a ‘burner’ account, such as a Monzo or a Starling, and then transfer that. It’s really easy to do.

I also completed a switch to Lloyds, who paid £150 switching bonus within 7 days-mine took less than this. I had to switch the account with two direct debits or standing orders, and I’m sure I also had to log into their app. The Lloyds switch was by far the easiest.

There are other banks who are doing switch offers and once I’ve tried them out I’ll update this post, as I’m not comfortable recommending something I haven’t tried in case there’s an issue.

Much less of a gain but still worth doing, you can sign up to Algbra and get £5, and open a Monzo account and get £5, and sign up to Cashapp and get £5 if you’re not already with them. Algbra and Monzo require you to spend from your account to get your money-£5 for Algbra, any amount for Monzo, so I transferred money in, paid with that card next time I was in Asda, and gained £5 for each. Cashapp wants you to send £5 to someone (so get a friend or family member you trust to sign up too, then send £5 to them and get them to send it back). It’s a nice easy way to earn £15.

You can’t do an account switch using the Algbra account but you can with the Monzo. Algbra is giving 1.5% cashback on all online purchases and 1% on in person purchases too-so whilst this will never make you rich, if you use the card for day to day spending you’ll get a bit extra back.

*Throughout April and May I earned £455 from account switching and opening a new Algbra and Monzo account, making a total amount earned of £755. This paid for our summer trip-flights, accommodation in 5 different cities, buses between the cities and my airport parking. It will also cover a couple of the day trips we want to do.

*As of 15th June 2023 I’ve made £203.74 from a mixture of Prolific, a Lloyds bank switch, and Mistplay.

Do you do anything to make extra money on the side? Let me know in the comments