February – November 2024 Side Hustle Report – $8,454.18

Okay, well, I was going over my posts and figuring out what to write about when I realized I hadn’t written any side hustle reports since January of 2024. Yikes!

It’s not that I haven’t been side hustling – I still regularly deliver for DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub (using my bike, of course). My Rover side hustle has also remained consistent. But writing these side hustle reports has been getting a bit repetitive since my side hustles haven’t changed much. And since I do the same side hustles every month, writing these posts has been getting more tedious.

That being said, I figure after almost a year, it’s still worth sharing what I’ve made so you can get an idea of what’s been going on with these side hustles. Maybe it’ll inspire you to go out there and make some extra money for yourself too. I know if I can do it, you can do it too.

Side Hustle Income for February to November 2024

• Airbnb/Rental Income: $24,000 (not included in total)
• Rover: $3,457.72
• DoorDash/Uber Eats/Grubhub:  $2,966.13
• Shipt/Instacart: $10.16
• Wag: $16
• Bird/Lime: $0
• Selling Trash Finds/Flipping: $265
• WeGoLook: $21
• Roadie: $47.03
• TaskRabbit: $0
• ProductTube: $195
• Gigwalk/EasyShift/Field Agent/Merchandiser/Observa/Pickl: $0
• IVueIt: $63
• Google Opinion Rewards/Surveys On The Go/1Q/Facebook Viewpoints: $59.38
• Secret Shopping: $1,227
• ProductLab: $34.25
• ReceiptPal/Receipt Hog/Fetch/Coinout/Amazon Shopper Panel: $92
• Medium: $0.71

Total Side Hustle Income for February to November 2024 = $8,454.18

Since February, I’ve made a little over $8,400 from my side hustles. That’s actually more than I expected, as I didn’t focus on side hustling much this year. When combined with my January 2024 side hustle earnings and what I expect to make in December 2024, I should end the year with around $10,000 in side hustle earnings. 

The top three side hustle earners were the usual for me – food delivery, Rover, and secret shopping. Here’s what it looks like by percentage of my total earnings:

I find it interesting to see these four different categories, as they’re closer together than I’d think at first glance. For a long time, DoorDash and Uber Eats made me the most money, but Rover has become more important to me because it takes less of my schedule.

In the remainder of this post, we’ll take a more in-depth look at my side hustle earnings since February.

 

 

Rental Income: $24,000 (Not Included In Side Hustle Earnings)

I have one rental property from a primary residence that I turned into a rental property after my wife and I moved to our new house three years ago. This rental property is a 4-bedroom house in a college neighborhood, so I’m primarily renting the house to college students. So far, things have gone very well. I haven’t had any issues with the renters I’ve had and everyone has treated the house well. My current renters have also renewed for another school year, which is a relief for me, as finding new tenants is always stressful (note that it’s not hard for me to find tenants, it’s just stressful because I’m always scared that I’ll end up with bad tenants).

There are also a lot of things that are in my favor when it comes to this house. First, the cash flow on this property is great. I refinanced the mortgage during the first few months of the pandemic when interest rates were insanely low, so the interest rate on my rental house is only 2.75%. This low rate means my monthly payment is also extremely low, which helps a ton with my cash flow.

Second, I only have about 10 more years left on the mortgage, which means the house will be paid off pretty soon. The timing is good too because by the time it’s paid off, my kids will be just a few years away from going to college. At that point, I can either keep the house and let them live in it if they opt to go to school close to home, or I could potentially sell the house and use that money to pay for their college. At a minimum, a paid-off property will give me a lot of options down the line.

Finally, one big advantage of my rental property is that I don’t rely on any of the revenue that comes from it. This means I’ve been able to earmark all of the income I’ve made from the house towards maintenance and improvements. It gives me a lot of comfort to have this stack of money that I can use for repairs and anything else that might come up with the house.

Maintenance costs for the year have been pretty normal. The two big costs I had this year were my deductible for my roof replacement last year and the cost of buying and installing a new dishwasher. The appliances in the house are all nearing 15 years old, so I’m expecting some large costs soon for a new fridge, microwave, and oven/range. Luckily, I have a large rental property fund to cover any of those costs whenever they do come up. 

I think coming soon, I’ll put together a post breaking down my rental income in more detail over the past year or two.

 

Rover Income: $3,457.52  

Rover has been a good source of income for me all year. Most of the dogs I’ve been watching this year are repeat clients, which I prefer since it means I know what to expect. I’ve also done some sporadic cat drop-in visits over the year, although I only do drop-in visits for people within a few blocks of my house.

One thing to note is that my dog passed away in March. I wrote a post in memory of my dog that I’m pretty happy with if you want to read it: Saying Goodbye To Financial Pup. Not having my dog around made Rover feel a bit different because Rover was something I did because I already had a dog. Without my dog, there was a stretch in the spring when the only dogs in my house were guest pups that I was watching.

That being said, we ended up getting a new pup in May. The plan wasn’t necessarily to get a new dog that soon, but we ended up finding this dog at the Animal Humane Society and couldn’t resist. Like my previous dog, Charlotte, this dog is also a Beagle. We named him Teddy. He’s 2 years old and has settled in nicely with our family. He’s also a great ambassador for us, as he gets along well with other dogs.

Breaking it down, I averaged $345 per month from Rover. That seems pretty good, especially when you consider that a lot of the dogs I watch, I’d probably watch for free.

One thing I do need to do is update my Rover profile because it still has all the information about me and my previous dog. I’ve found it difficult to do it, but I just need to sit down and get it updated. 

 

DoorDash/Uber Eats/Grubhub Income: $2,966.13 

Here’s a look at what I made with each delivery app from February to November 2024.

• DoorDash: $1,353.13
• Uber Eats: $1,178.49
• Grubhub: $434.51

My earnings from DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub have taken quite a dip when compared to past years. This is especially noticeable compared to a few years ago when I was easily hitting $10,000 or more per year in food delivery earnings. There are a few things that I think have caused this dip in earnings.

First, food delivery is generally worse than it used to be. A lot of this has to do with lower payouts, as the average earnings per delivery are lower than they were a few years ago. In addition, the business itself is slower because there are more people signed up to do food delivery. I still think there’s plenty of business out there to make this a worthwhile side hustle, especially if you’re doing it on a bike and having fun with it like I am, but there’s no denying that the food delivery game isn’t as good as it once was.

Second, I haven’t dedicated as much time to food delivery as I used to. Most of this has to do with having kids, which limits how often and when I can work on these apps. Before I had kids, I used to do deliveries during lunch and around dinner time and I’d often deliver for several hours each day. These days, I can only dedicate about an hour a day to food delivery.

Finally, I haven’t been as consistent as I used to be. I used to set targets for myself, typically aiming to work every day and make $30 or $40 each day. This past year, however, I got busy doing other things, so I had a lot of days where I didn’t do any food delivery at all 

That being said, making almost $3,000 in the past 10 months while getting to bike around and enjoy myself isn’t so bad in my book. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who could use an extra $3,000 in their bank account. I’ve also been recording my bike deliveries and uploading videos to YouTube. I’m not making any money from YouTube yet, but it has given me the fringe benefit of companies sending me free ebikes to review.

If you’d like to check out my YouTube channel, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/@financialpanther

 

Shipt/Instacart Income: $10.16 

I’ve only done one grocery delivery in 2024 – an Instacart order I did back in July. Unlike most people who use their car for grocery delivery, I only do grocery deliveries using my cargo bike (with my Urban Arrow, delivering groceries with a bike is not difficult at all).

I don’t do many Instacart or Shipt deliveries because I don’t find them profitable for the time it takes me to complete them, mainly because these grocery orders require me to shop the orders and I’m not efficient enough to do it quickly. The grocery stores also aren’t in convenient locations for me – most of them are either out in the suburbs or neighborhoods I’m not typically in. 

If you are someone who’s able to make grocery delivery work for you, great! I know there are people out there who make some decent money doing this. For me, grocery delivery isn’t particularly profitable, so when I do it, it’s mainly for fun. That being said, I’ve been doing more YouTube videos now, so I may spend a day biking around doing grocery deliveries just so I can share some footage on YouTube. 

 

Wag Income: $16.00

I don’t do many Wag walks because they don’t work that well with my lifestyle these days. It’s also harder to maximize my earnings with Wag since you’re paid per walk and the walks are for designated amounts of time. Basically, a Wag walk will pay me for a 2o or 30-minute walk, which limits what I can earn since there’s no way to increase my earnings by completing my walk faster. This is in contrast to food delivery, where I can earn more if I’m more efficient with my deliveries. 

Back in August, I did happen to do one Wag walk for this Beagle that I used to walk several years ago. It’s been about 5 years since I last saw this Beagle so it was nice to see him again. I ended up making $16 for that 30-minute walk, which I think was fine.

For me, Wag is mainly something I do for fun if I’m looking to switch things up with my side hustles. Wag is also particularly good if you’re traveling. I find that in most large cities, there are plenty of available Wag walks and the nice thing about doing Wag walks in a different city is that you don’t need a car or bike to do it and you can use it as a way to explore a new city while getting paid. So, if you want to think outside the box, consider doing Wag when you’re visiting another city.

 

Trash Finds/Flipping Income: $265

Here’s what I made from trash finds and flipping things since February.

• Trash Finds: $190
• Flipping: $75

Trash finds are things I find for free because people are throwing them out. I used to be more active on this front, but these days, any trash finds I sell are mainly things I stumble upon in the neighborhood when I’m walking or biking around. A lot of times, I find good things in my neighborhood that can easily be sold. 

Over the summer, my neighbor was throwing away some patio furniture, which I grabbed and was able to quickly sell on Facebook Marketplace for $80. Some other easy sales this year included a Room and Board End Table that I was able to sell for $20 within minutes of picking it up, as well as some kid’s activity tables that we found last year and grew out of this year. I also sold an Ikea dining table that we found last year and had been using for a bit.

For trash finds, my strategy these days is to list the item on Facebook Marketplace, then set it outside my house for people to pick up. I then have them either leave the money in my mailbox or pay me via Venmo. This helps to eliminate a lot of the time wasters and it saves me time having to coordinate pickups. I figure if someone isn’t honest and steals the item, then I’ll accept that (but so far, no one has stolen something I listed for sale and left outside).

As for flipping, I don’t do it much, but my wife goes to Goodwill a lot and will sometimes grab some nice things for resale when she sees them. One interesting find this summer was a Givenchy shirt that she bought for a few dollars and that I was able to resell on eBay for $50. This isn’t the type of shirt I know anything about, but apparently my wife knew it was worth something and it did sell fairly quickly on eBay.

 

WeGoLook Income: $21

Over the past 10 months, I only did one WeGoLook gig. This was a property verification gig that I did in September. Property verification gigs are easy – I just have to go to some property and take photos of the exterior of the building. So long as the building is nearby, this type of gig is usually worth doing.

I don’t do a lot of WeGoLook because most of the available gigs that are nearby are automobile inspections. These aren’t difficult to do – I just have to take photos of a car – but they’re annoying because I have to call the car owner to schedule a time to meet with them. I don’t like doing those types of WeGoLook gigs since I don’t like having to coordinate with someone else. Instead, I prefer the WeGoLook gigs where I don’t need to talk to anyone and can complete them on my schedule.

 

Roadie Income: $47.03

Roadie is a delivery app that could be decent but usually doesn’t work well for me because the store locations aren’t that convenient. The Roadie deliveries I do most often are Home Depot deliveries, which are easy to do if I happen to be near a Home Depot. Surprisingly, the Home Depot orders are usually small items, so they aren’t difficult to do on a bike. 

I only did four Roadie deliveries over the past three months, with three of them being Home Depot deliveries. The other was a lost luggage delivery from the airport. The airport deliveries aren’t great for me because the airport isn’t nearby, so I’m only doing that if I’m looking to do a long bike ride or I happen to already be at the airport. The one luggage delivery I did this year went from the airport to downtown Minneapolis and I did that delivery using my cargo bike. That made for a fun ride. And the guy I delivered the luggage to was surprised that I biked all the way from the airport with his luggage.

 

ProductTube Income: $195

I haven’t been using ProductTube as much as I should, but it’s still worthwhile because of how much it pays for each gig. Each gig takes me, at most, 5 minutes to complete and typically pays at least $10. The payout is in Amazon gift cards, which is as good as cash for me.

From February to November, I made $195 from ProductTube. I could make more than that, but I was a bit lazy this summer and wasn’t regularly checking my ProductTube app. 

 

IVueIt Income: $63

IVueIt has some small gigs that I sometimes do when they make sense. The gigs don’t take long, usually just a few minutes, so this is a nice app to fill in some time when I need it. There aren’t enough of these gigs to make a ton of money from it, but making a few bucks here and there isn’t bad. I thnk this app is worth downloading if you’re looking to try out a new gig app or want something to fill in some slow hours.

 

Google Opinion Rewards/Surveys On The Go/1Q/Facebook Viewpoints Income: $59.38

Here are my earnings since February for the small survey apps:

• Google Opinion Rewards: $35.88
• Surveys On The Go: $0
• 1Q: $23.50
• Facebook Viewpoints: $0

The small survey apps were normal for a while but seemed to have slowed down in the past few months. I’m not sure why.

Google Opinion Rewards and 1Q are still good for a few bucks each year with minimal work. The surveys on those apps take seconds to complete. 

Surveys On The Go is a worthless app now, so I’ll stop including it on this list. Facebook Viewpoints is also fairly worthless, mainly because it never has any good surveys. For most people, I’d only recommend downloading Google Opinion Rewards and 1Q. As you can see, I was able to make close to $60 this year from those two apps for only a few seconds of work. 

 

Secret Shopping Income: $1,227 (plus thousands of dollars worth of free food) 

Secret shopping is a major part of the side hustle stuff I do these days, coming in as my third-highest-earning side hustle (after food delivery and Rover). Importantly, beyond getting a little bit of extra money from it, I also get thousands of dollars worth of free food each year from secret shopping. This year, I’ve easily received over $5,000 worth of free food.

All of the earnings I include in this section come from Marketforce, which is the secret shopping app I use the most. The restaurants on Marketforce aren’t fancy (mainly fast-casual restaurants), but the shops are frequent, so I almost always have a free lunch or dinner when I need it. The surveys are also very quick to complete – usually taking me just 5 or 10 minutes to fill out.

Outside of Marketforce, I also get secret shops at nice sit-down restaurants via sites like A Closer Look, Coyle, and Reality Based Reports. I’m usually able to get around a dozen or more nice sit-down meals each year from these three websites. There are also some other smaller secret shopper websites I use that give me the occasional sit-down restaurant secret shop too. These ones primarily offer a food reimbursement only, so I do these shops less for money and more only for free food.

For more information about how secret shopping works, check out this post: Restaurant Secret Shopper Jobs – A Strategy To Eat For Free And Hack Your Food Expenses.

 

ProductLab Income: $34.25 

ProductLab is an app that I should use more, but I often forget to open it. The app pays me $3.25 each week if I upload a screenshot of my DoorDash and Uber Eats income for the previous week. This only takes me a second to do, so it’s easy money. It pays via PayPal also, so you’re getting actual cash for your troubles.

 

ReceiptPal/Receipt Hog/Fetch/CoinOut/Amazon Shopper Panel Income: $92 

I actually have a lot of money banked in these receipt apps (at least a few hundred dollars), but I haven’t cashed them out. I should probably cash out my funds sooner, rather than later, as you never know if these apps might make changes and you lose the money you’ve banked.

The big change over the past years has been in Amazon Shopper Panel. For a few years now, Amazon Shopper Panel has been amazing, paying me a minimum of $10 per month if I took pictures of 10 receipts in the month. I kept saying to take advantage of this app while it was available because there was no way it could last like that forever.

Sure enough, back in April, Amazon changed how their app works, making it so most receipts only pay 10 or 15 cents. They also no longer accept restaurant receipts, which were the main receipts I got each month. It looks like they’ll still pay $1 for department store receipts and receipts from places like Home Depot, but these aren’t places I regularly collect receipts from.

For this coming month, I’ll cash out all my banked earnings, so December will look really good with my receipt apps.

 

Medium Income: $0.71 

Medium still earns me some “passive” income for articles I posted onto the platform 3 years ago. One change they made this year is they’re now only paying out once your balance reaches $10. At the pace I’m earning from Medium, it’ll take me many years before I actually see any money from Medium again (unless I start trying to earn money from Medium).

That being said, I find Medium interesting. If I was more motivated, I’d put effort into building up a Medium following to see if I could earn income from it. 

 

And that concludes the February to November 2024 Side Hustle Report!  

That was a lot of stuff I had to go over, but I’m glad I took the time to go back over what I made. I’m pleasantly surprised with what I was able to make – and it seems like I’ll end up with around $10,000 of side hustle earnings this year. That is not bad at all – and it’s actually useful for me to make this extra income considering that the blog has seen a pretty big income drop over the past year with the recent Google search engine algorithm updates.

For those of you still reading, I hope you enjoyed this look into my side hustle earnings. I’ll try to keep more up-to-date on these side hustle reports in the future.