A MONEY-SAVING mum has revealed the best side hustles to try after setting the goal to save £30,000 by the end of the year.
Jamie-Lee Birch, a mum of two from the UK, reveals the side hustles that have actually raked the money in and how she stays on top of her budget to reach her savings goal.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous, Jamie-Lee who lives in Gloucestershire, with her husband six-year-old daughter, and two-year-old son reveals her goal to save £30k came after she realised her family had outgrown their two-and-a-half-bed home and wanted to find a four-bed.
Although both Jamie-Lee and her husband work, the pair's salaries weren't enough to save for a deposit, so the mum decided to go down the side hustle route.
She says: "We realised that if we wanted to make any money, the money that we needed, needed to come from something else, it wasn't going to come from our regular salaries."
Side hustles have become increasingly popular over the last few years, in fact, research by OnePoll.com revealed that nearly half of Brits (46 percent) have set up a side hustle.
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Jamie-Lee, who has dabbled in side hustles has made £3,800 in the past four months thanks to them.
Here she tells Fabulous exactly which ones are worth your time, and which aren't.
The truth about passive income
The mum of two now sells Excel spreadsheets for others trying side hustles and reveals that selling digital products on has worked well for her, as she explains: "Everyone talks about passive income.
"And I don't think there's such a thing as a true passive income, you're always gonna have to do something.
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"But I feel like that's one of the most passive that it gets once you've created your initial thing."
Jamie-Lee has made £260 already with the easy side hustle, and it's perfect as anyone can do it she adds.
"You can make ebooks, courses, spreadsheets, worksheets. Yeah, if you're an artist, you can make colouring sheets, if you're a teacher, you can make revision guides. I just think there's so there's so many options with digital products," she says.
Use your skillset
On top of that, Jamie-Lee also uses her skills from her job working in marketing to freelance on the side – giving her an extra £200 a month to stash away.
Once again, Jamie-Lee notes it's perfect as most of us have a skillset we can exchange for cash – "Whatever you've got skilled in, you can freelance.
"So if you play an instrument, you can teach instruments, you could do dog walking, you could do cleaning."
Get to know social media
The final side hustle Jamie-Lee has made actual cash from is UGC, otherwise known as user-generated content.
She reveals: "You make content for brands basically, and you don't have to have any form of following for it because you make it at your house and they want it for their platform, not to be put on yours.
"So I did that for a brand. And I got paid £500 for it."
It's worth keeping an eye out on what sort of social media content brands are posting so you can do it for them and rake in the cash.
What's not worth your time
But there's one popular side hustle Jamie-Lee has tested that she doesn't recommend – surveys.
Surveys can be time-consuming, and you may not see much return for them, but the savvy mum does recommend one website in particular.
"Prolific is a good one but there is a waiting list at the moment to join it," she claims.
"It shows you what the hourly salary would be. So it might say like, some of them are quite decent and will be like £6.50 an hour.
"And they estimate it's going to take three minutes.
"So it's a pro-rata amount of that if you'd like."
Although it might take time, Jamie-Lee also recommends selling items you no longer want on Facebook Marketplace and Vinted to draw in some extra cash.
Keep to a budget
The mum has not only found plenty of ways to make extra money but also has lots of tips on how to save it too.
In the last four months, Jamie-Lee has only spent £39 thanks to her strict budgeting rules.
She says: " I'm quite frugal. I think it's hard because I think I really enjoy saving money which I know sounds a little bit sad but I do get a kick out of getting things on a budget."
Instead of buying brand new, the mum often shops second-hand whether it's charity shops or Vinted.
Swap with friends
The budgeting mum also recommends hosting swaps with family and friends – whether it's clothes or toys for your kids.
When it comes to half terms and school holidays, Jamie-Lee recommends having certain budget days to help you keep on top of spending.
Jamie-Lee explains: "We do no spend days and we also do low spend days or have like a budget in mind of £15 to see what kind of a day we can have.
"And my daughter is six and she'll know that we're doing it and she really enjoys it.
"I think it just makes you think a bit harder about spending quality time together."
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The savvy mum often thanks her mum for her money-saving ways, saying: "I think I'm quite lucky in that I grew up in a single-parent household with a mum who was really good at budgeting.
"So I think I've got a lot of my, savviness from my mum and from being included in money and things when I was growing up. "
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