What if you Could Double your Income this Month?

This year I set a goal to make and save an extra $30,000 on the side (you can read about my goals at the end of this post).

Last month I announced I would be focused on my business income and be doing fewer side hustles.

The results were far better than I anticipated.

I do use affiliate links in this post for some of the products or services I use. Check the full disclosure here.

Updates for each month this year are:
January $3,200.17
February I forgot to do the update
March $4,005
April $1,600.70 (and I spent it all!)

Now for May, the focus was increasing my income while scaling back how much work I was personally doing and it worked really well.

I doubled my income last month compared to previous months plus separately added another stream of income.

Side Hustles In May

I was going to scale this side of things right back and I did in some ways.

As you can see above, I have made decent amounts of money this year with side hustles.

Last year I made over $10,000 a month buying things to resell and made $8,714 in my third month of the $20,000 flip challenge.

Here are the side hustles I sort of continued while scaling back on them and focusing on my business.

Further down I share how I doubled my income while reducing my workload.

Rented out my Garage – $191.75 Month (Ongoing)

This is my new passive income stream.

Previously I rented my garage out to people I knew for storage and to a mum needing space for her business.

This time though, I jumped on Spacer and listed my car space.

A car space in my complex goes for around $50 a week (the last place I lived the car spaces were $100 a week!) so it’s worth checking your area.

Within a few hours of listing my space, someone had requested it.

They live around the corner and needed somewhere for their new car.

We messaged, I accepted their booking request, we met and the whole process was super simple.

Found Money – $3.05c

Not technically a side hustle, but we found money on the street.

My kids usually have eagle eyes for anything shiny but lately, we haven’t seen anything!

This month we found a massive $3.05!

I know, it’s not heaps but it was put straight into our holiday fund and every bit counts, right?

Sold Items – $105

Boxing gloves and a dress were the first things to sell on Facebook Marketplace plus a skirt on Gumtree.

To be honest, I scaled right back on selling because I have had a lot of creeps lately.

Men hitting on me, sending inappropriate messages and even one phone call where it sounded like something was happening at the other end so I hung up quickly.

Previously, I made over $10,000 a month selling things, but this past month has put me right off it.

This year I opted not to buy anything to resell and have slowly sold off what I had left. Now I am done.

Increased Business Income

I don’t typically share a lot about the business side of my life nor do I share details of how much I make doing what I do.

Since I was clear about my intention to increase my business income, here is how I did it, more on what my income sources are and how you can too.

What are my Income Sources?

For years I have had multiple income sources.

These include speaking, blogging, mentoring, freelance writing and consulting.

For May, I mainly focused on The Thrifty Issue and increasing public speaking for the coming year.

Having this laser focus on a few elements of the business had a huge impact, especially with the speaking.

While the income doubled mainly because of blogging, the long-term outlook will see a surge in speaking income as well, which also impacts blogging income.

How I Make Money Blogging

The Thrifty Issue is one of a few websites I own.

Websites make money with affiliate links, sponsored posts, ads and a few of my own products.

You can find out more about blogging and making money blogging here.

Basically, my sites are hosted with SiteGround.

They are all WordPress sites which you can install easily through SiteGround.

Most of the sites I have are focused on finance and each one has a different main income stream.

For example, The Thrifty issue makes most of its money from affiliate links for products and services I personally use because I am passionate about only recommending things I have tried.

I want you to know that anything written about on here is done by myself or my staff and I’m not pushing ads or sponsored posts.

Other sites are more geared towards sponsored posts because I didn’t put in the time and effort to build the community and I am detached from those sites.

The Thrifty Issue is my favourite site because of you!

Public Speaking

This probably strikes fear into your heart but I love it. I’ve been doing public speaking for years, mainly on either:
– Ways to make and save money
– How to turn obstacles into opportunities to accelerate your business and life (based on how I went from homeless single mother to multiple international award-winning CEO, author and speaker)
– Marketing on a shoestring budget

Most of my speaking has been charity events, private corporate events and when I first started years ago I did some speaking in libraries.

Speaking in Australia and overseas has been so much fun, I meet incredible people, see amazing places and am passionate about the topics I speak on.

Right now, I’m interested in helping more people make and save money.

As such, if you want me to speak in your local area, request me through your library.

This way, it will be free for you! Simply email them or use their contact form to ask for me to speak.

I am based in Melbourne, but we (my daughters and I) travel a fair bit.

You can find out more about my speaking here.

Freelance Writing

In 2011 I landed my first freelance writing gig which paid $125 for a 250 word article.

Since then I have done writing on and off, mainly about finance, real estate, travel and sometimes parenting.

Typically, articles pay $250+ now and are combined with some consulting.

Occasionally, I do one-off articles, but most of the time, we work with clients on a longer-term basis.

To find out how to become a freelance writer, check out this article.

Alternatively, if you’d like to discuss my team or myself writing for you, you can contact us here.

Investing In Myself

Recently, I enrolled in a Diploma of Counselling for personal purposes which spurred on the desire to complete and implement other things I had learned in my business.

Going through each of these courses has seen a drastic increase in the areas of the blog and business I wanted to focus on.

Acuity Scheduling

While I typically have someone else take care of my appointments and bookings, I wanted to learn more so if I need to hire someone else, I know what I’m talking about.

As a business owner, Acuity is great for scheduling appointments and managing my calendar.

They have a lot of free resources on their site to learn whatever you need to know.

I paid for a Pinterest course a while ago and only now have gotten around to doing it.

Since I haven’t done a lot I don’t feel comfortable recommending it yet.

However, I have implemented other things I read about Pinterest and it has definitely increased traffic to my sites.