February 2019 Extra Income Report – $5,787

Extra Income Report Feb 2019

extra income report feb 2019 feature e1551760059215 - February 2019 Extra Income Report - $5,787

Want to make extra money in your sleep? I recommend Drop, a new app that gives you cash back for doing your normal everyday shopping. Sign up for Drop now and get an instant $5 bonus!


Welcome to the Wealthy Nickel Extra Income Report! Each month, I share all the different ways we make extra income outside the 9-5 job.

For a little background, I decided to share my side hustle income for a few reasons:

  1. To show you exactly how I make extra money while working a full time job
  2. To keep me accountable to my goals, and
  3. To inspire you to start your own money-making ventures on the side.

My family lives on a single income, and we are blessed that that income is enough to pay the bills and put food on the table. But we decided several years ago that we wanted to pursue financial independence and be able to “retire” (whatever that means) long before we hit 65.

In order to do that, we needed to supercharge our savings, which was not going to happen on a single income. We needed to figure out how to make additional income, but with 2 young kids we needed something that didn’t require a huge time commitment. Hence our first side hustle (real estate rentals) was born.

Since then, we’ve tried lots of different side hustles. As we experiment with new ideas, I will share our strategies here. None of this is rocket science, but my hope is you will be able to learn from our extra income projects and apply what you learn to your own projects.

There are a million different ways you can earn extra income on the side, and I certainly haven’t tried everything. There are a lot of good ideas out there that may be a better fit for you. If you want to get some more ideas, I have a Side Hustle Interview Series that documents creative ways others are making money on the side.

With that out of the way, let’s get to February’s income report.

 

Extra Income Goals for 2019

While we made over $100k in 2018 from side hustles and passive income, I don’t think that’s a realistic goal for 2019. Almost half of that income came from a flip and wholesale deal we did, and we made the decision to ramp down our flipping business while we have very young kids.

Since we’ve been making moves with our real estate portfolio to make it more passive, I do believe our private equity cash flow should increase this year to make up for some of our lost active income.

  • Cash Back Apps: $500
    • I started looking for the best cash back apps in September of last year, and think between my wife and I we can make $500 per year with minimal effort.
  • Credit Card Rewards: $1,000
    • It’s time to sign up for another couple of rewards credit cards this year. If we can get 2 cards with a $500 bonus each, we’ll knock this one out easily.
  • Interest Earned: $1,000
    • Since selling off some of our real estate, we’ve slowly been moving money into crowdfunding or other things. But we have a decent amount of cash laying around. I’m currently earning 2.2% at Ally Bank right now, but need to switch over to CIT Bank as they are paying 2.45%!
  • Realtor Commissions: $15,000
    • My wife has been able to make $15-20k the last few years just from random friends and family transactions. There’s no business in the pipeline, and we don’t do any marketing, but something usually pans out throughout the year.
  • Real Estate Crowdfunding: $25,000
    • We have a significant chunk of money in real estate crowdfunding and other private equity deals. Some send us a monthly or quarterly check, while others won’t pay us a dime for 5 years or more. Based on the types of deals we’re in, I think we should be able to get $25k in passive cash flow delivered to our mailbox in 2019 🙂
  • Rental Properties: $25,000
    • We don’t have any big plans to buy or sell any rental properties this year. My goal is to make $300 cash flow per month for each of our 7 units, which comes out to just over $25k.
  • Blogging: $500
    • Right now blogging is a fun hobby that has cost me a few hundred dollars so far. I’m hoping in 2019 I’ll be able to turn a small profit. We’ll see!
  • Total Extra Income Goal: $68,000

Most of our extra income relies on real estate, which is very lumpy. But on average, our goal is to make $5,667 per month.

Extra Income for February 2019

  • Cash Back Apps: $155
  • Credit Card Rewards: $1000
  • Interest Earned: $257
  • Realtor Commissions: $0
  • Real Estate Crowdfunding: $333
  • Rental Properties: $4,042
  • Total Extra Income: $5,787

In total, we made $5,787 this month, which is pretty much on target for our monthly average goal of $5,667 per month.

Our side hustle income is generally very lumpy and depends heavily on when my wife pulls in a real estate commission check, or if we have a big repair bill on a rental property. This month was great for our rentals (as compared to the negative cash flow from last month’s income report).

 

side hustle income by category

 

Side Note: We’ve been building side income streams for over 5 years now, so if you’re just getting started, don’t get discouraged by the amount. Everyone has to start somewhere, and we probably LOST money the first several months of our side hustle journey.

 

2019 Progress Toward Extra Income Goal

Thus far through February, we are a little behind track on our goal toward $68,000 in extra income. We have a big check coming up from my wife’s realtor side hustle, and real estate crowdfunding income should continue to grow throughout the year, so I am not worried yet.

progress chart feb 2019 e1551743410931 - February 2019 Extra Income Report - $5,787

Cash Back Apps – $155

I have a goal to make an extra $500 per year from cash back apps. $500 per year breaks down to about $42 per month, so February was a great month! However, I did cheat a little bit as I noted below.

The beauty of cash back apps is that they require almost zero work. It’s basically free money if you do any shopping with credit cards, and the cash back stacks on top of your credit card rewards. In this day and age, between credit card rewards and cash back apps, you should be able to make at least 3-5% back on every purchase you make.

I have downloaded dozens of cash back apps in search of the ones that pay out the most money for the least amount of work. Once I determine which ones work best, I get my wife to sign up (using my referral code of course for an extra $5-10 bonus). Since my wife does most of the day to day shopping and online purchases for our family, she’s really the one making most of the money.

Related: The Only 2 Sites You Need to Make $100 A Month Taking Online Surveys

How I Earned Cash Back This Month

For February, a big portion of that $155 came from referrals. I referred 3 people to eBates, and they pay out $25 per referral. I am at a little bit of an advantage because I have a blog and people sometimes click through my affiliate links (thank you!)

However, I think anyone can make earning referrals a part of their cash back strategy. If you use an app and like it, recommending it to friends and family and having them sign up with your referral code should get you at least a few referrals per year.

Ebates also earned me some money through the normal cash back process this month. I’ve been needing to get a new sweater for awhile now, and Banana Republic was having a 40% off sale so I found a new sweater and also got 8% cash back by ordering through Ebates!

Cash Back Tip of the Month – Earn $45 in Less Than 30 Minutes

So shame on me for only completing half of this (I still need to get my wife to do it), but if you are married or have a significant other, here’s a great opportunity to earn $45 through the Drop app. Here’s how it works:

  1. Sign up for Drop and link your credit card (get a $5 bonus through this link)
  2. Have your spouse or significant other sign up for Drop with your referral code ($5 bonus for you and $5 bonus for them)
  3. Each of you sign up for the Twine app offer through Drop ($15 bonus for each of you)

Twine is an app that allows you to set up savings goals for specific purposes and contribute toward them. The unique thing about Twine is it allows you to invite other people to join your goals (e.g. your spouse or significant other).

You can save in cash with zero fees, or use their investment portfolio options for 25 cents per month per $500 (essentially a 0.6% management fee).

I set up a small savings account as a test (and to get my $15 in credit through the Drop app), and then got my $15 bonus as promised.

Cash back in Drop from Twine sign up

After playing around with the app, I think it could be a good option for couples trying to reach short-term savings goals together such as vacations, new car funds, or an emergency fund. While you don’t get interest if you choose to save in cash, you aren’t losing out on much if it’s a smaller short term goal, and the app is easy to use.

Either way, I encourage you to try it out for yourself and get the $45 bonus by creating a Drop account, linking a card, and signing up for Twine! (Or $30 bonus if you already have the Drop app.)

 

As of February 2019, here are the apps on my phone:

Drop

Drop is one of my favorite apps because it doesn’t require me to do anything at all. I just downloaded the app and linked my credit card. Now when I make purchases on my credit card, it automatically adds points to my account.

Drop lets you pick 5 stores where you get automatic cash back every time you shop. The 5 I picked are Trader Joe’s, Target, Walgreens, Starbucks, and Chipotle. I earn Drop points (1,000 points = $1.00) each time I use my credit card at these stores.

There are other offers within the app if you want to actually check it every once in awhile. I recently signed up for an offer to set up an account with Stash, an online savings app, that I had been meaning to try out anyway. I will get 15,000 points ($15) just for signing up for a free app through Drop. So these offers can be worth it if you find something you can use. You just have to be careful to avoid signing up for things you don’t need just for the cash rewards.

If you want to try it out you can sign up here and get a $5 bonus when you link your credit card (that is an affiliate link – I get a small commission if you join that helps keep the lights on around here).

8582 504662 - February 2019 Extra Income Report - $5,7878582 - February 2019 Extra Income Report - $5,787

Dosh

Dosh is very similar to Drop – once you link a credit card you don’t have to do anything else but collect your cash. Where Drop let’s you earn cash back at a set of specific stores that you choose, Dosh gives you cash back at wider range of stores. I’ve noticed that Dosh tends to have a lot of local restaurants in its list (usually with 5% cash back).

One of my favorite local restaurants that I frequent gives 5% cash back through Dosh. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s nice to see my cash balance in the app increase every time I take the family out to eat!

Update: As of 12/5/18, Dosh offers cash back on online shopping without having to click through the app! This is a game changer, and as far as I know they are the first to do it.

I pretty much ignore the online cash back offers through most apps because I don’t want to have to remember to go through the app every time (Ebates is the exception because they have a handy Google Chrome extension that does it for me). Now when you purchase online through one of Dosh’s partners, as long as you use your linked credit card, you will get the cash back automatically.

You can sign up to try Dosh through this link and get a $5 bonus (again, that’s my affiliate link).

Ebates

Where Drop and Dosh give you cash back for local shopping, Ebates is all about online shopping. If you’re like my family, we buy everything we can online, and Ebates helps us save 2-5% on almost every purchase.

When I first signed up for Ebates a few months ago, I was able to get about $15 for booking a hotel through Expedia (which I was doing anyway). So not only did I get the lowest price I could find online, I got an extra $15 back in my pocket.

The only downside to Ebates is you have to start your shopping in the Ebates portal so that it can register where you are shopping and apply the cash back. So if you were buying socks on Amazon (yes I buy socks on Amazon), you would need to go to Ebates first, then click through to Amazon to get your cash back. Fortunately, there is a Chrome extension that automatically reminds you to do this, which is great because I always forget.

Ebates is probably the most well-known app on my list, and for good reason. It has relationships with a huge number of retailers, so you can get cash back for almost anything you buy online.

Ebates is currently giving out a $10 bonus when you spend $25 if you sign up through this link. (That’s my referral link. I get a small bonus in my Ebates account when you get a bonus.)

Ibotta

I am on the fence with Ibotta. I think it’s a great app to save money on groceries, and lots of people who use it rave about it. You can get cash back at almost every grocery store imaginable by selecting offers in the app on various products you buy on a weekly basis.

Related: How to Save Money on Groceries (And Still Eat Well)

Unfortunately, we do most of our grocery shopping at Aldi’s, which is like the one store not affiliated with Ibotta (but don’t feel too bad for me, Aldi’s is the best thing that’s ever happened to our grocery budget). We still do a little shopping at other grocery stores, and I make a few dollars here and there through Ibotta, but someone who shopped at a “normal” grocery store could make a lot more.

What I like most about Ibotta is that they consistently have offers for cash back on non-branded items. So you can get 25 cents off any carton of eggs, or 50 cents off any type of meat. You don’t have to overpay on name brand products just to get a discount. I’ll give it a few more months and see if it deserves a spot on my phone.

I do heartily recommend the app to anyone who shops at a grocery store other than Aldi’s. Ibotta advertises that their average user saves $20 per month ($240 per year) for a few minutes of work each week.

If you want to give it a try, you can get a $10 bonus when you start shopping with Ibotta here. (Like Ebates, I get a small bonus in my Ibotta account when you get your bonus.)

 

Credit Card Rewards – $1,000

Last year, I decided to report the income when we actually cashed out the reward points. I am rethinking that, and may report the income when we receive the rewards. Most of our rewards are Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, which we can generally get a redemption rate of 1.5:1 on when we book travel, but I would just value them at a purely cash value of 100 points to $1.

In February, we earned a $1,000 credit from Ally Bank! I guess this is technically a saving account bonus, not credit card bonus, but this is where I’m putting it, so deal with it 🙂

At the end of 2018, Ally announced a 1% bonus for any money moved into an Ally savings account or CD and kept in the account through January (up to $1,000 max). We had just sold one of our rental properties and were sitting on quite a bit of cash, so we took advantage of the offer to collect a $1,000 bonus.

Even without the bonus, Ally offers a generous 2.2% interest rate on their savings account.

Now that we’ve met the requirements to get the bonus, I am considering moving the money over to CIT Bank as they currently offer the highest interest rate I’ve seen for a savings account at 2.45%. But I’m always on the lookout for a better offer!

We add about 3-4,000 points ($30-40) a month just from our normal credit card use, mainly on our Chase cards. We’ve got a balance of about 120,000 points right now, which at our average redemption rate of 1.5:1 is worth $1,800 toward travel costs. We try to open a couple new cards per year to get the sign-up bonuses. I don’t have the next one planned, so I need to get on that!

I absolutely love credit card rewards, as we haven’t paid for a plane ticket in almost 3 years now. I need to write a post about our strategy, but you can find lots of info online just by googling “travel reward hacking”.

How to Get Started With Credit Card Rewards (And Earn $600)

For the newbie, I recommend the Chase Sapphire card as your starting point. I signed up for one in my name, and another in my wife’s name over the last year to get a 50,000 point sign-up bonus for each of us (100,000 points total = about $1500 toward travel in our scenario above!)

You have to spend $4,000 on the card in order to get the bonus, so if you want to try the same thing make sure you space it out so you can hit the spending requirement. There is also a $95 annual fee. When I reach the anniversary on my card, I plan to call Chase and get it downgraded to a no annual fee card.

NOTE: This offer has since expired, and the current offer is even better. You can now get 60,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months!

Check out the Chase Sapphire card here and see if you qualify for the 60,000 point sign-up bonus.

Interest Earned – $257

We have a decent amount of cash sitting around in emergency funds and reserve funds for our rental properties, as well as money waiting to be invested in passive crowdfunding projects.

This month we earned $257. Most of our money is in an Ally Bank account earning 2.2%, but I am working on moving it over to CIT Bank which consistently pays the highest interest rate I’ve been able to find (currently 2.45%).

CIT Bank Has the Best Interest Rate I Can Find Anywhere

If you’re looking for a good bank account to hold your emergency fund, or other cash savings, I highly recommend looking into CIT Bank.

By being online only they are able to keep expenses down and offer the best interest rate I can find without sacrificing service.


Savings Builder

Realtor Commissions – $0

As part of our real estate investing side hustle (see below), my wife got her real estate license mainly to save on transaction costs for our own purchases. However, it costs a decent amount of money to maintain her license ($2-3k per year), so she takes on clients here and there. These are almost exclusively friends, family, and referrals. She doesn’t do any marketing to find clients.

My wife stays home with the kids (a much more than full-time job itself), but we’ve been surprised that she’s been able to net around $15-20k per year the last few years only working a few hours here and there. When she has a client, most of the work tends to be evenings and weekends, so I can watch the kids while she shows houses. I would say she spends less than 10 hours a month on this side hustle.

The realtor income is highly erratic. She might have a closing one month and make $5,000, and then not make any money for 3 or 4 months.

She actually had a closing on February 28th, but hasn’t gotten the check yet. So stay tuned for the March update, it will be a good one!

Related: Everything I’ve Ever Done to Make Money

 

Check out our family's monthly side hustle income report and how we made over $5,000 last month (no, it's not from blogging). See all the ways we make extra income through side jobs and passive income streams, and our favorite side hustles to make money from home - real estate investing, credit card rewards, crowdfunding, and cash back apps. #incomereport #extraincome #workfromhome #passiveincome #sidehustles #sidehustleideas #makemoneyfromhome #realestateinvesting #blogging #crowdfunding

Check out our family's monthly side hustle income report and how we made over $5,000 last month (no, it's not from blogging). See all the ways we make extra income through side jobs and passive income streams, and our favorite side hustles to make money from home - real estate investing, credit card rewards, crowdfunding, and cash back apps. #incomereport #extraincome #workfromhome #passiveincome #sidehustles #sidehustleideas #makemoneyfromhome #realestateinvesting #blogging #crowdfunding

Real Estate Crowdfunding – $333

Real estate crowdfunding brings in the holy grail of truly passive income. As we get busier with young kids and family life, we are trying to transition some of our gains from active real estate investing into more passive investments. Our real estate crowdfunding income represents the monthly income our invested capital is making for us each month.

If you don’t know what real estate crowdfunding is, you are basically contributing money to a large commercial real estate deal, either as a lender (debt) or as a part-owner (equity). The sponsor of the deal does all the work to find the property, negotiate it, fix it up, rent it out, and eventually sell it. You the passive investor just contribute capital to make the deal happen. You also get absolutely no say in how the property is run, so by far the most important aspect of my due diligence is looking at the sponsor and their past track record.

There are lots of platforms to get into real estate crowdfunding (RealtyShares – no longer accepting new investors, CrowdStreet, EquityMultiple, etc.) You can also find deal sponsors the old-fashioned way through networking with other people. That is how I’ve found most of the sponsors I’ve invested with.

I’m currently invested in a few different deals:

  • A fund that invests in land deals and single family rental houses
  • An apartment complex that happens to be 5 minutes from my house
  • A fund diversified across multifamily, commercial, and industrial properties
  • A fund that invests in Class C apartments in the Midwest
  • A fund that invests in Class B/C apartments in the Southeast

Over time, I generally expect my passive real estate investments to return 12-15% per year (IRR). They are all long term investments though, with the money locked up for 5-10 years. Some give me a monthly payment of the cash flow the property generates, and some don’t pay out until everything is sold off in 5 or 10 years.

This month, I only got one check for my 8% preferred return on a $50,000 investment. Another one I was expecting will come a little late, so will show up in March. Several of the funds only pay quarterly (and some none at all) so the cash flow is erratic. I still think we should hit our goal of $25,000 in cash flow by the end of the year, but this is more of a long term investment than a steady cash flow play.

If you’re brand new to real estate and don’t have a lot of money to invest, I would recommend starting small. Two platforms I like are Groundfloor and Fundrise.

  • Groundfloor allows you to participate in loans backed by real estate (as little as $10 per loan last I checked). While I no longer contribute to my Groundfloor account, I got an annualized return of 12.5% over the past couple of years across all the various loans I helped to fund. If you’re interested in learning more about Groundfloor, click here. (get a $10 bonus when you open an account through that link!)
  • Fundrise lets you invest in a diversified portfolio of real estate with as little as $500. Because it is a private fund and your money is tied up for 3+ years (unlike a public REIT) the returns tend to be higher, and the low minimum makes it a good introduction to crowdfunding. You can check out Fundrise here and see if it could help you meet your investment goals. (affiliate link)

Rental Properties – $4,042

Rental properties is where our side hustle journey began. We are now 5 years in, and currently have a small portfolio of 7 units. We aim to make about $300 cash flow per month per unit, which has gotten harder to do the last couple years as real estate prices have risen.

Related: How to Use the 1% Rule to Find Great Rental Properties

All but one of our rentals we self-manage (one rental is in a different state), so we market the property, pick the tenants, and answer the phone when there are problems. Most months nothing happens and there isn’t really anything to do but deposit the rent, but sometimes we get an emergency call that water is pouring out from under the house and we have to figure out how to deal with it. We’ve built up a good list of contractors we trust, which has helped tremendously in keeping costs down and tenants happy.

One thing I don’t include in the cash flow is the principal paydown on the mortgage. While this isn’t money coming in to pay the bills, it does slowly increase our net worth as the tenants continue to pay down our mortgages. Here’s the breakdown by property:

real estate rental extra income details

Overall, if everything is running perfectly – we collect all the projected rent checks, and our only expense is the mortgage payment, we would cash flow about $4,000 per month. That is the absolute ceiling, and of course you have to factor in other expenses such as repairs, property management, and vacancy.

Here are the highlights for February:

  1. Everything is running smoothly! Sometimes we get lucky and have a month where everything goes according to plan. No maintenance calls, no tenants moving out, just sit on the couch and collect the checks.
  2. My wife threw away a rent check. Ok, so we did have one minor incident this month. In the lease our rent is due on the 1st and late after the 5th. We only have one tenant who actually mails us a paper check every month, and he is always on time. It got to the 5th of the month, and no rent check. So I texted him and asked if he had sent it, and of course he said he had.My wife was sure she had seen the check but we couldn’t find it anywhere. After dumpster diving in our recycle container in the dark (and freezing cold), I retrieved our lost check and deposited it. Turns out she had thrown it out with all the junk mail. Ah, the glamorous life of a landlord.
  3. In the process of renewing 2 leases. The leases for East Dallas SFH #1 and #2 expire at the end of March. Both tenants want to renew, so we are in the process of getting all the paperwork signed. They’ve been great tenants so we are very happy they are staying!

We probably spent about 3 hours total on our rentals this month: 1 hour digging through the trash for the rent check and 2 hours going back and forth with tenants to get lease renewals signed.

Blogging

I’ve earned a few affiliate commissions from products I’ve recommended (thanks to those of you who signed up using my links – I’d love to know what you think of the products!)

No income to report until it actually hits the bank, though. Most of the affiliate networks require a certain minimum before they cut a check, so it might be awhile…

If you want to see our past income reports, check them out below:

What do you do to make extra income on the side? Let me know in the comments!

Andrew Herrig is a finance expert and money nerd and the founder of Wealthy Nickel, where he writes about personal finance, side hustles, and entrepreneurship. As an avid real estate investor and owner of multiple businesses, he has a passion for helping others build wealth and shares his own family’s journey on his blog.

Andrew holds a Masters of Science in Economics from the University of Texas at Dallas and a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University. He has worked as a financial analyst and accountant in many aspects of the financial world.

Andrew’s expert financial advice has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, Fox News, GOBankingRates, MSN, and more.

6 thoughts on “February 2019 Extra Income Report – $5,787”

  1. Andrew are you not counting investment growth in the market in both tax deferred and non-tax deferred accounts? Wanted to understand your logic on what you consider “side hustle” income. To me it is anything that is non-W2 income and tax deferred acounts like IRA/401ks etc. Looking good, keep up the great work!

    Reply
    • Hi Raj, good question. The definition is a little fluid depending who you ask. I am not including any kind of stock investments. I guess I consider that more “investing” than “side hustle”. I include the real estate crowdfunding even thought it is (mostly) passive because the money I have invested there came directly from our other real estate side hustles (rental income, flips, wholesales, etc.)

      Reply
  2. I’m up in the air with Ibotta as well. I started using it about a month ago. I don’t want to say that it sucks, but that’s what I’m leaning towards. I buy a lot of store brand items. The app wants you to buy certain brand names. I don’t even eat most of the things that Ibotta offer. I’ll give it another month, but this app isn’t worth it right how.

    Reply
  3. You have made a nice portfolio income streams!

    I really enjoyed your post and will continue to follow your growth in the next months too. Actually, I started to write my own income statements from February 2019. It is really nice way to look back at you progress and do some analysis of what could be done better.

    Thanks for sharing and good luck in the coming months!

    Reply

Leave a Comment