So, how will we afford a week in the sun, paid for in advance, without getting into any debt?
My partner was looking at holidays recently and found an amazing holiday for the family, all-inclusive in the Canary Islands, for £1,400, which sounded like a great deal, but £1,400 is still a lot of money, and we certainly don't have £1,400 sitting in the bank to spend, which is a real shame! I was chatting to my partner about it and talking about ways we could fund such a holiday without going into debt. We figured out that, realistically, that holiday will likely cost £2500 once you factor in all the other holiday expenses. We would aim to go on August 1st 2024, which meant we had 325 days before going on holiday, with the holiday needing to be paid for in full on July 1st, which was 295 days time.
Doing the math, we'd need to earn an extra £8.48 a day, EVERY DAY, to have that £2,500 sat in our bank to pay off the holiday and have the spending money by July 1st!
Once you break that down between two people, £8.48 a day doesn't seem that much. Split between the 2 of us, that's just saving/making £4.24 each per day for 295 days, with the reward of an all-inclusive week in the sun, with enough spending money not to worry about hitting the credit cards while away...
So that's the plan: we are going to put that money away every day with the aim of at least hitting that goal by 1st July!
So how are we going to do it?
So, first things first, we've set up a free Monzo bank account so that we have somewhere separate to keep this money, as it's not a good idea to keep this money in your regular bank account as it's too easy to dip into! I used someone's referral link to get the account as it gives you £5 free once you use your debit card for the first time, so that's an easy £5 for the account to get us started!
Now for the nitty gritty ... money! So we know we need to make some extra cash to fund this holiday! Ideally, we would just take £8.48 out of our regular bank account and put it into our holiday bank account, which doesn't seem too bad; however, based on a 30-day month, that's actually £254.40 a month, which is a chunk of money and would be missed!
So we've set up a transfer of £3.48 a day to be transferred to our savings account for our normal account every day, which is £104.40 a month. Now, this is still a fair bit of money. Still, as we intend to stop spending as much on unnecessary spending, such as takeaways, buying lunch and buying things we don't really need, I think we can afford that; after all, we never run out of money every month, we always have a small buffer to tide us over, so factoring that in, it manageable.
Now we are left with £5 per day needed to be able to fund our holiday! How are we going to be able to fund that?
We need to hustle! A side hustle can consist of anything you do to earn extra money. It doesn't have to be getting a 2nd job to fund your needs; it can be as simple as going through your wardrobe and finding things you never wear and selling them via a selling site, Facebook, etc., to earn some extra money. It doesn't have to be complex at all!
My partner has several large bags of clothing items she will put onto Vinted as a way to bring in some extra cash and get rid of some clutter.
We are getting up super early on Saturday and taking a load of excess items in our overcrowded house to a local car boot sale with the hope that we can make some money! We have some decent stuff, so we might do quite well, and all that revenue will go into the holiday fund! The nice thing about doing something like a car boot sale is that we are likely to make far more than that £5 we need for the day, and so by adding more cash to the bank account, we build up an excess amount, which is a handy buffer for when we haven't been able to earn that extra £5 a day. It doesn't mean we stop for a few days; we will keep plugging away for that £5 a day to ensure we hit our goal!
But what other ways might we hit our saving goal?
Here is a full list of ways we will look to earn that elusive £5 per day between us:
Online Surveys: Sign up for survey websites such as Citizen Me, Influence, One Pulse, Cash Walk & Skedadle can add some extra monthly revenue. They are generally slow burners, and it may take a month or so to earn enough to cash out, but that's okay; it all helps! If you get paid by gift card from these types of apps, get a card for somewhere you use a lot, like a supermarket, and if you get, say, a £5 Tesco gift card, use that for your food shop and then send an extra £5 from your bank account to you holiday fund, that way your holiday fund gets a top up.
Sell our stuff - So, as I have said, we will do a car boot sale and use sites such as Vinted and Facebook marketplace to earn some money and clear some clutter! One person's junk is another person's treasure and may be worth something to someone!
Cashback apps - Anyone following my social media channels or blog knows I love cashback apps! It's such a simple way to earn money back on purchases you've got to make, so basically, free money! We're planning on putting all our cashback into our savings account, and that could be a substantial amount of money! On average, I make £20 a month on cashback sites, sometimes much more; it's all about making sure you look for cashback for every single purchase you make! It doesn't have to be on just the big purchases like a new telly, although these will earn you the most significant amount of cashback, of course; these newer style automatic cashback sites such as Cheddar and Airtime Rewards make things so simple as they work in the background and every time you purchase at a partner retailer, you earn cashback, and that can cashback trickling into your account can really add up! Make sure you're using gift card cashback sites such as JamDoughnut, TopCashback Top Gift Cards or Mad About Money, as these give you cashback or discount on buying a gift card for a retailer you need to buy something from. So, as an example, you know you're going to spend £100 at Tesco, so you buy a £100 Sainsbury's gift card from a gift card cashback service. You'll then earn cashback on that gift card, which could be 4% (you could then, and I do this, place my Sainsbury's order online through TopCashback, paying via gift card, and then earn cashback on that purchase through Topcashback as well!) It only takes a minute to buy the gift card, and the cards come through instantly as well; I recently purchased a gift card with my mobile phone at the till through JamDoughnut after being told my total, and this came through in seconds, and I paid with the gift card instantly, having just earned cashback - its all about earning as much money back as you can! Unless you are earning cashback on your items for your business, cashback doesn't count as taxable income from HMRC; I have checked with a professional account!
Market Research - Another popular money-making option is participating in market research projects. Most market research companies pay around £1 per minute for your time, so £60 an hour is achievable! I'm aiming to try and get one of these a month if I can! It's hard to plan as you need to be someone that the researchers want to speak to, and so it might be that you do not fit in with what a researcher is looking for; that is why it's important to sign up with as many market research companies as you can to get the best chance to get a paid project. You can see my list of market research companies to sign up with HERE There are smaller market research-type companies that pay less than £1 a minute but offer lots of projects a week that are worth signing up with. Prolific is one, and my favourite is User Interviews. This American company pays between $5 and $8 per project, which is always done remotely online and takes up to around 10 minutes or so to complete typically. They send the payment to Paypal in USD, which you can convert into GBP.
Deliveroo! I am registered with Deliveroo as a food delivery driver. It's not something I do very often at all, in fact hardly ever, but it's useful as a backup plan should I need to earn some extra money quickly. I can earn £100, maybe more, on a very busy day in my area if I have the time to spend a full day out and about, but I could easily earn that £5 in an hour if I go out at dinnertime or lunchtime! I do have to factor in the cost of fuel and top-up insurance that I need to have (paid hourly). As with all of the income from paid work (not the selling of my old clothes, etc.), I have to factor in my HMRC tax implications as well, as I am registered as self-employed as my side hustle income is likely to exceed £1k a year, (if less than £1k you don't need to declare the income to HMRC). My partner hasn't touched her £1k extra income allowance, so she could earn £1k this year (until April) and another £1k next year without worrying about tax.
Bank account switching! We don't like our current bank, so will be looking to switch to a new bank shortly. Lots of the switching deals seem to have just closed, so we will hang fire until they start back up again, and then hopefully, we can earn a switching bonus of up to £200, which will be a big chunk of money toward our savings goal!
So there is the plan for how we are hoping to be able to afford our lovely sunny holiday next summer! There will be days when we don't hit our target, and there will be days when we smash it, I'm sure, but I think it's achievable; what do you think? It looks like there aren't enough opportunities to make the money we need, but there really are; taking on several hustles at a time is the right way to make sure you have the best chance of hitting your goal; you can't rely on just one to do what you need, something always happens, so having options is the most likely way of doing what you need to do.
There are loads more side hustles we 'could do.' I'm just being realistic about the amount of spare time we have to dedicate to the project! Life can be a struggle on the best of days, and I don't want to add lots of extra pressure and stress into our lives, but we do want a lovely family holiday, so we will certainly be doing our best to afford to get one!
Below is a guide on what you could earn extra per year by side hustling daily. Most people wouldn't have the time or resources to earn £100 extra a day, although I'm sure we would all like that £36,500 extra income per year, but even just that £5 a day would earn you £1,825 a year, what would you do with that; a lovely holiday, a new sofa, a garden makeover; the possibilities are endless, it just takes a can-do attitude.
£5 per day = £1,825 per year
£10 per day = £3,650 per year
£20 per day = £7,300 per year
£30 per day = £10,950 per year
£40 per day = £14,600 per year
£50 per day = £18,250 per year
£100 per day = £36,500 per year