Ask Sherry: How I upcycle & my 11 side incomes

You asked, and I am answering every Friday once I have enough questions!

You can ask any question using the form here.

You said you have 11 side jobs. can you share what some of those are?

I consider any money that I did not make from my day job, to be a side income, preferably if it’s steady. I consider everything to be that – from cash back to surveys to rewards from stores.

An income doesn’t mean I “worked” for it in the traditional sense, it means I get money for _____ and there may have been some work involved, but sometimes it’s luck.

At the start of this year, I cut back on the time spent on all of this below. I needed to do that for sanity’s sake as I am working full-time on a contract, so my numbers have dropped a lot from my 2020 high of about $80K made from these side incomes.

Here is what I typically list out every month on my Budget Roundups:

1. Advertising
2. Affiliate
3. Coaching
4. Books
5. Gift Cards
6. Bank
7. Bank Promotions
8. Rakuten
9. Credit Cash
10. Dividends
11. Resale
12. Lending
13. Swagbucks
14. Other

They’re not all steady.

Some are downright one-offs every year like gift cards (I win some, on occasion and it was often enough that I needed a section to put it). Actually come to think of it, gift cards are also my reward-backs from certain stores, like when I rack up enough points and it basically means cash for me. But that’s moot.

The 11 that I have highlighted as steady-ish streams are:

1. Advertising – Blog advertising networks
2. Affiliate – Referrals
3. Coaching – Career/money coaching, I do not push this, right now it’s only via email because I’m super busy
4. Books – I have all my (now) 7 books sold on Amazon or direct on LikeABossBooks.com
5. Bank – Bank interest for having my cash sit there; I’ve drained my account so there’s not much these days.
6. Rakuten – Cashback from buying what I was going to buy ANYWAY online
7. Credit Cash – Cashback specifically from cards I use to shop with
8. Dividends – Investments giving dividends, currently almost $15K a year
9. Resale – Reselling stuff out of my wardrobe – this is on pause, I am busy and …COVID.
10. Lending – I do private lending for small businesses – COVID has really dropped this down for obvious reasons
11. Swagbucks – I do surveys and the like on conference calls. $10 every other month or so

So as you can see, some of them may not be worth doing, like Swagbucks or Coaching if it’s not your thing.

Or I could merge Rakuten + Credit Cash but I like to see it separated to see what comes from what.

My truly MAIN side incomes to pay my bills are these 7:

1. Advertising
2. Affiliate
3. Coaching
4. Books
5. Bank
6. Dividends
7. Lending

If I break it down to what I want it to be in the future as truly passive income, it’s:

1. Books
2. Dividends
3. Lending

Hope that helps. You can see actual amounts every month and end of the year roundups on my Budget Roundups.

Hi Sherry! I discovered your blog because of your creative jewelry DIY upcycles. 😍

How do you organize/store your DIY supplies? Does your partner suggest/compliment your DIY jewelry?

SQUEE! WELCOME!

I honestly just stick it into a bunch of boxes (Ikea ones) like this.

Then as for the stones, they’re in pouches, or whatever I have lying around (I have a lot), as well as the jewellery itself to upcycle.

I’m really not organized, it’s all in a big basket, and as long as it isn’t tangled or doesn’t break, I don’t mind.

I sometimes create little mini boxes of what I want to upcycle together, this is one example of a necklace I was working on:

It ended up looking like this:

 

As for my partner he does not suggest or do anything with my jewellery because it’s LITTLE BUN who helps me out the most, takes my pictures for modeling.

To be honest, my partner’s tastes are nowhere near as avant-garde or stylish… and I AM CERTAIN he would side eye some of my pieces because some of them are really out there like this one – Tiamat necklace:

It’s pretty wild. He isn’t isn’t this kind of jewellery but I don’t do or wear anything for anyone but myself, so… 🙂

The finished pieces all sit in little baskets or boxes. I am starting to build a serious collection…!

Still have a burning question?

You can ask any question using the form here and all of my previous Ask Sherry posts are here.