£500 Side Hustle Challenge: Full Earnings Breakdown

I love a challenge! Especially one relating to side hustles! Over the past couple of years I’ve completed two big side hustle challenges. And 39 days ago I started another one, this time I embarked on a £500 Side Hustle Challenge to fund a trip to see 5 countries in 1 week!

My first challenge was my £5k gap year challenge, where I wanted to make enough from side hustles to match my gap year spending pot. I initially set a 12 month timeframe to complete this challenge and ended up smashing it out in 7 1/2 months.

Last year, I embarked on an even bigger challenge and set myself the crazy (or so I thought) goal of making £10k from side hustles over the year. This time it took me 10 1/2 months to hit my goal.

So when 2025 rolled around, I couldn’t decide what challenge to set myself next until this crazy idea popped into my head. And off I went!

The £500 Side Hustle Challenge

The crazy idea, you ask? Well let me give you a little context.

About two years ago, I wrote a 30 before 30 bucket list full of crazy things I want to do before my next big birthday. I wasn’t even 22 at the time of writing, so went wild with the items. The biggest of which was “Step foot in 100 countries”.

Now I’m almost 24, turning 30 is looking closer and closer so it was time to get serious about ticking off these goals. And to be on track to hit 100 countries by 30, I need to visit 15 new ones in 2025.

Enter my crazy idea to visit 5 countries in 1 week.

I plotted out the trip and potential costs and seeing as my travel fund was already spoken for, I had to find a way to make an extra £500 to cover the trip. Hello, side hustles!

What side hustles did you do?

I fell down the side hustle rabbit hole back in April 2020 (5 YEARS AGO!!) and have LOVED them ever since!

Having side hustles is the number one reason I graduated uni with over £30k in the bank and was able to spend a whole year housesitting around the world. Well that year turned into two which has turned into three.

It is no exaggeration that side hustles have changed the entire trajectory of my life and I honestly don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t taken the leap.

But what side hustles am I talking about?

For this challenge, I went back to the basics and wanted to make the £500 from easy online side hustles anyone can do. And I have done just that!

Over the past 39 days (3 days ahead of my original goal), I’ve successfully made £500 from easy side hustles like surveys, market research, sign up offers and online tasks.

Let’s break it down from smallest to biggest hustle…

Watching Ads = £0.08

I use an app called WeAre8 to get rewarded for watching ads. This is one of those apps I have downloaded for when I’m mindlessly scrolling and need a break.

I logged on a couple of times during this challenge and watched 3 ads, making a grand total of 8p. Wow!

However, last year I used this app much more regularly and ended up cashing out over £16. So the pennies do gradually add up without much effort or time investment.

Read Next: Is WeAre8 Worth Downloading?

Playing Games = £1.33

I typically use sites like Swagbucks to get paid to play games but I couldn’t find one I liked the look of during this challenge. However, I did jump on the TopCashback Sweet Treats game!

This was a fun (& free) game hosted on the cashback website where you search for the flying hummingbirds and when you catch them you can either win sweets or prize draw entries. The sweets convert to instant prizes, which range from 10p to £100. And they are running a prize draw to win £1000!

I spent a couple of hours searching the site in the hopes of winning the £100 instant prize. So far I haven’t but I did win the 10p, 20p and £1 instant prizes. And I’ve collect over 300 entries into the prize draw so who knows, maybe I’ll win the £1k?! (Spoiler: I didn’t win the £1k prize)

Haven’t joined TopCashback yet? Sign up with this link to get a £10 bonus when you earn £10 in cashback within the first three years!!

The extra 3p assigned to this category was won on the app EverUp. I used to use EverUp religiously and even kept my gap year fund in there when they offered cash accounts.

Sadly, they got rid of these last year and now just act as a cashback app but they still have their games. I used a couple of my free entries and won 3p.

Online Tasks = £3.20

Online Tasks or Get Paid To… sites were the first ever side hustle I did back in 2020. The site I used no longer exists but the company behind it own a few others that are very similar.

They recently launched an online tasks site called Custard and I spent about 10 minutes signing up and completing a few quick offers. These quick offers made me a total of £3.20 towards my goal and were what pushed me over the £500 mark.

I stopped counting after I hit the £500 mark but I did spend a little more time on the site and made an additional £38.50 through a gambling offer I found on the site.

Want to try out Custard? Use this link to sign up and get a £2 welcome bonus!

Market Research = £60

Market Research is one of the highest hourly paying easy side hustle you’ll find. You’ll typically find the studies pay between £50 to £200 an hour. But they are super hit or miss.

Like with most things the more studies you apply for the more chance you have of landing one. The best thing to do if you are looking to make money from market research is to join as many recruitment sites as you can and answer all the screeners that come your way.

I ended up doing two small projects during the challenge, one of which paid out £10 for a quick 10-minute survey and the second was a week-long study paying £50. This took around 10-15 minutes per day and it was a self-paced diary study.

Read Next: 5 Golden Rules To Follow To Get Market Research Projects

Sign Up Offers = £90

Like market research, Sign Up Offers can be super high paying, especially when compared to the time they typically take to complete.

I’m always on the look out for sign up offers as they hardly take any effort and usually pay out a good amount.

I came across one during this challenge and it paid out a whopping £90 for less than 10 minutes of effort. This offer was through TopCashback and it involved opening an investment account with Charles Stanley and making a deposit.

Unlike most investment sign up offers, there aren’t many T&Cs on this offer so I wasn’t actually sure if it would clear or not. I took the risk and deposited £10 and the £90 tracked in my account within a couple of days. Yay!

Bank Interest/Bonuses = £100.45

When I started this challenge and my first payment came through, I knew I needed to separate out the money so it didn’t get swept up with my other financial activity.

So I opened a high yield savings pot through my Monzo account with a 4.2% interest rate. Meaning that every penny I was putting into the camp was working for me and making even more money.

I started the challenge in late February and at the end of March, I received a 45p interest payment from the account. We love passive income!

The other £100 in this category was a total (but amazing) surprise!

I won £50 on the March Premium Bonds draw – which is only the second time I’ve ever won in the last six years of holding premium bonds.

And the second £50 came in from the Nationwide bonus payment which more than 12 million customers will be getting. If you are a Nationwide current account or mortgage account holder, you’ll more than likely be getting this “mini windfall” payment too!

Mystery Shopping = £105.83

I only Mystery Shopping I current do are the at-home mystery shops through iShopForIpsos!

These are my favourite side hustle right now and I only have less than 2 months to take advantage of them before I age out.

Essentially you are tasked with ordering alcohol off Amazon and reviewing the ID-ing and delivery process.

You do have to be aged 18 to 24 to complete the offers which is sad as I’ll be turning 24 in less than 2 months. So I’ve been trying to do as many of them as possible. I’ve broken down exactly how these offers work and how to get started in this post.

During my £500 challenge I completed 5 mystery shops and made a total of £105.83 in profit once you factor in the price of the products I ordered.

Surveys = £139.81

The highest grossing side hustle of this challenge and the one I always seem to come back to… Surveys!

I like to call them the marmite of the side hustle world as I find people either love them or think they are a complete waste of time.

I am solidly a card carrying member of Team Love and probably always will be. Do I think they are the best way to spend your time? Nope. But I do think they are a great entry level side hustle. Perfect if you are looking to make a little extra income without much effort whilst watching TV in your pjs.

I answered surveys on 8 different websites/apps during this challenge, with Prolific (as always) being the best!

Prolific does have a waitlist right now. But it’s worth joining on the off chance you have something unique they are looking for and get accepted right away.

Here are the 8 websites/apps I used during the challenge and exactly how much I made on each…

• Prolific = £108.82
• Stride = £13.10
• Survey Pop = £7.41
• Opinion Bureau = £6
• Eureka = £1.52
• Survey Spin = £1.46
• Top Surveys = £1
• Inspired Opinions = £0.50

Unlike the other categories, my biggest problem with surveys is that the sites/apps often have a minimum payment threshold. Which you have to reach in order to be paid. So even though I made a good chunk of my earnings in this challenge from them, I won’t be able to access the money until I spend a little more time getting to the threshold.

My plan is to dedicate an afternoon to freeing this money from it’s pending prison.

TOTAL = £500.70

And that’s the breakdown of how I made over £500 from super easy online side hustles that require minimal effort and anyone could do in under 6 weeks!

The one thing I wanted to show in this challenge is how much the pennies really do add up. That 20p survey may not seem worth it but combined with everything else, it all soon adds up.

And now, all these “not worth it” side hustles are going to fund a week-long trip to 5 new countries, which I’ve already booked. See that’s how confident I was that I was going to smash this challenge!

For those who are interested, I’m planning on visiting Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania on my trip. And I’m confident I can do the whole trip for the £500 I’ve earned in this challenge. I’ll keep you updated!

So that’s a wrap on my latest side hustle challenge! I’m sure there will be more to come!

Have you ever done a side hustle challenge before? If you are looking to do one but have no idea where to start check out my 10-day email side hustle challenge where I show you exactly how to make your first £1,000 from easy side hustles!