How I’m Making £2000 in “Free” Money This Year

I love finding weird and wonderful ways to make money. And one of my favourite ways to boost my income without much effort or time is through free money or as it’s more commonly known interest. Whether that’s bank interest, LISA gov bonuses or sign up offers they all come under my umbrella of interest. And if my projections are correct I will make over two thousand pounds from this income stream alone in 2024. Two thousand pounds – an insane amount for someone who started out on £5 per hour washing dishes.

How am I planning on making this much? Let’s dig into my plan…

LISA BONUS

I’m obsessed with my Lifetime Stocks & Shares ISA, like obsessed! Tell me another account where anything you add gets matched 25% – love it! However, I’d sorta put contributions to this account on the back burner whilst on my gap year as I didn’t want to lock my minimal income away until I turned 60. But now I’ve decided to give this freelancer thing a go, I need to focus some of my income on my future. So you know what that means, I can take advantage of the bonus almost twice in 2024. Now it’s almost twice because I’d already contributed something to the pot towards the end of 2023 so I don’t have the full £2k to earn. I’ve got more like £1700 available to claim in 2024.

REGULAR SAVER PAYOUT

Last March I did three back-to-back bank switches and made an insane £750 for the minimal effort it took. One of them came with access to a 7% regular saver account which I couldn’t say no to. The maximum deposit for this account was £300 per month so for the last 11 months I’ve transferred £300 from my long term savings account to this account to max out the 7% reward. I have one payment left and then I will have access to this money again plus the approximate £130 in interest I will have made. Not a bad return for a minute or so admin each month.

KEEP CASH IN A HIGH INTEREST ACCOUNT

It really is a savers market right now and interest rates are pretty decent across the board. So I make sure to keep my cash in an account that gets the best interest rate and works the best for me. Currently this is 4.1% through Chase as I like how the app works, like the pot system and find the interest rate competitive compared to others. I earned £20 last month from bank interest which is a vast improvement from the £3 per year I used to earn. If I keep my cash balance the same if not more throughout the year, I’ll make a good £240 this year from bank interest alone.

JUMPING ON THE OFFERS

I love a good sign up offer especially when it comes with a cash bonus. Plus I’m not adversed to locking away some of my money for a little while if I can earn money off it – see previous point on regular saver. A few days ago I jumped on an offer I saw on Moneybox – open a Cash ISA and add £500 to it to get a £25 welcome bonus. That’s a 5% return on my money within 30 days. Not a bad ROI. Especially considering I had the £500 just sat there. And I’ll be earning 5.01% interest on the money for the 30 days it’s sat in the Cash ISA which is approximately an extra £2.05.

That’s £27.05 made for a couple of minutes of admin. I foresee a couple of these offers coming up throughout the year and have projected I can make around £100 from these alone.

FREE MONEY INCOMING

Lifetime ISA + £1700

Regular Saver + £130

High interest savings account + £240

Offers + £100

= £2170

Now that’s the best sort of maths. Over 2 grand incoming in “free” money just from keeping my money in certain accounts. Not a bad little earner over the year, right!!

Do you pay attention to where you keep your money? Do you take advantage of the “free” money lying on the table?