Complete Breakdown of My 6 Income Sources

One of the first lessons I learnt when I started on my financial literacy journey, was that having only one source of income is not a good idea. The more sources you have, the more protected you are, the pressure of having only one source is lifted because you have others to fall back on.

Currently, I am at the point where I have built up six different sources of income. Only two of them are passive at this point, but I am hoping in the future to have the majority of my sources be completely passive.

#1 Student Loan

This gets paid in three instalments throughout the year, but it averages out to around £750 each month. I use this money to pay for the majority of my living expenses and still manage to save over 20% of it!

#2 Bursary

I qualified for a low income bursary of £1000 from my university which gets paid in two instalments – half in November and half in February. I get this every academic year that I still fit the criteria.

100% of this money goes straight into savings.

#3 Part-time Job

Currently I am working full time hours because it is exam season. Meaning I don’t have much uni work to do. However, usually I work around 20 hours on top of my studies. Therefore, the extra income I get from my job is currently around £1000 per month. However, when I drop my hours back to part-time this will go down to about £600 each month.

Every penny I earn from this job will go straight into savings. This is because all of my living expenses are already covered by my student loan.

#4 Loan Re-payment

A few months ago, I lent my sister some money which she is paying me back over an 18 month period, with interest. On the first of the month, she transfers £45. This is just over my monthly food budget so I use this money for that.

This arrangement works out perfectly for both of us! She got her new laptop months before she could save the money for it and I earn interest on money that was sat to use for food anyway.

#5 Surveys

If you have read any of my previous blog post you may already know that I love doing surveys. They are a great way to make extra income each month. Completing surveys are a great because they require no commitment, no knowledge and can be done from anywhere.

I tend to make around £50 extra every month for around 1 hour a week of “work”. Again, any money earned from this source goes straight into savings.

RELATED READING: Best Surveys Sites

#6 Extras

This includes everything that doesn’t currently fit into any of the above categories or isn’t enough to become its own category. Currently any income made from this blog comes under this category. Hopefully it will be sufficient enough in the coming months that it will become its own source of income.

Other things included in this source of income are things like medical studies, being a poll clerk or completing online tasks on 20 Cogs. All the little things really do add up. If I totalled up the extras and divided by 12, it would equal to around £50 each month.

Any money made in this category also goes straight into savings.

So that’s it, my current 6 sources of income.

Four out of the six all go straight towards savings, one is only used for food expenses and the final one is budgeted like its my only source of income (i.e. I save 20% of it).

In total, from all six sources, I average around £1,700 each month and save around 72% of it between sinking funds, long term savings and investments.

Do you think it’s important to have multiple sources of income?

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