I’m a mum and earn £500 extra a month with side hustle – anyone can do it
AFTER Amanda Harris gave birth, she worried about making ends meet.
With hungry mouths to feed and prices rising in the cost of living crisis, the 34-year-old started looking for ways to boost her income.
The mum from Peckham works as a customer service assistant at Sainsbury's.
But as the end of her maternity leave was unpaid, she needed to find another way to make money as cash is tight.
Amanda* told The Sun how she manages to make an additional £500 a month from her side hustle thanks to a handy website.
She said: "I looked online and I knew about Airtasker because I used to find people for odd jobs before. I got a lot of handyman work done from it.
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"But then I saw the other side to it, and people were posting jobs where they needed cleaning - that was in my realm.
"It takes a little while to get your foot in the door but once you get good reviews, you're more than likely to get a lot of jobs - the possibilities are endless."
Amanda has earned as much as £500 extra cash a month before tax by doing simple tasks for other people, for around six hours a week.
Airtasker connects people looking to get everyday jobs done, like walking the dog, with people willing to do them.
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They agree a price between them for the job, and Airtasker takes a 20% cut.
Amanda's jobs have ranged from cleaning and dog walking, to delivering keys from estate agents, and printing documents for people.
She's even been paid for just cleaning up a broken plant pot when someone was away on holiday.
Off the back of her dog walking via the app, she is now making a business out of it after building up a list of happy clients.
The savvy mum, whose kids are aged between one and 13, has reduced her hours to look after her new baby, but still earns around £100 every two weeks by completing tasks.
She said: "I've managed to build strong links with customers and clients, Airtasker really helped me build a good customer base.
"I look at the jobs and I pick them up if I want to, I can bid for the better paid jobs like £100 and that will set me for a week or two."
This means that because Amanda has built up a host of 5-star reviews she now gets the option to bid for the higher paid tasks.
She can choose to do as much or as little as she likes, depending on what she has on.
But it's worth remembering that anything you earn with a side hustle can be taxed.
You can earn up to £1,000 without paying tax thanks to the trading allowance.
According to HMRC, the odd jobs you can claim for tax free include money made at car boot sales, online selling or auction.
It could also include money made from food delivery or by charging other people for using your equipment or tools.
Once you earn more than £1,000 a year, you need to complete a self-assessment tax return and start paying tax on your extra earnings.
How much that is will depend on how much you already earn.
Amanda's top tips for earning extra cash
For anyone wanting to get started with Airtasker, Amanda recommends going for small jobs you can do well at first to help build up those reviews.
This also helps build up your client base which means you'll get the chance to do more.
She also says to check back every hour if you've got the time because there's always tasks being posted throughout the day.
Amanda says people looking for an extra income stream have nothing to lose by signing up - "it's a win-win situation".
It's worth noting that some jobs will be better paid than others and that some will take longer than others so your weekly and monthly will differ.
Anyone who is looking to sign up to be a "Tasker" is in charge of their own taxes on payments they get - there is a guide on the website for this.
There is also a handy tool which tells side hustlers how much money they can make by doing tasks they're interested in.
As an example we said we wanted to do babysitting three times a week and the calculator said we can earn up to £675 a month.
Although it does flag that actual prices may vary.
Amanda said: "I would recommend it to anyone, it's such a helpful platform.
"Whatever you're interested in just go for it - anyone can do it.
"I'll definitely be picking up extra tasks in the run up to Christmas, ideally bigger pay ones so I don't have to do as many.
"I always find what I'm looking for, I've never struggled to find something that suits my needs."
A spokesperson for Airtasker told The Sun that they have seen an increase in people signing up as the cost of living rises.
The company says it's expecting more jobs to be posted in the run up to Christmas, with people looking for gift buyers, present wrappers and people to pick up trees for them.
Airtasker isn't the only platform where you can ear extra cash for doing odd jobs.
TaskRabbit works in a similar way and lets users hire temporary workers to deliver packages or clean homes.
This site also takes a fee - when you book a task, you can see Taskers' hourly rates.
This hourly rate is inclusive of the hourly rate a Tasker sets and the TaskRabbit service fee.
The service fee is a percentage of the total price you pay for your task.
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Over the last few months we have brought you lots of stories of other people putting their skills to work and earning additional income.
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These include this savvy one which earns one woman £353k a year without having a full time job.
*Not her real name