Three years ago, I was sitting in my car during lunch break. I was checking my bank app. My balance never seemed to move, no matter how many hours I worked. That day, I opened a notes app on my phone and typed “ways to make extra money.” I was tired. I was also curious.
That small note turned into a real journal. Nothing fancy. Just a cheap notebook. In it, I wrote down every side hustle I tried. What worked. What didn’t. And how much money I really made after all the hidden costs.
I’m sharing that journal here. I’ll skip the boring parts, so you don’t waste time like I did.
Why I Started a “Money Journal”
Here’s something most articles don’t tell you. They make side hustles sound easy. Download an app, work a little, and get extra money. But that’s not always true.
Half the things I tried barely covered my phone bill. I only noticed this because I started writing down numbers.
Once I had real numbers instead of just feelings, patterns showed up fast. Some ideas looked exciting but paid very little. Others felt boring but slowly added up. Writing things down helped me see the difference.
If you remember one thing from this article, remember this: track everything for at least 30 days before you decide if something is worth your time. Your feelings can trick you. Numbers don’t lie.
The First Mistake I Made
My first idea was reselling things online. I bought clearance items from a local store. I thought I could sell them for double the price on Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp. It sounded like a good plan.
But here’s what really happened. Shipping costs, platform fees, and people who message you just to bargain and disappear. All of it ate into my profit. I made only $40 from $300 worth of items in one month. Not great at all.
The real lesson wasn’t that reselling doesn’t work. It’s that I didn’t check demand first. Later, I started checking sold listings before buying anything. I used the “sold” filter on eBay. After that, my results improved a lot. Same work, better results, just because I spent five minutes doing research first.
Things That Actually Worked for Me
I won’t pretend everything I tried made money. But a few things did work, once I stuck with them long enough.
1. Freelance writing
I started on Upwork, writing simple product descriptions for $15 each. It felt small at first. But after a few months, one client gave me a steady blog-writing job. That job still brings in good money every month.
The secret wasn’t talent. It was showing up every day and replying fast to messages. In freelancing, being reliable matters more than being the best writer, at least in the beginning.
2. Selling digital templates
I made a simple budgeting spreadsheet for myself using Google Sheets. I cleaned it up and put it on Etsy, just to try. It turned out to be one of the easiest ways to earn a little extra. No shipping. No stock to manage. Just small updates now and then. I only used Canva and Google Sheets to make it.
3. Cashback and reward apps
This one isn’t exciting, but it works. I used apps like Rakuten and Fetch Rewards for things I was already buying. Over a year, it added up to a few hundred dollars. It’s not really “earning” money, but it’s money I would have spent anyway, so getting something back felt good.
4. Renting out things I already had
I rented out my pressure washer and an extra parking spot using local apps. Sounds strange, I know. But before you buy new things to “start a business,” check what you already own. There’s a good chance something in your garage can earn you money right now.
Why Some Money Topics Pay Way More Than Others
Once my journal grew, I got curious about something else. Why do some blogs and YouTube channels make so much more money than others, even with fewer viewers?
The answer is something called CPC. It stands for cost per click. It’s basically how much advertisers pay when someone clicks an ad. Not all topics pay the same. Some pay just a few cents. Others pay several dollars per click.
I learned this the hard way. My early posts about reselling and cashback apps did fine, but the ad money was small. Then I wrote a post comparing budgeting apps, and the ad income from that single page was almost double the others, even with similar traffic.
Here are the topics that tend to pay the most, based on what I’ve seen and tested myself:
- Insurance – life insurance, car insurance, health insurance. Sites like Policygenius and NerdWallet live in this space.
- Loans and mortgages – home loans, refinancing, personal loans.
- Credit cards – comparing rewards cards, cashback cards, and travel cards.
- Investing – apps like Acorns, SoFi, and robo-advisors.
- Legal services – lawyers, will-writing, business formation.
- Software and business tools – things like Bluehost for web hosting or NordVPN for online security.
I’m not saying you need to become an expert in all of these. I’m not one either. But if you’re thinking about starting a blog, YouTube channel, or even a simple comparison website, picking a topic from this list can mean more ad income for the same amount of work.
A word of caution here. Never recommend a loan, credit card, or investment app you haven’t actually researched. Readers trust you with real money decisions, and giving lazy or fake advice can hurt people. I only mention products I’ve either used myself or fully researched before writing about them.
Simple Steps for Beginners
If you’re where I was three years ago, here’s how I’d start again:
- Choose one idea, not five. Trying too many things at once is how I burned out early. Focus works better than doing everything at once.
- Test it for 30 days. Track your time and money, even small costs like gas or subscriptions.
- Find your real hourly rate. Divide your profit by the hours you spent. This step shows the truth fast.
- Decide what to do next. If the pay is decent and you don’t hate it, keep going. If it’s painful for very little money, it’s okay to stop.
- Reinvest small wins. Even $50 in profit can help you grow, if you put it back into better tools.
Common Mistakes People Make
I run a small Facebook group where people share their side hustle stories. The same mistakes show up again and again:
- Buying expensive courses too soon. You don’t need a $200 course to try reselling or freelance writing for a month.
- Forgetting about taxes. Extra income is still income. I learned this the hard way. Now I set aside 20-25% automatically.
- Giving up too soon. Almost everything that worked for me felt slow and rough in the first few weeks.
- Comparing your day one to someone’s year three. Big income screenshots online rarely show the months of hard work behind them.
- Chasing high paying topics you know nothing about. A high CPC niche only helps if you can write about it honestly and clearly. Fake expertise shows fast.
My Final Thoughts
If you feel that same frustration I felt in my car that day, don’t wait for the “perfect” idea. Pick something simple this week. Even selling five things you don’t use anymore counts. Just start, and pay attention to what happens.
The exact method matters less than the habit of watching your own results closely. That habit is what turned my messy notes into something that actually works for me now.
This isn’t a way to get rich overnight. Anyone who tells you that is probably trying to sell you something. But slow, steady, tracked effort? That part is real. And it’s the only thing that has truly worked for me.