🎶It's Gonna be🎶 Ariel's MAY Side Gig Recap
everything happens so much
Welcome to Our Info Dump! This space is for recapping monthly side gig earnings and testing different pocket money strategies. Idk. I’m just trying to write and post things consistently.
Last month was a lot. My luggage still isn’t completely unpacked. Let’s just jump in.
💰 Reselling numbers!
May was a little different. I set my Poshmark closet to “vacation mode” while I was out of town, so I didn’t get any sales there for nearly a week. That significantly impacted my final numbers. Still, I earned a $1,014.38 profit. Not going to complain!
I didn’t bother setting the other platforms to vacation mode since I get so few sales on those already. People in the online Poshmark groups are starting to complain about the summer slowdown, so I expect this month’s profits to look a lot like May’s.
🛍️ Secret shopping!
I did seven airport shops and an eye exam shop. One airport shop ended up not qualifying for payment because I received the wrong information about the assignment schedule, but they refunded me the $14 + tip I spent on my airport wine.
Number of shops: 8
Spent: $155.11
Payout: $299
Earned: $143.89
That equals roughly $18 per shop. Dallas Love Field is smaller than Dallas International, so I didn’t feel as stressed while trying to complete everything. I will likely make this a regular thing each time I fly out of that airport.
🏦 Bank and credit card churning!
In May, I became more experimental with churning. I tested out some manufactured spending methods and basically pre-paid for my entire wedding to meet the minimum spending requirements on a couple of new cards with a 0% introductory APR. Honestly, I might do that again this month with some of my medical bills.
Monthly total: $950 + 22,800 transferrable Bilt reward points (which can be cashed out, but I’m saving them for future travel).
Accounts opened, bonuses earned, and referral links:
Chase Ink Business Cash: Earn $750 by opening a credit card and spending $6,000 within the first six months.
0% APR for 12 months.
No yearly fee.
Tip: You do not need to own a business to open a business credit card. You can apply with your social security number and report $0 in business income on your card application. Those are startup numbers!
Alternatively, you can apply for an EIN for free and use that on your application (this is what I did).
Wells Fargo Active Cash: Earn $200 by opening a credit card and spending $500 within the first three months.
Unlimited 2% cashback on all purchases. No rotating bonus categories.
0% APR for 15 months.
No yearly fee.
Bilt Mastercard: Get 5x reward points on all purchases for the first five days of account opening + earn points for rent payments.
Bilt provides a shell ACH account for rent payments, so cardholders aren’t charged fees for paying rent with a credit card.
Rent paid via Venmo and paper checks qualify for reward points.
It counts the manufactured spending tactic I linked above toward the 5x reward bonus. It can take a couple of days for payments to process, so schedule your big purchases or churns accordingly.
👕 Vintage clothing destash
I helped
’s parents clean out their shed last month. We ended up taking home a literal truckful of clothing that had likely been in storage since the early 2000s. There were so many beautiful pairs of vintage Lee and Levi’s jeans, sturdy single-stitch t-shirts, and 100% wool sweaters in classic 90s patterns. Instead of listing all of these one by one, I decided to take them to a local vintage boutique, Old Bear Vintage. I’ve sold to them before after a couple of intimidatingly huge estate sale buyouts, and they always offer good prices. For this haul, they offered me a flat $500. Nina and I split the total, bringing my earnings to $250.💰 Total earnings for May: $2,358.27
I am not mad at it.
Upcoming projects and works in progress:
We had a garage sale on June 1st! It rained us out early, but we still pulled a good crowd. We’re going to hold another sale this month since everything is already priced and staged right behind our garage door. It was a bit of a heavy lift for the resulting profits, but we’d just be sleeping in otherwise, so 🤷♀️. Less stuff we’ll need to haul across the state next summer (spoiler alert, we’re moving next year).
I’m also trying to sell more Etsy digital downloads, earn my Salesforce admin certificate so I can pick up Salesforce gigs on Fiverr, and I’m playing with the idea of starting an Instagram (graphics only) that could eventually feed into an LTK account. Idk! Could be fun!
One last thing!!! Starting in July, my job will pay for almost any additional professional training certifications I suggest. If you have any recommendations for one I can turn into an additional side gig, let me know! My day job is just clickclack financial tracking, so I can spin almost anything as relevant. To give you an idea of the budget, one of my team members just started a $900 business writing course. Share your ideas!
Find me everywhere on the internet: linktr.ee/arieltypes
