We\u2019re already a few weeks into 2025, but before we go on, we need to close out the 2024 side hustle reports. Every month for the past 8 years, I\u2019ve tracked everything I\u2019ve earned from doing various side hustles with gig economy apps. Here\u2019s a look at what I was able to earn from these apps and side hustles in December 2024.<\/p>\n
Side Hustle Income for December 2024<\/h2>\nTotal Side Hustle Income for December 2024 = $1,247.01<\/h2>\n
December was an unexpectedly good month, especially since I didn\u2019t feel as if I had worked very hard. The fact I was able to make over $1,000 for the month without even realizing it is pretty remarkable. Even better, my strong December means that I was able to hit my soft goal of earning over $10,000 in side hustle income in 2024. Not bad at all!<\/p>\n
Below is a pie chart breaking down my earnings by category:<\/p>\n
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Most of my earnings for the month came from Rover, with the rest coming from food delivery, secret shops, and then various miscellaneous gigs. I find it interesting that the \u201cother category made up 1\/5th of my earnings for the month, which goes to show how these small side hustles can add up.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a more detailed look at my earnings in December.<\/p>\n
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Rental Income: $2,400<\/h2>\n
The rental property continues to do well. As I\u2019ve written before, this was a primary residence that my wife and I turned into a rental property after we moved out. It\u2019s a 4-bedroom house in a college neighborhood and is currently rented by four college students\/recent graduates.<\/p>\n
The property cash flows very well since the mortgage is only $882 per month and has an interest rate of just 2.75% (I refinanced the mortgage back in 2020 when interest rates went down dramatically). Insurance and property taxes bring the monthly fixed costs to around $1,400 or $1,500, which leaves about $900 to $1,000 in cash flow each month. However, the insurance and property taxes are slightly offset by paying for them with my credit card, which I usually time with a signup bonus for a new credit card. This helps me earn a good percentage back for spending I have to do anyway.<\/p>\n
On the expenses front, maintenance expenses for December were light. I paid a company to clean the gutters, bought some ice melt, and bought some new doorknobs for the front door. One important thing is I don\u2019t spend any of the money I earn from the rental property, so all the cash flow on the property stays in a separate bank account and goes back into the property as needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Rover Income: $691.70\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n
December is always a busy month for me on Rover because a lot of people travel during the holidays and need a sitter to watch their dogs. Since I was around this month, it meant my schedule got packed. To make things even crazier, I ended up watching multiple dogs at the same time over the holidays.<\/p>\n
Normally, I limit myself to one dog at a time, but with pups I watch regularly, I\u2019ll often make an exception and double up since I\u2019m familiar with the dogs. In this case, I ended up with 3 extra pups during the Christmas holidays. Along with my own dog, it meant I had four dogs in my house at once. And then to make things even crazier, we ended up adopting a cat during the holidays, leading to a Christmas with four dogs, a cat, and two young children.<\/p>\n In any event, watching all those dogs meant some good income for December. One of the stays was a three-week stay that went into January, so those earnings will be reflected in the January income report.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the year, I ended up earning around $4,700 from Rover. I\u2019m very happy with those earnings, especially given how passive it feels to earn this income, since watching dogs at my house really doesn\u2019t feel like work.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at what I made with each delivery app in December 2024.<\/p>\n I earned the most from Uber Eats, with DoorDash and Grubhub coming in a distant second. Most of the time, the earnings between DoorDash and Uber Eats are pretty similar, so I\u2019m not sure what happened here. This is a good example of why multi-apping is so important, however. On any given day, you never know which app will work the best for you. In this case, it looks like Uber Eats is what kept this month respectable.<\/p>\n For the year I ended up earning around $3,400 from food delivery apps (and remember, I earn all of this income with minimal costs since I use my ebike to do all my deliveries). Earning $3,400 in a year while biking around and enjoying myself isn\u2019t bad at all, especially when you consider that I don\u2019t do more than an hour of deliveries most days, especially since my schedule is a lot less flexible now that I have two kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here are my trash finds\/flipping income in December.<\/p>\n The trash finds I sold in December included a set of planters I found down the street from my house and a table I found last year that we\u2019ve been using for a while in our backyard. The planters sold for $50 and the table sold for $20. I messed up on the planters because they were worth a lot more and I was supposed to list them for more, but I got confused and listed them for too little and by the time I realized it, it was too late.<\/p>\n For the flipping income, I sold a book on eBay. I\u2019ve had this book listed on eBay for years, so I don\u2019t remember how I got the book. The main reason I thought this book had some value was that it was a signed first edition, but in the end, it only sold for $10. If I did buy this book, it would have been for $1 or $1.50, so I ended up making a few bucks of profit on the sale.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been lazy with ProductTube this year, but things did pick up in December with this app. Historically, December has usually been a good time for ProductTube because a lot of companies are using up their marketing budgets before the end of the year. This led to some very good paying ProductTube gigs. For example, I had one gig where I got paid $40 to record a 3-minute video in a nearby liquor store. In all, the $75 I made this month probably took less than 10 minutes of work.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I made with each short survey app in December:<\/p>\n Google Opinion Rewards has gotten slower for me lately. I\u2019m not exactly sure why, but I suspect there have been some changes in how the app works. 1Q is still fine and only takes me a few seconds to do. The other apps in this category aren\u2019t particularly useful anymore, so I\u2019m not wasting my time on them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The income in this category includes what I was actually paid to do the secret shop. Most of the secret shops only provide a reimbursement, but the secret shops I do on Marketforce pay well enough that it\u2019s usually a sizeable portion of my monthly side hustle earnings.<\/p>\n For the year, I ended up earning $1,400 from secret shops. Along with those earnings, I also received thousands of dollars worth of free food. Food is usually the third largest expense for most households, so secret shopping works out quite well to reduce those food costs.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I cashed out $40 from Receipt Hog. $40 is the max redemption amount with Receipt Hog and it typically takes me about a year to earn enough to cash out for that amount. Considering it only takes me a few seconds to snap a photo of my receipts before I throw them away, this is very good.<\/p>\n Amazon Shopper Panel brought in $5.10. Unfortunately. Amazon Shopper Panel isn\u2019t as good as it once was, but it\u2019s still an easy enough app to use.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n December went well. And my earnings for the month means that I was able to hit my $10,000 goal for the year. In the end, I ended up making $10,411.83 from side hustling and gig economy apps. I\u2019m very happy with that figure, especially as a busy parent with two young children. I think it shows that if I can do this, most people reading this probably can do the same thing. Even any amount of extra income on the side can make a difference.<\/p>\n Thanks for checking out this month\u2019s side hustle report. If you\u2019re looking ideas on things you can do, you can check out my Ultimate List of Gig Economy Apps<\/a>, where I detail all of the different options out there. If you want to see some of my side hustles in action, you can check out my\u00a0YouTube Channel<\/a> (most of it is me biking around doing food delivery).<\/p>\n This post may contain affiliate links. Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. The site does not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author\u2019s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.<\/em><\/p>\n Check out these other ebikes and scooters I’ve reviewed:<\/p>\n
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\n <\/ul>\n<\/div>\n Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the gig economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years<\/a> by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.<\/p>\n Kevin is passionate about earning money using the gig economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin’s favorite fintech apps include:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/financialpanther.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-12.47.10\u202fPM-823x1024.png\"\/)
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DoorDash\/Uber Eats\/Grubhub Income: $228\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Trash Finds\/Flipping Income: $80<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nProductTube Income: $75<\/h2>\n
Google Opinion Rewards\/Surveys On The Go\/1Q\/Facebook Viewpoints Income: $3.21\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Secret Shopping Income: $124 (plus free food)\u00a0<\/h2>\n
ReceiptPal\/Receipt Hog\/Fetch\/CoinOut\/Amazon Shopper Panel Income: $45.10<\/h2>\n
And that concludes the December 2024 Side Hustle Report!\u00a0 \u00a0<\/h2>\n
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