Here are five more ways that you can earn some extra money on the side to help fund your creative business.

(Check out the first five here)

1. Surveys

Survey websites like Panelbase and YouGov are a great place to earn some extra funds; sign up for an account and they will email you with surveys.

Panelbase pays around £1-£2 per survey; any survey you get screened out of gives you an entry in to a monthly prize draw.

YouGov awards you points to learn your opinions on important topics and once you reach 5000, you will be sent £50. 

While these won't give you money straight away, they build up quite easily.

2. Receipt scanning

There are a few receipt scanning apps that will pay you to scan in your shopping receipts, I am currently using HuYu for my supermarket receipts; they award you points and once you reach 500 you get £5.

3. Plum

Plum is a savings and investing app which I am really excited by; you can set up rules for it to automatically put money in to your savings. It analyses your monthly spending and works out how much it can pop in to savings without affecting you. You can easily withdraw that money if you need to. It also looks like a great way to start investing because we should all be learning how to invest to really vote with our money.
You can also refer your friends and family and receive a nice little bonus.

My Plum referral code is here

4. Transcription services

You could get a flexible side hustle in transcription services and get paid to type up audio transcripts. I have applied to Rev.com, wish me luck!

5. Consumer panels

Back when I lived in Reading, I used to take part in consumer panels to earn some extra cash; I saw a friend's Facebook post about being paid £10 to eat chocolate and I was in! You join their database and they will call you up to invite you to test out some products, usually food or drink, and give your opinions. My favourite was being paid £65 to drink prosecco before a night out! 

The only one I know of at the moment is Sensory Dimensions, based in Reading and Nottingham.

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You may have seen the recent IPCC report and have fallen in to a pit of climate related despair, just like me. Honestly, I am struggling to sleep so I need to do something.

Back in 2019, I made the decision to stop using acrylic in my work because it is a plastic, and just like all other plastics it is made from fossil fuels. However, a small business like mine deciding to move away from virgin plastic is not going to cause the collapse of the industry.

Did you know that "the world's sixty biggest banks have funnelled nearly £2.8 trillion in to fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement...was struck in 2015?" (Source: Big Issue) 
HSBC, Barclays and Natwest are some of the biggest offenders and what's worse is they are using your money to invest!

You can use this tool to check whether your bank invests in fossil fuels and make the switch to a better bank today.

As a member of Nationwide Building Society (one of the few banks that doesn't invest in fossil fuels) I can help you switch using the refer a friend scheme. It is SO EASY, they do everything for you including switching over your direct debits and what's better is that we both get £100 for doing the switch! Once you're all nice and switched over, you can then use the refer a friend scheme to switch a maximum of five people and get yourself £100 each time!

If you would like me to refer you for the switch to Nationwide, pop me an email to LorelaiLeQuilliec@gmail.com and I will get it started. I will need some details from you, so if you're not comfortable doing that, see if you can find a friend or family member who is with Nationwide and can refer you themselves.

Another easy way that you can take your money out of the fossil fuel industry and put it in to renewable energy sources, is to switch your energy provider. You really should be switching your provider every couple of years to get the best deal any way.

You can use this website to help you compare tariffs for green energy providers or you can use my referral code for Bulb: 

www.bulb.me/brieugl5534

Bulb comes out top of the green energy providers with 100% green electricity from renewable sources and 10% green gas (with carbon offsetting for the other 90%, making it carbon neutral)

Switching is so easy, they do all the legwork for you, you just need to click the link above and get started. The best bit, is that when you switch we both receive £50 credit off our bills!

I mentioned that there would be three ways to stop funding the fossil fuel industry, the third way is more about putting more money in to renewable sources. Society has us believing that investing is just for old, white men which means that the things they invest in (like fossil fuels) keep going. I am going to investigate investing in renewables and come back here to explain my findings.

In the mean time, get those two switches in motion and take your money out of fossil fuels!

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I made some of my best pieces during this challenge, it really shook up how I usually worked and gave me loads of inspiration. My favourite pieces were the cassette tape necklace and geometric shape earrings from my Eighties collection. With the super shiny fish coming in a very close second.

Making these pieces has definitely eased the transition out of laser cut acrylic in to more sustainable materials as they really are the best work that I created in the medium.

As I loved that challenge so much, I am bringing the Patreon challenge back for my new project! I am keeping the same tiers with a slight difference, instead of postcard prints, I will be making collage cards. I make these as a creativity loosening exercise inspired by Rachel Burke (IMakestagram on instagram) I start with an inspirational image, texture or piece of material and make a quick response using a mix of materials, I then use the resulting collage as inspiration for the rest of the pieces I make that day.

Also coming back are the small jewellery piece and statement necklace tiers but they will both include the option to choose an embroidered art piece instead; these are a new thing that I've been experimenting with lately and I love the possibilities!

There is one extra tier that is brand new and that is the Lucky Dip Box which will include a random selection of goodies for a bargain price.

My themes for the first few months of this challenge will be colours, starting with red and pink when it launches on March 1st. This is so that I can really focus in on the materials to create textures and patterns and create some really beautiful, unique pieces.

Join me on Patreon from the first of March to make sure that you get your hands on something totally unique! I will make pieces for the theme throughout the month and you will be able to pick your favourite at the end and I will ship it straight out to you.

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