Neesha Craig says she has been looking for quick and easy ways to make money for more than a decade
A mum is side hustling £300 for Christmas with a ‘low-effort’ savings challenge that takes just five minutes. Neesha Craig, 36, has made over £100,000 from “low time, high pay” side hustles over the last 10 years, and every time she has a few minutes to spare earns cash from doing surveys or market research.
And the content creator, from Swansea, South Wales, is taking off the stress of Christmas this year with a cashback savings challenge. Neesha, a mum of one, started her savings challenge in January, and every time she buys anything, she uses a cashback website, and puts all of her earnings into a pot for Christmas.
So far, she has made £230, and her goal is to make £300 by Christmas, which will go towards presents for her son, 8. She said: “Any cashback I get from any spending I do this year is going to fund this Christmas.
“I get cashback on everything I can, from groceries to car insurance and clothing. All that money goes into a pot for Christmas. It makes Christmas so much less stressful.
“I’ve made £230 so far, and my goal is £300 by Christmas. The money will be spent on presents and then activities like going to the panto.”
Neesha has been side hustling for her “entire life”, and at 12 years old, created her own website which she used to sell glitter graphics for a doll building website.
“I used to get paid by Google to run adverts on the website,” she said. “I’d get sent a cheque every month and my mum would take me to the bank to cash it in.”
Over the four years Neesha ran the website, she was able to make a few thousand pounds, all of which she put into her savings account. At 13, Neesha stopped working on her website, and began side hustling as an extra on TV and in films.
She still does extra work to this day, and has made over £10,000 from it over the years. Then at 18, she set up her own vintage clothes business, and would source clothes from carboots, and then sell them on eBay for profit.
“That funded my nights out,” she said. “When I was younger, I used my side-hustle money for new clothes and ongoing out, and now I use it for sensible things like holidays and mortgage overpayments,” she said.
When Neesha was a teenager, and had more time on her hands, she spent hours every day working on her side hustles, but now she is a busy mum of one, she focuses her time on “low time, low effort, high pay” side hustles.
She now spends just three hours a week on side hustles, but makes an average of £600 a month. “I side hustle whenever I’ve got five or 10 minutes to spare in between working and looking after my son,” she said.
“I do website testing, market research, surveys, I make £6,000 a year on average. I absolutely love market research, you get paid £50 an hour, and all you have to do is talk.
“You can make £3 from doing a five-minute survey, it’s so low effort. And with website testing, you can make £7.50 per 10 minutes.”
And Neesha even made a whopping £260 in just 30 minutes, by trading in her old phone with musicMagpie. In 2022, Neesha was able to side hustle £7,240 for her “dream” three-week holiday to Disneyland Florida, and she has also been able to make £8,000 in overpayments towards her mortgage.
And this year, Neesha is side hustling to save up for Christmas, with a Cashback challenge. Every time Neesha buys anything, she uses a cashback site such as JamDoughnut, Quidco or Topcashback, to buy it, and earns free money for doing so.
“With groceries you usually get about 3% cashback, but if you open a new bank account, you could get paid £50 in cashback, and that’s 100% free money,” she said.
Neesha hopes to earn £300 from cashback before Christmas, and will use the money for presents, the Christmas food shop and Christmas days out.
“I’ve made over £100,000 from side hustles in the last 10 years which is just absolutely mental,” she said. “I think to be successful in side hustling, you just really need to give it a go”, Neesha said.
“Sometimes people throw the towel in after five minutes, but you need to try out a few things, and find what works for you.”
She added that people need to keep their “wits about them”, when side hustling online. “If anybody is asking for money up front, that’s not a side hustle”, she said. “With everything I do, it doesn’t cost a penny to sign up for an account.”
