This week’s guest is Francesca, founder of The Moneyfox, who joins the podcast to explain how she went from struggling on a single income to building a 45,000-strong Instagram following on the back of mystery shopping, surveys and, eventually, investing.
Francesca’s move into personal finance wasn’t planned. When her maternity pay dropped and the extra support she’d expected from her partner didn’t materialise, she found herself on a low income with no idea how to make ends meet, let alone build anything extra. There was no blueprint to follow either: when she started looking for side hustle tips, she couldn’t find anyone talking about it, so she began figuring it out herself, one small experiment at a time.
That trial and error eventually became The Moneyfox, the platform she now runs for close to 45,000 followers, and she’s since been featured by the BBC, The Times and the Daily Mirror. In this episode she walks through exactly how her side hustle journey started with mystery shopping, how it snowballed into surveys, matched betting, dog boarding and blogging, and how she eventually built the confidence to start investing with Vanguard.
———
Gains App is LIVE!
An AI-powered budgeting and cashback app designed to help you make more of your money.
Download here: https://gainsapp.onelink.me/8IhT/oiaimr1z
———
Get a FREE FRACTIONAL SHARE worth up £100 when you deposit £1 with Trading 212
https://www.trading212.com/join/MGP
If you don’t receive the free fractional share, head to the menu and put the word ‘MGP’ into the promo code section.
(Capital at risk when you invest)
Key takeaways
- Francesca’s side hustle journey began out of necessity, after a drop in maternity pay and less support than expected left her on a low income with no financial cushion.
- Her very first side hustle was mystery shopping, chosen because it offered free food at a time when she had none, and the moment it worked was what convinced her that making extra money was actually possible.
- Small, low-effort side hustles like surveys aren’t a waste of time. Francesca still uses sites like Prolific and YouGov today and made £30 from surveys in a single short session.
- Confidence and income built gradually, in her words like a snowball: mystery shopping led to surveys, then matched betting, then blogging, freelance writing and dog boarding as her risk tolerance grew.
- Mindset matters as much as the mechanics. Francesca believes sleep, wellbeing and self-belief have to be in place before financial habits will stick, because a tired, drained brain won’t want to put in the extra effort.
Timestamps
- [1:12] Francesca’s Relationship With Money Growing Up
- [2:08] Becoming A Single Parent And Starting To Side Hustle
- [4:14] Mystery Shopping: Francesca’s First Side Hustle
- [7:26] From Surveys To Matched Betting And Dog Boarding
- [11:09] Getting Started With Investing After Years Of Not Knowing It Was An Option
- [15:42] Why Francesca Uses The Vanguard LifeStrategy Fund
- [18:56] Building The Moneyfox Blog And Instagram Following
- [23:38] How To Find The Right Side Hustle For You
- [27:23] Money Mindset Tips For Side Hustlers
- [33:07] Where To Find Francesca And The Moneyfox
Why Francesca started side hustling out of necessity
Francesca describes her upbringing with money as a mixed picture: no obvious problems, but no real conversation about pensions, investing or budgeting either. She says she had “a very solid upbringing, so it was a good foundation,” but was simply never told that investing was something ordinary people could do. That gap only became urgent once she had her daughter. Her maternity pay dropped, the help she’d expected from her partner didn’t come through, and her small savings pot was used up almost immediately. She was left on a low income with high expenses and, by her own account, no one around her talking about side hustles or extra income. There was no blueprint, no Instagram pages or TikTok content doing what The Moneyfox does now, so she had to work it out from scratch, largely through constant Googling and reading frugal living blogs. That research phase, she says, is exactly why she started sharing her own tips publicly: she “didn’t want anyone else to feel as alone” as she had felt while searching for answers. If your own monthly numbers feel similarly unclear, our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/budgeting-calculator”>budgeting calculator</a> is a straightforward place to see exactly where your money is going before you look at adding extra income on top.
Mystery shopping: the side hustle that started it all
Francesca’s first side hustle wasn’t chosen for strategic reasons. It was mystery shopping, and the appeal was simple: it came with free food at a time when she wasn’t buying herself any. She remembers the exact moment it clicked, walking out of her first mystery shop with her arms full of food and thinking “oh my gosh, it actually worked,” despite having been sceptical right up until she signed up for the job. That single result did more than put food on the table. It sparked something that made her willing to try other opportunities, including the ones she’d previously have dismissed as not worth the effort. Francesca is candid that a lot of people “turn their noses up at things you can do that make just a small amount of money,” but for someone starting with nothing and low confidence, that small win was the stepping stone everything else was built on. It’s a theme that runs through the whole conversation and through our own guide to <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/blog/top-ways-to-earn-a-side-income”>top ways to earn a side income</a>: the side hustles that get dismissed as too small, like surveys and mystery shopping, are often the easiest entry point precisely because they carry no financial risk.
The snowball effect: surveys, matched betting and dog boarding
Once mystery shopping proved the concept, Francesca built up gradually rather than jumping straight into anything ambitious. She describes it as a snowball, or a stepping stone: surveys came next, since they cost nothing to start when she had no spare money at all. Matched betting followed once she had a small amount of spare cash to work with, then blogging and freelance writing, and eventually dog boarding and cat sitting, which she started as a way to get her daughter time with a dog without committing to owning one. Her point is that confidence and income grew together: “the more my confidence grew, the more risks I was starting to perhaps take, and the more money I could get as well.” She still uses sites like Prolific, which she describes as a legitimate research platform for academics, and YouGov for surveys today, and made £30 in a short session she describes as pure procrastination between other tasks.
How to find the right side hustle for your own life
Asked what advice she’d give someone stuck on where to start, Francesca pushes back on generic “96 side hustles” lists that try to fit everyone into the same options. Her advice is to start with what your existing job or skills already give you: she uses the example of a teacher who told her they couldn’t think of any side hustle for themselves, despite tutoring, exam marking, teaching English online and selling resources on sites like Teachers Pay Teachers all being directly available to them. If nothing obvious jumps out from your own job, she suggests starting small with something like surveys, purely to build momentum and prove to yourself that extra money is achievable, rather than waiting for the perfect, high-earning idea before doing anything at all. As she puts it, if you never start because you think the money isn’t worth it, “you haven’t got anywhere.”
From side hustle income to investing with Vanguard
Investing wasn’t on Francesca’s radar for years, partly because no one in her circle or in the personal finance content she was reading talked about it. She assumed it was something you did once you already had significant wealth, and genuinely didn’t know it was an option for someone in her position. Once she started seeing that it was, she did her own research and got started, investing with Vanguard in a Stocks and Shares ISA and, apart from her pension, nothing else. She began with what she believes was the platform’s £100 monthly minimum, investing in the LifeStrategy fund because it spreads money across some of the biggest companies in the world without her needing to pick individual stocks. Her approach to market dips is deliberately hands-off: she says she doesn’t check it obsessively and isn’t bothered by the red days, because the money is earmarked for early retirement and won’t be touched for years. Getting comfortable with what you can actually afford to commit each month matters here too, and our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/take-home-pay-calculator”>take-home pay calculator</a> is a quick way to check your real monthly position before setting a regular investing amount.
Mindset, sleep and sticking with it
Francesca’s other big theme is psychological rather than tactical, and it’s the tip she says most people miss. She argues that finances often aren’t the right place to start if you’re exhausted, under-slept or in a job you hate, because none of that leaves the energy needed to build something extra: “how much are you gonna want to work on something extra that day? You’re not gonna want to, are you?” Getting the basics right, sleep, eating well, sorting out childcare or a job that’s draining you, comes first. From there, she talks about mindset patterns: telling yourself extra income isn’t possible tends to become self-fulfilling, because “our brain’s trying to support that thought,” while staying open to it, without overpromising unrealistic results, tends to produce more action and, eventually, more opportunity. If you want a clearer sense of your own money habits and where to focus first, our <a href=”https://upthegains.co.uk/quiz”>Money Personality Quiz</a> is a quick way to get started.
This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited for readability, it may contain errors.
[0:00] Sammie Ellard-King: Hello and welcome to the Money Gains podcast. This is your host, Sammie Ellard-King. This podcast is powered by Up The Gains, a personal finance website dedicated to helping people like you and me learn about money safely. Now today we’re joined by Francesca, founder of The Moneyfox. Francesca’s journey into personal finance was born out of necessity, where she started side hustling to feed her young daughter. Since then, she’s now teaching everything you need to know about money over on her website and her Instagram, which has amassed a following of nearly 43,000. Francesca shares with us today plenty of side hustling tips and tricks that I’m sure you’re gonna love. But for now, if you’re listening on YouTube, please do hit the subscribe button or drop us a comment in the box below. And if you’re listening via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please do leave us a like review. It helps us more than you know. But for now, let’s get started on the Money Gains Podcast.
[1:12] Francesca: I’m good, thank you. Thank you for having me. How are you? Yeah, I’m really well, thank you. Um I’m really looking forward to our chat today, getting stuck into this. It’s gonna be a really good one. Um, but I’m gonna take you back a little bit to start off this kind of tradition in this podcast. I like to get to know our guests and their relationship with money. So, what was your relationship like with money growing up? My upbringing with money was kind of good, but also not so good. It was good as in we didn’t have any problems that I was aware of, I didn’t see anything bad going on in my home. But then I wasn’t also told about things like pensions, investing, budgeting, things like that. But I had a very solid upbringing, so it was a good foundation. I just was never told certain things, especially like investing. I never thought that was something that I could do, but maybe my parents didn’t know either. So yeah.
[2:08] Sammie Ellard-King: It’s one of those things, like lots of guests they have completely different stories. Some are really great with money, some have terrible stories, and often it comes down to your parents and how they were with money, and that’s kind of installed into you. And and if you if you as you learn about money, it’s the mistakes that you make that kind of teach you along the way, really. Um cool. So in as you grew up, when did you start thinking about money differently? Well, what happened was when I had my daughter, I assumed that with my drop in maternity pay that my partner would kind of help me out, and that didn’t happen. So I found myself on a really low income, obviously, and I still had very high expenses, and that was just something I hadn’t planned for, maybe a bit naive of me. I did have savings, but they were used up like pretty much straight away. So yeah, I found myself in a really bad place, and I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know anyone that made any any extra money, like side hustles and all that now are so big, obviously. But at the time, no one was talking about it, there was no online Instagram pages or TikTok or anything like that. So I just really didn’t know what to do, and that’s when I personally started really working on my money. So I realised, okay, this is a problem, I need to be really good at budgeting, and then I thought I really need to get some extra income as well because I just wanted to stay at home with my little girl. But I thought, what can I do around her? And I wasn’t sure, like I said, there was nothing out there, but then when I started trying out little things here and there, I realised that I could make extra money, and that’s actually how my blog and everything came about because I wanted to share all of the tips that I figured out along the way because I didn’t want anyone else to feel as alone as I had felt, because when I was searching for things, I couldn’t find anything, and I felt like I was completely alone. So I just wanted to be that resource for people if they were looking as well.
[4:14] Sammie Ellard-King: And where did you look? Because you must have sort of picked things up along the way. Was it books or I honestly didn’t read any books? I can’t tell you why. But like I said, I just I don’t think I even knew that there was sort of financial books out there, and if there were, I just assumed there were very high-level things that I perhaps wouldn’t understand or have the money for. And I remember just Googling constantly, but I can’t remember any specific sites or anything that I came across. I think just because I probably read thousands and thousands and thousands, honestly. I got really into the frugal blogs and websites. I got really, really into that, and I got really went into the really extremely frugal living myself, but it’s not something I would recommend because it’s it made me feel a big sense of deprivation. I felt like I had I didn’t have anything anyway, and it wasn’t very good for me. It works for a lot of people and it is very good, but for me it didn’t work at all. But yeah, I think I just I just read a lot. But the first thing I did was I did mystery shopping. So I had read about that on a few different sites, I can’t remember where, but nothing I could really relate to, but just the opportunity to get free food just really called out to me because at the time I had no money. I wasn’t buying myself any food, so I was like, Yes, I can get some free food. So I tried that out, and then from there I thought I could do anything, really. So I did.
[5:42] Sammie Ellard-King: Amazing. Something you touched upon there, which I thought was really interesting, is that you know you couldn’t really pinpoint someone. Like most days, people would just say, you know, Martin Lewis or their favourite financial influencer, because a lot of people follow a couple of them at least. You know, there’s so many now, so many great ones as well, um, like yourself and uh and you know, and and and and Martin and people like that, you know, they’re it’s massively changed. And you know, Google, thank God for Google, you know. Yeah, we didn’t have that, like you know, what would you have picked up? All right, you you know so you you you’ve gone through this period. When did it sort of start to to click for you? It was honestly after the first mystery shop I’d done. And I remember it really clearly because I remember coming out and I had a load of food in my arms, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, it actually worked. Because I was still kind of skeptical, even though I’d signed up to the site and I’d signed up for the job, and it was only when I came out and I thought, oh my gosh, I did it. And then I it really sparked something within me, and I thought, oh, okay, this making money thing really does work, and then that’s when I felt a bit more like I could try out other opportunities because a lot of people I find turn their noses up at things you can do that make just a small amount of money, like surveys and stuff like that. Everyone’s like, no, don’t do it, it’s a waste of time. But for someone like me, I didn’t have any money, I had really low self-confidence at the time. I just wanted to try something, and I think you can really use that as like a stepping stone, hopefully, like I did. So I think even if it’s if you’re just starting, starting small is not a bad thing.
[7:26] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, you build you build yourself up over time and you start to get into these habits, and through looking for opportunity will come more opportunity often. So you have to start somewhere. Yeah, I definitely agree, but I see it a lot. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, when you kind of got into this mystery shopping, what what what was next? Because you because I like when you get when I look through the Moneyfox now, there’s a lot on there, you know, you you you’re doing stuff all the time. So kind of what how did that sort of snowball effect happen? I think it really was like a snowball, like you say, or like a stepping stone. So I really did not intentionally perhaps, but I did really take it like up like slowly. So I think it would probably have been surveys, and then just things that I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t put my money into anything, so I had to find things that were free, like uh mystery shopping and surveys, and then what was next? Maybe matched betting, and when I had a tiny bit of money that I could put into that, and then I started blogging, obviously, and freelance writing, and I did dog boarding. So it was definitely the more my confidence grew, the more risks I was starting to perhaps take, and the more money I could get as well.
[8:43] Sammie Ellard-King: So when you look at those lists of side hustles, you’ve done them. Oh yes, of course. I’ve I’ve done them all, pretty much. Yeah. The dog boarding one resonates with me. I have a little bulldog, so like I’d love that. That would be great. Yeah, it was such a good one. It’s one of my favourites. My partner won’t let me do it now because our house is like very nice. Um, but my daughter at the time, she kept bugging me for a dog. She really wanted a dog, and I thought, okay, how can I get her a dog without buying a dog? And that’s genuine what made me start Googling. I didn’t come across dog boarding as a slight hassle. I thought, how can I get a dog in my house but don’t have to pay and perhaps be paid? And then I realised that I could do dog boarding at the time I was working part-time at this point, and so I was at home all the time. I put them in for the weekends and stuff. Um, I did cat sitting as well on the same site, and I’m actually really highly allergic to cats because a lot of people say, like, oh, I don’t like cats or dogs or whatever. But I was I’m super allergic and it was it’s fine. Cat sitting is so chill because you generally just have to go in and feed them, and that’s it. Obviously, dog boarding is a lot more involved.
[9:58] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, no, absolutely. We did um we did walk my doggy for a little while um before getting our dog. It was kind of like the testing ground whether or not we actually could handle it. Uh, nothing sets you up for having a puppy in the house, I’ll tell you that now. It really doesn’t. Yeah, I know a lot of people that have recently got puppies and they haven’t had dogs before in their life, and I’m like, and you went straight to a puppy. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they are a lot. They’re like it’s like a baby. That’s a good thing. Yeah, it is like a it is like a baby because they cry in the night when they’re puppies, don’t they? So they pretty much are a baby. Yeah. Wouldn’t change it for the world, it’s an absolute legend. Oh, bulldogs are so cute. Well, enough about dogs because we I could sit here all day. Um, but I’m gonna go into a little bit about investing at the moment because that’s a big part of what we talk about here on the Money Gains podcast. And I’ve seen obviously you you you’re into investing now. So, how far in that journey? You know, we’ve come along all of this way. When was it that you started sort of thinking about investing and get and getting into it?
[11:09] Francesca: It was really once I was deep within the personal finance space. Because, like I said before, no one ever told me that I could invest. Even when I was starting to really work on my finances and stuff, I genuinely didn’t know it was an option. No one spoke about it. No one. No one I knew spoke about it. I wasn’t seeing it in any of the websites or any of the social media pages that were out there at the time. I genuinely always thought it was when you came into a lot of wealth, perhaps, that you would start to invest it. I genuinely had no idea you could do it. So once I started seeing that you could, I was like, ah, I need to do this, obviously. So I did my research and then just got started. So I’ve been investing for not that long, really, only a few years now.
[12:40] Sammie Ellard-King: And who did you start out with? Do you use a an investment app or is it a brokerage? No, so I’m with Vanguard and I have my stocks and shares ISA with them. That and that is all I do, apart from my pension, of course. Smart move, you know, for for someone that doesn’t un that’s never been in investing. Someone like Vanguard is an amazing, an amazing, amazing brand platform. I mean, most of the others use a Vanguard fund somewhere along the line. Um so going direct to source, you know, brilliant. And also the results from those guys beat beat the market pretty much every year on you. So yeah, can’t go wrong with a Vanguard fund. And how’s that journey been for you? Did you start small and work your way up? Is uh do you invest monthly?
[13:34] Francesca: Yes, so I invest monthly and then I might do a lump sum if I fancy it. But yeah, I think I started with £100 a month. I think that might actually be the minimum for Vanguard. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. But uh yeah, and then I just built it up from there. I wasn’t I did a lot of research, but not too much to stop me from doing it. I am someone that if I say I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it. Whereas I think a lot of people get very nervous about investing their money, which is obviously completely understandable. But I did my research and then I just dived right in, and then I thought I’ll build it up as I go. So it’s been good watching it grow. It has been growing quite a lot. And when people say to me, Oh, you can’t possibly make any money on investing or whatever, and I show them it and it’s like up by so much, and they’re like, Oh my gosh, really? They can’t believe it because obviously it crashed and then it goes up like crazy. Yeah. So it’s been good.
[14:31] Sammie Ellard-King: And that’s that’s it, you you you you hit the nail in the head, like you started small, you started seeing results, so you double down on what was on it because you you know you’re seeing this green, and you’re like, Wow, like look at what’s happening right now. And I think uh for a lot of people it’s getting over that initial first hurdle, and after a year, you know, you can turn around and look at it, and hopefully you’re up if the stock market’s behaving itself, doesn’t always do that. Um, but if if it is, then you know you can see sort of 10, 12, 15% in a year versus holding your you know, your money in uh high street banks savings account, which is giving you like 0.12% in a lot of cases, and the difference can be huge. And uh, you know, I always say to people, just get started, and once you do that and you start seeing results like yourself, you know, you you just want more and more and more, and and it is a way out for people. So in times of those vanguards, I was gonna go into like what investments you actually own. Do you do you just own the all cap, the big ones, or is there a selection of funds that you have?
[15:42] Francesca: Yes, is it called all cap? I actually can’t remember what it’s called. Life strategy, Life Strategy Fund. That is what it is. Yeah, that’s the one I have. I totally blank that. I was thinking, what is it actually called? Yeah, the life strategy fund is what it is. So with the mix of them all. Yeah, that and then that’s a great one because it’s got a good selection of some of the best businesses in the world, and technically you’re only little pieces of some of the biggest companies in the world. Not bad. I always say that to people because I like that. Yeah, I wanted you know, you have to be in the S&P 500, and I wanted the UK in there and Japan and everything. I wanted that. So it’s just it’s so easy just to just do that, and you just leave it. And I just think it’s important, although we were talking about being in the green, obviously there’s a lot of red as well. But for people, I think that panic, the key is just to not look at it. I can look at it and not panic at all. I’m just so chill about it. I don’t care if it’s gone down, it’s absolutely fine because this is for my early retirement, so I’m not going to be touching it for a while anyway. So I don’t really care if it’s gone down. But I think if but people panic, it’s obviously when they lose the money.
[16:54] Sammie Ellard-King: Your mindset is brilliant, and that’s exactly how it should be. Like I always say to, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine, she’s just opened her first Stocks and Shares ISA, and she was like, you know, what if the market crashes? And I said, Well, every bit of money that you put in now, really, you look at it like don’t touch it for 10 years at least. Yeah. Ideally longer. And if you’ve got that mindset that this £100 is is basically buying you a day that you don’t have to work, then you get it’s gonna pay off for you over the long term. Um so it’s super interesting to hear that. Yeah, I think a lot of people have different, obviously, ri risk preferences as well. So that’s definitely if you’re doing it yourself, that’s definitely something to bear in mind. My risk tolerance is very high, but my partner, for example, his is extremely low, so he could not invest in the same thing that I could, and that’s perfectly fine. Like everyone’s different.
[17:52] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, personal preference, exactly right. You know, you a lot of these vanguards are fantastic for that because you you can go pretty much as safe as possible houses and go invest in a complete bond-heavy fund, or you could go pretty high risk with them as well. You know, there’s lots of different ones, and so it really does cater for everyone. And equally, you know, if you’re in your 50s and you’ve only got sort of 10 years out from retirement, you’re gonna have a very different mindset to someone in their 20s, 30s. So, you know, that’s that that’s important to know about that and understand the risks involved, and it will be unique to you. Yes, I agree. Um, so moving on now, I’m gonna talk about the Moneyfox because that’s why we’re here today. You know, I’ve been following you for a long time. I love the channel, it’s amazing. Um, and I really encourage people to go and follow you on Instagram if they don’t already. But what’s that journey been like for you? So you started it. Did it start as the blog or did it start on socials and and what drove you?
[18:56] Francesca: I think it was both at the same time. So it’s been going a few years now, but like I said, at the time there was no one really around, it’s really exploded in the last few years. But at the time there was no one really around, so I wasn’t really on it. So if you go back through my posts, I actually actually went back through them yesterday. There’s like one a month if that. Honestly, that I was never on it. I don’t really count all those years. I’ve been doing it properly for probably like three, four years now. But yeah, it’s been great. I really enjoy it, and it’s nice to see it doing well. I’ve won awards with it, it brings me in a lot of money. I just yeah, I really enjoy it, but I love sharing all the tips I can because a lot of people feel very alone in their financial journey, and I think it really helps help when people can relate to you. So a lot of people think that they can’t set up their own thing, but then you never know who could relate to you. So a lot of people message me and say, I’m so glad you’re sharing this because I’ve seen that you had this particular journey and they can relate. And I just think everyone should just share their own journey.
[20:07] Sammie Ellard-King: And yeah, I I completely agree. That’s such a lovely way of thinking about it. Do you do you do you enjoy the social side of it more or the blogging side? Like what for you is the kind of what’s your go-to? I’m probably on Instagram a lot more. I like spending a lot of time on there, I think, because it’s so interactive with your audience, um, because they probably feel more connected to you on there, they can message you and they can get a reply like straight away. Obviously, with things like stories and stuff, there’s a very much like a parasocial relationship going on. They feel like they know you and you can connect that way better. But as in terms of like marketing, my Instagram is leading into my blog and my email list, so it is my net as you will.
[20:58] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s your traffic driver, right? At the end of the day, you could once you launch something on your website, you’ve got your social following that you can push people towards your newsletter, etc. Does that for you? You can, you know, you can they’re your tribe, essentially, aren’t they? Really? Yes, definitely. But I am going to be starting a TikTok next month. Oh, watch this space. 100%. And YouTube next month as well, because I’m just crazy like that. I just why not launch two at the same time? Like, it’ll be perfectly fine. Yeah, no, absolutely. Look, I I I’ll be honest, I’ve been apprehensive about getting onto onto YouTube, but I’m using this podcast to kind of get over that fear of being on the camera because uh, you know, my my family and my other half shall say I talk for England, so I can talk, but it’s the camera thing. I think getting past that. Once I’m past that, I’m I’m I’m planning a TikTok take.
[21:58] Francesca: But you’re on the camera now, aren’t you? Yeah, you’re on the camera. It’s the same thing. I know what you mean though, because like you have to be you have to be like interesting in the video, you know, like full energy. So yeah, and I I’m a bit of a nightmare in that I want everything I do to be go viral, every single thing. So it’s hard for me to think that it might not. But you can’t can’t think like that. Can’t think like that. Everything’s gonna be really good and going go really well. But yeah, what’s yeah, well, it’s it’s it’s a building process, just like the Moneyfox social channel. You’re gonna have to go through that with YouTube and TikTok too. You know, you could probably drive some traffic from your Instagram and your mailing list as well, which will help. Um, but you know, it will be a slow burner. Any side hustle that you start doesn’t start making you money straight away. Often you have to graft a little bit for it to pay off.
[22:52] Francesca: Well, I’m hoping it’s gonna go well. Actually, I’m hoping it’s gonna go very well from the start. I’ve been doing my research and my planning, so we’ll see. I’m buzzing for you. I will be one of your subscribers, don’t you worry. And me to you. So when are you starting on YouTube? You’ve got to say it now. I will be on YouTube. When I want to know um realistically, when we launch this podcast, so it’s gonna happen. Oh, so the videos from here are gonna go on there. Okay, that’s fine then. Yeah, that’s that’s the starting blocks for me. Then I’m gonna create YouTube shorts off the back of it and and and go and go from there, really. I think this is my stepping stone into it.
[23:38] Francesca: Okay, good. That’s fine then. Just like the mystery shopping. It’s my shop, it’s my stepping stone. That’s very good. All right, so thank you. Um I want to talk a little bit about side hustles because you’re the queen of them, and uh I think people would love to know, like, there’s a lot of apprehension, um, especially with people that I know that work nine to five, you know, they want to start side hustles, but often they don’t know where to start because you know they go onto these websites and it’s like 96 side hustles that you can do from home. And what would you what advice would you give someone trying to find their own side hustle or niche? I would say it really depends on the person, and I’m not saying that as a cop-out, but an example I can think of is recently someone who is a teacher said to me, I want a side hustle, and I and I can’t think of anything. And I was like, teachers have the best side hustle opportunities out there, and they they honestly didn’t know what I meant by that because they could do tutoring, they could do exam marking, they could do teaching English English online, they could sell on things like teachers called teachers pay teachers. There’s so many things they could do, so but obviously, if you’re not a teacher, then I wouldn’t recommend those side hustles to you necessarily. So I would say start with perhaps your job and then what you could offer from that job. If not, then you could start with some smaller side hustles like the ones I said before, like surveys and stuff, just to kind of dip your toe in the water. Because, like I said, a lot of people are very dismissive over the small amounts. But if you’re not going to start any side hustle because you think it’s not worth the money, then you haven’t made any money. So you haven’t got anywhere. If it just means making a little bit at first to get you started on the journey, I don’t see anything wrong with that personally. So yeah, I would probably start with something like surveys, even though everyone else would probably disagree with me. But it is it is a quick win. So I’ve done some surveys today, and I’ve made I think like 30 pounds. Um that’s quite a lot if when you’re just starting out, and that was just when I was just procrastinating, and I thought I’ll just do some really quickly. So that was on a site called Prolific. I don’t know if you know it, but it’s a site for academics when people are doing research and stuff like that. So it is a legit site because a lot of people think they’re quite dodgy, which is fair enough. Obviously, you need to think about these things, but that is a good site, and site and ones like youGov. And if you’ve watched the news, they talk about you gov all the time. Again, another legit one. So I would say to start with things like that, but just really think about what would fit around your life as well. And I think we’ve all got time in our day, more than we realise, if we’re perfectly honest with ourselves.
[26:32] Sammie Ellard-King: 100%. You know, I was talking to Emma from Be Money Savvy a couple of days ago, and she was saying something that I really liked was that you know, you’re sitting down in the evening, you’ve had a long day, fair enough, you know, working’s tough. But you sit in front of Netflix, you could have your phone out and your laptop on just powering through a few surveys, and by the time you’ve watched a Netflix episode, you know, you could have made 10, 15, 20 quid so you’re actually getting paid to watch TV. And I quite like that. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, like the possibilities are endless. Yeah, you have more time than you realise, but there’s nothing wrong with resting. It’s not about I’m not about the major hustle, as in you don’t want to burn out, but I do think we have more time than we actually think. If you actually log what you’re doing each day, you’ll probably find some time.
[27:23] Sammie Ellard-King: Yeah, that’s a that’s a great bit of advice. So, any special tips, new things that you found, apps that people should perhaps get that you know will only come from following you? Oh, only from me? Oh my gosh. I’m not sure about that. Not from only you. Not only you, but I mean any tips that you’ve got. My personal tips that I find maybe people don’t really focus on so much is mainly based around mindset. I think we don’t talk enough about mindset and also mental health. So I always say that if you are working on your finances, maybe your finances aren’t actually the first thing you should start with. And what I mean by that is imagine you’ve woken up and you already had two hours sleep. How much are you gonna want to work on something extra that day? You’re not gonna want to, are you? Because you’re so tired and you’re just not in the right space. So it really does start with sleeping really well, making sure you’re eating well, you’re moving your body, maybe you need to sort out some things around your house, maybe you need to sort out some childcare, get a different job. Because if you’re going to a job as well that you hate and you come back home, you might be way more drained than someone who’s really enjoying their job. And that really does have an impact on everything else. And I think no one really talks about that. But also, like I said, mindset. Mindset is so important because everything we think dictates how we act. And I think if we think to ourselves, oh, I can’t make any extra money, then we won’t make any extra money because our brain’s trying to support that thought. So it really does help to try and change your mindset patterns and just not tell yourself lies like, oh no, I’m gonna be a millionaire tomorrow if you if I just say it over and over, but just be more open. I mean, maybe I won’t be now, but I will be in the future if I follow out of this plan. That makes your mindset just expand so much more and you start to take different actions.
[29:21] Sammie Ellard-King: That’s a really lovely way of looking at things because you’re not just assessing the finances, you’re looking at the person and and what they’re going through, and often that is a massive stumbling block to people’s personal finances, and I love that. And there’s an interesting um book, and the name of it escapes me now, but one of the affirmations that um was in it that I I have on my phone as an alarm, and it says, You are highly pleasing in the company of others, and it comes up in my on my phone every morning, and uh I say it you say it to yourself five five times in the mirror, and honestly, you do start the day with a little bit of a better feeling in your heart, and and often that can be a catalyst for many other things, including personality.
[30:08] Francesca: That’s really sweet. I’ve never heard of that quote, but I really like it. That is so nice. Do you feel more pleasing? Good question. You’ll have to um you’ll have to ask my partner about that. I wouldn’t be able to comment. No, this is an affirmation that you do believe it. Okay, good. You know, it definitely it definitely works. But he goes on a lot about, you know, he talks about visualizing uh a hundred pounds, a hundred dollars. Um he was it’s from the US Um prosperity consciousness. There you go, it came to me. And um he um he yeah, he talks about thinking about this hundred dollars like it’s going to happen, like it’s just gonna fall into your lap. And he said that he surveyed 30 people in his class, he’s a Harvard law professor, and um all 30 of them had a hundred dollars come to them over this three-month period, and they didn’t know how, and they couldn’t understand it, and it’s because they were telling themselves about it constantly, and uh it somehow they manifested that to happen, and it’s so powerful. I love it.
[31:19] Francesca: I love it too. I think again, manifesting gets a bad rep, but I think that’s perhaps if you’re just telling yourself something that is just really far-fetched, and you think that oh, I’m just gonna get like I’m gonna get a Ferrari tomorrow, like like I’m gonna get a Ferrari tomorrow, like those kind of things are kind of unrealistic, but it’s it’s not about that, it’s just about believing and being more open to things because your mind is a computer, so whatever you tell it, it wants to, it wants to confirm what you’re putting in, giving out. So if you’re gonna tell yourself bad things, it’s gonna not do go so well. But if you tell yourself really positive things, then you just attract so much more. But I love talking about that kind of thing because I don’t know if you know, like Muhammad Ali was a really big visualizer and he would visualize how when he was gonna win his fights. Have you heard that before?
[32:07] Sammie Ellard-King: I have, yeah. I find it so interesting, and I what I find interesting as well is that our brain doesn’t know the difference between a thought and an actual action that we’ve done. So I just when I learned that, that was crazy to me because I play hockey, so I actually use that a lot, and I have actually done it. I’ve actually used it and it worked because before I play, so I’ve gone off a massive tangent. Before I play matches, I will watch some games like England hockey games, but I watched a move before my game that I’ve never done before or even seen, and I went and did it in the game. I started thinking, I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna do that in the game, and I went and I did it in the game, and I was like, oh my god, it was amazing. It was amazing. Because my brain, because I picture it so I pictured it so much, my brain obviously thought I’d done it. Obviously, there’s some things that you do need to actually do. Obviously, I had like the skill was available to me, but I’d never done that particular thing, and yeah, it did actually work. It’s crazy.
[33:07] Sammie Ellard-King: That’s amazing. You know, you’re channeling your inner Muhammad Ali to smash it on the hockey girls. Love it. Definitely, yes. But a lot of sports people do it, and it’s so I find it very, very interesting. Yeah, amazing. Well, look, Francesca, I’ve really enjoyed this. This has been a really cool chat, and um, you know, I think the listeners are gonna absolutely love this. Lots of things that you’ve uh that you’ve covered and unpacked, and lots of cool tips that I think people can take, you know, listen back to and and and pick up on. Um, but where can people find you? What’s the best way to get in touch if they want to say hello? So my Instagram is the dot moneyfox and my website is themoneyfox.com. And soon I will be on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. I will, under the same name, so it’ll be just the Moneyfox.
[33:56] Sammie Ellard-King: So amazing. Well, thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure chatting, and um yeah, we we look forward to to having you again, hopefully in a couple of years’ time, see about your journey about your YouTube and TikTok. Yes, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Frequently asked questions
———
