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I've been looking out for a side hustle to supplement my monthly stock and shares investment contribution - trying to make up for lost time in the years I did not invest. As it was my first foray into the world of side hustling, I wanted to ease myself into things. So it was important for it to be flexible enough to work around office/personal hours and not require too much time.

During the COVID-era, I kept note of some side hustles I was planning to try out but never got around to doing so. Forgetfulness also has a part to play in matters and was only reminded when coming across one of my notes from July 2021 stored in Evernote.

Now was a good time as any to try out one of them: Usertesting.com.

What Is UserTesting?

Usertesting.com provides a platform for businesses to get feedback on their products and services. Anyone can apply to be a contributor and provide feedback that consists of:

• Accessibility
• Usability
• Live conversations with businesses
• Pre-release platform feature review
• Competitor benchmarking tests
• A/B testing to compare different versions of a product or feature

Before becoming an active contributor, a UserTesting will require some basic information as part of the registration process and a practice test to be completed.

Acing The Practice Test

UserTesting will provide a test scenario to prove you're a legitimate person and have the capability to demonstrate good communication and analytical thinking. It provides a good standard that is expected when carrying out real tests.

The test itself is not complicated but you should be prepared to clearly think out loud so there is an understanding of your thought process as you're undertaking various tasks. It's always a good idea before performing a task to read the question out loud so your interpretation of what is being asked is clear. Most importantly, be honest in what you're reviewing.

At the end of the test, provide a conclusion and thank them for their time in this opportunity.

The fact that UserTesting.com forces users to take an assessment beforehand demonstrates the credibility of the service and sets the standard for the type of businesses they work with.

UserTesting will respond to your practice test within 2-3 days, provide feedback and let you know if you will be accepted as a contributor.

What To Expect From The Real Test?

After completing the practice test, I didn't get real tests immediately. It took a good couple of weeks for them to start trickling in. Even then, I didn't qualify to take part in some tests as I didn't have experience in the area of expertise.

Tests are performed on Windows, Mac, Android or iOS devices. There might be a requirement to provide feedback using a specific device. Access to a microphone and sharing your screen is a strict prerequisite. Some do ask for a face recording as well, but I decided to refuse tests that requested this.

Test vary in length and payout:

1. Short tests - $4
2. 10-20 minute tests - $10
3. 30-minute test - $30
4. 60-minute test - $60

The 60-minute tests will always be live a conversation directly with the business and scheduled in advance.

The Type of Tests I've Contributed To

I have been quite lucky as to the tests offered to me as they seem to relate to the tech industry. Providing feedback for businesses such as Microsoft, SalesForce, Github, GitLab and Amazon has been insightful.

Other tests have evolved around the sectors of AI, website accessibility, pre-release platform updates and cloud-hosting.

Payout

This is the part you have all been waiting for. How much money have I made since starting at the beginning of June?

I completed twenty tests consisting majority of $10 tests, one $60 test and a handful of $4 tests. Totalling to $232. Each test is paid out within two weeks to your linked PayPal account. Not so bad for an ad-hoc side hustle.

Twenty tests over the span of three months is not a lot when my contribution could have been higher. But when taking into consideration that this side hustle is only pursued outside of working hours and some tests do not apply to my expertise, it's not so bad.

The majority of tests offered will be worth $10. Some may question whether they're even worth doing, to which I say: Yes! A $10 test can take anywhere between 5-15 minutes to complete on average. When you take the hourly UK National Minimum wage of £11.44, it's not bad. $10 converted to GBP equates to around £7.60. Easy money!

The more you contribute the higher chance there is in getting more tests offered to you, providing your feedback rating is good. There are some damn interesting ones as well.

Conclusion

Don't apply to UserTesting with the expectation of mass riches as you will sorely be disappointed. Think of it as petty cash to count towards a little "fun money".

Apart from the monetisation aspect of using UserTesting, I feel I am getting an early insight into where certain industry sectors are going, including my own, which is almost as valuable as the payout itself.

There will be some days or even weeks when there will be no applicable tests. Just stick with it as all it takes is a handful of 30 or 60-minute tests (which can be hard to come by) to get a nice chunk of change for the month.

Amazon's return process is second to none. It is one of the very few large e-commerce sites that gets the process right and makes the process painless for its customers. Along with their customer support, I've never had an issue in returning an item if the quality of the item was not up to standard or received damaged. But in such cases just because you can return an item should you?

Ever since I read articles on Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock just to be sent to landfill, I've been more mindful as to when I should return an item.

If I receive an item that slightly damaged, I normally opt for a discount rather than sending it back. I've done this in the past by either contacting the third-party seller or Amazon customer service using their online chat tool. They are very forthcoming in offering a discount as long as you can provide proof that the product you received is damaged or not in an acceptable condition.

This approach has worked for me whenever I felt it was required. Not surprising when you take into consideration the cost to the seller for pickup and disposal (or renewing the product).

I normally opt for this approach for items that are still fit for purpose, where the damage can easily be hidden and the longevity is not compromised. Of course, the level of damage that is deemed acceptable depends on the product and your own personal view.

Why not try this alternative the next time you receive a damaged product that is still able to serve its purpose? If enough of us are able to take this route, it can not only benefit the environment but also reduce waste.

At the start of 2021, I started looking into making my money work a little harder. This was primarily by having a better saving strategy in place as well as entering the world of investments.

Plum - Basic Route To Entry

Plum was my first foray into having something out of a banking environment to manage my money. Plum is a savings app that connects to your bank account and cards to analyse your spending to get an idea of how much money it can transfer from your account into its "saving pockets". The amount of money transferred can be configured to adjust how much money you want Plum to transfer. There are multiple options available within the app.

Once the money is transferred, you can either leave it within Plum as a separate pot of money to keep aside for a rainy day or go a step further and invest in funds. It was through this app that I got my first exposure to investing in stocks and giving it more of a serious thought after previously being quite reticent.

As great as the wide variety of fund portfolios offered by Plum are, I found them a little restrictive and wanted to venture into making my own decisions. I invested in two funds:

1. Tech Giants: Investing in technology shares like Facebook, Apple and Google.
2. Balanced Bundle: With 60% shares 40% bonds, this fund offers a balanced combination of shares and bonds.

I ended up making quite a nice return from those funds alone, but I felt I wanted more control. For example, the Tech Giants portfolio had a relatively small percentage of equity in FAANG companies.

Freetrade - More Control

I haven't entirely replaced Plum for Freetrade as I believe it still has its uses. Even though I withdrew all money from investment funds to re-invest into my stocks in Freetrade, I still use Plum to sneakily put money aside automatically based on my preferences.

Freetrade wasn't my first option for carrying out investments - it was Trading 212. Unfortunately, Trading 212 are not accepting any further sign up's "due to unprecedented demand" and have been on their waiting list for over a year. Trading 212 seemed to have a greater variety of shares and a range of investment types, including CFDs, gold and crypto.

I can't grumble with Freetrade as it has allowed me to invest in the majority of the areas I require, which is good for someone who is finding their feet in the investment game. Transferring funds is seamless.

Investment Strategy

My portfolio consists of S&P 500 and individual stocks in FAANG (and a few other) companies, where my monthly investment ratio is an 80/20 split:

• S&P 500 - 80%
• FAANG - 20% spread over multiple stocks

I plan on revising this ratio to a 70/30 split later in the year once all wedding expenses are done and can afford to gamble a bit more. As you can see, I am focusing on S&P 500 for the moment as I feel it's safer and overall less volatile.

For anyone new to investing, S&P 500 Index Fund is the safest place to start as you're investing in the top 500 large publicly-traded domestic US companies and is considered to be the best overall measurement of US stock market performance. The main benefit is that a decline in some sectors might be offset by gains in others.

Investments:

1. Vanguard S&P 500 (VAUG)
2. Microsoft (MSFT)
3. Amazon (AMZN)
4. Dell (DELL)
5. Apple (AAPL)
6. Google (GOOGL)
7. AMC Entertainment (AMC)

I see investing in S&P 500 Index Fund as putting things in place for long-term wealth and not short-term wins... Short-term wins I'm hoping to achieve through specific stock investments. AMC was a little bit of a wildcard investment as the stocks were so cheap and I just kept buying through the dip. It is only now I managed to receive a 56% return.

Conclusion

I've come late into the stock game as I know of people who have made quite a good return from the stock options made during Covid... Who would have thought Covid would be an opportunity where more money could be made???

Based on my current strategy, I know full well that I won't be getting a high return to supplement my current income and that's just down to playing it safe. I'm still kicking myself on why I didn't start sooner - even if it was just solely investing in an S&P 500. On average the yearly return is around 10% and pretty consistent.

If I had been quicker off the mark and invested £200 a month over the last 10 years, this would equate to £41500 with £17300 of interest. Probably best not to focus on time lost and just focus on this point forward.

My goal is by end of the year is to increase my portfolio and if I'm able to get some form of short-term reward, that's a bonus! I plan on writing a follow-up post by end of the year to report what worked and what didn't.

Disclaimer: I am not in any way a financial advisor and this post is just a write up of my thoughts.